What I didn’t know 190 days ago about what today would be like
July 30th is here and it is Arnold Schwarzenegger’s birthday. It is also an important day for soccer aficionados as that is when the first FIFA world cup was won back in 1930. On this day in 1962, The Trans-Canada Highway, which I have had the pleasure of road-tripping, the largest national highway in the world, was officially opened. All important things for sure. Back on January 21st of this year (190 days ago), I predicted that today would be a day I would be going over the big advances that would have occurred at the International AIDS Conference. I predicted many hugs would have taken place at the conference and that big scientific endeavors would come to light therein.
I sit here at home having returned from Australia, as I had predicted back in January. I did it. I managed to find funding to attend the conference and I also for the first time ever got to present at the conference. I made my hopes and predictions come true. I even managed to travel a bit and see the great Ocean Road and the Penguin parade-which was absolutely divine.
Sadly, I was correct about the hugs. Usually hugs are good at conferences. They serve as indicators of meeting up with old and new friends alike. At this last International AIDS Conference, there were many such hugs. However, there were also hugs filled with immense tears as conference attendees mourned those that were lost on the Malaysian flight downed over Ukraine. I didn’t see that coming. None of us did. At one point in the exhibition hall I passed by the Dutch booth and the sobbing intensely reverberated off one’s ears. I saw people locked in intense embraces gasping for air and a reason for what happened. I did not imagine such a scene playing out 190 days ago.
In terms of my other predictions. I also sit here a bit sick having somehow gotten a parasite infection in Australia. I never would have believed or predicted that aspect of my trip. How in the world did I get a parasite in Australia? I had found the food to be quite fresh. Yet, somehow the parasite came into my body. Thankfully, my son did not get it.
Back in January, I had predicted that today I would start planning my son’s upcoming birthday celebration. I actually did try to do that. However, because of my infection my heavy duty medications are weighing me down a bit. There is no way I can think of hosting 20 six year olds. Just the thought gives me a blinding headache and headaches and parasitic infections don’t go well together. Not much does really.
Nope. I would not have predicted being this sick. I didn’t. Life does take unexpected turns. Some good and some bad. Sadly. This time around it took some bad turns.
Looking forward to having happier predictions that come true.
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Categories: current events, family, Travel
psychologistmimi 
That birthday party sounds like a nightmare to me and I’m not sick. Two (or four kids at the most) for a b-day party for a six year old is more than enough. Keep it short too – two hours no more. If you aren’t feeling well postpone it until you feel better.
Leslie
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I hope your happier predictions come true as well! Thanks for responding to the prompt I came up with! 🙂
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Thanks. Great prompt!
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Mimi,Hi!
Regretfully, you must be ambivalent regarding you Australian memories, however as you are well aware, 12 months on determines how important things ones life are.
You have done a great deal over many months and to present at the AIDS Conference in Melbourne would have been both stimulating and frightening for all kinds of reasons.
Who could have predicted such a set of circumstances as you encountered?
For now, it would be time for you to “Hunker down” (I think that’s how you guys refer to crawling into a cave) and just take some time to evaluate this important part of your life.
Nobody knows where this Malaysian Airways tragedy will take us. But it is important that people such as yourself hold the real meaning of such an event and remember the historical value of it.
You had an involvement with people killed and you had a common goal of developing cures, that puts you at the forefront of history here.
Your experience has been what it was, it cannot be altered, but it can be recorded and in a way that remembers events as they were.B
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Mimi, so sorry you are ill. Your son will survive his not having his birthday party on time. He sees you are ill, and surely he will understand. Sometimes, we don’t give our young children the benefit of having understanding beyond what we thought they had. As you found out, life takes on its own turn, no matter what are our preferences. It will work out. The greatest tragedy, of course, is the loss of your colleagues in the AIDS conference. A great global tragedy, in my thinking. Who knows what would have occurred and what discoveries exposed from all the presentations planned and conferences attended? I’m shaking my head about it all. I’m sure you are thinking the same.
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