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The Exterminator "Okay, everybody wake up!" A deep bass voice booms off the walls of the sterile room. The voice rouses three sleepy figures sprawled in front of computer screens in the Doctor's Room of the Emergency Department. All three of them untuck their chins from their chests and open one puffy eye to look at him. They don't unwrap themselves from their white coats nor open the other eye just in case he is joking. It is three-o'clock on a lonesome Monday morning in the ER. Matt, the Surgery intern, Amy, the medical student, and myself, Brice Dayven, Medicine intern extraordinaire, are trying to pass through the evening with some shut-eye before our shift ends at seven, but we are rudely awoken by our attending, Dr. Cedar. The name belies him with his three-day beard growth, disjointed nose and his scratchy irritating voice. His name should have been Long John something or Blueleg or Capn' Hooknose. He looks an awful lot like a pirate. Many nights this past week I've tried to get a good look at his ear to see if he has a hole for an earring. But right now I'm just grumpy because I don't like being woken up. "We got three new patients. And since it's slow, whoever gets theirs out the damn door first gets to get out the damn door early themselves," our kindly pirate bellows to his one-eyed mates staring at him sleepily from their chairs. We turn our eyes to the computer screen. In each of the three rooms the nurse has typed the patient's name, and then a small description of the problem to solve: Foot Pain 3B, Ear Pain 5, and Vomiting 8. I am slow to type my name next to the foot pain, so Amy, the medical student, gets it. It would more than likely be an easy one. After two x-rays, a splint, some crutches and some Tylenol # 3 she would get to go sleep in a bed instead of a chair. Oh well, I get the "ear pain." Ear pain wouldn't be so bad if it were a kid, but the age of 38 next to the name and the ungodly time in the morning mean that this could take a while. I stand up and stretch as my long white coat slumps about my shoulders. My blue scrub shirt is untucked from my green scrub pants, and a stethoscope hangs from my pocket. I won't even discuss my hair situation. It is three o'clock in the morning; patients shouldn't expect much. I stumble to room 5, tap on the door and shuffle across the floor to the stool in the corner. I sit before I fall over. "So what brings you in this morning, Mr. Johnson?" I ask looking up for the first time. There, sitting on the gurney, is my patient. He has brown horn-rimmed glasses with thick lenses and a toboggan over his brown matted hair. He wears a dirty unbuttoned flannel shirt over a plain white T-shirt and jeans, which are at least two sizes too small. Back home we call them 'high waters.' He looks funny, but if he doesn't care how I look, then I don't care how he looks. "Well Doc, I woke up in the middle of the night with voices talking in my right ear making it hurt." At this point I interrupt. "Mr. Johnson, are you schizophrenic?" He stares at me blankly and answers. "Uh huh, but usually the voices don't wake me up or make my ear hurt, and I've been taking my medicines regularly." Thinking that the mystery is solved, I try to remember the number for Simon, the on-call psychiatrist. He continues, "But it hurts really bad. You see. I think somebody put somebody else in there to hurt me." "Would you like to talk to a psychiatrist tonight?" I ask as I see Amy wheel her patient down the hall for the x-rays herself. She must really want to go home. "If he could get it to stop hurtin', I do." Mr. Johnson is going to make me get up off my comfortable stool and go look in his ear; being a good intern, I do. I lazily remove the otoscope from the wall, screw on the plastic speculum, turn it on, stick it into his right ear and look. Without saying another word, I remove the otoscope, put it back on the wall and leave the room. "You won't believe what I just saw in that guy's ear!" I exclaim, interrupting Amy from reading her x-rays and Matt from writing his note. "A roach," the pirate snarls from the chair I once occupied. "That's right! And it is alive and huge and ugly and looking at me. That is the grossest thing I have ever seen." I lean against the wall. The pirate fishes a pair of miniature pliers from his scrub pocket. "You might get to go home early," he growls. My disgust extinguishes with my visions of my pillow dancing in my head. "Dr. Exterminator to the rescue," I turn the corner headed to room 5. "Well sir, it seems you have something in your ear," I say as I position the otoscope and pliers for the deroaching. "Oh." With a quick grab, like getting a cricket out of a cricket bucket for bream fishing, I snag the little bugger and pull him out. I lift the bug up for a closer look, which is much smaller without the otoscope lens. But it is still gross with its legs and antennae still twitching and moving. Proudly I show it to my patient. "A roach!" he exclaims. "You know, that happened to me before." "You should move," I advise him, as I crush the bug in a paper towel and throw it into the garbage. I make it to my own bed by four, sound asleep with cotton in my ears.
