Friday, August 08, 2008

Bored

Here's one of those fill in the blank surveys that was passed around that I decided to fill in because I am bored and trying to pass some time on a Friday afternoon:

1. My uncle once: got drunk and stole mail from the mail slot of a church. It turned out to be all junk mail but I'm sure god wasn't happy!

2. Never in my life: have I been able to keep to any sort of diet or meal plan for more than 1 week (and 1 week is probably a strech too!)

3. When I was five: Ii wanted to be a policeman and I was happy when I wore a match or was playing in the dirt (these are exact quotes from my "Book About Me" that I wrote when I was in kindergarten!

4. High school was: had a slow start until I grew boobs. I then started to become more popular! Go figure.

5. I will never forget: that you should never eat anything bigger then your head - tip from my mom.

6. Once I met: a lady who was the 2nd wife of a man that had left the man when he got a 3rd wife. It was fine when he only had two wives, but the third was too young and too demanding.

7. There’s this boy I know: he's kind of a goof, and kind of annoying....but for some reason I love him!

8. Once, at a bar: I sang too much karoke (actually that wasn't just once!)

9. By noon, I’m usually: hungry and ready to go home for the day.

10. Last night: I felt like shit but somehow motivated myself to go for a 40 minute run in the muggy heat. It made me feel much better though.

11. If only I had: somewhere I could live that I could afford to buy a house, so I could settle down, and where the temperature never gets below 20 celcius.

12. Next time I go to church: it will likely be for someone else's wedding.

13. What worries me most: not selling my condo in Cowtown and the economy going in the shitter.

14. When I turn my head left I see: a messy, but much cleaner than yesterday, desk.

15. When I turn my head right I see: an empty desk (my co-worker is on secondement at another company).

16. You know I’m lying when: when I can't stop smirking.

17. What I miss most about the Eighties is: being a kid. Too much responsibility these days but I like have a bigger allowance (i.e. my pay cheque!)

18. If I were a character in Shakespeare I’d be: a friend that sees that the person someone is blindly in love with is not for them.

19. By this time next year: I hope to at least have saved some money. I am spending way too much these days!

20. A better name for me would be: Feels Like Ass Today Girl

21. I have a hard time understanding: why people brush their teeth at work. I think twice a day is good enough. After every meal....excessive.

22. If I ever go back to school, I’ll: be teaching an accounting class.

23. You know I like you if: if I grab your crotch. Just kidding. You can tell because I'll talk to you way more then anyone else we are with.

24. If I ever won an award, the first person I would thank would be: my parents. They are a pain but I owe them everything.

25. Take my advice, never: settle in life. Sounds cheesy but if I had, I would be living in Cowtown right now, instead of paradise, and dating someone that was embarassed of me when I was being myself. Boo to that business!

26. My ideal breakfast is: Go Kashi Crunch cereal. Love that shiat!

27. A song I love but do not have is: I have them all!

28. If you visit my hometown, I suggest you: learn how to drink. There's not much to do there other than that!

29. Why won’t people: figure out that stick thin is gross so I won't feel like I need to lose 10 pounds.

30. If you spend a night at my house: be prepared to deal with hair. I shed a lot!

31. I’d stop my wedding for: a family crisis.

32. The world could do without: five-day work weeks. I vote that we reduce them to two day work weeks.

33. I’d rather lick the belly of a cockroach than: eat mustard. Blugh.

34. My favourite blonde(s) is/are: the boyfriend.

35. Paper clips are more useful than: not much. I don't use them alot. I much prefer stapling stuff.

36. If I do anything well it’s: procrastination.

37. I can’t help but: surf the internet from time to time at work. If they don't want me too, they should ban it. That would really suck though!

38. I usually cry: at anything sad. Commercials, movies, the boyfriend being an ass, people I know leaving the island, etc.

39. My advice to my child/nephew/niece: be your wonderful self. Who cares what people say to you in high school because 3 years of your life matters very little in the grand scheme of things.

40. And by the way: I'm so tired I could pass out right now.

Monday, July 28, 2008

It's been Awhile

So my best and longest buddy left the island last nice. Makes me kind of sad. Makes me also miss home. I don't miss Cowtown as a place but the people that call that place home. I miss J (both of them), S, G, DDL (even though she isn't there right now) my sister, my brother in law and M (even though I didn't see him that much while I was there - it was nice to know I could if I wanted!) Having S in Bermuda for the last week and a half just brought it all back. I love my new friends out here but there's comfort in being with friends that know you as good, or arguably better, than you know yourself.

S was a gracious guest and I would love to have her back anytime. She was very thankful and even had dinner ready on the table when we got home from work. We spent nights talking and being lame-ass old people and going to bed at a decent hour. I've realized that as I get older, I can't handle these 4am nights unless I am extremely distracted. I have to be really drunk or having a really good time (usually involves dancing) to make it past the midnight mark. Yes, I am a party animal!

She arrived on a Friday and I couldn't pick her up at the airport because I was on boat day with my work. My work rented a catamaran and we cruised around the island and drank and ate a bunch. It was a great day. The only thing I would have changed was to have the boyfriend there. He didn't end up coming because he was feeling very good that day. People kept asking me where he was and I didn't have that good of an explanation as he was at work instead of on a boat. I guess sometimes you'd rather be along than spend a day with all the people you are with at work all week long. I can feel that. Since he didn't come to the boat day, he was able to pick up S at the airport. So there was a silver lining.

I had a great time with S. I took her all over the island. We saw the dunking of the floozie in St. George, to the boring-ass Maritime Museum in Dockyard. We went scuba-diving a couple of times. The thing that sucks about scuba diving lately (since the hurricane Bertha) is that the South Shore has been really rough thus when you dive there, it is really mirky and hard to see anything. So both dives we did were on the North Side. Would have liked to have shown her a bit more of what the diving had to offer, especially at the price she paid for each dive, but I hope she liked what she saw!



Here's a picture of me and S scuba diving. I'm on the left!

We also went out a couple of nights, watched Dark Knight and rented some movies. We spent a good chunk of time on the beach and she hit up a bunch of beaches while I was at work. On the last night, I took her to a pool party. The party was pretty fun but started dying out quite early (I guess that's what happens when people start drinking at 10am). The house owners had bought all these wicked pool blow-up toys. One of them was a punching bag that had Rocky Balboa on it that had a weight in the bottom and stayed standing when you punched it. It also came with blow-up punching gloves. It was sweet ass! The pool owner kept on talking to it in the Rocky accent. It was classic. The party was fun but I was surprised no one hurt themselves too bad as they were jumping off the roof into the pool. And this is a normal backyard pool, so its shallow as hell! S left on Sunday, a week and a bit after she got down here. Miss ya buddy!



Here's a picture of me getting launched in the pool! I'm lucky I didn't loose the bathing suit!

Monday, July 07, 2008

Showing our Guests a Good Time!

Well our guests left yesterday. I am sad to see them go but happy to have my place clean. Our place is a nice size for 2 but a bit small for 4! I will miss my friend alot and hope that she comes back to visit sometime!

During the week I had to work from Monday until Thursday and the boyfriend took off Wednesday until Friday. They explored the island on their own on Monday and Tuesday and then I took my friend out for a girls night out with some girls that I don't often hang out with (but who I should as they are really nice). We went for Italian for dinner. My friend got to experience the lovely way in which we split bills in Bermuda. Everyone pays for an equal portion regardless of what you had to eat and regardless of if you were drinking with dinner or not. It would be a bad deal for my friend because she doesn't drink. Luckily the bill wasn't too out of hand. I hate the way of splitting bills as I am not one to drink alot at dinner and also I tend to eat chicken and such rather then steak and usually get one of the cheaper dinners. But it motivates me to care less about what I choose to eat as it will be split multiple ways.

The dinner was nice and after dinner, we headed to watch a movie. We saw Wanted. It was a decent movie but I wouldn't place it up there with the Matrix or anything (which the movie was so obviously trying to emulate). There were some majorly cheesy parts and they went a little overboard with the special effects (uhhh last time I checked you can't curve bullets).

The boyfriend took them to Dockyard to the old naval base on Wednesday. On Wednesday night, after work, I went down and played my first game of beach volleyball. That shit is fun! I haven't touched a volleyball since being in Thailand in 2002 and even then I didn't play much. Before that it hadn't been since grade 9 gym class. I was worried about my skill (well lack there of). The first game I played poorly as I tried to hit the ball with all my force and it would go way over the back border of the court. After that, I came into my own, and played pretty decently. Not amazing but I held my own. After volleyball, I met the boyfriend and my guests in town and we took them out for Harbour Nights (where they close off Front Street in downtown Hamilton and have a bunch of stalls and such). We hit up a few bars and stayed out pretty late. We also met up with some friends and our male guest took a liking to a British girl (who I found a little bit abrasive) and tried to be a baller by paying for the entire tables food when he hadn't even eaten. We danced up a storm and tried to fend off the creepy Portuguese men (they were enclosing us in a circle on the dancefloor until the boys came along and saved us!) I went home a bit earlier as I had to work on Thursday.

The boyfriend took our guests scuba diving on Thursday. Apparently the other guest had some inner ear problems and couldn't stabalize (i.e. pop his ears under what to depressurize them) and as a result he got extremely sick. He ended up throwing up for about 1 hour. He was at the point where he'd have one sip of water and then immediately throw it up. He was so dehydrated that his fingers started locking up on him. My other guest, on the other hand, she was fine. I don't know what it is with guys and inner ear sickness. First the boyfriend loses his lunch, then my friend's guest from Winnipeg and then our guest. The best way to a guys heart is through his stomach so apparently they don't love scuba diving! I have yet to see a girl throw up though!

