Losing Keys June 29, 2008

Is it really losing your keys if you leave them on your own kitchen counter and they disappear after random people your roommate knows come by the house at 2am? I don’t think that qualifies me as irresponsible. Hopefully, they’ll turn up but until then I have to hope that:

a) my roommate doesn’t lock the door on me

b) my roommate grabbed them by accident and forgot

c) if she didn’t take them, that whoever did has left the island

The past week has been really stressful for me. I’ve had exams, crap news from home and a whole slew of other random events that are and were completely insignificant but when combined with the mighty forces of stress and crappy news, evolve into a whole other world of mindless insanities that have no place taking up any of my valuable fun time here.

In other news, things with Sean and I are going alright. I think he’s realized that I do need some level of attention and affection. Not a lot, but just something so that I know what the hell is going on. I think I am in serious like. Not all lusty and loin driven like I have been with some men in the past (The Dentist, South African Boy, other passing phases). But I’m content and happy to take it slow. The problem with that is in the backpacker/traveler/I prefer to reside outside my country crowd, time is of the essence. I haven’t dated anyone since George and before that, I was with my ex for a year and a half. I am so out of this game that I find myself constantly second guessing my actions. And to further complicate it, as I’ve already mentioned, I’m traveling. That doesn’t give me a hell of a lot of time to woo him over with my complete and total awesomeness (which, by the way, he seems to be immune to).

He’s a city boy. He thinks most of the music I listen to sucks. He lists off directors of movies and random facts about their films. He’s traveled and lived around the world.  He’s witty, smart, and sometimes even funny. He’s sarcastic, opinionated, shy and quiet. He confuses the hell out of me.

I’m a hick. I couldn’t name most of the bands he listens to. I watch movies for entertainment value. I’ve traveled very little and other than this trip, I’ve never lived outside my own country. I’m not that witty, I’d like to think I’m smart, and sometimes maybe even funny. I’m definitely sarcastic and opinionated, as well as loud and outgoing. However those last few attributes are what also lead people to believe that I am strong, that I’m self confident, that I’m made of ice. I’m not. I’m just trying to survive the only way I know how.

Diving is going well. I wrote three of my exams the other day. I say about three more works and I’ll have my dive master certification, providing of course that I don’t get sick with an ear infection or sinus infection.

Broke Into The Old Apartment June 19, 2008

I finally have my own place down here. It’s a nice two bedroom with living room and kitchen for $400/month. My half is $200. My new roomie is currently on the main land saying goodbye to a huge group of people who all decided to leave this island at the same time. This new apartment of mine is directly below Brad’s apartment (the one that got broken into) and I’m staying in what would be the same room. It’s pretty nice actually. And it’s only a 2 minute walk to the dive shop and the bar where I’m working which is a huge bonus.

Brad left a few days ago. He was my best friend on the island and a better friend than some of those I have at home. We just got each other. I’m still bummed that he left but his reasons are completely reasonable since his place was broken into twice, he got robbed and he couldn’t work for a month because he had an ear infection. A month is a really long time in the diving world, especially when you’re an instructor and you can only make money when you teach courses.

Then there is Sean. I think I mentioned him before. He’s my friend, instructor and we’re kind of seeing each other. He’s the guy that the crazy chick hit me in the face for talking to. If you ask me, she planted the idea and we just ran with it. Anyways, he’s moved into Brad’s old room and we took off to the mainland last weekend just to get off the island for a little while. It’s kind of weird because he’s inconsistent in his behaviour. There is a bit of a resemblance to George in that way. I’m trying not to think about it too much.

And then there is the bar I work at the has barely been open the past week because we’ve had no money to pay off our tabs with our vendors. I came in today to eight cold beers, a crap load of warm ones, no mix and no food. It’s a pretty bleak day for us. Hopefully we can get things turned around in the next few weeks because I really enjoy working here and would hate to get an actual job.

Diving is going well. I did two exams today and have a water portion of the Rescue course to finish before I can officially begin my Dive Master Training. While doing that I plan to get a few specialties done including Deep, Wreck, Night, Whale Shark and Gas Blender. All good ones to have. The other specialties that I want to do but can’t on this island are Altitude and Dry Suit.

It’s been crazy hot here lately with very little breeze and very little rain. The sand flies are vicious and my legs are scratched and scarred to shit.