The Last American Virgin The low smacked me as soon as I entered my house. The light filtering through the high windows exposed the cement floor coated with red dust, the cracked cinder block walls, and, worst of all, the emptiness. I had a stack of letters on the bookshelf. I started to pick one up, but I realized that it wouldn't help. The voices behind the words didn't seem real anymore. A logging truck roared by on the two-lane highway bisecting my town. I thought about all the vehicles that were traveling away from here and all the people going to places with telephones or even an airport. My throat began to tighten, and I felt the inevitable rise of panic as my breathing became difficult. I dropped my backpack on the floor and left my house to escape. I walked behind the school and found a bush path that Mike, the volunteer I'd replaced, had recommended. The red dirt was packed firm by the steps of the farmers who took the path to their fields every morning. The cocoa palms and elephant grass towered above me on both sides. The strip of sky overhead was a silent blue. I walked until the path crossed a ghost road, tire tracks still visible but now overgrown with weeds. The path started again, and it soon led past a corn field which was low enough to bring the whole sky into view. The late-afternoon sun painted the stacks of monolithic clouds a shy pink and a startling orange. A row of tall green bushes dotted with yellow flowers formed a perfect wall straight ahead. I stood and just looked until the giant ants started biting my feet. In the quiet lulls between vehicles on the highway, I tried to imagine that I was the only person for miles. I did not yet feel strong enough to return to my empty house, so I walked down the highway to visit the school bursar and his children. I had met the school bursar when he came with the school truck to collect me from the Peace Corps training center a month ago. His children, Gifty and Sammy, were frequent visitors at my house. His wife, Comfort, was very kind. Before she'd traveled south for her last semester of teacher training college, she had told me that once I grew used to the place I would not feel sad anymore, and that I should visit whenever I felt homesick. I'd been surprised to realize that I was so transparent, but her words had made me feel better. The school bursar was quiet and polite with a sad smile and the pot-belly of a teddy bear. His eyes sparkled when he looked at his children. The thought of him and his wife cheered me up when I felt cynical, and I'd been pleased by his request that I pay him a visit during our last encounter. When I arrived, he was in the process of grinding seeds in preparation for dinner. Gifty got me a chair from inside and a Malta Guiness to drink, and I sat and watched Sammy make a kite out of notebook paper and twigs. He was coloring it with crayons. I talked to the school bursar about cooking and America, and gradually my shoulders relaxed. I petted their cat with the missing tail, and laughed when I saw a bleating goat perched on the cinderblock wall of a neighboring house. About fifteen minutes into the conversation, the school bursar asked me if I was married. I had to think about the answer. The female volunteers are cautioned in training to make up a husband if one does not exist, but the school bursar was happily married and a potential friend. I responded, "No, but there's a man in America whom I may marry when I return." The school bursar laughed. "Of course. You're too young to be married." He was wearing silky blue soccer shorts and a red, yellow, and black-striped shirt unbuttoned at the top. I could see his chest hair curled into tight, black circles against his skin. The school bursar smiled to himself and placed a pot of palmnut oil to warm on the charcoal stove. "You must get lonely without your friends," he said. "Oh, I see them on most weekends." "Do Peace Corps ever date Africans?" he asked. Instantly, I felt the familiar stirrings of white guilt. "Sometimes," I quickly responded. "I know of some Peace Corps who married Africans." "Would you ever date an African?" The school bursar added some sliced garden eggs to the dented aluminum pot, and the red oil sizzled. I paused. "It would depend on the situation." I wondered if he was trying to set me up with somebody. A Ghanaian female friend had tried during training, and I had resented the intrusion, but I was lonelier now. "It would be difficult because the relationship would be doomed to end in two years," I said. Sammy had finished making the kite. He grabbed the end of the string and ran across the dirt