Courtney. September 8, 2010 @ 2:53

A Sad Goodbye to Jacqui!

I haven't written much since we were in Laos because we've been on the go from the moment we landed in Vietnam and are still in a kind of rat race that I definitely cannot complain about.We landed in Hanoi airport on Friday, August 13th, and I am just now finding the time to write.That was three weeks ago, and the reason for my absence for the first two and a half weeks is that we were sucked into the vortex of Hanoi Backpackers' Hostel, but that is a whole other story that I won't have time to write about for a while.

I'm going to have to start from the end of our HBH time warp/ life changing experience.We realized how long we had been at HBH around the time that we realized that Jacqui's (2nd) scheduled flight from Hanoi to San Francisco was coming up in a few days.We all went through a few or more of our own personal crises and each of us went through a complete crisis over Jacqui leaving us.She's been with us only 2 weeks fewer than we have on this trip and is as much a part of the video series as we are.We went back and forth on whether or not she needed to go.The obvious answer seemed to be 'no,' but she has scholarships at St. Mary's University that she cant just put on hold.She Skyped her mom every 5 minutes for "advice" (the answer that WE all wanted to hear), but she never got the go-ahead and we really just went in circles with the matter.

When the last day came around and Jax was scheduled to leave at 5PM the next day, we woke up and decided that, because we always make our wisest decisions when we're under the influence, we should do some day drinking and get some serious thinking done.We went to the usual spot, got our Tiger Beer and vegetable rice (limited options for veggies in Vietnam).I decided that in order to make Jacquelyn's decision a bit easier, or maybe break her down psychologically (she was on the verge anyway), I would get 'Jax van' tattooed on the back of my foot.It means 'Jax stays' in Vietnamese when you put the two accent lines above the 'a.' We did all of that and went out that night to Finnegans Irish Pub, Red-something bar, and Temple - the usual.

When we woke up the next morning we realized that if, rather than drown our sorrows in our Tiger, we had gotten on the computer, made a few pone calls, and TCB little, Jax would have van'd.But because we were still in a state of degeneracy….We messed everything up.Had we been sober, we would have realized that Jacqui could have changed her flight within 24 hours, spoken with her uni about postponing her scholarship for 1 year, and potentially stayed with us for the rest of our SEA trip.So the next day at 5PM our friend Rian stood by the taxi while the four of us cried like little b****es and the taxi driver kidnapped our friend.I heard her scream "turn around" as she was driving off….

Jacquelyn Monet Peters: We miss you so much it hurts.We are like a 3-legged dog around without you to balance us out.We aren't known as the "Cali girls" in this hood anymore, we are now called 'tripod.'But seriously, we really miss you and the video diaries wont be the same without your pretty little Barbie face on them. Our days are boring without your anxiety attacks over nothing and your neuroses.You better come back and finish what you started, Jacqui!Get that thesis class knocked out!