That night, me and my female guest went out in search of some desert. I was worried because we didn't leave until 10pm and I figured that no one would serve us as everything in town closes at the ungodly early hour of 11pm. So we showed up at the restaurant and sure enough they said they are no longer seating anyone. As we were leaving, this very American sounding young guy came and asked us if we were trying to eat and that they had not yet ordered and we were welcome to come sit with them. So we discussed it and decided we would rather deal with potentially creepy men then to omit dessert. You can't talk a girl out of her cake!

The young guy was with two older men and a local. The men were millionaire sport fishers and were down in Bermuda for a fishing contest. Their boat was called "the Last Stall". They turned out to be quite nice but very American. Had very southern accents (I think they were from Texas). They bought us drinks and dessert. They also invited us to come on their 60 ft yacht the next day and be their good luck charms. The next day we had rented a 17 ft (ya I know very impressive!) Boston Whaler boat and the prospect of not going on that to be on the nice yacht was enticing. Had I been single, I would have gone on the boat in a second, but I doubt the boyfriend would have appreciated that much! Anyways they were entertaining to say the least and we got a free dessert. They were ballers though. While we were sitting there, another group of fisherman showed up and they ended up having a $1000 side bet on who would have the biggest fish out of their two boats. They just each whipped $1,000 out of their pockets and made the bet out of the blue. We wished the Last Stall the best of luck the next day and headed home.

I took the day off Friday and we took our guests out on the Boston Whaler boat. It was pretty nice. It's nice to have the freedom to go where you want that you get with a boat rental that you don't get on the tours. We anchored our boat in two seperate locations. One near a boat that was ship wrecked and was partially sticking out of the water and in a nice calm bay. We brought our snorkeling gear out and saw a bunch of fish (they were mostly Groupers though). After returning the boat back to the yacht club in Hamilton, we saw the weigh in of the contest. The marlin that the winner caught was massive. Probably like 8 feet long. The winner of the contest was Que Mas (unfortunately not our friends from the other night) and they caught two massibe Blue Marlins. I will have to post a picture of the fish I took sometime soon! We then went out to a few bars that night and had a good time. The boyfriends was trying to find ladies and creepy black guys for the male guest and female guest respectively. He's such a nutbar.

On Saturday we slept in and then my guests and boyfriend went into town to go shopping. There shopping mission was to buy pink shirts for the Pink Party that we were going to later that night. That night we got all decked out in our pink and headed to the party. We called a cab at 9:15pm to make the 10pm ferry out to Dockyard which of course showed up at 10:05pm (just in time to make us miss the boat!) We went to the Hogspenney while waiting for the 11pm ferry and caught the beginning of some friends that put on this East Coast kind of music show. My one friend places the violin and the other plays the accordian (yes this type of music only flies on the East Coast!) They were actually pretty good. I'm glad I caught them as it was there last show (the violin player is leaving the island next week for the summer and the accordian player will be gone from the island by the time she gets back). After that, we finally caught the ferry and had a nice ride over to Dockyard.

The Pink Party is a Party that my friend from ultimate (the huge black guy that yelled at me during ultimate who turned out to be a big sweetheart!) was putting on at Snorkle Park to benefit cancer charities. I think his mother or aunt had died due to cancer. We waited for a long time to get into the venue as they only had like 2 people taking tickets for the 1,000 people trying to get in. Once inside, the setup was pretty nice. I love dancing my pants off on the beach. They played some really good music including the Tootsie Roll song (I rock the tootsie roll like no ones business) and lots of good soca, hip hop and reggae! The bad thing about the event was the lineups for the bar. They literally had about 8 bartenders serving all the 2,000 people that showed up to the event. You had to wait about 1 hour each time you went to the bar. That part sucked ass. The boyfriend ended up having to pitch about $50 worth of tickets at the end of the night because he didn't have time to wait in line that many times to use them all up.

We tried to catch the 3:15am ferry back to downtown but missed it and had to catch the 4:30am ferry back. I think we were all pretty tired by the time we busted out of there! The boyfriend and the male guest were particularily bitchy by the end of the night and I sorta wanted to kill them as me and my girl were having a good time. In the end we arrived home safe and sound and I had a decent time. I don't think I'll be getting the boyfriend back to any of those types of parties though anytime soon. He was pretty dissapointed in the lack of organization and lack of staff!

On Sunday we saw our guests off in a cab and then took the day easy. I needed to be a lazy ass that day because I had had two 5am nights in a row. I usually get really tired at about 1am so it was a miracle I lasted that long. I kind of feel like a zombie today at work but I'm obviously not that busy (hence my long ass posts today!) I have another guest coming out on the 18th. Should be fun. She's my best friend and she was actually born in Bermuda (but hasn't been back since she was about 2 years old!)

Monday, June 30, 2008

This Last Weekend!

Wowsa. It has been a long time since I last updated! I always complain that nobody ever reads my blog, but should I really blame them? I update like twice a month! I don't know how some of these people blog on a daily basis. They crazy...I like them but they crazy!

This weekend was pretty darn fun. On Friday night, we headed to the Princess for happy hour. Nothing too exciting happened there but the weather was nice and lots of people showed up. After that, we went over to the yacht club. This club is usually closed to members only (meaning that you have to pay annual dues of $3,000 just to go drink there and that is not including any drinks!) There was a massive yacht race that occured recently. It took them about 4 days to race from Newport, Rhode Island, to Hamilton, Bermuda. They apparently sail in 6 hour shifts 24 hours a day for those whole 4 days. So the whole week after the race (they had gotten in on the 23rd) they open up the yacht club to the public. It was a pretty fun party. They had Gombey dancers (traditional Bermuda dancing), singers, and some dancers (the ones that I saw were whorey ones that danced to that It's Gold song from Austin Powers). We walked around and looked at many of the yachts. Man some of those yachts are massive. Apparently they all cost like $1 millionish or more to buy (there was a $22 million yacht there!) Nice to look at but I would never have one!

On Saturday we picked up our guests at the airport. Two people that me and the boyfriend used to work with in Cowtown are currently down visiting. Their flight was a bit late and they of course got searched as they wrote that they are staying with with us rather then at a hotel (so of course they must be bringing us electronics!!!) So they finally emerged in the arrivals lounge at 1:45pm (their flight landed at about noon). Good times! We rushed them home and then rushed off to Chaplin's Bay for the annual Canadians in Bermuda's Canada Day Party. By the time we got there it was about 3pm but the party was still bumping. That party is the best deal in town! You pay $10 for your annual membership and you get lunch and 4 drinks! You can usually barely get 1 drink for that price! Pretty much everyone we knew was there and there were tonnes of people I knew that weren't Canadian (coveters!) It was a beautiful day out and everyone seemed to be pretty sunburnt! No exactly remniscent of a Canadian summer....but it'll do!

That night we took the guest over to the naked guy's house for one last bru ha ha with him. Alas, he has now left the island (as of 1pm today!) for good. I am going to miss him alot! He was really good at organizing things or atleast at getting people to come out. And no party was complete without him flashing his fishing tackle! The party was pretty fun but there was a guy there that I hardly know that was getting kind of fresh with all the girls. I've only met him once before but he thought he had the right to try and rip off my shirt right when I walked in. I was like.....whooaaa buddy calm down. He was retardo drunk though! He ended up liking beer off of naked guy's floor. That is frickin' digusting because they don't clean very well and they have dogs that end up having accidents at least once every few days! The whole night was pretty fun. Lots of drinking and Guitar Hero. A few people didn't take to well to one of our guests because he is outspoken but often doesn't have anything too constructive to say. People were picking fights with him but nothing happened. Anyways I am going to miss naked guy alot and its not the same without him already. I am going to have to visit him over xmas (he lives about 3 hours away from Cowtown!)

Monday, June 23, 2008

Fun Filled Weekend

This last weekend was a pretty good time! On Friday night, we took it relatively easy and rented a movie. Pretty boring night but well needed! On Saturday, we woke up early and went scuba diving. This time the boyfriend didn't throw up. So that was a plus. We had gone scuba diving with a friend and her friend from Winnipeg that was down visiting. The first dive was called the Cathedral and was pretty nice. There were many massive rocks that towered above us and it kind of gave you the sense you were standing in or in front of a cathedral. Pretty cool dive. Saw a bunch of difference fish, whose names I do not know.

My friend's friend had a little upchuck after his first dive, but was a trooper and did his 2nd dive regardless. It was a good thing he did because you can't come to Bermuda, the shipwreck capital of the world, and not dive a shipwreck and the 2nd dive was a wreck dive. I cannot remember the name though but it was pretty nice. I wanted the dive to end the entire time though because my feet kept cramping up (I think I must've been dehydrated a bit) and I was in the process of developing massive blister from my too-loose flippers. I had such bad blisters that I had to wear flip flops to work the whole next week (the only shoes I have are all covered toed pointy shoes which hurt too much to put on!)

After we got back, we showered quickly and then met some friends and their visitors at the ferry and took the ferry to Dockyard. We ended up going to a pub named the Frog and Onion to watch the Russia and Netherlands game. Russia ended up winning in overtime. With Euro Cup, it seems as though you could get away with only watching the overtime and shootouts as no one seems to score in regular time! We drank a bunch of girly drinks at the pub and had a good time.

After that, we headed in and went to another friends house for a couple of drinks. The boyfriend ended up getting quite drunk and was being generally inappropriate to our friends guests that were down visiting from Halifax (i.e. he was asking them if they had sensitive nipples). Our naked friend was there and only got topless. We played some drinking games and sat around a talked. The boyfriend then headed into town (thank goodness though because he was quite drunk and I didn't feel like dealing with him at that point) and I went home.

