Thirty-two softly focused, brightly coloured eyes

Third Day in Jamaica (Tuesday, November 22, 2005)

10:30 – Roll out of bed after a horrible sleep. I have no idea why it took me two days to notice that the beds here are rock hard, but it somehow did. It’s like sleeping on a 2x4. Maybe all beds are like this and my concept of comfort is warped due to the fact that my bed at home is a piece of old shit.

11:00 -12:30 – Lay about the beach doing my best to ignore my mom. She seems to have it in her mind that we have had enough sitting around reading and should now participate in water sports. After numerous variations of “piss off” and “get bent”, she relents and I head off for lunch. I have taken to creating monstrous salads in the belief that if I eat a whole lot of vegetables here I won’t suffer from the scurvy during busy season. I expect to eat a bunch of garbage and sit at a desk for long periods of time for those months. I am fucking excited.

1:00 – 3:30 – Sit around while my ever-so-active parents compete in some sort of resort based triathlon of their own creation. They request I take pictures of them during their various activities and we now have poorly framed photos of them kayaking in the ocean. That was the only adventure of theirs I could get the motivation to photograph as I didn’t have to move from my seat to capture the moment. Around 2 I notice that I am not as tanned as anticipated by this point and as returning home looking pallid will lead to ridicule from possibly Mark or Chris I turn my chair to face the sun and continue re-reading A Cook’s Tour. This was all the physical activity I got today.

3:30 – 5:00 – Head up to the front office to find the lady who will allow me to print off my week 4 casb assignment. She isn’t there and appears to be gone for the day. Good thing I have a 2 week backlog to work on until I get that shit. I head off for some pizza to pass the time and notice that it is starting to rain. This seems like a good time to start dealing with that huge backlog, so I head to the hotel room and get to work making a playlist that will create the proper mood for doing CASB while on vacation. In case anyone is wondering, here it is:

1 – The Wolf Parade – You are a runner and I am my father’s son
2 – Broken Social Scene – Anthems for a seventeen year-old girl
3 – The Decemberists – 16 by 32
4 – Test-Icicles – Boa vs. python
5 – Pharell – Can I have it like that?
6 – Broken Social Scene – Hotel
7 – Broken Social Scene – Almost Crimes
8 – Dillinger Four – bitethecurb, bitethecurb
9 – The Most Serene Republic – Proposition 61
10 – Franz Ferdinand – This Boy
11 – Immaculate Machine – Broken Ship
12 – Broken Social Scene – KC Accidental
13 – Scribe – Stop the music
14 – Metric – The Police and The Private
15 – Architecture in Helsinki – Sooner than soon
16 – Art Brut – Modern Art
17 – Broken Social Scene – Fire Eye’d Boy
18 – Broken Social Scene – Ibi dreams of pavement (A better day)
19 – Iron Maiden – Run to the hills
20 – Dillinger Four – Shut Your Little Trap, Inc.
21 – Placebo – Teenage Angst
22 – Metric – Live it out
23 – Placebo – Bruise Pristine
24 – The Most Serene Republic – You’re a loose cannon MacArthur… but you get the job done.

Not the best mix ever, but I did what I could with the songs I have on this computer right now. Plus it comes to just under one and a half hours, the maximum amount of time I can devote to CASB in one sitting.

5:20 – 6:30 – Struggle through a business valuation for Week 3. If I ever have to do this at work I am jumping off one of the tops of Canterra. Actually that’s a lie. I spent a good portion of this time typing this up. I did however copy and paste my last try at a week three assignment into a new excel sheet. One of these days I will get the numbers switched up and figure out how to hand it in.

6:30 – 7:00 – I track down the manager who says she can give me internet access on my laptop. I have plans to do things I should have done last week like put an out of office thing on my e-mail so some manager’s head doesn’t explode when they can’t get ahold of me, and get the CASB assignments I am missing. It turns out I can’t get the VPN to work, yet again. This is kind of not cool because that means 4 late timesheets this year. Ryan will not be pleased. I do manage to work the ipod as a jump drive and get the assignment off the CASB website. I am now ready to rock that shit or quit again. We’ll see how the week plays out.

7:00 – 8:30 – We head to the main dining area where it is Jamaican night. I am looking for Jerk Chicken but end up with a plate full of suckling pig, oxtail, curried goat and catfish. It was all pretty damn good, but watching meat get cut off a pig’s face is slightly offputting. Luckily I have been reading Anthony Bourdain all week and feel like I could eat pretty much anything put in front of me.

8:30 – 9:30 – I put the finishing touched on week 2 of CASB. I am on fire.

9:30 – 10:30 – My sisters are firmly planted in front of the TV watching the season finale to Real World: Austin. I have already spent far too much time watching that show so I take off with my parents to catch the steel drum band playing on the main stage. They are pretty damn good, but my parents aren’t feeling like sitting around and watching. Once again I am set with the decision of chilling by myself and trying to meet people or heading back to the room and doing a whole lot of nothing. I vote on nothing and type this shit up.

I am unsure what really goes on at night at this resort. They have these shows where it appears a bunch of 20 to 30-somethings get boozed and then I have no idea what goes on, because I’ve never been around for it. There is a disco, but I have never seen it when it is open as that would likely involve staying out past 11:00 or so. I see groups of girls who don’t appear to be with anyone, so they must do something other than drink a bunch of fruity drinks and call it a night. This would be worth exploring if I weren’t here with my family. And that is my final thought for this night.

Peace.