Get in on the John

This will be my very last post made from Guinea West Africa. Just yet another milestone in the process of leaving here. Yesterday I said goodbye to my longtime friend Alex Rehn who I have only ever seen in Guinea. A little less than a couple of days ago I finished packing up everything that I wanted to keep from my room, and left it an empty shell that looked like there was never someone named John Wilkos who had lived in it once. And a couple of days before that, I went to school to give back my books. It felt anticlimatic, this last time that I would ever see again the inside of the place that I had spent 8 hours a day 5 days a week for the last 8 years. A whole lot of memories were tied up with that school. Some good. Most bad. It was school, after all. =) But no matter the quality of the place, if you have spent a long period of time there you're going to miss it. The librarian got misty-eyed as she checked off the last of my school books. I guess she remembered me being there since 6th grade and was sad to see me go after such a long time. I said goodbye to her and shut the library door and stood with my back to it looking around at the familiar features of the now almost empty school. I decided to go get my last drink from the reportedly toxic water fountain as had been my custom every day for the last 7 years. I was bitterly suprised to find a growing sadness in my chest like a dark misty weight as I looked at buildings and teachers for the last time. I sipped my drink of water from the fountain. And I staightened and turned around, my back towards the school for the last time and made the long walk toward the exit. Darn I would hate missing that place. That feeling is kinda similar to how I feel about leaving Guinea. It's not that awesome of a place. But that just means that the friends that you make here are that much closer because you have endured the hardship together. I will miss Guinea. Pretty much despite myself.

I would just leave it there, but I insist you check out these cool quotes that I have collected from quote-a-day.


P. B. Medawar

"The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it."



Professor Irwin Corey

"If we don't change direction soon, we'll end up where we're going."

Stan Dunn

"And that's the world in a nutshell, an appropriate receptacle."

Jef Raskin

"Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining."




William S. Burroughs

"After one look at this planet any visitor from outer space would say "I want to see the manager.""



Tom Lehrer

"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow man, and I hate people like that!"



Aristotle

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

Eric Hoffer

"Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength."



Jay Leno

"Here's something to think about: How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?"



Tom Stoppard

"The days of the digital watch are numbered."

Henry David Thoreau

"How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."


John Kenneth Galbraith

"It is a far, far better thing to have a firm anchor in nonsense than to put out on the troubled sea of thought."



Dick Cavett

"If your parents never had children, chances are you won't, either."



Douglas Adams

"The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't."