The next day I headed to the beach alone (sans boyfriend because he was too hungover) and spent a day tanning. After the beach, I met up with some friends and went to the Bermuda and Trinidad & Tobago world cup qualifier game that was held at the National Stadium with the friends that I went to the pub with the previous day. It was extra fun because the guys that I went to the game with were avid Trinidadian supporters so I had to yell extra loud for Bermuda.

Bermuda is generally a shitty team because of the small size of the population here (60,000) and them making it to the World Cup would have been crazy as it would be like my hometown becoming a country and making it to the World Cup (actually my hometown is slightly more populated). Trinidad was in the last World Cup and is a pretty decent team and Bermuda ended up beating them, in Trinidad (2-0), when they had played the first round of the Qualifier match last weekend in Trinidad. The Trinidad Express had this lovely article in the newspaper after Bermuda's win in their homeland. I love how they maturely state that Bermuda is a "sub-standard bunch", referred to the players as "pudgy Bermudians" and called them a "poor quality team". Well those pudgy, sub-standard, poor quality players beat your ass.

The game was pretty fun. I would have been annoyed though if I had been one of the players because they played drums the entire time. At half time they had Gombey dancers which were pretty good. There were some really young ones that were wicked at dancing. They were probably only up to my knees. So cute! Bermuda ended up losing the game 2-0 (unfortunately) but they gave it a good go!

The Trinida Express had previously partially blamed the referee for Bermuda's win in Trinidad saying that "Bermuda were given a gift when Costa Rican referee Walter Marquesada allowed the game to continue despite T&T keeper Clayton Ince crashing into his defender Makan Hislop and going down injured". In a later article they poke fun at Bermuda blaming the referees for their win. The game I watched looked something like a major league game in Cowtown and not like the World Cup Qualifier I expected to see. The Trinidadian Soca Warriors are going to have a tough time making it past the next round as their caliber of play was lacking!

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

It's all Greek to Me!

Well this weekend was both sad and fun at the same time. On Friday, me and the boyfriend decided to take it easy because we were going to another friend's going away party the following night. We were going to go see the Happening but then realized that it didn't start until the following week. As we only have two decent theatres that show one movie at a time (for a week period) I sometimes get confused. For some reason they had shown the Sex and the City movie for 2 weeks straight at one theatre and the new Indiana Jones flick. I understand showing the new Indie film for a couple of weeks but why Sex and the City? Seems like an odd choice to keep around for that long. So after discovering that the movie we wanted to see was not actually playing, we went and rented two dvds. First movie was Semi-Pro. It was kind of funny but more in a Talladega Nights/Blades of Glory kind of way then in an Old School/Anchorman kind of way. That is to say that it was basically Will Ferrell making an ass out of himself. After that we watched Untraceable. It was okay but I wouldn't suggest going out of your way to pick it up. I do love Diane Lane though. She is beautiful and will probably be that way for many years to come; as far as she is going lately.

At about 8pm, we got a call from the boyfriend's step dad saying that his grandma had had a heart attack that day and was very sick and likely to die. So the boyfriend had to book a flight out to Victoria (about as far away from Bermuda as it gets in Canada) to go and say goodbye to his grandma. He booked a flight for the following day and will be returning on Thursday. He would have liked to have stayed longer, but his other set of parents (father and stepmother) are coming out on the same flight as he is coming back on. He didn't want to leave me alone with them as I do not know them that well. I know his mother and stepfather alot better as I spent much more time with them.

So the boyfriend left on Saturday and made it safely to Victoria but he sent news, via email, that his grandma had passed away during the early hours of Sunday morning. She passed about five hours after he got there, so atleast he got to say goodbye. His family said that she was waiting for him to show up before leaving. It's really sad but atleast he had gone out and spent a week with his grandma last year before coming out to Bermuda (something that he hadn't done since being a child). I never got to meet her, but if she is anything like her daughter, than I'm sure I would have gotten along great with her.

On Saturday night, I went to my friend's going away party. It was a toga party. I bought a bolt of neon pink material and built this lovely toga:



This is a picture of me doing the classic Marilyn Monroe pose over a fan.

The party was fun but pretty tame compared to what I thought it was going to be. The guest of honor is a bit of a legend on this island as he parties hard and tends to get naked alot. There is never a dull moment around him. He ended up only getting naked once and jumping into the pool. He, of course, also didn't wear any underwear under his toga. We all got a couple of flashes throughout the night. Unfortunately, not many people showed up to the party. But I guess its better only having close friends.

Highlights of the party included when I had a "wardrobe malfunction" and when our friend showed up wearing a toga that was made out of a shower curtain. Trust a boy to make a toga out of a shower curtain. I bet he just pulled it right from his bathroom at the last minute. My other friend showed up without a toga and everyone questioned why (because he is the type to go all out for events like this). Apparently he had started this elaborate toga which involved sewing gold trim on material that apparently got eaten by his sewing machine. He was extremely bitter and boycotted wearing a toga due to the sad memories it brought about. I ended up not making a fool of myself, like the weekend prior, as I limited myself to one drink an hour. It was a great plan! It ensured I stayed up late and gave me something to look forward to! I stayed until about 3am and then split a cab back with the naked guy and with the guy's whose toga was eaten by the evil sewing machine.

Sunday was a very lazy day. Everyone was heading to the beach at 2pm. I was up at about 10 am and waited around until then as I didn't want to show up alone. As soon as I was ready to go, the sky clouded over and it got shitty out. I am seriously getting sick of being so pale! Mother nature, please cooperate with me for once!

Friday, June 06, 2008

10 Random Things for Friday

1. Why is this guy doing this? It is so random. Poor socalites. Imagine seeing a massive 211 pound guy scavenging in your garden in the early hours of the morning. I love how his one friend describes how much he's eaten in the past.

2. Everyone has to join Twitter. It's an additive site where you can show people what you are doing. It's pretty amusing and addictive. I am at this page on Twitter.

3. Apparently this is the best place to get a burger and a shake in New York. I will definitely have to check it out. There is a Twitter page that describes how long the line is for the Shake Shack at any one time. I think someone needs to make a page like that for the Tim Horton's on 4th and 4th in Cowtown!

4. So apparently Hillary stepped down the other day. That is cool I guess but I was hoping for some women power in the Whitehouse. Frankly, right now, I only care if they keep the Republicans out of there! All the people on Hillary Clinton's Forum are definitely being sore losers though!

5. This guy is the best artist ever. I bought a bunch of his stuff for my sister who had her birthday last week. He is so wonderfully strange!

6. Ooooooo.....apparently Amazon.com is not working. I bet they are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of revenue as we speak:



I hope my yoga video that I have in the mail gets here okay. I need to start my daily practice ASAP!

7. Going to a toga party tomorrow night. I just bought obnoxious pink material from which I am going to make my toga. Check out some of the skanky toga pics here from some randoms girls party. My toga won't be quite so skanky!

8. I haven't sent in my 2007 tax return yet! I am so badddddd! Thank god the government owes me money and not the other way around!

9. If you are looking for a fun way to contribute to the world than check out Kiva. Check out my lender page here!

10. Everyone have a great weekend. I am going home in 10 minutes!!!

Monday, June 02, 2008

Sex and Sea-Ty

On Friday night I headed to the sex and the city premier. I got all dressed up in my little black dress. The premise behind this premier was wonderful but the shotty execution behind it was horrible. But what do I expect from Bermuda! They stuffed an entire theatre of girls into a shoebox sized room and put the two bars right beside each other. They had to hors d'ouevres coming out of the kitchen that was beside the bar, so by the time the plates made it over to the other end of the room, the food was gone. It was a pretty fun night but let me tell you, eating no supper and drinking martinis at an open bar equals bad news. My friend threw up in a popcorn bucket and I don't even remember the movie. I will have to go see it again (which sucks because they only play movies here for one week and I don't have much time this week!)

On Saturday, I felt like dying from consuming all the damn sugary martinis the night before. I also woke up with the most massive bruise on my arm and hip and I even managed to break blood vessels. I had no idea where it came from but from enquiry from my friends, I got it from falling over the back of the movie seats. We were sitting in the middle of the back row and instead of walking around all the seats, we were jumping over the back of them to go to the washroom/get additional drinks. I ended up catching my foot on the back of the seat and fell HARD on my left side. Ouch!

Then on Saturday the boyfriend made a wicked lamb dinner with Greek salad and then we went to a pub for a friend's birthday. Needless to say, since I was in my lovely hungover condition, I stuck to the diet cokes! The birthday bash was pretty fun but everyone was watching the hockey game. I usually don't care about hockey but throw in two American teams, and I really couldn't be bothered. Luckily, someone had brought along Rock Band. I sang a couple of songs and played the drums. Man the drums are freakin' hard! It was a good time until some gal insisted that we turn off the Rock Band and watch the game. Why???? Not everyone likes hockey so don't force them to watch it!

On Sunday, me and the boyfriend went scuba diving with a couple of friends. I think the scuba dive masters thought the boyfriend beat me or something because they kept asking about my bruises (which were very prevalent in my bikini with my radiantly pale skin!) The dives we did were really good. The first one was really pretty but epically long. I saw a bunch of fish (I would tell you what their names are but I have no idea). The dive was along the coral reef and lasted 44 minutes! The next dive was on a shipwreck. This ship, as opposed to the last one we saw, was smashed to smithereens. It was still pretty cool though because there was coral all over the whole ship and quite a bit more fish then the last dive.

