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!
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
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!
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!
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.
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
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!
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!
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!
Monday, February 18, 2008
Fight Night!
Sorry, I have been gone for a while because I had an unfortunate mishap with my arm (I will explain more in my next post) and I have been generally busy enjoying life here in Bermuda. So to recap the Fight Night Weekend: Friday I just laid low in order to save my energy for Saturday night (Fight Night!) and watched some TV. On Saturday morning, I went to go pickup a sofa-bed from a lady across town but the movers didn't show up. So we gave them a call, and they said they had forgotten about us. So they finally showed up about an hour and a half late. Well it was the first nice weekend day since we moved to the island, so the boyfriend went and got some coolers and chocolate and we sat on the couch, on this lady's lawn (she had to take her daughter to a birthday party) and basked in the sun. The movers finally showed up and we went and picked up our BBQ as well (I love that frickin' thing and have used it every night since I got it!)
On Saturday afternoon we headed to a friends house to go to a pool party. It wasn't all that warm out, so the pool was more a centrepiece to our party than a functional part of it. A couple of people jumped in but I left that to the brave. Also, after finally getting my hair straight (which is a feat and a half in this humid weather) I did not want to destroy said hair with a swim. We drank (alot) and had some BBQ. One thing I noted is that beef in Bermuda is wayyyyyy worse than beef in Cowtown. They are not exaggerating when they go on about Grade A Alberta beef being of much higher quality than beef from anywhere else. It's edible, but nothing to write home about. All the usual suspects were at this party (including the Naked Guy). Highlights included drinking Magaritas out of a Margarita maker that was acquired by the host of the party from the local hardware store in an effort to use up his $15,000 credit he won in a draw before he leaves the island (at the end of April); Naked Guy wrapping himself up in only wrapping paper after a lull in the party on the insistence of his drunk wife, who screamed "PARTY BOY! NOW!" in a plight to entertain off-island guests that were staying with them; Naked boy and two others showing up in their matching hideous Hawaiian shirts; Naked boy and company jumping on the bed demonstrating the sexual norms of having a three-way with same-sexes; the Boyfriend and another person using a wrapping paper tube to "Get all Dominatrix"; etc.
After the afternoon party, we headed, in cabs, downtown to attend the legendary Fight Night. Fight Night is a fundraiser held by one of the rugby teams on the island where anyone can train (with the local boxing outfit) as long as the get in the ring and fight on Fight Night. So basically, a bunch of locals (ie amateurs) fighting each other. Good fun though and an excuse to get ridiculously drunk. Drinks were only $4 each and they poured them with about 75% alcohol and 30% mix. Needless to say everyone got way too drunk, and a night that should have lasted into the wee hours of the morning, ended, for most, after the event.
The fighting was fun but it ended up being only a background to the drinking schenanigens for me and my crew. I somehow got convinced to play in the rugby game on the following morning (which I knew I would be ridiculously hung-over for and unprepared as I had only had one training session prior to the game). I ended up having to go home early because the boyfriend (who was way past drunk) locked himself out of the house and insisted that I had punched him in the face because he had a chipped tooth. I went back to my place and explained to him that I had accidentally bumped him and his teeth smashed together (thus chipping his teeth).
My other friend decided (at 11pm) that he should sleep it off in the office (which is a 5 minute walk from where the event was held) but was dangerously drunk, so Naked Guy decided to follow him to the office to make sure he was safe. Right by the office, there is a 24 hour gas station and when he approached the office, 5 suspicious looking characters followed him up the ramp to our front door but Naked guy called out to him to make sure he was okay and the suspicious characters ran off (god knows what they were up to). Naked boy came home to a very drunk wife who proceeded to tell him to get the hell out, drove his bike to the office (as he had guests on the couch) to get some shut-eye. The other guy that was sleeping at the office, awoke at 6am and decided he needed to get home. Him and Naked Guy both have the exact same scooter so he somehow grabbed Naked Guys helmet and tried to start his bike with his own key (which obviously didn't work). He then got in a cab with Naked Guys helmet (it is still unclear to me why he took his helmet). Naked guy awoke with no helmet and had to walk home (there are crazy steep fees to pay if you are caught driving without a helmet here).
On Sunday I played in my first flag rugby game but had no clue what I am doing. I know the basic rules of rugby and the movements/plays that should be occurring from my short foray in the tackle rugby world back at home, but had no idea what to do with the flags once I pulled someone's off or had mine removed. I left the game more confused than I had came but I have straightened it out since in training. We won the game 11 to 0. My team rocks and I am glad I chose the first place team (well Google chose it as it was the first team to show up when I searched for "Women's rugby in Bermuda")
On Saturday afternoon we headed to a friends house to go to a pool party. It wasn't all that warm out, so the pool was more a centrepiece to our party than a functional part of it. A couple of people jumped in but I left that to the brave. Also, after finally getting my hair straight (which is a feat and a half in this humid weather) I did not want to destroy said hair with a swim. We drank (alot) and had some BBQ. One thing I noted is that beef in Bermuda is wayyyyyy worse than beef in Cowtown. They are not exaggerating when they go on about Grade A Alberta beef being of much higher quality than beef from anywhere else. It's edible, but nothing to write home about. All the usual suspects were at this party (including the Naked Guy). Highlights included drinking Magaritas out of a Margarita maker that was acquired by the host of the party from the local hardware store in an effort to use up his $15,000 credit he won in a draw before he leaves the island (at the end of April); Naked Guy wrapping himself up in only wrapping paper after a lull in the party on the insistence of his drunk wife, who screamed "PARTY BOY! NOW!" in a plight to entertain off-island guests that were staying with them; Naked boy and two others showing up in their matching hideous Hawaiian shirts; Naked boy and company jumping on the bed demonstrating the sexual norms of having a three-way with same-sexes; the Boyfriend and another person using a wrapping paper tube to "Get all Dominatrix"; etc.
After the afternoon party, we headed, in cabs, downtown to attend the legendary Fight Night. Fight Night is a fundraiser held by one of the rugby teams on the island where anyone can train (with the local boxing outfit) as long as the get in the ring and fight on Fight Night. So basically, a bunch of locals (ie amateurs) fighting each other. Good fun though and an excuse to get ridiculously drunk. Drinks were only $4 each and they poured them with about 75% alcohol and 30% mix. Needless to say everyone got way too drunk, and a night that should have lasted into the wee hours of the morning, ended, for most, after the event.
The fighting was fun but it ended up being only a background to the drinking schenanigens for me and my crew. I somehow got convinced to play in the rugby game on the following morning (which I knew I would be ridiculously hung-over for and unprepared as I had only had one training session prior to the game). I ended up having to go home early because the boyfriend (who was way past drunk) locked himself out of the house and insisted that I had punched him in the face because he had a chipped tooth. I went back to my place and explained to him that I had accidentally bumped him and his teeth smashed together (thus chipping his teeth).
My other friend decided (at 11pm) that he should sleep it off in the office (which is a 5 minute walk from where the event was held) but was dangerously drunk, so Naked Guy decided to follow him to the office to make sure he was safe. Right by the office, there is a 24 hour gas station and when he approached the office, 5 suspicious looking characters followed him up the ramp to our front door but Naked guy called out to him to make sure he was okay and the suspicious characters ran off (god knows what they were up to). Naked boy came home to a very drunk wife who proceeded to tell him to get the hell out, drove his bike to the office (as he had guests on the couch) to get some shut-eye. The other guy that was sleeping at the office, awoke at 6am and decided he needed to get home. Him and Naked Guy both have the exact same scooter so he somehow grabbed Naked Guys helmet and tried to start his bike with his own key (which obviously didn't work). He then got in a cab with Naked Guys helmet (it is still unclear to me why he took his helmet). Naked guy awoke with no helmet and had to walk home (there are crazy steep fees to pay if you are caught driving without a helmet here).
On Sunday I played in my first flag rugby game but had no clue what I am doing. I know the basic rules of rugby and the movements/plays that should be occurring from my short foray in the tackle rugby world back at home, but had no idea what to do with the flags once I pulled someone's off or had mine removed. I left the game more confused than I had came but I have straightened it out since in training. We won the game 11 to 0. My team rocks and I am glad I chose the first place team (well Google chose it as it was the first team to show up when I searched for "Women's rugby in Bermuda")
Friday, February 15, 2008
TGIF/RIP NIU Students
After a rather unventful week at work filled with client's ignoring my emails and taking off and leaving in the middle of working at their site when they won't be around for the next week, it is finally Friday! Thank goodness. I am bored as hell and can't wait to enjoy this fun filled weekend (Fight Night!)
Valentine's Day was rather unventful. The boyfriend bought me the best of the roses leftover at 10am on Valentine's Day and I showed it to the girl whose boyfriend also works in the office who had received a dozen roses and two giant balloons. She laughed. Meh, don't really care because Valentine's Day is for suckers! Good on you for not getting too far into the spirit of it boyfriend! I ended up getting some Indian Food and watching Resident Evil and drinking wine. I bought myself three bottles of wine because I have always wanted to be one of those people that had multiple bottles of wine that require the use of a wine rack.
