Passport…and other stuff

Well, I applied for an emergency passport yesterday. I'm supposed to go back to the embassy on Monday about 2 pm to pick it up. The tricky part is that after picking it up I'll have to race across town to make it to the Kenyan immigration by 4 pm. If I don't make it there and get my Dependents pass and re-entry permit redone then I will have to pay $50 to leave the country (basically buying a visitor's visa) and $50 to come back in to the country (another visitor's visa). This trip is continuing to get more and more expensive.

Yesterday I also replaced my Press Pass (the picture is much better this time…sadly don't have a camera so I can't post a picture of the new one).

I also got my freelance agreement, which means that the $500 course fee for WJI will be waived. The agreement is with the Nation Newspaper (one of the Kenya's national newspapers) and basically is that they will agree to consider published two articles I write while attending WJI.

On another note, I also bought some Moleskin notebooks (David isn't that what you use). They are very nice little notebooks with sturdy black cardboard covers that fit nicely in the back pocket of a pair of jeans. I lost my notebook I had been using for everything when I was robbed so I decided to replace it with some a little nicer.

Last night I watched three movies. I just needed to upwind. I'm so tense and stressed…probably more so because I now feel I wasted a bunch of time but I needed it. I've done very little to relax and unwind since the robbery and I really needed it.

Now I'm feeling overly stressed because I have so much to do and VERY little time. A sample of my to do list which changed dramatically because of the robbery:

• transcribe interviews that I did in Nakuru
  
• Write article about IDPs for Nation newspaper
  
• Write article about Kenya, five months on for World
  
• Write article about hijacking/robbery possibly for World on the Web
  
• READ, READ, READ
  
• Do research on speakers at WJI
  
• Do writing assignments for WJI (when I do them I'll be posting them here on my blog so be on the lookout…especially since you don't usually get to read my "article" style writing.
  
• PACK, PACK, PACK (right now I don't actually know what I'm going to back my stuff in!)
  
• Oh that's about all...maybe…probably not though
  

Please continue to pray…the struggle is not over and adding lots of stress on top of trauma only serves to bury the trauma not deal with it. Not the best thing but I don't know what to do right now….I've talked it out until I'm so sick of talking about it. I've thought about it, I've prayed about it, I've pushed it down, away wherever, I've given Viyerrah good advice…poor guy he had to ride home last night on the same kind of bus at almost the same time. I kinda feel numb right now and I don't like that. Like I said I'm sick of talking about it, it's gotten to the point I know all the points that make people go, "Oh my," so I find myself dwelling on them, I guess to make people feel sorry for me and yeah it's just annoying.

Ok well I must get back to work and at least TRY to get a few things finished today.