Some other highlights of the dive was when the guide was telling me to swim through a hole by putting her finger through a loop made with her thumb and index finger and I was confused as to why she was making the penis/vagina sign and when the boyfriend mysteriously disappeared at the beginning of the second dive. I was concerned but figured he accidentally latched on to another group as sometimes happens because it is hard to tell who is who when underwater. When I got out of the water, I discovered that he had gotten sea sick and threw up in the ocean when he started his dive! All in all, a good weekend! Next weekend should be fun because it is a close friend's going away party and it's Greek style (i.e. gotta wear togas!) I don't think I'll be drinking much though thanks to last Friday night!

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Love It!

This made me laugh!

Haven't you ever wanted to kill someone that sends you all those stupid requests in facebook. Wouldn't it be nice if life was like this!

And don't you love the random fees that ticketmaster charges you? Seriously a "convenience charge" for printing your own tickets. I am saving you mofos paper and staff to pass out the tickets at the on-call desk, how do I need to pay you more money?

Enjoy!

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Bermuda Day Weekend

This past weekend was the lovely Bermuda day. We rip off the same weekend as the US' Vetran's Day but make it our own! On Friday night I went to the Princess and had a few drinks and then we headed to my scuba club's annual party and dinner. We know absolutely no one in the scuba club so we thought this would be a good place to start. We ended up meeting this nice couple from Denver that we hung out with all night and I met a couple of the dive instructors.

One of the dive instructor's girlfriend told me how she had been ditched for the half marathon by her training partner. We had a little vent about that (both my partners ditched me in the early stages). Neither of us were the ones that actually wanted to run the race but somehow we both ended up being the only ones that saw it through. She didn't train much so we both had a big conversation about how much the race was going to hurt. She was convinced that the paramedics van would be following her (they traditionally loom behind the last runner) and how embarassing it would be to be seen by so many people (literally thousands come out to watch the race).

The party was pretty good and we ended up eating a ridiculous amount of meat. They had ribs, chicken cooked with cans of ginger beer up their butts, roast beef, pork, etc. The only non-meat items were buns and coleslaw. Oh yah for the vegetarians, someone had gone to the store and bought a vegetarian lasagna. Eat meat or get out! My kind of party! The band was really good too. I had seen them before (apparently there is only one band in Bermuda?) but they had this girl singing for them. She was wicked. A young girl rockin' out with some old school guys. She had the kind of voice that I wish I had and that I think I have when I'm drunk singing karaoke!

On Saturday I went to the beach. Sure enough, it's really nice out and as soon as I arrive to the beach, the entire sky clouds up and it starts to get cold out. The world is on a mission to ensure that I stay as pale as humanly possible. I actually had someone at the scuba party come up to me and say "Hey girl, you need some sun" and I actually currently have tan lines. Seriously, there is no hope!

On Saturday night I went to a bachelorette party. We rented a catamaran and played games on the boat. It was raining and cold and too dark to see anything. I think the boat rental was a nice thought but ended up being a bit of a rip off at $50 a head! The girl who is getting married seemed to enjoy herself despite having tried to change the date of the party at the beginning. We all dressed up in red tank tops and sailor hats and drank alot. We went to Flanagans and the DJ played some bad music. At one point my friend got me to hold a beer for her and then next thing I know I had the bartender yelling at me that I can't bring my own beer into the bar (she had brought that beer from home). I'm like "Dude! I don't even drink beer!" I ended up going home no too late because the music at the Purple Onion really sucked (it was a crappy live band with a drum machine).



Here's me and some friends at the bachelorette party. AHOY!

On Sunday I relaxed all day to get ready for my half marathon on Monday. I ended up finding the girl from the scuba club and sat with her on the ferry over to the start of the race. There were so many damn fit people there. I guess the half-marathon distance is where the out of shape people get weeded out (there are often lots of larger individuals at the 5km races). I found it funny because when I went downtown I saw a whole tonne of overweight people setting up their chairs getting ready to watch the parade (more on that later) and then I got to the race start and I was the out of shape person. And trust me, that is no small feat making me feel out of shape on this island (over 80% of the population is considered clinically overweight).

My warm up consisted of walking from the washroom over to the field and doing some light streching. There were people there that ran aroudn the field for 30 minutes warming up. For god sakes people, we are about to run 13.1 miles so you don't need to do anymore running then necessary! The race itself was pretty good. The first 10 miles of the race is very hilly but there is a nice view and there are people all along that cheer you on. I kept a pretty steady pace of 9 minute miles for the first 10 miles and then all of the sudden, it felt like someone stabbed me in the hip flexors with knives and I could no longer lift my legs (I did a granny shuffle for the last 3 miles). I guess that may have something to do with only training to 10 miles. Next year (if I can forget the pain that occured from this year's race) I will definitely gradually train up to the full distance rather than stop short and hope that adrenaline brings me the last few miles!

The race was well organized and there were tons of water/gatorade stations along the way. Gatorade is a life saver. Every time I drank some, I would get second legs for the next 2 miles (except when it came to those fateful last few miles were I could have taken crack and it wouldn't have helped me at all!) The worse part of the race was that I knew that the finish was close to downtown and you could literally see downtown from about the 7th mile. It never seemed to get any closer. But yay! I am finished. I did the race in 2:13:45. My goal was to run the entire thing (which I did). I must've run my last few miles really slowly because my overall average per mile pace was 10:13 minute miles (down from the 9 minute miles I was runing at the beginning).



Here's me at about 10 miles. This is when my legs began to fail me!

When I finished the race and was limping back to town, everyone that had set up their chairs patted me on the back. I guess it's because the most exercise they'd be getting is from lifting their fried chicken to their mouths from their plates. I was downtown on Sunday night and I saw people setting up chairs and taping their areas (they put duct tape down and write their names on it). They are hardcore. You should have seem some of the tents and set ups people had. They were nicer than my apartment! These people take their Bermuda Day Parade watching seriously. From what I've heard, people can get really bitchy if you put your chairs in someone's space that they had "reserved" the night before by putting down tape. My friend said she saw someone get sworn at and almost get in a fist fight over it last year! All in all the race and Bermuda Day went down well and I will definitely have to beat my time next year. I would really like to train extra hard and get under 2 hours next year. But I will have to be hard core! I have faith though!

Friday, May 23, 2008

Friday Ramblings!

So the weather has finally taken a turn for the better. It has been generally crappy and muggy out the past few days with a few major rain storms thrown in the middle. But just in time for my half-marathon, it gets nice out. The only day where I would like an overcast day! Seriously what the f powers that be?



Here's a picture of some locals enjoying the lovely weather (read: flooded roads)

I saw something hilarious on the internet today that I have to share. Seriously, what would you think if you got a present in one of these? Love it! I hope everyone (i.e. all 2 people that read this) have a wicked weekend!

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Playing Ketchup

The weekend before last was pretty fun. On Friday night I took it easy and rented "Dan in Real Life". It's a pretty decent movie but a bit slow. I love Steve Carrell though. He makes any movie wonderful.

On Saturday, me, the boyfriend and a couple of friends participated in the End-to-End walk. We only did the middle-to-end portion of the walk though because I figured walking 16 miles was enough. I was fine for about the first 10 miles of the walk but the last 6 were painfull. I thought for sure my hips would be the first things to fail me, but the bottom of my feet was the bodypart that won out. Walking on cement for that long is horrible. But all in all, the weather was really good (overcast - so not too hot) and the walking trail was really nice too. It was a trail that followed along the old railway that used to be in Bermuda (before they had roads). You gotta love the bush here, because it is covered with colourful flowers. The company was good too.

It's funny in this country because the people really get behind every and I mean pretty much every event. I swear almost every local was either in the walk or was along the trail cheering us on. From the old people sitting at their windows in their wheel chairs to the crack-heads that were booted off Railway Trail (there usual haunt) so we could do the walk. I got lots of high fives and cheers. Also, at about every mile or two there were stations that gave out water, cookies, muffins, chocolate bars, gatorade, etc, etc. The stations are what kept me going. I couldn't wait to see what fun treat would be at the next station. And then at the end they gave us a party favour bag complete with chips and nacho cheese dip. Congrats on being healthy and walking half the island, here enjoy you can of fat. So Bermudian! Apparently the turn-out for the half-marathon that I am doing the Monday after next (on Bermuda Day) is supposed to be about 4 times more people. Hopefully all those people will give me the adrenaline I need to finish the race!

On Saturday night we walked down the raod to the local pub to have a couple of drinks to let loose after that massive walk. We were enjoying some lazy drinks when a bunch of 30-40 year old men busted through the door on a pub crawl. They bought up the bar (and offered to buy us drinks for "ruining our night" which they very much didn't). They were hilarious. The future groom ended up throwing up outside the bar and the rest of them ended up running out, into the rain when somoene thought they heard one of the waiters had "called the cops". Then someone finally figured out that no one had called them and they trickled back into the bar, drenched wet because their bus driver had abandoned them. Apparently after that they let loose on downtown Hamilton (as witnessed by my friends that were down there). On Sunday I ended up being lazy as hell and thank goodness because I needed it!

This last weekend was a riot too. On Friday we headed out for Happy Hour at the Princess and I of course drank too much (which you totally cannot help in this country because they poor about 4 oz of booze into each drink). I don't remember much but I had just gotten a new camera and I ended up having alot of pictures of me making out with said purse. I really do love that purse, I wasn't sure how much, but apparently I loved it alot.