"Oh thanks for coming over Foxworth (yes my classy friend's name is Foxworth). What would you like to drink? I have a nice Pinot Noir or a Merlot?"
Unfortunately, alcohol never lasts more than about 24 hours in our house. We buy the amount of alcohol we are likely to drink, then we drink it. I know...classy!
Well I heard about the Northern Illinois University Shooting. That freakin' sucks! And it was in a geology class. There you are, bored out of your damn mind, taking "Rocks for Jocks" (which is what we affectionately referred to geology as at home as every degree is forced to take one science elective to get the degree), and someone comes in guns ablazin'. He didn't even go to the school anymore. Why is he not shooting up some workplace that was pissing him off, instead of these poor kids at school, with their whole lives ahead of them? The vast majority that died were 20 years old! They can't even legally drink! That's just lame. The worst thing that ever happened at my university is that someone once put poop in the projector (yes seriously poop). The guy was apparently off his meds or something. Yo buddy......they were obviously working. And the damn coward shot himself afterwards. Why not just shoot yourself and cut out the middlemen (the victims). Not enough press? Shoot yourself in a public place, but leave everyone else out of it. I wish these people at least had a stance they were fighting for...but I guess we will never know. Well my thoughts and prayers go out to the people who's family members and friends were effected by this shooting. I am so sorry that it had to happen to you guys!
Valentine's Day was rather unventful. The boyfriend bought me the best of the roses leftover at 10am on Valentine's Day and I showed it to the girl whose boyfriend also works in the office who had received a dozen roses and two giant balloons. She laughed. Meh, don't really care because Valentine's Day is for suckers! Good on you for not getting too far into the spirit of it boyfriend! I ended up getting some Indian Food and watching Resident Evil and drinking wine. I bought myself three bottles of wine because I have always wanted to be one of those people that had multiple bottles of wine that require the use of a wine rack.
"Oh thanks for coming over Foxworth (yes my classy friend's name is Foxworth). What would you like to drink? I have a nice Pinot Noir or a Merlot?"
Unfortunately, alcohol never lasts more than about 24 hours in our house. We buy the amount of alcohol we are likely to drink, then we drink it. I know...classy!
Well I heard about the Northern Illinois University Shooting. That freakin' sucks! And it was in a geology class. There you are, bored out of your damn mind, taking "Rocks for Jocks" (which is what we affectionately referred to geology as at home as every degree is forced to take one science elective to get the degree), and someone comes in guns ablazin'. He didn't even go to the school anymore. Why is he not shooting up some workplace that was pissing him off, instead of these poor kids at school, with their whole lives ahead of them? The vast majority that died were 20 years old! They can't even legally drink! That's just lame. The worst thing that ever happened at my university is that someone once put poop in the projector (yes seriously poop). The guy was apparently off his meds or something. Yo buddy......they were obviously working. And the damn coward shot himself afterwards. Why not just shoot yourself and cut out the middlemen (the victims). Not enough press? Shoot yourself in a public place, but leave everyone else out of it. I wish these people at least had a stance they were fighting for...but I guess we will never know. Well my thoughts and prayers go out to the people who's family members and friends were effected by this shooting. I am so sorry that it had to happen to you guys!
Thursday, February 14, 2008
The Dreaded V-Day
So here comes another Valentine's Day. The stupidest holiday of the year. Where, for some reason, men are supposed to spend tons of money on their girlfriend's just so they won't get bitched at and so they won't look like the lamest one out of their friend's when their girlfriends get talking to each other about how the night went down. How easy is it for them to buy the same old shit on the same day each year? Not that hard. Now give me a boy that will buy me flowers or a sweet gift on a day other than the obligatory Valentines, birthday or Christmas, then we can talk about romance. But, being told by a calendar when to be extra nice.....lame! That is why I like to keep things low-key on Valentines day. Just an excuse to get something different to eat and to watch a movie that I want to see (just for once!)
Well I went to rugby last night and had a really good time. The girls are really nice and touch rugby (sorry to those that play full-contact and would baulk at the thought of the pusiness of tag rugby) is much, much better. I loved rugby when I played and I thought that I might have the ability, once in my life, to be good at something, but I hated the tackling (especially in practices) because it freakin' hurts! I am sort of a jack at all trades but a master at none when it comes to sports. My speed and aggressiveness is welcome in any team sport and considered useful but my lack of ball handling, frisbee throwing, etc. has prevented me from ever being MVP at any time. Maybe touch rugby will be my sport. We shall see? Too bad the season is close to over and I will have to wait until next year to find out. In the meanwhile, I will train with these girls and get ready to kick some butt next year.
Well, going home soon to have the low-key Valentine's Day date. I will update y'all tomorrow on how it went down! Have a happy V-Day!
Well I went to rugby last night and had a really good time. The girls are really nice and touch rugby (sorry to those that play full-contact and would baulk at the thought of the pusiness of tag rugby) is much, much better. I loved rugby when I played and I thought that I might have the ability, once in my life, to be good at something, but I hated the tackling (especially in practices) because it freakin' hurts! I am sort of a jack at all trades but a master at none when it comes to sports. My speed and aggressiveness is welcome in any team sport and considered useful but my lack of ball handling, frisbee throwing, etc. has prevented me from ever being MVP at any time. Maybe touch rugby will be my sport. We shall see? Too bad the season is close to over and I will have to wait until next year to find out. In the meanwhile, I will train with these girls and get ready to kick some butt next year.
Well, going home soon to have the low-key Valentine's Day date. I will update y'all tomorrow on how it went down! Have a happy V-Day!
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Hump Day! Hump Day! Everyone Loves Hump Day!
Well it is my favorite day of the week.....Wednesday. Too far into the week to bitch that the weekend is never going to come but just far enough away from the weekend that it is annoying! Last night we went to our friend's house for his birthday. Many people showed up and I totally blew my Body for Life diet. I ate a butt-load of Cool Ranch Doritos (those things are better than crack to me), a bunch of cookies and some cake. Meh....I am not that fat anyways.
The boyfriend: "Cowtowngal is just on the Body for Life diet because she likes to eat alot. Instead of just having three meals a day, she gets to eat six."
Me: "Yes but they are six smaller sized meals."
The boyfriend: "Well it kind of defeats the purpose when you eat snacks of chocolate and cookies in between each of the small meals."
Me: "Touche!"
Ya I might have to revisit this whole Body for Life thing. It's good because I don't feel hungry throughout the day, but I can't keep my damn hands of chocolate!
So today I got a bill for electricity for 14 days and it is over $570. There is no friggin' way that I used $570 of electricity in 14 days. There is supposed to be a $200 deposit in there but still...$370 in 14 days is crazy. Our friends run their A/C and dehumidifier all day and night long and have a larger place than ours and their electricity bill is only, at the most, $200 for the whole month. This bill did not even include the power used by our dehumidifier as we only got it the other day! I hope there is a mistake or I will go completely broke just turning on lights and the tv!
Tonight I am going to my first rugby practice. Unfortunately the Rugby season in Bermuda is winding up (it is their last game on Sunday) but they invited me to come out anyways. I love that it is touch rugby. I loved the concept of rugby, but hated coming home bruised to shit each night after some 300 pd orangutan bowled me over. Granted it is hard for the bigger ones to catch you, but some of them can move surprisingly fast! They also play sevens, which is a really good game if you are quick. They didn't call me "Speedy" on my soccer team for nothing!
I don't have big plans for Valentine's day. My perfect Valentine's day would be:
1. Get a card with a nice sweet message written in it
2. Get some takeout food
3. Rent a movie
4. Cuddle on the couch
5. Get laid and have it take more than 10 minutes
Is that too much to ask?
The boyfriend: "Cowtowngal is just on the Body for Life diet because she likes to eat alot. Instead of just having three meals a day, she gets to eat six."
Me: "Yes but they are six smaller sized meals."
The boyfriend: "Well it kind of defeats the purpose when you eat snacks of chocolate and cookies in between each of the small meals."
Me: "Touche!"
Ya I might have to revisit this whole Body for Life thing. It's good because I don't feel hungry throughout the day, but I can't keep my damn hands of chocolate!
So today I got a bill for electricity for 14 days and it is over $570. There is no friggin' way that I used $570 of electricity in 14 days. There is supposed to be a $200 deposit in there but still...$370 in 14 days is crazy. Our friends run their A/C and dehumidifier all day and night long and have a larger place than ours and their electricity bill is only, at the most, $200 for the whole month. This bill did not even include the power used by our dehumidifier as we only got it the other day! I hope there is a mistake or I will go completely broke just turning on lights and the tv!
Tonight I am going to my first rugby practice. Unfortunately the Rugby season in Bermuda is winding up (it is their last game on Sunday) but they invited me to come out anyways. I love that it is touch rugby. I loved the concept of rugby, but hated coming home bruised to shit each night after some 300 pd orangutan bowled me over. Granted it is hard for the bigger ones to catch you, but some of them can move surprisingly fast! They also play sevens, which is a really good game if you are quick. They didn't call me "Speedy" on my soccer team for nothing!
