Under Pressure

Ughh... I woke up this morning with sinus pressure strong enough to knock me out.  Unfortunately for me, I didn't recognize it for what it was until after I left home, or else a quick dose of sinus medication would have most likely restored me to my normal self.  But, instead, it's off to work feeling like my head is about to implode and my body drained of energy.  But I think I can still be productive, somehow.  Lately I've been spending the days at the NSTP office entering A Ganar trainees' attendance into the corresponding spreadsheet and calculating their training hours.  Not very engaging or inspiring work, but it takes a little bit of pressure off of a few others around here, freeing them up to deal with the countless other demands of maintaining a government agency while also implementing an island-wide youth program in the high schools.  So I'm happy to help out.

I was the recipient of a grand surprise this weekend: it seems that for the last x months the water bill for my building has not been paid. 

I was caught unawares,
They approached my home in pairs;
My bill was in arrears,
Confirming all my fears.

It took no less than three representatives from the Water Department (and a fourth to drive the get-away car, apparently) to inform me of the outstanding balance in excess of XCD 2,000.  Since I've never had the pleasure of meeting my landlord, he's certainly never personally signed a contract/lease agreement with me, and so in the... (calculating)... ninteteen months I've lived here, there has always been the possibility of this happening.  My neighbors, my APCD and I have always operated under the assumption that electricity and water were included in the rent.  Thankfully, this was confirmed when we finally managed to get hold of my landlord, who lives Stateside and tragically does not ascribe to the standard practice of employing an agent to manage his property down here on the island while he is away.  Instead, my lawn is turning into the untamed bushlands, and my water pressure is at risk of being cut off.  While no definitive resolution has yet been reached, we were successful in contacting the landlord and informing of the urgent nature of the situation.  Incidentally, my future rent payments remain canceled until such a time as the matter is concluded.  I'm not at all keen on the idea of picking up and moving to a new location all of a sudden, but I'm prepared for the possibility of such a necessity.

I enjoyed a long weekend this time last week, in honor of Whit Monday, taking advantage of the chance to release some of the pressure of all the projects I have going on right now.  Since a former PCV's parents were on-island, we took a big group down to the Southern Peninsula for an early summer Sunday at the beach.  It was a delightful romp for all of us, and pleasantly reminiscent of Memorial Day weekend Stateside.  (It always helps to have a bit of a reminder of home from time to time.)  Then a few of us capped it off by enjoying hot dogs and watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  It almost made me a little homesick! (almost)

My fifth trimesterly report is off, leaving just one more come September.  I was on the beach at Nevis on Saturday to finish it.  Those of us PCVs still here on St. Kitts are looking ahead to July, when our Close of Service week-long conference will be held.  This we know – what remains to be seen is whether our wishes for it to be held at any island not St. Kitts will come true.  If historical precedent is any indication, the St. Lucia staff will attempt to make arrangements with a hotel in St. Vincent, far far to the south of here, before pulling out and booking last-minute reservations at the Ocean Terrace Inn in Basseterre.  For my part, at least 79% of the appeal of COS is the chance to see all of our PCV friends from the other islands one last time.  But I'd sure like to augment that with the 21% appeal of getting to see a third Caribbean country during my term of service here.

The reader may recall that I was scheduled for two interviews the last couple of weeks.  The interviews went well, and indeed I am preparing for a second-round interview tomorrow.  I am highly reluctant to say more about it at this time, for fear of overexciting myself and adding more pressure to my performance.  God has already protected me thus far; I can't say enough how much it has eased my mind during interviews knowing that each one is not the end all be all of interviews, even for just that month or week.  Going through the process with two organizations simultaneously has allowed me to remain comfortable and just be myself during the interviews, and the effects are much more positive results, I hope.