On Saturday I went to my rugby dinner. It was the 50th anniversary of the team this year so the dinner was a black tie affair at a ritzy country-club-like locale. I wore my the bridesmaid's dress from my sister's wedding. I headed out on the back of my boyfriends bike to the dinner but it started to drizzle and I didn't want to ruin my dry-clean only dress so I turned around and went back and thank god I did because I would've gotten drenched! I ended up calling a taxi driver. I live on a road that is a close and the intersecting road that leads up to my close has the same name but is a road instead of a close. So I gave directions to the taxi and told them we are the blue house at the top of the hills. The directions were pretty simple. Basically you turn off of a main road and then turn left and voila, there is our house. So I am waiting for the cab for a long time and then the boyfriend goes out and he sees the taxi driver at the top of the intersection road with the same name in front of a PINK house laying on his horn. So we call the taxi dispatcher back and say we can see the taxi driver and he is on the wrong road. We can hear the taxi driver in the background (because the dispatcher was on a radio with him) and he's saying "I was on the right damn road" and she is telling him that he obviously wasn't because we had seen him on the wrong road. So he gets all pissed off and refuses to pick me up (not quite sure why). So she sends another cab. At this point, I am about 45 minutes late to the dinner. Finally the cab arrives and I finally get there 1 hour late.

I had enough time to gobble down one drink before they closed the open bar and started charging for drinks. Thank god for wine on the table though. The dinner was very good. We started with a scallop with risotto, main course was lamb shanks with these cool-ass scalloped potatoes (they looked like a pastry or something) and then ended with a brownie with vanilla ice cream and pineapple. I really am not good at describing food, so I do it no justice, but I promise you it was really good. Then the speeches started. Up first was our captain who talked about our year (we won everything this year so it was a good year). There was this obnoxious old drunk woman at the back that started vocalizing her disdain for the length of my captain's speech. She was really loud too. It was so rude. One of the girls on our team politely told her it was not necessary but she continued on so finally is escalated to the point that she had to full on tell her to shut up. And then the guys' team captain went up and she did the same thing. So I yelled out "Atleast you aren't sexist!" Lastly, one of the founding members went up who was a very sweet man but he had to be about 90 years old. He had the most boring speech ever that he battled through with the pace of a snail. The old drunken lady was loving that. I went to the bathroom and to get a drink for 15 minutes and came back and he had moved from the 70s to 80s. I think he finally got asked to go sit down. Then the guest speaker went up. He was a player for the Irish National rugby team and was nicknamed the mullet. Pretty funny guy. By this point I was well drunk, so I don't really remember much of that speech. But I made it home safely! So that's all that counts.

This weekend I am planning on going out a bit tonight and taking it easy tomorrow. I am going to do my first scuba dive of the year on Sunday so should be a great time. I will let you know how it goes. Have a great weekend!

Monday, April 28, 2008

Lazy Dayz

I've found that I could seriously sleep the entire weekend away if given the chance. Anytime I get comfortable, on the weekend, I could fall asleep (including sitting up!) This means that I need to force myself to get up and do something. This weekend it was too windy to go to the beach, despite my desperate need for the sun! I was really hoping to get a little colour, but my adversity to the cold prevented me from going. So I basically spent all of Saturday inside! How lame! I am on this beautiful island, and I wasted my time away on the couch. I ended up renting the third season of Lost (so good by the way) and chilling out watching it. The boyfriend was having boys night out and every girl I know here was either off island, had concrete plans or had a visitor, so I also spent the night on the couch. I did take a brief break from being lazy to do my prescribed long-ass run for my half-marathon training, but that is about all the activity this lady saw all day.

I just want to say that Lost is a wicked show. I have no idea where this show is headed but I am definitely around for the ride. Apparently after this season, there are another two seasons. I seriously have no idea where this show is going and don't even know how they could end this show, with all its plots and sub-plots, in a way that is going to satisfy it's viewers. All I know is that I hope it never ends. But I guess something will replace it. I thought I would cry when Six Feet Under and Sex and the City ended, but I found new shows. So I'm sure some program will keep me mesmerised by the glowing of my TV for years to come.

On Sunday, me and the boyfriend went down to St. George. St. George is one of the places that I mentioned in an earlier post, to which locals rarely go (unless they live in that area) because it is not in the center of the island and thus takes to much effort to go to. It's quite pretty but definitely not somewhere where I'd hurry back to. The lack of walking paths in Bermuda is stagerring and I know that it will drive my parents mad when they come to visit me later this year (they are walk-oholics). St. George has a road with some shops on it but no nice long boardwalk or seaside path to warrant going for a walk. The only half-decent walking path in Bermuda is the railway trail, which I will have to walk soon! But I am kind of saving it for a really boring weekend, because it is the only decent walk in the whole country. I am going to have to go home for a week of hiking in the summer next year because this lack of hiking is killing me!

This weekend I am doing the end-to-end walk for charity. This is a massive event where locals walk from either the middle of the island to the end of the island (which is what I am doing) or from one end of the island to the other. I opted for the shorter version because I am training for the half-marathon and know that the end to end walk (40km or 24 miles) would result in my legs feeling like they are going to fall off for a long period of time (likely being a week or so after I am done the walk) and this would put my training behind (because I wouldn't be able to run due to sore legs). So I am walking the condensed version, which is only 24km (14.7 miles). I am sure it will still hurt, but probably not as bad. I will aim to do the full walk next year.

Friday, April 25, 2008

Does Anybody Read This?

I think I need to work on getting my blog URL out there to my friends. I don't think anyone even reads this. Oh well, atleast it is an online reminder of what I did last weekend. Time flies here on the island and so do memories! If you do read this, say hello!

Thursday, April 24, 2008

Contentment

I had a conversation with a friend the other day about relationships and how everyone is looking for something that might very well not exist. People are always looking for their soulmate or "the one". They might exist, but I am guessing it is rarely, if ever, in the form that the seeker is thinking.

When you are with someone, it is natural to wonder if this is it. This is the person you are destined to be with or will someone else come along that is better. My philosphy is that there is always someone hotter, richer, sweeter, or whatever it is you crave than the person you are with but does that mean that person is necessarily better? You have to look into yourself for the answer to this question.

I feel that we will never find "the one" but we can learn to be content with the best one for us. The best one for us may not fit the conventional definition of what we are programmed to look for, but it is someone we get; someone we understand and can be content with.

Life is a series of decisions. The friend was asking if there is something wrong with him because he is always thinking that he wishes he could be with this hot girl or that hot girl, rather than his girlfriend and was asking me if he is destined to be alone forever. I think all of us face temptation but it is what we decide to do with said temptation, that defines the relationships we will be in or those that will cease to exist. If you decide that gratifying yourself with a meaningless one-night stand with a person you find hot (but know nothing of their personalties and how they will get along with them) is worth ruining a relationship with someone you already know is a good person, then DECIDE to do that. But if you think about the consequences of what you are contemplating, than DECIDE to stay in a relationship.

We all need to learn to be content with what we have or decide to do something about it. Just don't say I didn't tell you so.

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Blast from the Past

As I did not do anything interesting in the last two days, I thought I would share a memory from my past. I spent a little under a year travelling in Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, New Zeland and Fiji back in 2001-2002. I remember the excitement I experienced when I was about to go on my trip. I spent my last night out at a pub with a bunch of friends. I said all my goodbyes and then I went back with my then boyfriend to his place to spend our last night together.

I remember being really sad and really happy all at once that night. I had started dating that boyfriend at the start of the summer (it was now September) and we had dated for years in the past. In fact, he was the person to whom I lost my virginity. I dated him all through grade 11 and 12 but we broke up for a long time (during which I seriously dated another guy) because we differed in life plans. He was the type that lacked motivation and still worked manual labour jobs despite having been out of high school for 3 years (I had already finished half a degree at that point).

We started dating again knowing that I would be leaving on this year trip and that I did not plan to stay faithful with him during this time. I have no idea what was in this for him but I have a adversity to being alone (ask anyone at home I cannot go more than 3 or 4 months without getting seriously involved with someone) so he kept me not alone. It was a bittersweet summer that we both knew had an expiration date and that night the expiration date was reached.

I knew he wasn't the one for me, especially when I awoke the next morning to news that my flight wouldn't be leaving for another couple of weeks (my flight was set to leave on September 11, 2001) and I was dissapointed rather than elated that I had to stay. If I'd loved him as much as I thought I did I would be happy to have the extra time as I had an entire year to spend abroad, but I was extremely mellon-collie about the whole thing.

I ended up finally being able to leave after 10 days of sitting around as I had quit my job at this point because I was supposed to be out of the country. I tried to keep in touch with the boyfriend for a long time but he grew distant. I was upfront and honest with him about my intentions to enjoy life to the fullest and to be open to meeting men while on my trip, but I believe he was hoping I would miss him so much and come home early. I basically stopped hearing from him when I admitted that I was travelling with a guy. He asked, and I am not one to be dishonest. Upon returning to Canada, I hung out with him a couple of times but I could tell that our relationship was dead. I do not keep in contact with him anymore but I wish him the best.

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The Weekend Recap

This last weekend was pretty fun. On Friday night we had a few friends over for dinner. The boyfriend made a mountain of ribs (we are still eating them and its Tuesday) and some good ass food. I ended up "making" dessert (which consisted of me throwing a pie in the oven and proceeding to burn it). It was a really fun dinner. We had MTV Jams on in the background and we watched it throughout dinner. They had this show on called YO! RAPS! and it had a ton of brutal 90s rap on it. We discussed the wonders that were parachute pants and flatops.

Then I was just about to head to bed when both mine and the boyfriends cell phones erupted in a series of trills. I answered mine and he answered his and it was our two friends. Little did we know they were standing at our window and wanted to come in to play American Idol on Wii. So alas, we played it. Our one friend was super drunk and he can't sing to save his life. He was singing in a sort of hunched-over position and he ended up splitting a hole in his pants. So when the song "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" by Aerosmith came up (you know the one from the Armageddon soundtrack) he replaced the words with "I Don't want to Split my Pants". It was hilarious.