I don't have big plans for Valentine's day. My perfect Valentine's day would be:
1. Get a card with a nice sweet message written in it
2. Get some takeout food
3. Rent a movie
4. Cuddle on the couch
5. Get laid and have it take more than 10 minutes
Is that too much to ask?
Monday, February 11, 2008
Laid-Back Weekend in Paradise
So this weekend was a pretty uneventful but relaxing weekend. And still no luck with the being sunny on a weekend front. Damn mother nature! On Friday night we got some Indian food and rented a couple of movies and just laid low because on Saturday we wanted to hit some yard sales in the morning. Yes, I said yard sales. I am not 60 years old, but I don't mind using used kitchen shit and I am kind of cheap....so that equals going to yard sales. It is nuts how much stuff people can sell here second hand. You can sell seriously anything. I saw someone selling some plastic throw-away cups that they didn't use and a used Swiffer Wetjet, etc. This country is nuts but everything is really expensive new because of the 25% tax they tack on to imports. I also ended up buying a dehumidifier. That thing is frickin wicked! I could finally sweep my floor because there wasn't a thing layer of mist over everything (my god sweeping a wet floor is probably one of the more frustrating things I have ever done) and my towel finally dried from using the week before (don't worry I shower at the gym from Monday to Friday).
On Saturday night we had a couple of friends over and we drank and played Mario Party on Wii. I love the Wii. The Wii is the best invention ever! I think I play a little too much, but whatever! Mario Party is pretty damn fun. We borrowed it from a manager at work and have played it tons since. I came home from Ultimate on Sunday to find the boyfriend playing a Mario Party a la uno. We are obsessed. Well I needed something to fill the void after Guitar Hero started to get old!
On Sunday I played Ultimate and had pretty crappy games the first two games but the last game I did well. I ended up spiking the frisbee away from two guys and scored a point and an assist. I love ultimate. I hate going but once I get there, it's a blast. Apparently they play touch women's rugby here. That is really good and I am going to look into it because I was pretty decent at rugby the one year I played but I hated being bruised from head to toe from the tackling. This weekend should be more fun because it is "Fight Night" where they turn this car park into a giant boxing ring and local Rugby players fight. Also, I hear the drinks they serve are pretty strong....sure to be a perfect recipe for some good stories!
One last thing before I go! The Grammy's were last night and I totally didn't watch them but I was surprised about the outcome when I looked at the results this morning. Amy Winehouse cleaned house this year. That must be embarassing for everyone involved as they just got beat by a girl who's lucky if she walks out of the house without her pants on her head and her shirt as pants. Hopefully this will snap her out of her bad place and motivate her to clean up her act. She is a wicked singer and I hope she eventually puts out another album. And congrats to Kanye for finally get rap album of the year. He can stop whining now!
On Saturday night we had a couple of friends over and we drank and played Mario Party on Wii. I love the Wii. The Wii is the best invention ever! I think I play a little too much, but whatever! Mario Party is pretty damn fun. We borrowed it from a manager at work and have played it tons since. I came home from Ultimate on Sunday to find the boyfriend playing a Mario Party a la uno. We are obsessed. Well I needed something to fill the void after Guitar Hero started to get old!
On Sunday I played Ultimate and had pretty crappy games the first two games but the last game I did well. I ended up spiking the frisbee away from two guys and scored a point and an assist. I love ultimate. I hate going but once I get there, it's a blast. Apparently they play touch women's rugby here. That is really good and I am going to look into it because I was pretty decent at rugby the one year I played but I hated being bruised from head to toe from the tackling. This weekend should be more fun because it is "Fight Night" where they turn this car park into a giant boxing ring and local Rugby players fight. Also, I hear the drinks they serve are pretty strong....sure to be a perfect recipe for some good stories!
One last thing before I go! The Grammy's were last night and I totally didn't watch them but I was surprised about the outcome when I looked at the results this morning. Amy Winehouse cleaned house this year. That must be embarassing for everyone involved as they just got beat by a girl who's lucky if she walks out of the house without her pants on her head and her shirt as pants. Hopefully this will snap her out of her bad place and motivate her to clean up her act. She is a wicked singer and I hope she eventually puts out another album. And congrats to Kanye for finally get rap album of the year. He can stop whining now!
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Joi de Vie
So after another hiatus......I am back. I have been settling into work and figuring out how to do my job, so time on the internet has been precious. I would have written sooner, but I tripped over the cord attaching my home laptop to the modem (ya I have been to cheap thus far to buy a wireless modem) and my computer has stopped working. Every time I boot it up it goes into a endless cycle of looking like it is going to boot into Windows and then giving me the evil blue screen of death and then restarting again. I hate the damn blue screen of death. The least it could do is stick around long enough to let me see what the error message is so I could google it and try to home-fix my computer, but alas, the thing stays up for 0.25 seconds and then disappears.
The boyfriend had lugged his desktop computer up from Canada and although it made it through a cross-ocean trip, the damn ghetto movers here in Bermuda, traveling at 40km/h for about 10 minutes, managed to destroy the thing. We are without home computers right now! We are still paying the $100 per month for internet though, which provides us with the intense surfing power of 256kb/s. But don't you worry, I ordered a new laptop from the lovely people of Dell Latin American, and when they get off their fat-asses and make the damn thing, I should return to more regular blogging. I miss the modern conveniences of living in Canada. They would have had my Dell computer assembled and sent to me within a week. In Bermuda, they will likely get it to me in a month and then charge me $300 in duty! But I guess paying $300 in duty is better than losing half my paycheques to the tax-peeps!
So I am settling into life here. Me and the boyfriend have moved out of our guesthouse and into our apartment. The place is furnished but the furniture is so crappy (read: twin bed and futon that won't convert completely upright thus destroying my back). So I have been on a mission to slowly replace the furniture in our place. I am trying to find a decent second-hand sofa-bed but the Bermudians sure do like ugly, gaudy furniture....but I don't! I am going to have to buy a new one, probably at great expense! Another fun thing about Bermuda is the damn humidity here. I usually shower at the gym in the mornings before work but I showered at home last Sunday and then didn't shower again, at home, until the following Saturday. And to my chagrin, my towel was still freakin' wet! I definitely need to get a dehumidifier! And man is sweeping all my long-ass dark hairs off the floor annoying when the floor is always damp! Driving me nuts! What do you even use to get rid of them?
So we have started hanging out with an interesting crew of people and we seem to have weekly drinking and Wii parties at someone's house. We, along with two other couples, have Wiis. Man that thing is fun. I borrowed Mario Party 8 from my manager and have been playing lots of that and Guitar Hero (which I bought the boyfriend for Christmas). One of our new buddies likes to get naked. Like all the time. I have only been here for 1 month, and in the 3 weekends of hanging out with him, I have seen him:
-Completely naked with only the Wii guitar covering his nether-regions
-Wearing a skin-tight Ace and Gary suit (that he had hand-made for Halloween last year)
-Wearing only a jock strap
-Wearing no shirt with a happy face drawn around his belly-button (the belly-button was its mouth and he made it talk)
-Wearing a lovely pair of little briefs
The guy is a riot. Very amusing! His poor wife!
Other than that, I have started playing ultimate frisbee once a week. I have never played before but it is really fun. It's a wicked workout! The thing that sucks is that there is only one other girl that plays and I have only seen her the first day I was out. I am all for equality between the sexes, but men can just run faster than me. So covering people sucks! Also, it is very intimidating when a 6'4 black man, built like a linebacker, purposely tries to scare the shit out of me on a regular basis. For example, I tried to jump to get the frisbee and he towered over me and plucked it easily out of the air and yelled "You want this little girl?" He is actually a really nice guy, as I discovered when the following week he was on my team instead of against me (it is drop-in ultimate frisbee). I have to work on some basic skills to get better at the game such as throwing a frisbee, catching a frisbee and moving to the right spot to have it be beneficial for someone to throw the frisbee to me. Meh....that'll come with time I am sure!
I also joined a yoga class put on by the Dept. of Community and Cultural Affairs of Bermuda called "Yoga for Exercise". The description reads "Learn to relax while toning and trimming your body." It is the world's worst yoga class and should be called "Yoga for senior citizens"! The lady that teaches the class has us put our mats in a circle around her and takes the first 10 minutes of the class taking attendance. Not even sure why she continues to take attendance week after week, since the people are always the same. She is teaching a class of people who range in age from 16 to about 30 but she keeps talking about osteoperosis and back-health. Also, she gets us to put aside our traditional yoga mats and lugs out the thick mats that are used for the kids gyms classes. During the first class, she took us through a really easy stretching routine (not even a yoga move in sight) and then ended up telling us to do the fish pose:
This is probably one of the worst poses for your back! This lady is clearly not qualified to teach this class and I feel like standing up and doing it for her. I think I am going to quit this class and stick to doing yoga via tv (they have this great Fit TV channel that has all sorts of good yoga shows on).