Well, that's all the updates I have for now.  It's back to entering endless arrays of students' Present or Absent marks and adding up their training hours.  Then I need to make time for more work on this Ripple Institute website – it's shaping up nicely enough, but I still haven't made contact with the ICT Department yet.  All this to say nothing of organizing a training day for teachers volunteering at a possible Chess Camp this summer, and... oh! I need to contact the people in St. Lucia associated with the Chess Club there, and request info that can be used to persuade government officials here in St. Kitts.  And I need to do all of this soon, or else I fear that the trust these people have put in me and my ability to efficiently and effectively do this work will slip.

...No pressure.

Links and Leftovers

Well, it's been a little while since I've done one of these.

By the way, Dad, I forgot to mention that I have your Father's Day gift: it's an XL shirt commemorating the Peace Corps' 50th Anniversary.

...which in turn brings to mind this little thought.

In other news, there's good news, and there's bad news.

Hurricane season has begun.

More important to me than the awesomeness of the instrument, is the music: anybody know something about getting sheet music of the piece that I can transcribe for marimba?

It's time I returned a little love to my most frequent referral source, PCJ.  Thanks, PCJ.

I really need to get around to reaping this list of all its goodness...

And, as promised, more pictures!  Highlights from Cinco de Mayo follow.

It was a 'stache bash.  Most absurd/glorious/super 'stache wins.

My girlfriend didn't mind my 'stache submission for the day.  I, on the other hand, was eager to shave afterwards.

A wild and crazy time was had by all.

Allow yourself to bask in the cuteness of my friend's pup, Beau, about 1 month old at the time.

Well, ultimately I did win the Super 'Stache contest.  A fun and memorable Cinco de Mayo.

Funnyquote Friday

Overheard at a Frigate Bay beach bar:

"It's Kurt; like Kurt Douglas."

Well, I had a bit of a surprise this morning: as it turns out, people do not work on Good Friday.  Cayon Street was virtually devoid of traffic, the NSTP office was closed as tight as a drumhead, and even the buses going into and leaving from town were mostly deserted.  I feel about the same way I did whenever I missed Daylight Savings Time in my college years (it happened twice).  But mostly I'm just surprised that I stumbled into a long weekend that I didn't even know I was looking forward to.

Part of 'making it' in a new and different place is figuring out the opportunity costs of acquiring the niceties of living that one comes to depend on.  For me, I require a handful of things to not go stir-crazy: exercise a few times a week, 3 meals a day, and internet access are three of the big ones.  And lately I've been meeting these needs by playing soccer on Thursdays, which is a free (albeit socially stressful) activity and doesn't impede on my budget.  Due to recent events, however, I'm electing to shift one more item from the "could go without" heap to the "must focus attentions on" queue: I want to improve my appearance by increasing upper body strength and muscular definition.

... I can, even now, hear you chuckling.  The truth is, even after I lost the initial 15 pounds after living with my host family for just one month, I'm down yet another 5 pounds from that.  Which is diving rapidly into the more uncertain regions of underweight-ness.  I've always been comfortable at 140 lbs., but dipping below that is probably unwise, especially for someone with previous vasovagal episodes.  So I've concluded I can head this off by increasing my caloric expenditure, forcing my body to demand more caloric intake.  And I'll accomplish this by joining the gym in town, just a short jaunt from my office, and visit in the mornings before work three days a week.  Naturally, this relieving the stress of one factor introduces new constraints on a second: my understanding is that the membership fee is around EC$75 per month, which is what I'm paying for internet service right now (before tax).  And since roughly 80-90% of my monthly budget goes towards groceries, if I decide to undertake this additional expense, the difference will be met almost entirely in my grocery spending.

I'm aware of the inherent contradiction here: work out more to eat more, but spend less on eating.  The truth is, I could afford to cut back on portions of my shopping list.  Some of my fellow PCVs here, especially the ones that have 18 months of service already, have pointed to my tendency to purchase Classico brand Vodka Sauce as an example of unwitting overspending.  My thinking is, "I'm eating spaghetti = I'm saving money." But their argument is, I'm paying EC$13.60 for a jar of premium spaghetti sauce, plus EC$10.72 on a carton of mushrooms, all in all about $25 before the spaghetti, for an amount that lasts about two meals.  The alternative, they say, would be to purchase the cheap Hunt's brand spaghetti sauce in a can, about three meals' worth, at EC$6.50.  Season it up however I want, of course, but at minimal expense.  And I must confess this makes a lot of sense, though is markedly less appealing to my sense of appetite.