courtyard. The kite didn't fly, but it angled back and forth behind the taut string like a possessed paper airplane. Sammy tried running once more and then stopped. His face was expressionless, and he stared at the kite with a scientist's intensity. Gifty helped her father slice tomatoes. The school bursar looked up with his sad smile and asked me, "Would it be acceptable if we came together when you got the urge?" I wondered if I had heard him right. I said, "I don't understand" with my trademark confused look: scrunched eyebrows and pursed mouth. I couldn't have heard him right. I'd met his wife. His ten-year-old, fluent-English-speaking daughter was seated between us. I remembered that a friend of mine had described a near rape by a fellow teacher. He also was married and her only friend. She had said that there had been a lot of signs, but she hadn't wanted to believe that anything was happening, so she had ignored them all. I wondered if I would believe that I had heard the school bursar right after this visit. I didn't want to. I asked the school bursar what he was cooking, and he launched into a five minute description. I didn't hear much of it. The sun had dropped close to the horizon, and its light seemed old and almost anguished. The school bursar paused. "So, we shall come together when you get the urge? It is all right because my wife is away for so long." "No, no," I laughed, staring at my feet. I had definitely heard him right. "Why not?" he asked. "Because you're married, and I'm a Christian." The line slid out of my mouth. It seemed acceptably Ghanaian. "Oh," he said, looking back at the pot with the sad smile. "It is the same here as in America." Gifty teased me about drinking my Malta so slowly, and the school bursar talked more about Ghanaian food. I took a few more sips of the Malta so that my leaving would seem natural. "I must go," I said, forcing a smile. "But you did not finish your drink," the school bursar protested. I smiled and gave the rest to Gifty. "I must go," I repeated. He nodded and walked me the ten feet to the highway. "I apologize for not seeing you off, but I cannot leave my children." He smiled sheepishly. I nodded with my fixed grin and my eyes glued to the cement, and I walked away. I could not think of any place to go other than back to my house. My heart had started pumping quickly. I tried to laugh at the situation – now I had something to tell the other volunteers at next week's regional meeting. This had been my first attempt at staying at my site for a weekend, and I suspected that it might be my last for a while. I was angry. I felt like crying, which was actually a familiar feeling due to all my recent mood swings. My steps were strong and purposeful, so I reached the school driveway earlier than I wished. The sun had just dipped below the horizon, and the distant clouds were ringed with liquid fire. I used to watch the sunset every night during training. I wondered why I hadn't recently. I saw some students at the main school entrance, so I walked another 100 yards up the highway to the smaller dirt driveway. I walked up toward my house and then veered left past the borehole to the crunchy, scythed grass of the football field. I stood with my arms crossed and watched the sunset until the fluorescent pink clouds melted into a dusky purple. The clouds seemed both regal and sad. I did not want to turn around yet, but I knew that soon the mosquitoes would attack. On my way back, I passed T.K., a neighbor and fellow teacher. "Why
do you not visit us anymore?" he asked. "I will visit now," I said. I sat by the fire pit in front of their house and tried to speak Twi, and T.K.'s wife and children laughed at me in a very friendly way. At one point T.K.'s daughter came over with a dead bush rat, its nose dripping blood. It looked like a rat, but it was as large as an average-size cat. The daughter held the rat by the tail and swung it towards me and laughed at my expression. I wondered if I was experiencing a drug-induced nightmare. Maybe the mephloquine. I left soon afterwards. That night I was so angry I could not sleep. I lay on my bed in the dark and heard the mixed music of dance songs and student laughter pounding from the dining hall. I felt alone and exposed. The night was too hot for a cover sheet, and the fluorescent security light towering over the path outside my window shone four rectangles of ghostly grey above me on the wall. I felt as if I were crouching beneath the beam of a prison search light. Revenge plans floated through my head. My immediate indignant departure to the Peace Corps office in Accra to request a site change. Or just telling the bastard off. I wondered if I'd been just as naïve with everyone I thought was just being friendly. I wondered if the other teachers, all but one of whom were male, viewed me as an American slut as well. I remembered a painted movie signboard I'd seen in Kumasi. The Last