We then proceeded to have a competition (i.e. with one person getting knocked out at each round with the Simon-Paula-Randy comments and everything). I heard the boyfriend sing for the first time ever (he is tone deaf to the max). I think that the bad-singing-split-pants friend was so bad it gave the boyfriend some confidence. The boyfriend got knocked out of the first round and then when the second round came, the guy who had split his pants was so shocked when he got knocked out. He looked like someone had told him that they had to amputate his penis or something! It was great! Anyways they finally left and I got to go to bed.

On Saturday morning, I woke up early to go to a hair appointment. My hair is in dire need of a dyeing but alas I will have to wait for another couple of weeks. The hairdresser that I went to was sick that week and couldn't fit me in for another two weeks. She seems a bit nuts. My client told me a story about her a couple of weeks ago. In Bermuda there are tons of stray cats kicking around and they are a menace and have diseases such as cat AIDS (I had no idea there is such a thing). So there is an agency called the Bermuda Feline Assistance Agency which goes around and catches and kills the cats. Kind of mean but I guess what can you do. So they have a few stray cats on this property my client manages and they rip up garbage and stuff and they are dirty, dirty cats. So instead of ignoring them or calling BFAB, this lady started feeding them. Oh well, apparently she is supposed to be wicked at coloring hair!!!! As long as she cleans her hands first!

That night I got all dressed up and went to the Elbow Beach Hotel for our convocation ceremony. I thought it was weird that they included us in the ceremony as I took my exam in Canada but the ceremony would've been very lame if they didn't include the off island graduates as only one Bermudian passed the Chartered Accountancy exam this last year out of the four that wrote the exam. Craziness! I can't believe that more people don't make it through because if you have your CA designation here, you are sitting on a goldmine. But I guess it goes back to the lack of value the youth of Bermuda have for education (read my last post regarding the drop-out rate from high school). I got drunk off of the table wine and then busted a massive move on the dancefloor. I got the DJ to play Soldier Boy (as I always do) and then did the soldier boy dance.

After the convocation dinner and dance, I went to my friends housewarming party and played Rock Band. I sang for a bit and then moved on to the drums. The drums are frickin' hard. Seriously. I was on easy and I was struggling majorly! I think everyone kept their shirts on that night....so that was a first!

Yesterday one of the partners at my firm gave me and the boyfriend tickets to the Bermuda XL Open round 1 tennis match. They were box seats and came with free drinks! So I ended up getting impromptu drunk (which is something I usually avoid like the plague because I can't handle the hangover at work and also it is counterproductive to waking up and going to the gym in the morning). I think I only had like 4 or 5 drinks but they pour them so strong here. I haven't seen any bartender do anything other than free-pour since getting here! I kind of remember having a conversation with my co-workers involving fingers and butt-holes and I remember drunkin calling my sister at her work (Canada is 3 hours earlier in time than Bermuda). I also made the boyfriend make me quasadillas and crackers and cheese when I got home! Needless to say, I didn't make it to the gym this morning and I had a major headache all day! That'll teach me not to drink on a weeknight again anytime soon!

Thursday, April 17, 2008

10 Intricacies of the Island

Bermuda is very much the same but very different than Canada. You can get all the modern necessities of home (good cable, internet, etc.) but it costs a bunch more. For example, I pay $130/month for internet that I could get at home for $35.

Some other weird things about the island:

1. Lots of locals like to get their nails done in hideously long acrylics with horrible multi-color designs. Seriously how the hell do they type or work a cash register with those things. They just aren't practical!

2. Grocery stores suck here. All the stores are pretty much like the Asian/Indian corner stores you have at home (you know the ones where they go to Superstore and buy a bunch of shit and sell it back to you for jacked-up prices) except for Lindos. That grocery store is almost like one at home but their produce is horrendous and it keeps pretty much the same hours as a bank.

3. The locals accents sound like a mix of ghetto and British. It is quite funny.

4. Even though this island is only 23 miles long, most people will refuse to go to Sommerset or to St. George which is basically the equivalent of leaving the downtown core in Cowtown. Some cabs sometimes refuse to go to those areas because "they don't have enough gas". I find myself falling into the trap of the locals (sticking near the middle of the island). To see what I am talking about see this map.

5. The high school drop-out rate here is staggering. Apparently about 50% of kids who start high school, won't finish! That's crazy. At home, there are only a few fuck-ups that don't make it through but in Bermuda, the fuck-ups are close to the majority.

6. People, even customer service people, get pissed off if you don't start you question with "Hi, how are you?" before asking for something. I kind of like this about Bermuda. We should start this at home.

7. There is a dude here named Johnny Barnes, that gets up every morning at 4:30am and goes to the main roundabout before downtown Hamilton and waves and yells "Hello" and "I love you" to all the passerbys. He has been doing this, rain or shine, for 67 years. I heard he once checked himself out of the hospital one morning (when he was an inpatient) to go to the roundabout. The city recently gave him a community service award for this and they have built a statue of him. In Cowtown they would just arrest him because they thought he was crazy. He makes me smile every morning and I wouldn't trade him for the world.

8. In Bermuda there are 3 lanes of traffic. 2 oncomings and 1 middle lane which the bikes go down. It is great if you are on a bike though because you can zoom through a long ass line of cars. It is scary to do, especially on Middle Road, because the roads are so tight and they are surrounded by rock walls. Also, people use their horns to say hello to their friends, neighbors, etc rather than alert someone that they are doing something wrong. It takes a little getting used to and sometimes, when I am actually getting honked at due to my inferior driving skills, I don't even realize it.

9. At my work here and in social settings, it is customary, when the whole work goes out for lunch, to split the bills evenly among everyone. Who cares who got the alcoholic beverages or who ordered a steak; it get split right down the middle. I find this weird because in addition to my firm not covering any meals (which is quite a change from the 1-2 eating out meals I would have on my old firm in Cowtown), I have to foot the bill for people who eat a lot more than me. I think the boyfriend likes this because he usually ends up ordering the most expensive beef dish on the whole menu even when he is paying for himself.

10. You can't buy alcohol here after 9pm or on Sundays (unless you go to a restaurant). I guess its because of the large population of religious people on the island. There are also no casinos. There is one gambling establishment that give you 90 cents on the dollar of everything you win (because they have to pay the rest to the government).

Update: I just drove past a bus that said "Barnes Corner" on it. The awesome waving guy even has his own bus route. You go lil dude!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Catching Y'all Up on My Life

Well the last couple of weekends has been filled with a lot of Karaoke and Yoga. Yah...good combination! The weekend before last my work had a Karaoke party. Why Karaoke you ask? Well since over half my office is staffed by a bunch a sweetheart Filipinos and Filipinos go with Karaoke like white on rice. I thought Karaoke was more a Japanese thing, but I am informed that it is an all around Asian thing. I wish I was born Asian because as well as having a naturally slimmer body, I would get to hold regular Karaoke-thons at my house!

At the party, no one, and I mean no one, was singing at the beginning. So I ended up singing quite a lot of songs in a row. I am not a particularly amazing singer but I can keep on pitch (so I don't think I quite hurt anyone's ears). I ended up signing a bunch of stupid songs (i.e. Spice Girls Wannabe) but ended with a wonderful rendition of Love Shack with one of the partners at our firm. I was a great time and almost everyone got up by the end of the night to sing. I was kinda pissed off because I didn't even get a pity vote from the boyfriend for best performance. The best performance went to the only person that could actually sing at our firms (one of the Filipino girls). After the party we headed to an Irish pub to spend the last night with the guy who's going away party I had attended the night before. For some reason, all the boys took off their shirts. I usually wouldn't complain.....but you'd know what I was talking about with these guys. Someone needs to introduce them all to wax. "Hi wax....this is my friend BACK HAIR!"

On Saturday night I ended up going to the Folk Club which is held once a month. It's basically an open mic night where anyone can go up and play guitar and sing some songs. I had gone to go see my friends play but showed up too late and had missed them. There were tons of really cute old men singing songs. One even put on an Elvis wig and sunglasses to sing a song. It was a wicked night because they play on an outdoor stage and the drinks were decently priced. I will definitely have to catch the next show.

Last weekend, on Friday, I attended the first happy hour of the summer at the Hamilton Princess. I had heard rumors about how this is the best part of Bermuda...so I of course had to check it out. As large outdoor spaces are at a mint in Bermuda (try to stuff that many people downtown on such a small island) but the Princess has a huge open courtyard that they hold the happy hours at. Happy hours at home usually mean cheap drinks, so it kind of sucked to pay $7 a drink but the atmosphere was wicked. They had a live band, the weather was great and they poured the drinks strong.

I stayed there only for a little while because we headed over to the Irish bar to attend a triple-threat birthday (for 3 of the guys that i hang out with frequently). Again they had a Karaoke machine. The song list for this machine sucked ass! Half the book was filled with country (yo we are in Bermuda not in Cowtown!) and there was nothing past 1999. Since there was a large number of friends there (not just nice Filipinos and some other random work people) so I was a little shier this time. I wanted to find the perfect stupid song to sing as I was not about to test out a song where you need to sing well with this group. I was hoping for Sir Mixalot's Baby's Got Back but had to Settle for Ganstas Paradise. I laid down. I am so white that I am black yo! I also rapped Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby later on. I had a great time that night with much too much drinking. But pretty much everyone turned up!

On Saturday I played in a Rugby tournament. I was hoping to pull off another 5 tries but alas I only got one. The girls seemed to be much more on the ball this time (and I sat off the first half of the first game). After the game we went to the Robin Hood and a couple of drinks (they had sponsored the tourney) and hung out. I found out that the girls from my rugby team do a yearly "tour". I thought that meant that they go down to somewhere and play rugby. I later found out that it is a bonding trip that involved no rugby. We are going to New York for Labour Day weekend. I can't wait. Screw the rugby! I can't wait to go out in New York!

