Category Archives: family

deodorant, it does a body good

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Wow! It is my last post for this shift and I already feel exhausted! It’s not easy guys! Especially when things don’t work the way you want them or when you have to switch computers half way through a post… Gah! Moving on but I might be a little late posting this.

Last week I had a bunch of family members coming over to stay here for a few days. That meant my parents, my brother and a cousin. My cousin is 24. She just graduated from Uni. She is going to be a teacher. She will teach French (as that’s what she was studying). She also loves France and everything French. And on the second day of her being here she casually announced that she doesn’t wear deodorant because she believes it is harmful. Also she stated that since she stopped using one she no longer smells.

It was such a short conversation and I was so tired when she said it that it did not register properly in my head when she told us. Until Thursday when I had a wake-up call. Or is there such a thing as wake-up smell?

Throughout the week I was asked to run around London to show her around (as if I live there) and take her to museums and other tourist attractions. I remember that I kept smelling things. Things that are not pleasant. Since I quit smoking my smelling sense has become better at picking things up so I didn’t think it was her. I actually thought it was me! I kept checking! Honestly! And it’s not a pretty sight when a guy lifts up his arm and smells his armpit in the middle of the National Gallery in front of Picasso’s “Child with a Dove”.

So at some point on Thursday I was burning a DVD for her with all the photos we took and she decided to come show me the ones she wanted. She decided to sit on my lap. I almost fainted. She kept moving her arms pointing at things in the photos and I could feel myself drifting away into a coma induced by the toxic fumes coming out of her pores.

I had to excuse myself and say I needed to go to the bathroom so I could escape my stench induced passing out. I think body odours that can be avoided, should. If you’re not going to use deodorant then at least wash every few hours. Spare those around you! We shouldn’t be dropping like flies because you smell bad.

a letter to my brother

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Over the past week I’ve been mentioning my family being over and driving me nuts but there was a reason behind this lovely reunion. You see someone in the family was graduating… I’ve been meaning to write this since Thursday night

Dearest brother,
You’ve finally done it! I want to congratulate you on your success. Well done fatty, you did better than me! I know very well how hard you’ve tried and all the work you’ve put into your studies. I was there. You can’t lie to me and even if you try I can always tell. Like remember when you said you hadn’t seen my toy cars? I knew you had and we did find them in the VCR a couple of days later. That’s when you started referring to it as “The Garage” (after you had already tried stuffing a sock in it and before you put jam on one of the tapes and stuck it in there because “it was hungry” – oh and by the way that was the last time we sent it to get fixed, you are the reason we grew up without a VCR).

But that is all in the past and reminiscing about it is a bit like sticking your face to the microwave oven door while it’s doing its magic; simply pointless and somewhat dangerous. The truth is that you are a pain in the ass but I love you nonetheless. You are my friend and know everything about me. You are not afraid to tell me the truth and although you don’t understand me sometimes (I do broadcast on a higher frequency than you) you have always supported me. You don’t know what that means to me. I will trust you forever. I will forgive you everything and I will give you any of my internal organs if you ever need one (I really hope you don’t though because I hear it’s a rather unpleasant process).

What I am trying to say is that I am proud of you, little brother. I never doubted you could do it. I am sorry for being a pain sometimes and I am sorry that I am the reason you are in a place where you’d rather not be. I do believe it’s for the best that you’re here but I know what it’s like to not be able to make your own choices and be confined. Hang in there. Just one more year and then the world will be your oyster.

I love you with all my heart,
Your brother

PS: You’re still a doodoo head.

where am i?

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Who are all these people walking around like zombies on speed? I hear yelling and cars are driving by with their horns screaming. There is a water fountain and a bunch of people are trying to cool themselves. The temperature keeps rising. It is meant to go up to 36C (96F) but it always gets hotter than what they predict. I am in Greece! I am here for holidays with my family and oh my is it hot! I am too used to the British climate and all this heat is making me tired. All I want to do is sleep.