I also bought a new scooter, which I love. Here is a picture of me on it:
I am planning on taking some pretty pictures of the beautiful white and pink sand beaches here in Bermuda some weekend, but every weekend is rainy and overcast. The weather is usually beautiful during the week, while I am stuck inside at work and then turns shitty come Saturday. Seriously, get your act together weather!!!! I need photos to make my friends at home (who experienced -40 to -50 Celcius in the last little while) jealous!
The boyfriend had lugged his desktop computer up from Canada and although it made it through a cross-ocean trip, the damn ghetto movers here in Bermuda, traveling at 40km/h for about 10 minutes, managed to destroy the thing. We are without home computers right now! We are still paying the $100 per month for internet though, which provides us with the intense surfing power of 256kb/s. But don't you worry, I ordered a new laptop from the lovely people of Dell Latin American, and when they get off their fat-asses and make the damn thing, I should return to more regular blogging. I miss the modern conveniences of living in Canada. They would have had my Dell computer assembled and sent to me within a week. In Bermuda, they will likely get it to me in a month and then charge me $300 in duty! But I guess paying $300 in duty is better than losing half my paycheques to the tax-peeps!
So I am settling into life here. Me and the boyfriend have moved out of our guesthouse and into our apartment. The place is furnished but the furniture is so crappy (read: twin bed and futon that won't convert completely upright thus destroying my back). So I have been on a mission to slowly replace the furniture in our place. I am trying to find a decent second-hand sofa-bed but the Bermudians sure do like ugly, gaudy furniture....but I don't! I am going to have to buy a new one, probably at great expense! Another fun thing about Bermuda is the damn humidity here. I usually shower at the gym in the mornings before work but I showered at home last Sunday and then didn't shower again, at home, until the following Saturday. And to my chagrin, my towel was still freakin' wet! I definitely need to get a dehumidifier! And man is sweeping all my long-ass dark hairs off the floor annoying when the floor is always damp! Driving me nuts! What do you even use to get rid of them?
So we have started hanging out with an interesting crew of people and we seem to have weekly drinking and Wii parties at someone's house. We, along with two other couples, have Wiis. Man that thing is fun. I borrowed Mario Party 8 from my manager and have been playing lots of that and Guitar Hero (which I bought the boyfriend for Christmas). One of our new buddies likes to get naked. Like all the time. I have only been here for 1 month, and in the 3 weekends of hanging out with him, I have seen him:
-Completely naked with only the Wii guitar covering his nether-regions
-Wearing a skin-tight Ace and Gary suit (that he had hand-made for Halloween last year)
-Wearing only a jock strap
-Wearing no shirt with a happy face drawn around his belly-button (the belly-button was its mouth and he made it talk)
-Wearing a lovely pair of little briefs
The guy is a riot. Very amusing! His poor wife!
Other than that, I have started playing ultimate frisbee once a week. I have never played before but it is really fun. It's a wicked workout! The thing that sucks is that there is only one other girl that plays and I have only seen her the first day I was out. I am all for equality between the sexes, but men can just run faster than me. So covering people sucks! Also, it is very intimidating when a 6'4 black man, built like a linebacker, purposely tries to scare the shit out of me on a regular basis. For example, I tried to jump to get the frisbee and he towered over me and plucked it easily out of the air and yelled "You want this little girl?" He is actually a really nice guy, as I discovered when the following week he was on my team instead of against me (it is drop-in ultimate frisbee). I have to work on some basic skills to get better at the game such as throwing a frisbee, catching a frisbee and moving to the right spot to have it be beneficial for someone to throw the frisbee to me. Meh....that'll come with time I am sure!
I also joined a yoga class put on by the Dept. of Community and Cultural Affairs of Bermuda called "Yoga for Exercise". The description reads "Learn to relax while toning and trimming your body." It is the world's worst yoga class and should be called "Yoga for senior citizens"! The lady that teaches the class has us put our mats in a circle around her and takes the first 10 minutes of the class taking attendance. Not even sure why she continues to take attendance week after week, since the people are always the same. She is teaching a class of people who range in age from 16 to about 30 but she keeps talking about osteoperosis and back-health. Also, she gets us to put aside our traditional yoga mats and lugs out the thick mats that are used for the kids gyms classes. During the first class, she took us through a really easy stretching routine (not even a yoga move in sight) and then ended up telling us to do the fish pose:
This is probably one of the worst poses for your back! This lady is clearly not qualified to teach this class and I feel like standing up and doing it for her. I think I am going to quit this class and stick to doing yoga via tv (they have this great Fit TV channel that has all sorts of good yoga shows on).
I also bought a new scooter, which I love. Here is a picture of me on it:
I am planning on taking some pretty pictures of the beautiful white and pink sand beaches here in Bermuda some weekend, but every weekend is rainy and overcast. The weather is usually beautiful during the week, while I am stuck inside at work and then turns shitty come Saturday. Seriously, get your act together weather!!!! I need photos to make my friends at home (who experienced -40 to -50 Celcius in the last little while) jealous!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Life is Coming Along!
So both me and the boyfriend both passed our scooter-driving tests on Monday and are now liscenced to drive a scooter. What an epic journey that was. Well they have this thing called "island time" here. Whatever would take you like 20 minutes at home will take you about 4 hours here.
First of all, our Examiner started the test about 45 minutes late. So we both did our test and then we went inside to wait for the guy to stamp our form as "passed". So the Examiner saw one of his friends and chatted to him for 30 minutes. After that he finally gave us our cards and told us to go to the information desk. The information desk lady then gave us a number. It was about 3:05 at this point. So we waited in line. It was at number 275 and we were number 350 and 351. Finally, they processed our licence at 5pm. We then get home and the boyfriend notices that the dumb bitch who processed our licence had forgotten to put that we were able to drive motorcycles as well as scooters. This would be fine except that the island is really hilly and you need at least a 100cc bike (which is considered a motorcycle here) to pass people on these hills.
At this point the Transport Control Department was closed so I decided I would go the next day. So I went down the next day and complained. Some guy takes my licence and then goes in the back and does not emerge for 45 minutes. He then gives me a piece of paper saying that I passed for motorcycle too and then tells me to see information. I then see information lady and she gives me another number. I am like "You have to be kidding me" and everyone around me gives me a "Stupid white girl is throwing a fit for no reason look". So I sit down and wait in the waiting area. They finally call my number at about 10:30am (I had shown up at the place at 8:30am) and then act like they are doing me a favour by correcting something they should have done in the first place! Ya so needless to say, I hope I never have to go in that damn place ever again!!!!
Yesterday I bought a new scooter (a MIO 100cc cappucino coloured). I will post some photos of it when I get a chance (ie remember to bring a camera with me!) and I got a cell phone. The cell phone salesperson was pretty awesome too. She looked pissed at me when I prevented her from sending text messages for 10 minutes so she could set me up with a phone. It's not like it's not your job biatch! She also had this disgusting long-ass fake nails with some sort of decoration that looked like a spiderweb or something on them. Ah well, gotta get used to a slower-paced life. Not a good move when you come from Cowtown because everyone is so impatient at home. If you don't get served in like 10 minutes of sitting down, in Cowtown, you start to eliminate parts of the servers tip! That shit would never fly here!
First of all, our Examiner started the test about 45 minutes late. So we both did our test and then we went inside to wait for the guy to stamp our form as "passed". So the Examiner saw one of his friends and chatted to him for 30 minutes. After that he finally gave us our cards and told us to go to the information desk. The information desk lady then gave us a number. It was about 3:05 at this point. So we waited in line. It was at number 275 and we were number 350 and 351. Finally, they processed our licence at 5pm. We then get home and the boyfriend notices that the dumb bitch who processed our licence had forgotten to put that we were able to drive motorcycles as well as scooters. This would be fine except that the island is really hilly and you need at least a 100cc bike (which is considered a motorcycle here) to pass people on these hills.
At this point the Transport Control Department was closed so I decided I would go the next day. So I went down the next day and complained. Some guy takes my licence and then goes in the back and does not emerge for 45 minutes. He then gives me a piece of paper saying that I passed for motorcycle too and then tells me to see information. I then see information lady and she gives me another number. I am like "You have to be kidding me" and everyone around me gives me a "Stupid white girl is throwing a fit for no reason look". So I sit down and wait in the waiting area. They finally call my number at about 10:30am (I had shown up at the place at 8:30am) and then act like they are doing me a favour by correcting something they should have done in the first place! Ya so needless to say, I hope I never have to go in that damn place ever again!!!!
Yesterday I bought a new scooter (a MIO 100cc cappucino coloured). I will post some photos of it when I get a chance (ie remember to bring a camera with me!) and I got a cell phone. The cell phone salesperson was pretty awesome too. She looked pissed at me when I prevented her from sending text messages for 10 minutes so she could set me up with a phone. It's not like it's not your job biatch! She also had this disgusting long-ass fake nails with some sort of decoration that looked like a spiderweb or something on them. Ah well, gotta get used to a slower-paced life. Not a good move when you come from Cowtown because everyone is so impatient at home. If you don't get served in like 10 minutes of sitting down, in Cowtown, you start to eliminate parts of the servers tip! That shit would never fly here!