The signs of Spring here, are, to the best of my knowledge, limited to the appreciable increase in exposure of birds and bird varieties.  I've already spotted two new nests in the last week, a half dozen fledgling Mourning Doves, and a hummingbird in the past week.  Apart from that, the air is slightly warmer in the day, slightly dryer, and slightly less breezy.  So basically showing the signs of a rapid push to summer weather, which will last all the way through to November – 6+ months of awesome!

Funnyquote Friday

Your quote this week comes from one Dominican student who, starting last week at the Dr. William Connor Primary School despite speaking nearly zero English, explained to me her difficulties in understanding those around her:

"No podría comprender al profesor, 

porque pronuncía mal."

I couldn't help but chuckle at this – the Caribbean accent was even getting in the way of a Spanish speaker understanding.  Hilarity!

I gave my apartment a good cleaning yesterday, which in light of the recent exhibition put on by insectoid residents of the premises was a good idea.  Between Tuesday and Thursday of this week I found another spider of the same species as the New Year's culprit, though this one was much earlier in its life cycle, being only about 2.5 inches and much more manageable.  I removed it from my ceiling with a fly-swatter.  Not moments after laying its deceased remains in the garbage can, I retired to my bedroom to find a large black cockroach about 1.5 inches long climbing on the curtains.  What was it doing there?  There were no survivors left to inform the council.  Finally, yesterday in my kitchen, I was approached by an inexperienced but highly persistent centipede, measuring only about 3 inches.  I was not as impressed with its number of thoracic segments so much as its unwillingness to die for its cause.  Squishing its multifaceted exterior between the rubber sole of my shoe and the tile floor dealt it no apparent bodily damage, and only served to pin it in place.  After half-a-dozen similar attempts, I even tried to sever its southeasterly half from its northwesterly half with a steak knife, but to no avail.  This guy... is a survivor!  Anyway, a solid pounding and Kleenex removal later, my apartment is presumably carnivorous critter free – if you don't count the dozen-or-so daddy long legs camped out in my bathroom, presumably getting an early start on the next Harry Potter release.

I don't think there's any other big news here.  I've never seen a post on this blog earn so many hits so fast before the last one, which is either a testament to its interestingatude, or just a natural offshoot of having an increased readership from previous months.  And yet no comments?  What up with that?

The Name Game

This post is brought to you by Inspiration®, the newest unstoppable force since the last unstoppable force.

Never have I ever lived in a place where the mixer was more expensive than the rum... until now.

How is Carnival like your car keys?  Everybody lose it.

I am tickled every time this message pops up on Hulu: "Sorry, we're unable to load a message from our sponsors."  Oh no, no need to apologize; if only I was always so lucky.  Someone needs to tell Hulu that the the break in tempo, what with two ads at 30-45 seconds long each, four different times in a 45-minute episode, is starting to get grating.  (Am I getting spoiled?  Perhaps a little.)

I had a good enough experience with it this past season, I'll probably do Carnival again next year.  Maybe I can forgo paying for a costume and make one myself?  Or better yet, organize a float with a student iron band and roll it into town.

Drink water.  Water is good for you.

I sure hope to get involved in a soccer club and/or steel pan band soon, so when I go back to the States and people say "Show me your muscle," I'll have something to show them.

And now the news from Peace Corps Land: I'm pleased to say that the meeting with my APCD and my IPP flew like an eagle today; I'm sure the report will go down as such.  Now I just have my current work and school projects to focus on, intermittent cooking for guests, and Inter-Service Training coming in a few months.

