I’ve been in Thailand for two weeks now and I can’t believe it— two whole weeks and I have just over two more years. I’m engulfed with a myriad of emotion that I can’t necessarily pin point; but I’ll process some day soon. Regardless, I wanted to write this long and in-depth blog post describing the experience of my first fourteen days coupled with annoyingly descriptive imagery. I wanted to write about meeting the 70 other members of my cohort in San Fransisco, eating my last American Burger piled high with all the fixings, the 22 hour journey to South East Asia, navigating with wayyyy too many suitcases, the Thai Bai Sri welcoming ceremony, meeting the team in Thailand, learning the language, my first bum gun experience, making new friends, biking 9 km for the first time and moving into my host moms house. I wanted to write about all of these things, instead I’m sitting in my host moms guest house on Face Time with my boyfriend complaining about my swollen ankles. Swollen isn’t even the word. I have pregnancy ankles. Better yet, cankles. I am 23 years old and I have cankles so bad that I had to put my anklet on the loosest rung. I have no ankle, I just have foot.

All of the amazing stories from my first two weeks in Thailand that I have perfected with hand gestures and prefect tonal pitch; I have to put on hold because I keep staring at my right foot. If my right foot was a person it would file a formal complaint with the police department because of how hard I’m dirty mackin’. Is it swollen because of the salt, high water intake, biking, standing, walking, did I step in something that I shouldn’t have? I don’t know. The only reason I’m not checking into a hospital right now is because my friends foot is also so swollen that she couldn’t fit them in her sandals. I'm uncomfortable and the sneaking doubt of "can I do this for two years?" is weaseling it's way in-- but here I am pushing on with my new cankles.

So here is my official two week update about moving my life thousands of miles away from home.

Please send compression socks.

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