Monday, January 14, 2008
First Weekend in Bermuda
Well this weekend was pretty busy! On Friday night we hit up the gym. By the way, my friends from Cowtown that bitch about Banker's Hall gym being expensive at $1000 per year, they aint got nothing on the gyms here! I had to pay $1700 for a 1 year pass at this gym! That is crazy talk! Since I am a nerdy accountant type, that works out to about $8.50 per visit to the gym (if I am able to make it 4 times a week - which is freakin' unlikely!) After that, we hauled it over to a work-mates home for some burgers.
The guy who's house we went to is quite a joker. He told us all sorts of stories that ranged from when he fell asleep without his pants on in the office and a partner found him to why he failed his Chartered Accountancy exam twice and his CFA exams 3 times. He's a pretty funny guy and his wife puts up with his chananigans quite well. We then headed out to a pub. We had a few drinks there and then my work-mate bought me a Crown and Ginger (one of my favorite drinks ever), which happens to cost practically an arm and a leg here in Bermuda, and some drunk Irish dude threw a blow-up doll at my drink and smashed my drink all over my legs. First of all, what was he doing with a blow-up doll and why the hell was he throwing it. I think I shed a tear for my Crown....because Crown is a mint in Bermuda. I have to switch to rum instead....as the stuff practically comes out of the taps here. It was pretty fun there, but the highlight of my night is when they played "Soulja Boy" and I did the Soulja Boy dance along with some of the locals. I have never seen so many people give me a "Holy Shit what a cracker" look at the same time. Oh well, they didn't even know how to do the dance properly......wannabes!
On Saturday night I went with some friends to the Just for Laughs comedy show. I love me some live comedy. Most of the comedians were friggin' hilarious. One of my favorites is when, in referring to Tyra Banks, one of the comedians says "When the fuck did we start letting models talk?"
On Sunday, as I have been looking for stuff to be involved in, I joined the Bermuda Ultimate Frisbee Federation. I have never played ultimate before but let me tell you, that shit is fun. I ended up getting so into it I was trash talking the other team by the end. I am definitely going to regularily attend! Also, me and my boyfriend finally found a place to live. A really small 1 bedroom apartment, for the bargain price of $2000 per month (trust me that is actually cheap here!) My boyfriend made the comment that we will be living like students for the next 2 years. I am like "why?" because we are chartered accountants now and are making a good amount of money. He's a major cheapskate but whatever I will hopefully be able to change him a bit!
So all I have to do now is pass my scooter test later today, and my life will be almost in order!
The guy who's house we went to is quite a joker. He told us all sorts of stories that ranged from when he fell asleep without his pants on in the office and a partner found him to why he failed his Chartered Accountancy exam twice and his CFA exams 3 times. He's a pretty funny guy and his wife puts up with his chananigans quite well. We then headed out to a pub. We had a few drinks there and then my work-mate bought me a Crown and Ginger (one of my favorite drinks ever), which happens to cost practically an arm and a leg here in Bermuda, and some drunk Irish dude threw a blow-up doll at my drink and smashed my drink all over my legs. First of all, what was he doing with a blow-up doll and why the hell was he throwing it. I think I shed a tear for my Crown....because Crown is a mint in Bermuda. I have to switch to rum instead....as the stuff practically comes out of the taps here. It was pretty fun there, but the highlight of my night is when they played "Soulja Boy" and I did the Soulja Boy dance along with some of the locals. I have never seen so many people give me a "Holy Shit what a cracker" look at the same time. Oh well, they didn't even know how to do the dance properly......wannabes!
On Saturday night I went with some friends to the Just for Laughs comedy show. I love me some live comedy. Most of the comedians were friggin' hilarious. One of my favorites is when, in referring to Tyra Banks, one of the comedians says "When the fuck did we start letting models talk?"
On Sunday, as I have been looking for stuff to be involved in, I joined the Bermuda Ultimate Frisbee Federation. I have never played ultimate before but let me tell you, that shit is fun. I ended up getting so into it I was trash talking the other team by the end. I am definitely going to regularily attend! Also, me and my boyfriend finally found a place to live. A really small 1 bedroom apartment, for the bargain price of $2000 per month (trust me that is actually cheap here!) My boyfriend made the comment that we will be living like students for the next 2 years. I am like "why?" because we are chartered accountants now and are making a good amount of money. He's a major cheapskate but whatever I will hopefully be able to change him a bit!
So all I have to do now is pass my scooter test later today, and my life will be almost in order!
Friday, January 11, 2008
Cowtown Gal Becomes Beachtown Gal!
Sorry for the massive hiatus, but I have been very busy, as of late, and actually didn't have anything that interesting to talk about. But, upon the suggestion of friends, I have started this blog up again to keep my friends at home up to date with what is going on in my life.
Well I got sick of good 'ol Cowtown so I decided to move this show to a different locale. I have officially become a resident of Bermuda. In about May of last year, as I walked through a snowstorm that had no business being there at that time of year (April flowers should bring May flowers god damn it!), I turned to my boyfriend (yes I am still dating the one I was dating a new year's last year) and asked "Hey do you want to move to Bermuda?". He is a chartered accountant too so it was both super easy for us to make the move here. So he obviously agreed and fast forward to January of 2008 and we are now here!
Well lots has happened in the last year:
So I finished up work at my old workplace on December 21st and spent the rest of the xmas holidays packing and such to get ready to leave. I managed to pack all my worldly possessions into three 50 pound bags (after giving approximately four very full garbage bags of clothes that I never wore away to charity!) I brought only clothes, shoes, a bunch of bathroom crap and books here with me. It is crazy to go with so little (I typically pack the same amount just to go on a one week trip!) We left to Bermuda on the 3rd of January on the Red Eye flight to Toronto that was supposed to leave a midnight. Unfortunately the plane was two hours late which made us late to catch our plane from Toronto to Bermuda. So we landed at 8am in Toronto and the flight to Bermuda was leaving (from the other side of the airport) at 8:30am. So we hauled ass across the airport and made it to the plane before it left. Because our luggage wouldn't quite make it as fast as us, they would not let us go on the plane. Air Canada sucks, that is all I can say!
In the end, they put us on a Delta flight to JFK and then we transferred onto an American Airlines flight from there to Bermuda. Because me and my boyfriend had extra bags, they made us repay the extra bag fee for Delta (even though stupid Air Canada already had a bunch of our money for that). When waiting for them to re-route the flights, we met a man that actually worked at the place we were going to be working at in Bermuda. He helped us call the office to let my friend that was meeting us at the Bermuda airport know that we would be late. So the Delta flight ended up being 1 hour late because there was too much luggage on the plane (probably mine and my boyfriend's fault so I can't complain too much) and then the American Airlines flight was 2 hours late because customs had to search the plane for something (which was a little worrisome considering the plane came from San Fran prior to arriving to JFK!)
We finally arrived in Bermuda at about 10:30pm (we were supposed to land at noon) and then we had to go through the fun experience of going through customs as a first time resident. This is where they search your bags for stuff you are trying to smuggle into the country. In case you didn't know, Bermuda does not charge income tax to employees that work in their country. So how do they pay for roads, police, firemen, etc. you ask? By taxing the shit out of everything that is imported into Bermuda. They charge 25% on everything other than used clothes and shoes (thank god for that because my jeans collection alone would have cost me about $700) that you bring into Bermuda. My new employer had informed me of this, so they told me to write a list of all my possessions I have that were not clothes and assign them a reasonable value (i.e. what someone would pay for them if they bought them as they were today). I of course opted for a low value (all my stuff is crap anyways).
While we were waiting in line for them to search our bags, some idiot pulled a can of spices out of his bag and they exploded thus making all the customs agents and all us poor suckers that were standing in line, cough our lungs out. The damn potent shiat stayed in the air for a good 20 minutes after he put it away. It felt like the one time someone maced someone in the hallway that vented into the gym I was working out in in Edmonton. The customs agents pulled out the SARS masks which we all put on. It was funny. We all looked like there had been an outbreak of some deadly virus. I would hate to see what the relatives/friends, picking people up at the airport, thought when people walk through the doors with these masks on!
Anyways we finally got through customs, paid a small fortune in taxes, and met up with our poor friend who had been waiting since 10pm to pick us up from the airport. We caught a cab to the guesthouse we were staying at and then passed out. The next day we rented a scooter and found a grocery store. The first thing we noticed is how much everything friggin' costs here. To give you an idea, here is the price of some common household items:
My first week of work has been very uneventful because the rest of the employees are not starting until January 17th and they do not want to train me and the boyfriend (yes we both work at the same place and yes I know that this will eventually end up causing us problems!) until all the new employees arrive. So I am surfing the net all week (but getting paid!!!) Tonight I am hitting up my first Bermuda pub and then I am going to a Just for Laughs show at some Bermuda hotel. Should be fun! I will take out the camera this weekend and capture some good moments and hopefully capture the beauty of this island a little bit!
Well I got sick of good 'ol Cowtown so I decided to move this show to a different locale. I have officially become a resident of Bermuda. In about May of last year, as I walked through a snowstorm that had no business being there at that time of year (April flowers should bring May flowers god damn it!), I turned to my boyfriend (yes I am still dating the one I was dating a new year's last year) and asked "Hey do you want to move to Bermuda?". He is a chartered accountant too so it was both super easy for us to make the move here. So he obviously agreed and fast forward to January of 2008 and we are now here!
