Less sick, well-dressed, busy and with pennies in the bank.
Saturday, 03.07.2015 - 7:01 pm.

Hello. I'm in bed right now, for a dumb reason: I went shopping today. Andrew and I spent hours at one store getting clothes. He had a bunch of bank points from using his credit card or whatever, and he traded his points for gift cards. I'd told him to use them for something else but he said I always say I'd like to take some time off and buy clothes and I never do. That's true. So we split the gift cards and we went crazy today. I'm exhausted.

We also went for lunch and to the supermarket. And to a produce store (more on that later). We had a day to ourselves, pretty much. We finally got paid and it's like today we were making up for all this time in which our money went anywhere but to ourselves. This month I finally have no debts and I'm able to save some. It'll be a while before I can get back to how I was six months ago, but I'm getting back on track with my savings and hopefully it'll stay that way.

Since March began, the discomfort in my digestive system has decreased significantly. Weird. I figured it'd decrease once I got back to work and was distracted but not to the extent of disappearing for a full day, as it was the case yesterday. Don't get me wrong, that was fantastic. But still weird.

But from that awful month-long sickness of mine, we decided to change our diet. Not dramatically, but now we go to the farmer's market for our vegetables and fruits, so we buy more and of better quality for less. I'm enjoying that. We have natural blueberry and cantaloupe juice in our fridge at the moment. I'm also staying away from milk and cheese, in case I'm lactose intolerant. It's not as hard as I thought it'd be, though I'm getting back to them in small amounts.

I went to see the doctor with the results of all the exams he prescribed. Nothing seemed to be wrong. I'm lacking iron (I'm working on it, as well as on the possibility of lacking calcium) and I have a bad case of meteorism, and that's it. No reasons why I have meteorism though. He prescribed some medicine to kill all of the bacteria in my stomach and then another to make them grow again. It's silly but I'll feel really sorry for killing all those bugs.

Regarding applications to universities in England: it hasn't been so well, and it won't be as easy as I thought. But we've only written to professors in Sussex, and Andrew got a much better response than I did. The one I chose kind of closed the door to further conversation on a research proposal and that hit me hard. Nothing personal about that professor (he did have a line that I was most interested in), I'm just tired of finding no way around it. I'm sick of applying to programs and getting rejected. I know I'm not the brightest person but I didn't think I'd seem like such a bad candidate for a doctorate program. I'm just not what they're looking for, I guess.

It took me two years of searching to finally get accepted here in Chile. I'm coming to terms with the fact that perhaps this is not our year to leave. We can dedicate this year to prepare solid research proposals and other materials, and try again next year. I must be some university's adequate match and the only thing I can do is keep looking for it, keep knocking on doors. Andrew seems to have a better chance at getting accepted though, so perhaps he'll be the one to get us out of here this year.

This week we returned to work. I started with a lot of energy, but as the week progressed, I found it harder and harder to get up in the morning, and by friday afternoon I was drained. Same with Andrew. We got vitamin supplements but could be that we both just don't have a lot of energy in us. Work was ok, I'm enjoying it, though I hate that I don't have a lot of time for my personal writing anymore.

And I start my teaching gig this monday. I know nothing about this group of 3rd year psychology students. Dealing with students may be a high risk factor for me to get back to gurgling and other gastric symptoms but I'm less nervous than last year, when it was my first time. I'm hoping all goes well.

Until next time.

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