I have been absent from the blog-world recently because I was all over the place. I spent last week seeing my friends and travelling to London and back. I had very little energy to blog when I got home and I haven’t caught up with other feeds in days.

I decided to come to Greece mostly because I want to spend as much time with my mum as possible. She is still very fragile, very swollen and taking medications with weird names but that is not what scares me. What scares me is how different she looks. She looks more alive than ever but her shaved head and the scars look unreal. She looks older in the way she moves and her hands shake. She wears a head scarf to protect herself. She is doing okay though, she can’t do much around the house. She is expected to fully recover though, according to the doctor. But it will take time.

In other news, today I will be going to see Linkin Park live! I have been a big fan of theirs since they first appeared and somehow I always managed to miss them when they played in the UK. Who would have thought I’d finally manage to see them live in Greece? Now, how I’m going to deal with going to a concert when it’s so hot out there, I don’t know. I’ll figure that out when the time comes.

10 days left

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And so it starts. The final countdown to what will hopefully be the end of my life as an undergraduate.

My first exam is tomorrow but my mind has already skipped to the end of this academic year. Even though I have a rough few days ahead of me I just need it to feel like it’s over. I am not as stressed as I was a few weeks ago. Actually, I’m lying, I am very stressed and very worried but somehow I’m not letting it get to me. The “come what may” approach.

In light of recent events, (my mother being admitted to hospital and having surgery to remove a brain tumour) I have managed to put everything in perspective. It’s not the healthiest of perspectives but it’s the only thing I can do to keep myself sane through this last stage of my course. If things don’t go well I’ll still survive. I’m not saying I am prepared for things to go wrong but if they do I’m sure I’ll be able to face it.

I know I have not updated you Internets on my mum’s health the last few days so I’ll do it right now. My mother was allowed to leave the hospital on Friday last week after they removed her stitches. She is now at home recovering. Today she saw the doctor as scheduled so they could check and make sure everything is healing up well. Everything is okay and she no longer has any headaches or any of the other symptoms she was having before.

That is all I have to say right now. Wish me luck for tomorrow and I’ll update on how it went after the exam is over and possibly after I’ve had some sleep.

what is the opposite of a mother’s day present?

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I received some bad news last week. My mum has been having some very bad headaches lately. She has been taking pain killers but they would always come back. I have asked her, begged her to go see a doctor. She never did. She kept saying she would but never actually arranged to go. I am very much like my mother. I take after her in more than one ways especially personality-wise. I do not go to doctors. I know I should and I keep saying I will but I end up never going. Exactly like my mother.

Last week the headaches got pretty bad and my dad took her to see a doctor. The tests showed a tumour. That was the bad news. The good news were that the tumour was benign. It is a lipoma which is nothing more than fatty tissue which is normally left untouched unless there are cosmetic reasons to remove it. In the case of my mother however the lipoma is pressing against a nerve (or possibly more than one) in her head which is causing the headaches and from what I understand the nausea she was experiencing last week as well.

Today she was admitted to hospital. She is having a lot of tests done. She is spending Mother’s Day in a bed. She has to remain still and is not going to sleep because of that. But that, for me, is not the worse thing.

The worse thing is that she is alone. I am not there because I can’t be there. She is too far away for me to visit. I am close to tears because I can’t be there for her. There’s nothing I can do about it and it’s killing me. A phone call is not enough but it’s all we have right now. I tried to be strong on the phone and as cheerful as possible. The last thing she needs is a boy crying over the phone right now. I laughed and joked and did my best to give her as much strength as possible. People have told me this is not a dangerous procedure and that I shouldn’t worry but all this means nothing because the truth is I am too scared of losing her. You know what the first thing she said on the phone was? That she’s sorry but it looks like she won’t be able to be here for my finals. She is the most powerful person I know and I can only wish to be half the person she is.

Mum, I love you.