American Virgin. It had pictured a buxom white woman bursting out of her skimpy torn dress, eyes wide with fright. My anger was growing. I'd followed all the damn rules. I only wore dresses or long skirts in public. I did not allow male visitors after dark. I greeted everyone I passed regardless of how fucking antisocial I was feeling. And the school bursar, a married man whose wife I'd met, felt perfectly fine asking me directly to have sex with him. I had never even flirted with the bastard. I quit fighting my anger. It felt good, a welcome change from that lost, out-of-control feeling that had dominated my emotional repertoire as of late. I held onto the anger as long as possible and then entered sleep with my body curled tight into an iron fetal position. Morning: some chores, and then off to see my friend the midwife. I biked, ignored everyone I passed, and glared at the flat gray sky and stale morning. The air seemed to pulsate. My mind did not drift as usual but remained glued to the events of the day before. I had already catalogued it as "the school bursar incident." I needed a Ghanaian female perspective. Luckily, Evelyn was in. She led me through her cement courtyard to her sitting room. It was small and cluttered with a plush blue couch, two arm chairs, a TV, a refrigerator, and a low wood table. The TV was on. Ghana's one channel featured a gospel program. I slouched timidly through the usual friendly inquiries before bringing it up. She was very sympathetic and reassuring. No, it wasn't my fault. No, it wasn't because Ghanaians thought that all American women were sluts. The same type of thing had happened to her before. Men were just weak. They had no willpower. Some were bad. We had to be wary of them. Evelyn smiled a lot, and her voice was like wind chimes. My meeting her was one of those things that singularly proves the existence of God. I sat on the comfortable couch and soaked up her reassurances. She had a story about a married doctor who had done the same thing to her. She had said no, and now they were still friends. But, and here Evelyn's forehead wrinkled with a worry-line, I should not tell anyone else, because if the school bursar's wife heard, it could mess up their marriage. I smiled and said, "I'll only tell other Peace Corps." Evelyn smiled again. I stayed for several hours on the comfortable blue couch. We ate boiled yams with contummere stew, and, as she cooked, I thumbed through her 7th Day Adventist picture book on how to have a good marriage. After the meal, her friend Bernard came to visit. He was a priest-in-training, and he was going to return to Nigeria in a few days. I went and got us Cokes, and we sat and talked. Eventually I had to go. I had no lesson plans for the next day yet, and teaching was still new enough to scare me. Bernard told me to visit him if I ever went to Nigeria. I felt a flicker of wariness, but Bernard was all smiles. I wished him a safe journey and left. At dusk I took another walk. I turned right on the highway and walked away from town toward the sunset. The school bursar incident was still strong in my mind, and I alternated between feeling flattered and feeling angry. Both emotions were empowering, and my legs felt strong and capable. From a distance, I saw something black and curved moving on the cement of the highway. It looked like it might be a scorpion, but it was much too large. When I got closer I saw that it actually was a scorpion, curled tail and all. It was jet black, had pinchers like a lobster's, and was at least seven inches long. A car was coming, and I hoped that the scorpion would get squashed, but it managed to avoid the tires. A stooped old woman walking the opposite direction also stopped to watch the scorpion. Using Twi and pantomine, she indicated that I should whack it to death. Using English and wide eyes, I responded that I was too afraid to go near it. We both watched as the scorpion entered the bush beside the school and disappeared. I continued with my walk. The highway cutting through the jungle was surreal. With a little effort, I could imagine that I was in Florida. But then a woman balancing a basket of yams on her head came into view, and the image was shot. The light was dense and seemed to leave a golden haze on everything. Returning from my walk, I passed some of my students. Golda, a slight girl with a kind smile and aspirations to be a nurse, told me that I had a visitor. "Where?" I asked. I careened from my daydreams to the present. She pointed to the road behind me, and my heart sank. The visitor had left while I was gone. I could not bear it. "She will return," Golda reassured me. "She left her things on your porch." I breathed again. On my porch was a backpack and a loaf of tea bread. "Who was it?" I asked. Golda faltered for a name. "Kathy?" I asked. "Yes, yes. Kathy." Golda smiled but looked uncertain. I entered my house giddy with expectation and relief. I