Well lots has happened in the last year:
- I went through a change in soccer teams because the coach of my old soccer team cut me from the team after I helped bring him a provincial win
- I studied all summer for my Uniform Final Examination to become a Chartered Accountant and passed that shiznit (wrote the test in September then they made me stew in my own nervousness until November 30 when they finally told us the results)
- Was a maid of honour when my little sister got married two times (haha I know what you are thinking but it was twice to the same guy - once legally in Canada and once cerimonially in the Dominican Republic)
- Went to Vegas for the second time in my life with the boyfriend and won a whole $400 (I know I am so rich) and found out that the boyfriend likes to drunkin' break up with me when he gets past a certain level of drinks (it is about at the 15 beer area) and regret/not remember it in the morning
- Went on a trip to Japan and Thailand with my friend from work to celebrate finishing our Chartered Accountancy exam
- Went to the Dominican Republic with my sister and family and friends to witness my sister getting married (let me tell you, all inclusives are fun but the food tends to shoot through your system quickly due to its poor quality - if you know what I mean). Dominican Rum is yummy and potent!
- Spent Christmas at Canmore with the family and New Year's with friends in Calgary
So all in all, it was a great year, to say the least! I am very broke now but I am rich with life experience. Well if life experience = drinking/no money!
So I own a condo in Cowtown, which I wish I had never bought, which I wanted to sell before I left. My realtor sat me down and said that I would basically only get $10,000 less than I paid for the place (less his $12,000+ in realtor fees that I would have to pay him to do so). He suggested that I wait for 6 months and sell it at that point. At this point, I had my best friend living in the condo with me so I asked her if she wanted to stay, which she did and then we set out on a search to fill the other room with a roommate. I paid money to list it on a bunch of sites and then, when I was at the wedding, one of my sister's friends asked about the place, and ta-da, he moved in. I am losing a bit of money each month but that bit of money is better than losing $22,000! I will try and sell it again after the 6 months is up. The market in Cowtown is ridiculous!!!!!!! No one is buying anything and the only people that sell are those that are willing to part with their place for $30,000 under what they list it for (and that my friends is not me!).
I also sold my car the day before I left to go to Bermuda (thank god) but have to wait for the dude that bought it from me to pick it up from my parents when he gets back from work on the rigs up North. The guy paid me a deposit but I still have to wait for a couple of weeks for the money (which would be really useful right now to pay damage deposits and to buy a scooter!) Ah well, at least I can sleep easy knowing it is sold.
So I finished up work at my old workplace on December 21st and spent the rest of the xmas holidays packing and such to get ready to leave. I managed to pack all my worldly possessions into three 50 pound bags (after giving approximately four very full garbage bags of clothes that I never wore away to charity!) I brought only clothes, shoes, a bunch of bathroom crap and books here with me. It is crazy to go with so little (I typically pack the same amount just to go on a one week trip!) We left to Bermuda on the 3rd of January on the Red Eye flight to Toronto that was supposed to leave a midnight. Unfortunately the plane was two hours late which made us late to catch our plane from Toronto to Bermuda. So we landed at 8am in Toronto and the flight to Bermuda was leaving (from the other side of the airport) at 8:30am. So we hauled ass across the airport and made it to the plane before it left. Because our luggage wouldn't quite make it as fast as us, they would not let us go on the plane. Air Canada sucks, that is all I can say!
In the end, they put us on a Delta flight to JFK and then we transferred onto an American Airlines flight from there to Bermuda. Because me and my boyfriend had extra bags, they made us repay the extra bag fee for Delta (even though stupid Air Canada already had a bunch of our money for that). When waiting for them to re-route the flights, we met a man that actually worked at the place we were going to be working at in Bermuda. He helped us call the office to let my friend that was meeting us at the Bermuda airport know that we would be late. So the Delta flight ended up being 1 hour late because there was too much luggage on the plane (probably mine and my boyfriend's fault so I can't complain too much) and then the American Airlines flight was 2 hours late because customs had to search the plane for something (which was a little worrisome considering the plane came from San Fran prior to arriving to JFK!)
We finally arrived in Bermuda at about 10:30pm (we were supposed to land at noon) and then we had to go through the fun experience of going through customs as a first time resident. This is where they search your bags for stuff you are trying to smuggle into the country. In case you didn't know, Bermuda does not charge income tax to employees that work in their country. So how do they pay for roads, police, firemen, etc. you ask? By taxing the shit out of everything that is imported into Bermuda. They charge 25% on everything other than used clothes and shoes (thank god for that because my jeans collection alone would have cost me about $700) that you bring into Bermuda. My new employer had informed me of this, so they told me to write a list of all my possessions I have that were not clothes and assign them a reasonable value (i.e. what someone would pay for them if they bought them as they were today). I of course opted for a low value (all my stuff is crap anyways).
While we were waiting in line for them to search our bags, some idiot pulled a can of spices out of his bag and they exploded thus making all the customs agents and all us poor suckers that were standing in line, cough our lungs out. The damn potent shiat stayed in the air for a good 20 minutes after he put it away. It felt like the one time someone maced someone in the hallway that vented into the gym I was working out in in Edmonton. The customs agents pulled out the SARS masks which we all put on. It was funny. We all looked like there had been an outbreak of some deadly virus. I would hate to see what the relatives/friends, picking people up at the airport, thought when people walk through the doors with these masks on!
Anyways we finally got through customs, paid a small fortune in taxes, and met up with our poor friend who had been waiting since 10pm to pick us up from the airport. We caught a cab to the guesthouse we were staying at and then passed out. The next day we rented a scooter and found a grocery store. The first thing we noticed is how much everything friggin' costs here. To give you an idea, here is the price of some common household items:
1. Toothbrush - $5.50
2. 1/2 gallon of milk - $4.35 (by the way it is powdered milk too!)
3. 2lb of frozen chicken breasts, boneless, skinless - $9.99
4. Ice cream (1/2 gallon) - $7.20
5. Normal chocolate bar - $1.25
6. Coke (6 pack of cans) - $9.00
Ya so needles to say, I may go broke buying food!
On Saturday night we were invited to a managers house for dinner. They served us a wicked meal (may be the last time I eat after taking in the freakin' price of food here!) We sat around drinking wine and bullshitting! Apparently my friend and the manager whose house we went to that night scrapbook on Wednesday nights. My manager's husband claims that they never scrapbook and just sit around drinking wine. My friend showed me her scrapbook and she had only done 3 pages in 1 whole year. Ya sounds like my kind of scrapbooking club!!!! On Sunday we took it easy and drove around the island a bit (it is only 23 square miles and has a population of about 62,000) and had a picnic on the beach. I love that I only have to drive a 1/2 mile, at the furthest, at any point on the island to reach the ocean!
My first week of work has been very uneventful because the rest of the employees are not starting until January 17th and they do not want to train me and the boyfriend (yes we both work at the same place and yes I know that this will eventually end up causing us problems!) until all the new employees arrive. So I am surfing the net all week (but getting paid!!!) Tonight I am hitting up my first Bermuda pub and then I am going to a Just for Laughs show at some Bermuda hotel. Should be fun! I will take out the camera this weekend and capture some good moments and hopefully capture the beauty of this island a little bit!
Friday, February 02, 2007
You know what makes you feel old....When your Sister, Two Years your Junior, Gets Engaged!
Well it has been quite a week here. First thing, my sister got engaged on the weekend. He boyfriend (I guess FIANCE now) proposed to her in Radium (a.k.a. the mountains) at the top of a little mountain. He acted completely uninterested in their romantic weekend getaway, set up a romantic little sit down with candles and such and then popped the question. It was their 2 year anniversary. They haven't been together for that long but they are perfect for eachother. My sister is an artist/tattoo artist and he is a DJ/caretaker for mentally challenged people. They both have weird hair/tattoos/piercings. But he is the best guy ever. He's like a brother to me and he's always there when I need him. Congrats sis! I love ya and am so proud of ya!
(Here is the lovely couple. Yes its true...we are getting a lil bit 'o color in the family. Thank god too because we are some of the palest people you'll ever meet!)
Her wedding will most likely be in the Dominican Republic and will be at the end of November. I can't wait. My sister is having 5 bridesmaid (I think that almost everyone going to the wedding will be in the wedding party...eek!) and I am a co-maid-of honor with her best friend. That's a good thing though because I want to be there for my sister but unfortunately I will be a a sucky one til the end of Sept because I am writing my Chartered Accountancy exam, for which I must study for for 2.5 months. It's a 3-day exam where they could ask you essentially anything about accounting/auditing. So I'll be quite occupied.