Funnyquote Friday

Here's your quote for this week, fresh from my latest Skype conference with my good friend Michael:

"You know, algebra is just so useful, 

all of the time... I'm just sayin'."

Thank you, Michael, for that nugget of wisdom.  I can't help but concur, and point out that I have been conveying this sentiment for many, many years now.  But, hey, small steps, right?

Well, yesterday was indeed Turkey day, but fighting off a 72-hour bug kept me home from the celebrations at a fellow PCVs house.  I was able to contribute my green bean casserole in exchange for a plate of some very delicious and unapologetically carbohydrate-laden T-giving comfort foods, but I was heartbroken to miss out on the chance to share a special American tradition with my comrades.  Especially when I received a text asking if I had a football to bring to the get-together.  Imagine!  I haven't got to throw a football around since, oh, November of 2008, when Georgia Tech was gearing up to thwomp Miami.  Good times.

As an update, I felt well enough this morning to go into work for the first time since Monday.  I worked a little from home this week, and was able to complete the latest revision of the NSTP's Career Guidance Handbook, leaving only a handful of content decisions that need to be made by my counterparts before it is dubbed fully finished.  In addition, I am going to seek confirmation on my intention to begin working on curriculum for an Entrepreneurship class, an initiative that has been sought not only by my office but by the government as well.  I anticipate getting a basic skeleton of the program prepared before January, when I will work closely with my office associates to flesh it out with some practicality.  With no cash flow to fund common resources needed to run a class, we will be relying on what resources we have available, e.g. human expertise, the internet, in-office printers, etc.

Go Jackets!  Beat U (sic) GAg!

P.S. The November highlight video should be ready, on schedule, at the end of the month.

On a Lighter Note

I realize that my posts have been increasingly anxious as of late, and so I wanted to shed a little light on another side of living here, namely what I have found to do in my spare time.  And we EC82s are discovering exactly that which previous volunteers made clear to us during pre-service training: there is lots of spare time.

As followers know, I am indeed catching up on my reading, something I had been forgoing months before leaving for staging.  Right now I am currently working on two books, a novel set in London spanning from prehistory to modern day, and a biography of Albert Einstein.  On my shelf (metaphorically speaking, since my apartment does not, in fact, have a bookshelf) is Thomas Friedman's The World Is Flat, a book which not only all of my finance professors, but also the multimillionaire major-corporation CEOs they invited to speak to our classes, insisted that we not graduate without reading.  Next to that is Kathy Reichs's Bare Bones, which is one of her murder mystery novels whose popularity helped launch the popular FOX television show now in its sixth season, Bones.  Next to that is A Brief History of the Caribbean.  Then John Grisham's The Firm.  Then the STAR WARS novel I am currently on, Star By Star by Troy Denning, which is kind of like the third act of a The New Jedi Order five act play, for you Shakespeare buffs out there.  It means that the major turning point in the series is expected by the end.  And rounding out the list is the relatively new fantasy first-part by Christopher Paolini, Eragon.  All in all, a good mix of fiction and non-fiction, I think, expanding on my usual fare while holding onto some familiar staples as well.

I also find time to invest in my most ego-sensitive pastime, chess.  Specifically, I rediscovered a lost love in internet correspondence chess, provided by Stan's Net Chess, for which there is none better.   Feeling up to a 2-month long game at a pace about 1 move per day, friend?  Find Rainman and challenge me to a match; provisional memberships are free!  In the meantime, I am currently fending off six opponents from six different corners of the U.S.  The leisurely pace is a welcome diversion from the typical play-against-the-clock speed chess so prevalent on popular hosting sites nowadays.