rushed to prepare dinner before Kathy returned. The sky was quickly turning the smoky purple of dusk, and I kept on glancing out my window to look for an approaching obruni (Twi for white person or foreigner). But no Kathy. I finished cooking. Still no Kathy. Finally, I sat down and started eating. A few minutes later, I heard a knock on the door. I jumped up and rushed to the door, my prepared speech running through my mind. "Kathy, I'm so glad you came…" It was Lexi. My first emotion was elation: Lexi came all the way from the Volta region! Immediately following was sadness: Shit! That meant that she was ETing. The last time I'd seen her, Lexi had promised to come tell me in person if she decided to quit Peace Corps and "early terminate." She was happy; I could see that just by looking at her. She stood with her shoulders back and relaxed and an easy smile softening her face as she watched me go into a tirade about how great it was to see her. The look in her eyes had a steady and pervasive calm, as if she was present both here and somewhere else. I remember when I'd spoken to her a few weeks before. She had seemed lost and scared. Her eyes had darted around focusing on nothing. Yes, she was ETing. She was leaving in two weeks. She had decided right after she made up her mind to stay until Christmas. She had laid down on her bed at 2 p.m. and had not moved until 7 a.m. the next morning. She hadn't slept; she'd just thought. If all she was doing was waiting, killing time, why not leave now? Then it had clicked, she said, and she no longer had any doubts about ETing. It wasn't that she didn't like Ghana, or teaching, or even her site. She did, more than she had expected. It was just that, and at this point she paused, she had no passion here. When she was with Laura, she could be passionate about anything. Away from her, life was just a dull, steady line. A blah. No pulse. And it was only getting worse. She had thought that maybe with time, but no. And her reasons for being here were not valid anymore. She had seen Africa. She'd lived in a different culture the three months that we had been here. As far as saving the world, hell, we both knew that she would accomplish more if she went to med school a year earlier. I sat and watched her, relaxed and confident, and I was happy for her, but I also envied her. ETing was the right decision for her. She had med school and the love of her life waiting in the States. I wanted to ET so badly that it hurt sometimes, but it wasn't the right decision for me. Lexi was running to, but I'd be running away. She told me that she could stay until Thursday. The house felt cozy and warm with her there. That night, I dreamt that the moon was on fire. I told a friend, and she didn't believe me at first, but when she looked up, the whole face of it was red and orange with flames. Billows of black smoke streamed behind it to mark its orbit. I could smell the acrid ash from the ground, and I was surprised because the moon was so far away. I think I was on a ship since part of the dream involved a journey. The rest of the dream was hazy, but the image of the burning moon was so clear that I could still see it when I woke up the next morning. Lexi and I decided to make the five hour trek to Sampa to see Don after classes on Tuesday. Lexi wanted to say goodbye to him, and I couldn't bear the thought of spending the night alone at site when I could be with them. I bagged the extra class I'd been planning to teach after school, and we left at 11 a.m. I packed in a rush, and my steps felt light and positively bouncy as we walked down the highway away from the school. We begged a ride in a two-seater pickup all the way to Sunyani from a man who sold newspapers. I sat in the front and made small talk with him. Lexi sat in the backseat and clipped her fingernails. In Sunyani, we stuffed in between two market ladies in the middle seat in a "fast car" to Berekum. The car, a Peugeot station wagon, lived up to its name and broke U.S. traffic laws, yet it did not go fast enough for me. I was almost scared to look behind me. The road ahead was silver with the noon sun. The Berekum lorry park was crowded and dirty and filled with overworked underaged children loudly advertising the food balanced on their heads. It seemed exotic. I didn't know what would happen, and I didn't care. The Sampa van was almost empty, so we got our tickets and sat down to wait. Lexi played telephone with the food vendors until we found someone who sold bouflettes. I tried one, but the grease made me lightheaded. I ate some pineapple to counteract the hot feeling behind my neck. We had been waiting about half an hour when I spotted a familiar cream and orange shirt bobbing purposefully away from us. I knew it was Don even before I noticed the skin color. He didn't hear me yelling, so we grabbed our bags and ran after him. Lexi snuck up the last few steps and scared him. He looked