Other than that, I have been looking for a condo to purchase and rent out for year (then eventually move in). So this weekend I found a wicked place that was already rented out (til Dec). I love it. Its a two-bedroom, 915 sq ft place that is right off of 17th Avenue (the red mile for all you NHL Flames Fans). That may not sound that big of a place but in downtown Cowtown, most two-bedroom places are 700-800 sq ft and typically cost about $20K more. It's bright (south-facing), the floors were recently re-done and it has stainless steel appliances. So I put an offer down and I found out that I could be approved for a lot more than I thought I could for a mortgage because I have good credit. So now the offer is conditional on seeing the condo documents. I'm a little worried about the condo's reserve fund but it looks like it will be okay. It's a stressful situation but atleast I don't have to move in for a while. I decided to keep it rented out because I am getting a good raise next year and will be able to afford to live in it (with a roommate) in a year.
Yah so boring but informative post. On tap for the weekend....I am gonna relax tonight because I have been down with the stomach "flu" (I know TKW that there is no such thing) for the past 3 days. Then I am going to watch the UFC fight tomorrow night and watching the Superbowl on Sunday at my boyfriends "Eat bad food and watch the Superbowl party." Well it wont be much of a party as only me and his roommate are invited....but it's fun to pretend.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Crazy Ladies, Non-Gay Bars and Big Texans
Well I am nearing the end of my trip to Houston for two-fun filled weeks for work. During my stay, I resided mostly at the Holiday Inn Express in West Houston. Let me tell you...DO NOT STAY THERE! Why you ask? WHY? Because they have taken crap-hole hotel to the next level. Well to be fair, the hotel was fine last week but this week has been the week from hell.
First, on Monday night, at 1am, I awoke to a loud beeping sound. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out that no, I did not cause this sound. I was so confused that I spent about 2 minutes trying to turn off my alarm (which I finally figured out was set for 6:30am) and then about 2 minutes trying to figure out that my heater wasn't making that sound (yes I have great deductioning logic at 1am). So I poke my head out of the door and I see smoke. I am like oh my god I am going to die. So I do what any logical person would do, I grabbed my pair of Citizen of Humanity Jeans and put them on and ensured that all my new clothes that I just bought were in a bag. Then I placed my work computer as close I could to the door (I wanted that son of a bitch to burn, burn, burn, so I would have an excuse to stop working). I then made sure that I had my camera and other important items like my passport. This took me about 5 minutes. Then I was out the door. It turned out it was the heater in the hall (closest to my room) that apparently hadn't been turned on for months that had started to smoke. I learnt an important lesson about myself...apparently I value clothes more than my own life. I am so sad. In ten minutes, with the proximity of that heater to my room, I would have surely perished, had it actually caught on fire. But damn I would be one hot charred body (my new Citizen jeans and all).
But no the Holiday Inn fun does not stop there! On Tuesday night, the hot water stopped working. So they get someone in to fix it on Wednesday. On Wednesday night I get a letter under my door that apologizes but the valve that needs to be replaced for the hot water to work needs to be flown in and will be there in the morning. This is an exact quote from the letter: "The good news is that the cold water is still working." Wow thanks holiday inn, I am so happy that we have not reverted to third world status, sans running water, as one expects when paying $125 US a night for a crappy room.
So, you ask, what else could go wrong. Well I come back to my room last night (Thursday) and I get a another note under my door that says that, hoorah, the hot water is back, but that the only way to know for sure is to test it out. I'm like....oh thank god a hot shower. Then I scan to the bottom of the letter and there is a lovely post script. It says: Oh by the way our T-1 phone lines are not working and that they have been working on it all day. This normally wouldn't be that big of a deal, but I had just left the client site at 8pm (even though I had like 2 more hours of work to do) in hopes that I could just curl up in my pajamas and do some work back at the hotel because I had spent 12-13 hours a day sitting in the same office out at the client site that week. But alas, I needed internet access for the work I needed to do. At this point I just said "Meh" I guess that is what is to be expected. So this morning, when I went to check out of my hotel, I complained and they offered me 25% off of my room. How does that help me though? My company pays for my hotel...so thanks for putting some more money in the partners pockets. So I made them give me some extra hotel points. Maybe I can get enough to stay at another crappy Holiday Inn. One can only hope.
Well the rest of the trip was decent (other than the long-ass days of work). We (as in me and my co-worker) spent the weekend in downtown Houston and stayed at the cutest little boutique hotel called the Hotel Derek that was right by the Houston Galleria mall. Let me tell you that mall was the highlight of my trip. I love it! So many nice stores. I didn't bother going in the Coach, Versace, etc because the sales people didn't appreciate my $15 Target-bought shoes. So I stuck to the Nordstroms, Macy's, Fossils, etc. I managed to buy a new watch, some new Citizen of Humanity jeans (which I am currently in love with) and some shirts. We also ate at this wicked restaurant called the Cheesecake Factory and at the best freakin cheesecake and appetizers I have ever had. I had a chocolate chip cookie dough-peanut-butter cheeescake and fried macaroni and cheese balls (yumm!) I had all these brilliant plans to eat at all these amazing places downtown but after that massive lunch, I couldn't bring myself to eat anything for like 24 hours.
(This is a pic of me, the co-worker and one of the random gals we met at Rich's).
Other than that, the trip was pretty uneventful. I ate alot of food and learnt to ask for half-portions (explaining why there are alot of "glandurally-challenged" people in Houston"). Also, the weather was nice up until the day we got to Houston (it rained so much and there was even frost one day) and then got nice the day we left. So that kind of was a bummer!
So last story to leave you with is the lovely surprise when I checked my voicemail last night. I had 3 messages from a crazy East-Indian lady who claimed that I am shacked up with her ex-husband. She kept saying that all she wanted to do was talk to her son and kept telling me that her ex-husband is crap in bed. She left her phone number and I am debating calling her and telling her that she has the wrong number but she seemed pretty loco. I am scared she make think that I am lying and that I am in fact sleeping with her ex-husband. A conundrum. I'm heading home though people and I can't wait (there's someone there I miss alot!!!)
First, on Monday night, at 1am, I awoke to a loud beeping sound. It took me about 5 minutes to figure out that no, I did not cause this sound. I was so confused that I spent about 2 minutes trying to turn off my alarm (which I finally figured out was set for 6:30am) and then about 2 minutes trying to figure out that my heater wasn't making that sound (yes I have great deductioning logic at 1am). So I poke my head out of the door and I see smoke. I am like oh my god I am going to die. So I do what any logical person would do, I grabbed my pair of Citizen of Humanity Jeans and put them on and ensured that all my new clothes that I just bought were in a bag. Then I placed my work computer as close I could to the door (I wanted that son of a bitch to burn, burn, burn, so I would have an excuse to stop working). I then made sure that I had my camera and other important items like my passport. This took me about 5 minutes. Then I was out the door. It turned out it was the heater in the hall (closest to my room) that apparently hadn't been turned on for months that had started to smoke. I learnt an important lesson about myself...apparently I value clothes more than my own life. I am so sad. In ten minutes, with the proximity of that heater to my room, I would have surely perished, had it actually caught on fire. But damn I would be one hot charred body (my new Citizen jeans and all).
But no the Holiday Inn fun does not stop there! On Tuesday night, the hot water stopped working. So they get someone in to fix it on Wednesday. On Wednesday night I get a letter under my door that apologizes but the valve that needs to be replaced for the hot water to work needs to be flown in and will be there in the morning. This is an exact quote from the letter: "The good news is that the cold water is still working." Wow thanks holiday inn, I am so happy that we have not reverted to third world status, sans running water, as one expects when paying $125 US a night for a crappy room.
So, you ask, what else could go wrong. Well I come back to my room last night (Thursday) and I get a another note under my door that says that, hoorah, the hot water is back, but that the only way to know for sure is to test it out. I'm like....oh thank god a hot shower. Then I scan to the bottom of the letter and there is a lovely post script. It says: Oh by the way our T-1 phone lines are not working and that they have been working on it all day. This normally wouldn't be that big of a deal, but I had just left the client site at 8pm (even though I had like 2 more hours of work to do) in hopes that I could just curl up in my pajamas and do some work back at the hotel because I had spent 12-13 hours a day sitting in the same office out at the client site that week. But alas, I needed internet access for the work I needed to do. At this point I just said "Meh" I guess that is what is to be expected. So this morning, when I went to check out of my hotel, I complained and they offered me 25% off of my room. How does that help me though? My company pays for my hotel...so thanks for putting some more money in the partners pockets. So I made them give me some extra hotel points. Maybe I can get enough to stay at another crappy Holiday Inn. One can only hope.
Well the rest of the trip was decent (other than the long-ass days of work). We (as in me and my co-worker) spent the weekend in downtown Houston and stayed at the cutest little boutique hotel called the Hotel Derek that was right by the Houston Galleria mall. Let me tell you that mall was the highlight of my trip. I love it! So many nice stores. I didn't bother going in the Coach, Versace, etc because the sales people didn't appreciate my $15 Target-bought shoes. So I stuck to the Nordstroms, Macy's, Fossils, etc. I managed to buy a new watch, some new Citizen of Humanity jeans (which I am currently in love with) and some shirts. We also ate at this wicked restaurant called the Cheesecake Factory and at the best freakin cheesecake and appetizers I have ever had. I had a chocolate chip cookie dough-peanut-butter cheeescake and fried macaroni and cheese balls (yumm!) I had all these brilliant plans to eat at all these amazing places downtown but after that massive lunch, I couldn't bring myself to eat anything for like 24 hours.