For exercise, the reader knows that I seek out opportunities to engage in recreational running, like attacking the hill here at Mattingly or participating in the monthly hash.  I also walk to the grocery store, roughly 10 minutes one way.  I do not have any handy weights in my apartment, though I have considered curling those 5 liter jugs of water to build up my biceps. (I'm half-kidding; I haven't actually done this)

Of course I still find time for my daily/weekly webcomics.  For those of you who are unclear about what those are, they are simply the internet response to newspaper syndicated comics: instead of having to be the top 1% of nationally-recognized comic illustrators to be published, for the mere price of a domain, anyone can create an internationally-available comic to be updated at whatever rate the artist thinks he/she can manage.  Still unclear?  Here are some of my family-friendly favorites, in spite of some of their names: xkcd, perhaps the most internationally recognized and widely parodied "nerd comic;" Cowbirds in Love, a philosophy and science comic with a penchant for bad puns; Spiked Math, far and away the funniest and nerdiest strictly-math-major humor site; and Brawl In The Family, a webcomic that parodies the lives of Super Smash Bros. characters when they are not brawling.

Since I am not willing to pay for cable television here, I have an incentive to use the internet for that purpose as well.  And through the glories of IP masking, I am able to bypass regional restrictions and still watch my favorite TV shows on Hulu and Comedy Central.  Also, Saturdays mean Gameday, and I can usually listen to the Yellow Jackets play by streaming the radio station carrying the game if I want.  In addition, I have a radio in my apartment, and I go back and forth between ZIZ radio (pronounced as in the British, "zed eye zed") and Big Wave 96.7 FM.

And of course the occasional Sporcle quiz.

Well, I hope that was as interesting or enjoyable for the reader as it was for me.  Suggestions?  Comments?  Reviews?  Add your thoughts here.  Thanks to everyone that is remembering to pray for me; I entreat everyone's continued prayers for faith and patience, among other things.

P.S. Yay 50 posts

A Blurry Flurry of Acronym Fury (BFAF)

Mr. Wilkin Chairs the Graduation

 On Sunday, I attended the National Skills Training Programme's most recent graduation, where about 30 youth and adults earned certificates for training in ITS (Information Technology Services).  It was a joyous affair, with some of the graduands earning their very first certification/degree.  I was responsible for photographing the event, since the media was unable to attend due to the adverse weather conditions. So if the pictures came out funny, blame me.  The IT classes that were offered this past season were put on as a joint effort of the NSTP, the Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF), and the Community Upliftment and Enhancement Team (CUET).  In addition to remarks from representatives from each of these NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) and the SKNMOE (St. Kitts/Nevis Ministry of Education), a troupe of primary school girls performed an interpretive dance and a young lady sang a beautiful piece to commemorate the occasion.  After the ceremony, a dinner of finger foods was served and the guests, staff, and resident PCV went home satisfied.

Over 50 People In Attendance

I am very close to finishing up my first revision of the final draft of the CDH (Career Development Handbook) for the NSTP.  I am working on the final module, leaving only the appendices and any additional material I have not yet received. Unless something changes, it should be all ready to submit by this time next week, for the perusal of the newly-appointed director of the NSTP, Mrs. James, and the former director and newly appointed director of TVET in St. Kitts (UNESCO's Technical and Vocational Education and Training program), Mr. Wilkin.  Here's hoping for the best!

Mrs. James Delivers Remarks to the Graduands

On Monday I visited a fellow EC82 PCV stationed on Antigua, who was on-island for a VAC meeting (Volunteer Administrative Council).  It was held at the GL (the Golden Lemon, a resort at Rawlins Plantation in Dieppe Bay), and in addition to the pleasant company, we enjoyed the private pool adjacent the two bedroom suite at the resort.  The VAC representative from SVG (St. Vincent and the Grenadines) also joined us, so we got the updates on all our Antiguan and Vincy EC82 friends.  Both groups appear to be doing very well, with no leave-takers since staging at Miami – EC82 is still 28 strong!