like he'd seen a Taco Bell; his eyes and grin were wide. The vendors and bystanders laughed with us. He was traveling to Sunyani to pick up a package from the post office. He asked us to come with him, and of course we said yes. I almost didn't want to. I didn't want to travel backwards. Fear tingled up my spine on the ride back to Sunyani, and the whole time we were there I was alert and fidgety. The sky had grown overcast, and the dim light accentuated the cement walls and grassless dirt expanses of the town. I never journeyed more than a few steps away from Don and Lexi until we were back in Berekum. A van for Sampa had just left, so we had a few hours to wait until the next one filled up. The sun came out again, and the sky sparkled. Don and Lexi did most of the talking. I sat and ate coconut and listened. My silence was decadent. I felt the comfort I had felt as a child sitting in the back seat on family road trips. The van finally left when the sun was on the horizon. Night overtook us on the bumpy, three hour ride. The streets of Sampa were lit only by candles and kerosene lamps. Don led us to the market woman who sold kalawale, and we munched it as we stumbled down the dark streets to Don's house. Lexi showed us how to walk when you cannot see: you lift your feet up high before placing them on the terrain before you. We marched like this past the Catholic mission to the generator-lit secondary school. The driveway was only dirt but was two-lane and divided by a trimmed row of cashew trees. Don's house was small, but it was surrounded by a neat wooden fence, and his dirt yard had been swept into fan-like stripes by a student. I could barely stand up by the time we got there. I fell asleep while Don and Lexi were still talking. We woke at 5 a.m. to catch the first van back and, with some luck, return for my 9:30 a.m. class. The sky was navy when I went outside to brush my teeth. I saw Orion clearly lit in the sky. It was the first time I'd seen a constellation that I could recognize since coming to Africa. We left for the lorry park just as the sun was rising. Sampa is on a hilltop, and there are actually fir trees. The fresh morning sun illuminated the mist over the forest. A goat ambled by with her three kids, their fur still clean and white. Market women swept in front of their stalls and greeted us. It was beautiful. I felt like I was witnessing the Ghanaian version of a Norman Rockwell painting. Don left us at the van after telling the driver to look after his sisters. The driver smiled and joked with Don. I looked at the van, and a hint of panic started rising in my throat. The driver said goodbye to Don and looked at me and Lexi. "You are my wife," he said to Lexi. I wanted to cry. Lexi looked ill. "No," she said. Angry creases swept across the smooth skin of her face. Lexi and I got into the van. It took an hour to fill. The baby next to us wouldn't stop crying. The other passengers blamed us—the baby was afraid of the white women. I stared out the window. The bumps in the road threw me in the air so that my head hit the roof. The back of my neck was hot. When the van slowed as it passed through villages, shirtless men stopped their work and stared at me, leering. I wanted to kill them. My watch warned me that I would not make it back in time for my first class, but I didn't care. The van took us all the way back to Sunyani. Lexi caught a Kenyasi car. She wanted to visit the site of a friend of ours who had finished her service. She would return to my site in the afternoon. I got into a Duayaw-Nkwanta taxi and glared at the other passengers. The car dropped me in front of the school. I had missed most of my first class. I felt a flicker of guilt as I saw the students still crowded near the entrance to the chemistry laboratory. "You were not here, Madam!" I shook my head no. "What about the test?" The test was supposed to be tomorrow, and we were going to review today. "We will review tomorrow and have the test on Friday." My students smiled and ambled away. My guilt vanished. They didn't care. My traveling clothes were red with dust, so I changed before going to my next class. The students sat like dead lumps. I droned on. I wasn't even sure of what I was saying. I doubted the students would notice anyway. After my class I sat in my house and waited for Lexi. I left a note on my door when I took a walk at dusk. At dinner, I started to worry. Most of her things were still at my house, so she had to return sometime. Without a car or a telephone for ten miles, I didn't see what I could do. I figured that maybe she'd decided to stay in Kenyasi for the night. I didn't really believe it. I couldn't shake my feeling of dread. I finally went to sleep to stop myself from thinking. She arrived after midnight. Her clothes were filthy, and she was soaked from rain. Some villagers had harassed her when she had walked through Kenyasi to the school, so when a student