So why have I been gone for so long? It's simple. I've been busy! I had finals (hell!), I graduated (yay!), I went to Jamaica (yah, mon), I got bronchitis (misery), and I went home to take care of my crippled parents (there's no one word synopsis for my feelings about that). Anyway ... I know you don't want to read the 10,000 word story of my life in the past month—and I certainly don't want to write it—so I'm just going to pick out a few of my favorite highlights for your reading pleasure.
1. I graduated from graduate school!!!! I am now officially Anna Boyle, MPA (it's really fun to have letters to put after your name). Graduation weekend was amazing. I had a great time with my parents, a blast with my friends, and a fantastic time at the ceremony itself. I was nervous, excited, and almost downright giddy. I hadn't been that happy in a long time, and I was proud of myself. Everything about my grad school graduation was perfect. Especially since we were "strategically placed."
2. Upon landing in Jamaica for our post-graduation trip, it became comically apparent that we had just received our master's degrees in public administration. Before we even made it to our resort, we had speculated about the governance structure of the island, possible revenue sources for said government, the state of the island's infrastructure, and Jamaica's export industry. Yes, we are nerds.
3. It might not have been glaringly apparent on the flight down there, though. As soon as we started to descend and saw that bright blue water, my friend Mertyl* excitedly remarked, "look, the fish are jumping for us!!!" I leaned over and laughed at her, noting that we were still several thousand feet in the air, so the white splotches couldn't possibly be fish unless there were hundreds of whales jumping out of the water to greet us. I then said that they were boats. (Yeah ... I know).
4. That said, we probably got nerdier while we were there. Upon entering our hotel rooms to shower and get ready for dinner every evening, we immediately turned on CNN. When CNN would go out of satellite range and we lost the signal, we turned to the Discovery Channel. When we got tired of "Cash Cab" and "How It's Made," we watched "Jeopardy" (please note that we also screamed out the answers to "Cash Cab" and "Jeopardy" as well). Like I said ... nerds.
5. And yet, I still have one more nerdy story from Jamaica! One afternoon, a major thunderstorm rolled in, so we all retired to one of our rooms and turned on ... you guessed it ... CNN. But then the thunderstorm really screwed with our TV reception, so we flipped on the local news ... which happened to be from Colorado. Why Jamaica chose to supply us with local Coloradan weather I will never know, but we sure did learn a lot about the state's infrastructure problems. We found out about the annual "Bolder Boulder" too.
But that's not the point (yes, we're still on #5 here). It got really funny when we started our Discovery Channel marathon. See, we watched Cash Cab for at least 1.5 hours, feeling progressively ignorant (there are some really hard questions on that show!). But when "How It's Made" came on, let me tell you what—we completely lost it. I mean, we were giddy from this show (and slightly delirious). Like, laughing uncontrollably and hysterically as we watched balloons, light bulbs, and swords take shape before our eyes (and we were not even drinking!). It just became glaringly obvious that every man made object in our universe is apparently phallic in nature. It's both hilarious and slightly disturbing all at the same time.
6. Ok, sorry ... we're still on the nerd thing here. While enjoying the aforementioned dork-fest (no pun intended), a commercial aired with an unfortunate grammar mistake that just sent us over the edge. They split the infinitive. Care, Mertyl, and I just cracked up at the sad little advertisement, but Brook couldn't handle it. She got up out of bed and literally started screaming, "why would you split the infinitive?!?" Which, of course, made the rest of us laugh even more.
7. If you couldn't tell already, that afternoon we spent indoors was the highlight of my trip to Jamaica. I am so happy that I am not the only nerd around.
8. Ok, I'm almost done with my Jamaica recap, I swear. But there was one little nugget of knowledge that I just have to share with the rest of the world—the Jamaicans drink their weed. Care and I made friends with our bus driver when we left the compound (err, I mean resort) to go climb Dunns River Falls (amazing!), and we ended up having a little chat about marijuana while on our way. I was sitting quietly, observing the police officers walking about in bulletproof vests (that got me a liiiitle nervous), when Jamaica man started telling us that—while weed is in fact illegal in Jamaica—"it's Jamaica, so it's no problem, mon." He then continued his world-of-weed soliloquy and told us that the locals don't only smoke the ganja, but they drink it too! Yeah ... apparently they grind it up, boil it, and then refrigerate ... all so they can drink their weed every morning like Americans drink their coffee or tea. Oh, and about 50% of the population does this every day. Yeah ... I think that explains a lot.
9. Last Jamaica tidbit—Care and I discovered that Ziploc is amazing. Like, the best product ever invented to serve its purpose. Let me explain. See, we couldn't take anything with us as we climbed the 950 feet up the waterfall, but we knew we needed some cash so that we could rent swim shoes, possibly buy a little souvenir at the market, etc., etc. But we didn't know how to pull that off, given that neither of us own a fanny pack. Our solution? A little wad of money all wrapped up in one little Ziploc bag. And you know what? After 2 hours of climbing a waterfall—during which we fell, endured rapids rushing at our face, and slipped down a naturally-made water slide into a pool of powerfully swirling water (at one point I didn't know if I was going to find my way back to the surface)—we emerged soaking wet and exhausted ... but with bone dry cash. To be honest, I didn't think our money had a chance after we crawled up that first rock. But Ziploc lived up to its name. Care and I are totally going to write a testimonial to that company, because if it can accomplish its job in a waterfall, it can do just about anything.
10. Well, I guess it's obvious I had a pretty great time during the past month. Now I'm glued to my computer and pretty much just looking for and applying to jobs (yeah, still don't have one of those). But I'm now Anna Boyle, MPA; I'm well rested; I'm optimistic about the future; and I'll be sure to keep you updated about what happens and where I end up.
But I've gotta go now. The job hunt awaits.
*Note: some names have been altered to protect the identities of my non-blogging friends
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