Graduands, Trainers, and Speakers

Some Tricks, but More Treats

I'm officially submitting my application for honorary membership in the Olympia Academy, posthaste.  I require nary a response to be assured of my immediate acceptance.  The inspiration comes from my recent acquisition of a copy of Walter Isaacson's biography of Albert Einstein, wherein the author recounts Einstein's core group of fellow physicist philosophers that would stay up nights and talk and charlar about... well, physics, philosophy, and no doubt some other topics as well.  Unfortunately, such a congregation I have not yet found on island, though I am continuing to search away.  I still require the services of Skype to take advantage of the willingness of friends both in the States and on other islands that share my penchant for deep discussions, but LIME assures me that they will be able to install a cable modem at my apartment by Tuesday.

As many a reader may have noticed, this past weekend was Halloween.  The common traditions associated with the predominantly U.S. holiday are not observed here in the islands – instead, a slightly similar glorification of pranks and trickery loosely associated with Guy Fawkes (mostly in the form of lighting firecrackers in the street, day or night) takes place the last week of October through to the first week of November.  But the dearth of familiarity did not stop a half-dozen of us PCVs from getting together, baking sweets like fudge muffins and rice krispie treats, and watching Halloween movies like Casper and Shaun of the Dead.  Nobody dressed up this time; it's underrated hard to pull off, since there are no costume shops (at least not geared towards Halloween costumes) and we couldn't be expected to pack anything so frivolous.  All in all, it made for a delightful evening, and I didn't face a bit of homesickness until I went into the office this morning and explained all of the familiar details of the U.S. tradition to coworkers...

I was true to myself and did my running this morning before work.  Furthermore, I was pleased with my performance: I ran for a full 20 minutes, going in my estimation around 2.5 miles in that time, and walked the last mile.  I ran from my apartment at Mattingly along the bypass freeway all the way to the Monkey Hill roundabout, which is about halfway down the SKB airport's landing strip, and back.  I plan to continue this habit 5 days a week, maybe meet my friend at Sandy Point to run Brimstone Hill on Saturdays, and rest on Sundays.  I'm staying realistic, which is to say I'm not going to get overly upset if I'm not able to maintain that regimen for long; alternatively, if it works out and I get bored, I want to eventually add push-ups and sit-ups to it as well.

It was brought to my attention the other day that I have not shared with my readers the nature of public transportation on island.  Since I myself am prohibited by the Peace Corps from either operating a motor vehicle or even riding a motorcycle while on island, I am quite subject to relying on public transportation every day I need to go anywhere except grocery shopping.  So here's how it works: there are two forms of for-hire transportation available to the public, taxis and buses.  However, one is not immediately differentiable from the other – both taxis and "buses" are actually full-size 16 passenger vans of every color under the sun and with large, garish script on all sides declaring the handle of that bus. (For example, some buses on that frequent my route are "Mr. War," "Sacrifice," "Big Blue," "Hulk," "Up 2 De Time," "Passion," "Jehovah Jireh," "Crunch Time," et al.)  The only real way to discriminate between Taxis and Buses-For-Hire are their license tags: Taxis read TA #### and are yellow, while buses read HA #### ("H" for "hire") and are green.  And it's vitally important that one discriminate between the two: a bus will take you three towns over for EC$2.50 or to the other side of the island for EC$3.75, but a Taxi will take you anywhere on the island for a mere... EC$45.00.   So no taxi riding while I'm here!

The bus names are a kind of cultural touchstone here; not only does it serve to differentiate bus drivers and their services (it works, too: some buses won't fill up at the terminal because people recall which ones don't have air conditioning, have bad tires, etc.), but it also is a form of expression and abject pride for the bus owners, many of whom willingly go by their handles in public and around town when not driving their buses.  In fact, it's given me time to think about what I would want my bus to be named, were I to have my own.  And I think that, short of settling on only one thing, I would want it to read, "All Dem Tings" in the drippy goo font that is so popular in that circle.  Have a different idea?  Post the name to your own virtual bus here.

MIG's created a blog.  So read it if you want.  I mean, I don't know what he thinks he has to say, and it's not as interesting as mine, certainly, but... whatever.

Also, 0 Comments on the video? Really?  I put a lot of effort into that, people!