Other than that I have still been keeping up with my training for the half marathon I am running on May 26th. I have never done a half marathon before because of my knee (I have IT Band Syndrome which makes it feel like someone is stabbing my knee with a knife if I run for longer than 30 minutes). But I have been doing a bunch of exercises that I was given by my physiotherapist last year and my knee has been holding up really well. The longest I have run so far is 7 miles. I am only going to run up to about 9 miles before the race because apparently with all the adrenaline you can make it the full 12 miles, therefore you don't need to run the full distance during training. I have about 5 and 1/2 more weeks of training.

I also started two yoga classes. The first class was on the suggestion of a client I have here. It is a type of yoga that I had never heard of called Iyengar Yoga. It is very strict. My experience, in the past, has been with Ashtanga which is strict in the sense of the series of poses you do (they are done in a certain order and are held for a certain amount of breaths) but Iyengar Yoga is strict in how you actually do the poses. So I had to start at the very bottom. I am the most flexible person in my class which is funny because I can't even touch my toes. We use a lot of props (chairs, blocks, blankets, bolsters) in the class so that everyone can do the poses. I think that the props will eventually disappear after we train our muscles to hold the poses themselves. The class is taught by a senior citizen lady with 25 year old boobs. She seriously has a sweet rack! I like it so far. I am an anal type person (not bum sex but I like structure) and this is an anal type yoga. I am also taking a yoga class at the aquarium. It is just the regular type of yoga (a Vinyasa Flow class) but the location is awesome. We do yoga right in the middle of all the giant fish tanks. It's a more challenging class (the Iyengar class is not a very good workout so far because you spend more time watching the teacher and being adjusted, than actually in the poses) and it helps that the instructor is pretty damn hot. I sometimes purposely screw poses up so that he comes and adjusts me! Allegedly he's married (not that I really care).

This weekend we are having some friends over for ribs (the boyfriend cooks some mean ribs), I am getting my hair dyed (I haven't gotten it dyed since I got here! Eeek!) and I am going to my convocation for becoming a Chartered Accountant. Should be a good time!

Thursday, April 03, 2008

Beach Party in March! LOVE IT!

Sorry this is a bit late, considering the next weekend is starting very soon, but I thought I should recap my last weekend. Friday was pretty fun. Me and the boyfriend went for a couple of drinks after work and then ended up getting drunk at home just the two of us. Why? Because we can! It was a fun night of randomly dancing and generally being silly. I enjoyed it thorougly.

On Saturday I spent the entire day trying to convince myself to go for a 6 mile run (as was on my half-marathon training schedule) but finally got around to doing it. I ended up getting a nice sunburn on my face and shoulders but at least I got the run in. I have to run 7 miles this weekend which I am definitely not looking forward to at all! On Saturday night we went to a beach party on the property of one of the partners at the accounting firm I work at. I was a going-away party for this really fun guy whom I didn't get to know that well as I have only been on the island for 3 months (one of which he was in Canada for). He's an awesome guy though and I will be sad to see him go, despite the unfamiliarity. The party was awesome. Picture 30 people sitting around a fire on a secluded white sand beach in March!!!! That wouldn't happen at home.

I figured that someone was going to burn themselves at some point during the time (as everyone was grabbing random pieces of wood and even an abandoned Christmas tree and throwing it in the fire) but the accident de la soir was a girl tripping over coral and bustin her knee open. Usually I cannot look at such stuff, but I glanced over, unaware of what was going on (before it was too late) and saw this gal's knee. It was disgusting. I don't want to go into details, but she fell so hard that it looked like someone had taken an axe to her knee. The poor dear had only moved to the island about a week ago so I hope to god her medical insurance had kicked in. I heard she had 23 internal stitches and 3 external ones to seal up the wound. The weird thing is that she was very calm; even when the ambulance came. I hope she is okay now (I didn't really know who she was).

Sunday was pretty lazy but me and a friend caught a Bermuda Film Festival movie called XXY. It was a very controversial subject but a really good movie. I highly recommend it. On Monday and Tuesday I saw another two really good movies called OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies and a movie called Young People Fucking. The best movie I saw from the film fest was the Young People Fucking movie. First, it was by a Canadian and next, how can you not like a movie with a title like that. Actually, truth be told, it was a brilliant movie. Basically followed 5 groups of people (I say groups because one is a pair plus one!) through one sexual encounter. Very awkward but a good laugh!

This weekend should be a good time too. Going to go to a Karaoke party with work and for a fancy dinner on Saturday night. The party should be fun, as I work with a bunch of quiet Filipinos who apparently are known to let loose when it comes to Karaoke. Can't wait. Should be amusing to say the least.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

50 Random Things About Me

1. I crave Cadbury's Chocolate more than I crave sex (don't get me wrong both are flying around my mind on a regular basis!)
2. I have unlimited text messages on my phone but only send about 10 a month (ya waste of money!)
3. I have a nasty habit of picking at my cuticles and the only way I have ever cured it was by getting acrylic tips (hmmm maybe I should do that again)
4. I like the taste of fake banana (think banana shakes made with syrup at Dairy Queen) more than real banana
5. Speaking of Dairy Queen, I worked at the one in my hometown for 6 years (ya I know I am awesome!)
6. I worked in the plumbing department at Home Depot for a spell too
7. I hate being cold at all (I have a heater blowing at my desk at all times)
8. When I am doing most things in life I wish they were over (i.e. I keep checking my watch frequently)
9. The only things that I don't ever wish to hurry up and get done are movies that make me laugh so hard I could pee (Old School, 40 year-old virgin, etc) and hiking
10. I own a scooter and that is how I get around
11. Getting groceries on a scooter is a bitch therefore I miss my Rav4 from home
12. My favorite country on earth is Thailand because I love the food so much
13. I think the best non-authentic thai food is from Thai Express (yes the chain setup that you find in malls in Canada)
14. I have never felt challenged (overall) at any job as of yet (ie I feel as though I could surf the internet for 4 hours and then do a little bit of work and still get praise for doing a good job)
15. I live on an island that is 23 square miles yet I have never driven from one end to the other
16. When I go to the beach I prefer to read and tan and I dislike going in the water
17. I have my advanced diving certificate
18. When I was 20 I was supposed to go to Australia for 1 year and my flight would have left on September 11, 2001 (I ended up going later)
19. My best friend ever is my sister; though she can be judgmental at times, it is often what I need to hear
20. I love my sister's husband (no not like that) and I think that he and my sister are going to have the most beautiful kids ever
21. The best thing I have ever ate in my life is fried macaroni balls from the Macaroni Grill
22. If I could change anything about myself it would be my thighs - I wish they were thinner but damn soccer has turned them into monsters!
23. I picked my bracket for March Madness based on association (for example I picked Wisconsin because I like cheese and I picked Duke because that is the university that Nathan from One Tree Hill wants to go to when he grows up). I am currently in last place in my pool.
24. I only cook 2 things: Enchiladas and Thai Pita Pizzas (yes the boyfriend is a lucky man)
25. I hated red wine up until a year ago (damn J!) and now I hate white wine because red is so good in comparison
26. I hate when I have new mail in my inbox and I have to click on it so that it is no longer highlighted as "not read"
27. I think Facebook is kind of lame now but cannot stop checking it
28. I think my single friends are the most deserving of boyfriends and my friends that are in couples aren't as deserving (this is not as a rule though)
29. I have little stretch marks on my thighs and I don't care!
30. I have a natural weight of between 140 and 145 and I can't seem to weigh more or less no matter how hard I try
31. The thing I miss the most about home are Wendy's Junior Cheesburgers and Tim Horton's French Vanilla
32. My boyfriend's parents own the best ice cream shop on earth and I am tempted to fly home just to go to the store and get some ice cream
33. My boyfriend's parents are the first parents I have actually liked out of all the boyfriends I have ever had (if we ever broke up, I might even miss them more than him!)
34. I lose my big toenail on my right foot atleast once a year due to soccer cleats being too tight (but damn I can kick the ball)
35. The only reason I am good at sports is because I can run fast (I do not have any ball handling skills whatsoever - with my hands or feet)
36. When I was in high school I was in the chorus of the following musicals: Bye Bye Birdie and Pajama Game
37. At the end of grade 10, I was asked to leave the advanced placement program at my school because my personality didn't fit the typical smart person personality (despite the fact I got high grades)
38. I have ADHD and I think it makes me interesting!
39. I haven't found any really close girlfriends yet on the island and that makes me sad (I miss you J, G and S!)
40. Both times I have gone to Vegas I have cried due too incidents involving too much alcohol and too much gambling
41. There are no good clothes shops on the island and that has been the best money saver ever for me (now only if they could shut down e-bay)
42. I hate the taste of non-diet pop. Aspartame is good!
43. I love yoga but I am the most inflexible person on earth (I guess that's what playing sports hardcore for 15 years without ever properly stretching does to you)
44. When I settle down, I want to move back to home my home town, even though, my entire life, I said that I couldn't wait to get out of there
45. I think there is nothing better than watching Law and Order SVU (sexy crimes!)
46. I hate the Stampede (large rodeo that is put on every year in Cowtown)
47. I think cowboys and army guys are the sexiest (I think I am going to love the movie Stop Loss coming out soon)
48. I can think of a list of the top 10 sexiest woman in Hollywood but cannot think of a list of the top 10 sexiest men (am I gay?)
49. I don't really miss not playing soccer (but I miss the tournaments!)
50. I want a puppy but I want to travel so I have to wait for a while before that is going to happen and that makes me sad

Monday, March 24, 2008

Chocolate Eggs are the Devil!