had told her that she could also walk the opposite direction to catch a vehicle to my site, she had. The student was wrong. No cars passed by. Lexi walked for seven hours straight. It had drizzled intermittently throughout the day. The villages were small and scarce, and in between the jungle was dense and eerily still. After dark she had come across a van. It was empty, and the driver was drunk, but she convinced him to take her to the Sunyani lorry park for 10,000 cedis. The Sunyani lorry park was deserted since all the cars had left for the night. A nice man drove her to the police barrier, where a policeman helped her to beg a ride to my site. She was exhausted and wanted to bathe. I put some water on the stove so that she could take a hot bucket bath. "I was scared you'd been raped or something," I said. She half-smiled and looked at her hands. "Yeah, I thought of that too." "I don't know what's the matter," I blubbered. Lexi laughed. "A lot of stressful things have happened recently." That was true. I'd gotten giardia again on Monday. My period had started that morning. Lexi gave me a hug and made me breakfast. We talked about insignificant things, and I almost kept my voice from cracking. I wouldn't look at my watch. I could feel the minutes tick away. My face flushed. I couldn't stop my hands from shaking. Finally, Lexi stood up. "I should go," she said. I helped her lift on her backpack so I wouldn't have to talk. I felt a burning behind my eyes. I kept telling myself to go into practical mode. I set my jaw, but a tear escaped anyway. I wiped it away. I walked her to the gate of the main school driveway. I couldn't think of any reasonable excuse to walk her farther; my class was starting. We hugged again, and she told me something like, "Hang in there." I managed a smile. She nodded, turned, and walked away.
Solicitud a la Escuela de Magia de UCSD Nunca olvidaré el día que decidí convertirme en un mago. Tenía siete años. Mi aldea había aguantado a un ogro horrible desde hacía tres meses. Era tan grande y tenía tanta fuerza que no había nadie en la aldea que pudiera pelear con él y vencerlo. De hecho, ya había derrotado a dos héroes (un caballero con una espada larga y otro con una hacha de guerra) que habían viajado a nuestra aldea para luchar contra él. Parecía que el ogro sería el dueño de mi aldea, hasta que llegó un mago de la capital. Él se enfrentó sin miedo con el ogro, mientras que toda la aldea los miraban. Entonces, antes de que el ogro pudiera herirlo, el mago hizo un encantamiento y el ogro se encontró atrapado en una esfera mágica. La esfera disminuyó poco a poco hasta que desapareció. Este fue el fin del ogro y el principio de mis aspiraciones a ser mago. Durante todos los años en el colegio me he preparado para estudiar la magia en la universidad. He estudiado las ciencias naturales, las ciencias exactas y las ciencias humanas. También he estudiado la historia de la magia. He obtenido una puntuación de 800 sobre 800 en el Examen de Aptitud Mágica (EAM), lo cual demuestra que estoy listo para entrar a los estudios de magia en la universidad. He aprovechado toda oportunidad para desarrollar mi talento natural para la magia. Por supuesto, no había clases de la práctica de la magia en el colegio. Pero cuando era posible, acompañaba a mi madre, que era curandera de la aldea. Ella me enseñó unos encantamientos mágicos para curar las heridas y las enfermedades que no eran muy graves. También aprendí algunos encantamientos de ataque de unos magos que viajaban por nuestra aldea, y de vez en cuando me unía con grupos de caballeros andantes que pasaban por nuestra comarca. Cuando podía, les ayudaba con mis pequeños encantamientos. Quiero asistir a la escuela de magia de UCSD porque para mí sería la escuela de magia ideal. La escuela tiene una tradición larga de enseñar tanto la teoría como la práctica de la magia. Aunque los estudios teóricos sean más difíciles que los estudios prácticos, estoy de acuerdo con la filosofía de la escuela que la comprensión de la teoría forma los mejores magos. La historia de la magia demuestra claramente que los magos más poderosos han entendido la teoría de modo que podían usar mejor los encantamientos conocidos y desarrollar los encantamientos nuevos. Después de graduarme de la universidad, quisiera llegar a ser profesor de la magia en la universidad. Como profesor, desearía pasar más o menos seis meses cada año en la universidad enseñando la magia, investigando nuevas teorías de la magia, y desarrollando nuevos encantamientos. Los otros seis meses del año los pasaría viajando por el mundo. Buscaría encantamientos nuevos, teorías mágicas desconocidas, y artículos mágicos raros. También usaría mis poderes mágicos para ayudar al pueblo y para luchar contra el mal. Y sería la mayor recompensa, si algún día una victoria mía alienta a algún niño a convertirse en mago.
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