(This is a picture of me and my new boyfriend....just kidding, he was an Abercrombie and Fitch model that was at the Galleria)
That night we went to a bar called Rich's. We went there because my co-worker is gay and I was up for going to a gay bar (hey why not!) I can play the "Fag Hag" as he put it! We got there and the place was completely empty. I kept looking around the bar and noting that there seemed to be an awful lot of girls dancing with guys at that bar. So in a couple of hours, people start showing up and my co-worker saw some cute guys who turned out to be twins so he went and spoke to them. So I came over and spoke to them too and my co-worker thought they were cute. I had to break the news to him that I think that they weren't gay because they kept coming up and talking to me first and then him. One of the twins explained that the bar used to be a gay bar but now it has turned into an after-hours club. But since we had taken a $20 cab ride to the bar, we decided to stay.
We ended up meeting these two girls and dancing with them all night. Some highlights of the night is when I danced with this 6'5 drag queen and when I went up to this guy, who had just finished this wicked break dancing set in a circle, that had formed on the dancefloor, and I challenged him to a robot-off (FYI in case you have ever seen my robot....it's probably the worst robot in existence). My robot looks like if Elaine from Seinfeld attempted to do the robot. Jerky movements, not so robot-like. Needless to say "He got SERVED!"
We ended up meeting these two girls and dancing with them all night. Some highlights of the night is when I danced with this 6'5 drag queen and when I went up to this guy, who had just finished this wicked break dancing set in a circle, that had formed on the dancefloor, and I challenged him to a robot-off (FYI in case you have ever seen my robot....it's probably the worst robot in existence). My robot looks like if Elaine from Seinfeld attempted to do the robot. Jerky movements, not so robot-like. Needless to say "He got SERVED!"
(This is a pic of me, the co-worker and one of the random gals we met at Rich's).
Other than that, the trip was pretty uneventful. I ate alot of food and learnt to ask for half-portions (explaining why there are alot of "glandurally-challenged" people in Houston"). Also, the weather was nice up until the day we got to Houston (it rained so much and there was even frost one day) and then got nice the day we left. So that kind of was a bummer!
So last story to leave you with is the lovely surprise when I checked my voicemail last night. I had 3 messages from a crazy East-Indian lady who claimed that I am shacked up with her ex-husband. She kept saying that all she wanted to do was talk to her son and kept telling me that her ex-husband is crap in bed. She left her phone number and I am debating calling her and telling her that she has the wrong number but she seemed pretty loco. I am scared she make think that I am lying and that I am in fact sleeping with her ex-husband. A conundrum. I'm heading home though people and I can't wait (there's someone there I miss alot!!!)
Sunday, January 07, 2007
No Actually I am Alive!!!
Well it's been a long-ass time since I last posted. Sorry bout that. I was really busy. What have I been up to? Well work has gotten pretty busy, I wrote my 5th (and last module) exam of my Chartered Accounting schooling and passed, I did alot of climbing and alot of snowboarding. Although I've had lots to say, I haven't had time to say it. I met a couple of boys in the last while and finally found one that I think I'll stick with for a while.
(Me climbing).
(Me climbing).So for Xmas I spent some time in Canmore (a beautiful mountain town by Banff, where my parents are planning to retire). There wasn't much eventful that happened other than my mom exclaiming (while looking at our ridiculously large free-range turkey) "This turkey has large breasts just like us" (we Cowtowngal's have a decent sized bosom). But atleast my parents didn't get pleasantly plastered and tell me to what album I was conceived this year circa Xmas 2005(by the way it was apparently Led Zepplin's physical graffiti). If I ever forget how I became so blunt and inappropriate, I need only to look as far as my immediate family. For xmas I got a new camera, perfume (Vanille de Apricot), and some silver necklaces.
I went snowboarding quite a big over the holiday which was sweet until I hit a tree and busted my bindings. I proceeded to take in my binding strap to try and get a new one and they informed me that they no longer replace 10 year old bindings and then asked me how the hell my bindings lasted that long in the first place. Well I got a new pair of white Burton Custom bindings with some bling (gold buckles) and they are awesome. I can't wait to get out some more and use them.
I also ended up going to Invemere which is a lake town close to Panorama (a sweet ass ski hill) with a bunch of friends. My sister was there with her boyfriend, some other friends and some of the cabin owner's brother's friends. I loved the brother's friends. So much fun. They showed me this fun-ass dice game, which I proceeded to kick ass at and then began losing miserably. But all weekend we were out with the "your momma" jokes. And man were they bad. They were horrible. Anything we heard that we could make into a your momma joke was made into one. We were also making up some stupid handshakes like the rainbow (punch your knuckles together, than make a rainbow motion with your hands and say Awwwwwwwwwww!), the sparkle (punch knuckles together, than wave your fingers and spout out a campy "Sparkle!", and last but not least the semi truck (punch knuckles together, pretend to shift into reverse, and back your knuckles away from the other person going "Beep, beep, beep"). We tried to take these to the local bar in invemere and let me tell you the locals were not impressed. Oh well, we had some fun none the less.
I drove the pipeliner up with me to the cabin and shared a couch with him. But I couldn't bring myself to even kiss him anymore because he was annoying me so much. Also, I kept thinking about my friend at home that I had been hanging out with lately (only supposedly as friends). So needless to say when I got home, I told the pipeliner that we should just be friends because we were better that way. He proceeded to ask me if it was because I had met someone else, and I didn't respond.
Well immediately when I got home, I phoned my friend (the one I was thinking about while hanging out with the pipeliner) and asked what he was doing. He came out with me and I met some his friends and then we met up with some of our friends. I tried to set up my one friend with my friend that I didn't realize I liked but to no avail. So, I went back to my friend's house to hang out and all of the sudden, I found myself cuddling with him on the couch. Seriously had no idea where it came from. It was like, one minute we are friends, and the next minute, we are more than friends. Hmmmm...WTF? Oh well works with me. He's a really good guy. He used to work with me but ended up leaving our company and going to a different auditing firm. So he's cute, doesn't work with me and is super fun to hang out with.
I went snowboarding quite a big over the holiday which was sweet until I hit a tree and busted my bindings. I proceeded to take in my binding strap to try and get a new one and they informed me that they no longer replace 10 year old bindings and then asked me how the hell my bindings lasted that long in the first place. Well I got a new pair of white Burton Custom bindings with some bling (gold buckles) and they are awesome. I can't wait to get out some more and use them.
I also ended up going to Invemere which is a lake town close to Panorama (a sweet ass ski hill) with a bunch of friends. My sister was there with her boyfriend, some other friends and some of the cabin owner's brother's friends. I loved the brother's friends. So much fun. They showed me this fun-ass dice game, which I proceeded to kick ass at and then began losing miserably. But all weekend we were out with the "your momma" jokes. And man were they bad. They were horrible. Anything we heard that we could make into a your momma joke was made into one. We were also making up some stupid handshakes like the rainbow (punch your knuckles together, than make a rainbow motion with your hands and say Awwwwwwwwwww!), the sparkle (punch knuckles together, than wave your fingers and spout out a campy "Sparkle!", and last but not least the semi truck (punch knuckles together, pretend to shift into reverse, and back your knuckles away from the other person going "Beep, beep, beep"). We tried to take these to the local bar in invemere and let me tell you the locals were not impressed. Oh well, we had some fun none the less.
I drove the pipeliner up with me to the cabin and shared a couch with him. But I couldn't bring myself to even kiss him anymore because he was annoying me so much. Also, I kept thinking about my friend at home that I had been hanging out with lately (only supposedly as friends). So needless to say when I got home, I told the pipeliner that we should just be friends because we were better that way. He proceeded to ask me if it was because I had met someone else, and I didn't respond.
Well immediately when I got home, I phoned my friend (the one I was thinking about while hanging out with the pipeliner) and asked what he was doing. He came out with me and I met some his friends and then we met up with some of our friends. I tried to set up my one friend with my friend that I didn't realize I liked but to no avail. So, I went back to my friend's house to hang out and all of the sudden, I found myself cuddling with him on the couch. Seriously had no idea where it came from. It was like, one minute we are friends, and the next minute, we are more than friends. Hmmmm...WTF? Oh well works with me. He's a really good guy. He used to work with me but ended up leaving our company and going to a different auditing firm. So he's cute, doesn't work with me and is super fun to hang out with.
(Me and the guys on new year's eve. The new man is to the right of me).
I spent new years with him and ended up getting wayyyy to drunk but that's okay. I bought a new dress and we went to a club with my new man, his roommate and his roommate's brother. It was pretty fun. I'm pretty sure I was creeping some people out with my sweet sweet drunkin' dance moves, but whatever, I'm sure they liked it. Haha! Not a whole lot worth talking about happened because I was too tipsy to remember what happened. But I had fun. So now and the new man are officially dating (I think that means we are exclusive) so I hope this goes well. We shall see!
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