I had a really good Easter weekend (my first official holiday on the island). I discovered the world's most wonderful thing: Galaxy Mini Eggs. What do you get when you cross the best year-round chocolate bar with the best holiday treat? Well you get sweet, sweet heaven! Love it!

On Friday I went on a booze cruise. It was a fundraiser for my rugby team. The boat we were on was pretty small. We had originally booked a 500-person boat but the rental company decided to perform maintenance on the boat and informed us about a week before the cruise. So we had to halt sales of tickets immediately. The boat we were on was supposed to fit about 220 people but we had sold 250 tickets. So ya....it was a tight squeeze. Me and some of my Canadian friends spent the first half of the cruise on the front of the boat until it got wayyyyyy too windy. We then moved it inside for a bit and then onto the roof of the boat. I was drinking swizzles (rum with fruit punch - but you can only taste the fruit punch) for the first half of the night (they came out of giant orange gatorade coolers) until it was suggested that I switch to something else because apparently the swizzles are like crack and will turn on you and before you know it, you will puking off the side of the boat.

I successfully did not puke off the side of the boat. I stuck mostly to rum and diet coke's. Even though they were poured half and half, I still managed to keep track of how many I had drank by stacking all my cups. Once I finished a drink, I stacked the next drink in the last drink's plastic cup. That way I wouldn't lose track. Yes...I know genius! Highlights of the cruise included playing "Boob or Bum". "Boob or "Bum" is a game I created by taking pictures of my butt crack and my cleavage (very close up so all you can see is the slit) and getting people to guess which is which. This was the best round ever. I have never had my butt crack look more like boob cleavage. Everyone guessed wrong! Also, there were these people on the boat that were playing "Dentist Chair" and they would keep grabbin people and shoving them in a chair and then throwing a combination of straight vodka and rum down their gullets. I was naive enough to go "What's up with this chair?" and proceeded to get restrained into the chair and had said alcohol poured down my throat! Bastards.



Here is me getting "chaired".

On Friday I went to Horshoe Bay to fly kites. Man flying $5 kites are a bitch. On Thursday, I grabbed the last kite available (Yu-Gi-Oh themed) to fly on Friday. It is a tradition on the island to fly kites on Good Friday. Other traditions include eating fish cakes on hot cross buns (yuck). I did not partake in the latter. It was a pretty nice day out. It was sunny with a bit of a breeze. Saw just about everyone I knew at the beach and finally got the kite in the air after almost losing it on the boyfriend (man that was frustrating!) On Friday night me and the boyfriend went out for supper to Blu (restaurant on Bellmont Golf Course). It was really good. I had the lamb and he had the prime rib. I felt very cheap though because we were using these coupons we had that we purchased earlier on in the month were you get 3 full meals for $130 (appetizer + entre + dessert) and we kept having to ask which meals were included in the deal. The waitress tried the best she could not to roll her eyes. Well we would've ordered two entrees and one appetizer if we hadn't had the coupon so she should be happy to get the extra added tip (they automatically add 15% gratuity to all meals here on the island). The meal was really good but there was this obnoxious British girl that was half way across the restaurant who spoke so loud that it would have been offensive even if she had been sitting across from me at the volume I heard (being half way across the restaurant).



Here is me trying to fly a kite.



Here is the beautiful beach I can get to in a 20 minute drive.

On Saturday I played in the Easter Seven's Tournament. As I am the new girl on the team, I usually only get to play about 5 minutes in each game. Because a couple of the players that are never off the field were either off-island or were playing on the tackle team that weekend, I got to play the entire time. And let me tell you. I did well! I ended up getting 2 tries in the first game and 3 in the 2nd. I had the most tries out of anyone in the tournament (on any of the teams). Hopefully I will have proven that I deserve to start now and will get a bit more playing time! I watched the end of the tackle rugby game between the island team and the team that was down from NYC and we got rocked badly. Oh well....girls playing tackle on the island is a new concept and they have no one to practice against all year. After the games we went out to the bar for the after-party. It was pretty fun but only the tackle girls were out and none of my tag team.



This is my beautiful team.

On Sunday it pissed down rain. So I spent the whole day inside (bar going to the gym to run 6 miles on the treadmill - staying on track with my half-marathon training schedule!) I watched a couple of movies (Karate Kid and Duplex). And then ate a wonderful Easter dinner cooked by the boyfriend. He is a wicked cook. I also baked some cookies....because I really needed more fat after ingesting enough chocolate eggs to feed a small village for a month. I hope everyone had a wicked Easter weekend. Back to work today! Next weekend should be fun as it a going away party for a guy that is friends with practically everyone on the island. He will be dearly missed!

Monday, February 25, 2008

My Damn Arm is Falling Off

Well I have had the weekend from hell. So on Friday me and the boyfriend got in a small fight over a stupid prank he pulled on me that I thought went too far. So needless to say, Friday night, I wanted to go get my drink on, sans the boyfriend. So me and a couple of guys from work drank in the boardroom for a while. I was supposed to meet the boyfriend at the bar for somebody's going away party whom I didn't know (yes I will miss them dearly?) at 7pm. But I got caught up in drinking and chatting in boardroom that I didn't show up to the pub until about 9pm. The boyfriend had gone home as he knew only one person there (the rest of the people he knew were with me drinking in the board room). At about 2pm that afternoon I started to experience a sharp pain in my elbow. The scariest thing about it, is that I had not banged my elbow on anything, so I found it really strange considering it hurt so bad.

The next morning, I awoke to a very red and swollen elbow. It was so bad that I forced the boyfriend, who, bless his soul, even though he was mad at me for being a no-show at the pub the night before, drove all the way to work to get my helmet out of my bike and then drove back to our place to pick me up and take me to the hospital. When I got to the hospital, it wasn't that busy because Bermudians are kind of lazy and can't get their asses out of bed until about 11am on a Saturday morning.



My hot-ass arm. It only got worse from this point. Note the circle drawn around the swelling. It about doubled in size from this picture at its worst point!

So I saw a doctor and he said I had an infection and that I needed to go on antibiotics. Usually you get the infection through a cut or bug bite, but strangely I had no such item on the end of my elbow (where the swelling was). So the doctor geared me up with a sling (because it hurt so bad to straighten my arm) and a prescription for antibiotic pills. I think the boyfriend was having sympathy pains because he had a bug bite on his arm that seem to be swelling (though at a much less alarming rate) as well. The nurse also drew a circle around my arm with a pen and told me to come back if the redness and swelling extended out of the circle (as that meant that the oral antibiotics were not doing their job and they would have to put me on IV antibiotics). My arm ended up swelling more so I went back to the hospital and the nurse pretty much laughed at me and told me to come back only if it was swollen significantly outside of the line (it was only about an inch outside the line at this point). She then sent me packing, slightly embarrassed.

On Saturday night we had some friends over and we ate ribs (an amazing feat for me considering I only had one functioning arm) and played Mario Party 8 on Wii (fun game that you'd think guys would be better due to the overwhelming amount of vigorous arm shaking involved). I ended up being able to eat all my ribs and I ended up schooling the boyfriend and our guests at the Wii game! Pretty good for a gimp! I felt so bad for ditching the boyfriend the night before and since the boyfriend was being so nice (he had to make all the food and clean up as I was useless with one arm) I let him go out that night with our guests to another party. Apparently it was the 2nd annual Fryalation party (these people threw the same party last year) where they fry up anything and everything and consume it. Considering the lack of activity I would be experiencing until my arm healed, and the lack of alcohol I was able to drink due to its potential to render my antibiotics ineffective, I was more than happy to give it a miss. I would normally offer to DD but I couldn't operate a bike with one arm.

The next day I woke up and my arm had swollen a bit more but I wanted it to be significantly more swollen before I returned to the hospital and dealt with that evil nurse again. On Sunday afternoon, the "Canadians in Bermuda" club was holding their annual bowling event. Since bowling is about the only sport I could do with one arm, I did not cancel (as many people suggest I did). I scored the lowest on our team in the first two games but I beat the most competitive person in the third game. I think I did decent considering my balance was thrown off by having my left arm in a sling. I named myself Tit, my friend Ass, and the boyfriend Poo.



Here is my patriotic outfit. I have a Canadian flag on my back and note my awesome hair and makeup (yep can't do much with only one functioning arm!)



Here is my sweet ass bowling form. I sling really throws you off balance!

When I returned home I got the boyfriend to inspect the arm, and alas, the redness and swelling had almost doubled in size since the nurse had drawn the circle, so I finally accepted the fact that it may be time to return to the hospital to get hooked up with some IV goodness. When I got there, the nurse concurred that I needed to get an IV. So he put the IV in the most inconvenient place ever (in the crease of my arm) and he put it in my right arm (which basically rendered both arms useless now instead of just the one). Life is hard when you can't straighten either arm! Let me tell you! I ended up bleeding all over the bed and then the nurse didn't even clean it up (he just took the paper off the bed) before sending me home. I hope to god they cleaned that bed before the next patient came along. I was also informed that I would have to come to the hospital 3 times a day (every 8 hours) for IV injections of antibiotics. Also, that I would have to wait, in emergency, each time to get the injections. I don't know if you have ever had the privilege of waiting in an emergency room for a long period of time, but the prospect of having to do so 3 times a day for the next few days was a grim one.

I decided to take the first couple of days off of work. I wanted to go to work, but the boyfriend insisted that I stay home and rest my arm. I guess it made sense considering I would be useless without the use of my arms. So right now I am sitting at home, bored out of my tree, waiting for the boyfriend to come home from work. i have about 200 channels on my TV, but I swear to god nothing is on! But hoorah, I have to go wait in the emergency waiting room for god knows how many hours another two times today. At least that will fill my time!