So I Got In A Chick Fight… June 12, 2008

Alright, let me put it this way: I’m a lover, not a fighter. I’m a crappy blogger because the internet is so slow and I don’t want to waste time waiting for it and I love diving.

So my instructor and my boss at the bar I’m working at, he and I are good friends. We’re at the bar one night and we were both leaving to home when we decided to hit the bar next door for another drink. We’re sitting there all cool talking about being executors of our parents wills of all things when his crazy ex girlfriend comes up behind me screaming and hits me in the face. She proceeds to call me horrible untrue things when she hits me in the nose. Me, being me, I do nothing. The guy I’m talking with pulls her away as she proceeds to freak out at him. Apparently, she had it in her head that he and I were together, which we weren’t. Did I mention that she has refused to move out of his apartment?

So as she is yelling and what not, she somehow decides that it would be wickedly awesome to punch me in the back of the head while I’m taking a sip of my very tasty and very free rum and coke. I wave the bartender over and told him very nicely that she hit me again. This is when I find out that she was an ex employee of this bar, that they fired and and they had kept her out of jail once before for assault. Interesing shit.

Fast forward to the next day with my buddy apologizing to me over what happened and me jokingly saying something along the lines of “well we’ve already been accused of it. Want to hook up baby?” in my ever so sexy, not so serious voice. That night we kissed. And a week later we’re still whatever we are.

Last night at one of the bars I ran into The Dentist and started chatting to him. In the three minutes I left Instructor at the bar, psycho swooped in to take my seat. So I decided I was too old for highschool and left the bar letting my other friends know which bar I’d be at. I chilled there for an hour before deciding I wanted to go to bed. I started walking and ran into my roomie and asked for the keys when Instructor and psycho went past us on a bike. After everything that’s gone on since September in my life, this ended up being the small grain of sand that sent me into an emotional mess. My buddy was super awesome an did everything a friend should do and more. Then Instructor showed up to talk to Roomie and left. Me, being me, went after him and asked what the deal was. It was obvious that he was upset and this was apparently his grain of sand. So we went back to my place to talk when pyscho decides to stalk past the (fenced in-thank goodness) property. Instructor decides he’s not going home to deal with that shit and crashes on the couch.

All seems to be well and he wants to go somewhere cool together during our 72-hour-have-to-leave-to-renew-visa time. No getting my hopes up, but just maybe…

…And He Was Armed With A Shoe… June 2, 2008

I apologize for the lack of updates recently but there have been a few factors that have prevented me from doing so. A tropical storm that left us with out interwebbing powers and the fact that the place I was staying in gotten broken into.

As I have decided to stick around where I am for awhile, I gave up my lovely cabana (too expensive) and moved in with a buddy of mine (Brad) until I could find a place. We had a pretty early and tame Friday night, heading to bed around 11:30. For some reason, I was staying in his room with him which was probably the best thing that happened. Around 1:45am, Brad poked me and asked if I was awake. I was sleeping lightly and said yes and he told me to be quite and pointed towards his room mates door. His room mate is out of town until the 9th. I turned in time to see the door close and the light go on.  Brad told me to stay in his room while he checked it out.

He slowly started walking down the hall, opened the door and yelled “What the fuck are you doing?”. Instead of jumping out the window where he had broken in, he decided he was going to fight with Brad. After about a minute in the bedroom, Brad was thrown down the hall and the fight resumed in the living room. After five minutes of yelling and screaming while I lay on the floor part way under the bed near the wall, Brad finally told the guy he’d let him out. The guy refused to go out the way he came because the neighbours were outside throwing rocks at the windows and yelling. He made Brad give him all his money and take the screen off and the window slats out so he could go out that way. The moron turned on the light so Brad got a good look at him. As I was lying on the floor trying to hide myself, he reached over twice to take things and I got a good look at his face. I was hoping he hadn’t seen me.

After Brad had finished with the window, he kicked Brad out of the room and I thought he locked the door. The first thought in my head was that he had seen me. After about 15 seconds he left the room and Brad came in to look for me as he had no idea where I was.

After 45 minutes of sitting in the dark and being unable to get out of the apartment because the guy had puled off the door handle, we finally heard other people and yelled at them to come help us.

I’m sorry, I’d continue this entry but I just found out that after we ID’d the guy, he is now walking around outside, free as a bird.  I’ll update later.