Is it just me...am I the only one who finds that around the one hour mark after eating lunch at a restaurant sleep-itis takes over my body so suddenly that it's like someone slapped me into that state? Of course, I am talking about this happening on weekdays when I have to go back to work after eating said lunch. I find that, since being in Paris, this ALWAYS happen when I eat at a restaurant for lunch. I don't know if it's because the restaurant I usually eat at gives a huge 3-course meal. That may have something to do with it. All I know is that every day I have eaten out for the last two weeks, an hour after getting back from lunch, like clockwork, I would get sleepy at around 3pm and would get barely any work done until 4pm. During this one hour torture, I would struggle and nod off and go to the bathroom every 15 minutes (seemed like eternity) to steal a 2 minute shut-eye in one of the bathroom stalls.
The last time I had this problem of falling asleep after lunch was last summer when I had my most interesting job yet, doing what I would like to be doing when I start working 'for real' - programming. The work that I was doing was great and extremely interesting and allowed me lots of independence on how to implement the program I was developing. However, sitting in a cubicle all day with minimal interaction used to bring on the snooze. Now, I am here in Paris, working at a job that is just a filler job to earn some money while I am here but it actually looks good on my resume as it is related to my field and it can be very interesting as well. Again, I find the sleepiness taking hold so now I am worried about when I start to work for real. How on earth will I survive just sitting and coding all day, not interacting much with other people in a real office? I know I can code all day, but not without taking breaks or chatting every now and again (I think this goes back to my ADD post earlier).
You know what else the sleepy state reminds me of? Those times in church where as soon as the pastor starts preaching you get hit with the sleepy slap and spend the entire pastor's sermon fighting sleep, knowing you look funnier trying to control your bobbing head and jerking awake every few minutes than if you had just stopped trying and bent your head like you were praying and gone to sleep. That reminds me of my father who has no shame when it comes to sleeping in church. He still does it now but the worst was when we were in Jamaica.
When we were in Jamaica, my aunt and mother were correct in describing my father's weekly sleeping position in church by saying he was like Jesus on the cross. This is because he would have both his arms stretched along the pew. One hand would be behind my mother but the other one was sometimes behind other people. He had no qualms about putting his hands behind other people. He usually asked them if it was ok and being in church they never said no. His feet would be crossed and stretched out in the pew so that no one could pass without having to either do an awkward climb over his feet or hit him to wake him up. Then there were the times he would start snoring. When I was thirteen and this was a regular occurrence, I used to think I was going to die from embarassment!
Showing posts with label Jamaica. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jamaica. Show all posts
Monday, June 16, 2008
Friday, June 6, 2008
ADD much?
I often wonder if I have Attention Deficit Disorder when I am searching the web. I can spend hours on it switching between topics faster than the time it takes a few songs to play. This means that at the end of my surf time my brain feels overloaded with all the things I just read or researched. Take today for instance, I came online to answer emails related to looking for an apartment. I put up posts on some of the appartment/roommate hunting sites for Paris yesterday and already got quite a few responses and I was planning to go through what seemed like 10 emails with offers.
Anyways, after replying to one email, I went looking on a bunch of apartment-hunting websites for Paris, which always makes me wish apartments were as cheap as they are in Toronto (which really isn't very cheap but just cheaper than Europe). Then I started thinking how summer in Toronto is great with many events and I remembered that I was interested in selling T-shirts for Caribana so I started looking up T-shirt sites. Then I thought about giving some of the money earned to charity so I spent some time looking up caribbean charities (very difficult to find one that was in many countries), then I looked up charities in general. This took me back to looking up volunteer programs in South America, then back again to reading up on volunteering in the Caribbean.
Now thinking about Jamaica, I went to a site to catch up on Jamaican news and was reading an expats comments about living in JA and finding employment in JA. This reminded me that I need to look for a job for when I get back to Toronto soon so I took a detour to the job sites in Toronto and the U.S, checking out what was available. By this time, a few hours had passed and I thought to go back to my email to continue responding to people offering their apartments but I saw I received an email from Grinnell (the college I attended in the States) and one item they highlighted was this one. It reminded me a little of the isolation one can feel at Grinnell, great school that it was, and were it not for friends in similar situations, it could be unbearable at times. Then I realized that I have only eaten once today, a huge meal at a Portuguese restaurant. I am going out later so I should eat and I recently resolved to eat out more often, even if by myself, because my ticket restos are piling up. There are only so many restos one can visit in one weekend. I have around 25 left and I will be getting another batch at the end of the month. So I am now on an internet quest looking for cool restos in my area where I can get a nice healthy-size meal before coming back home tonight and preparing to go out.
At the end of these marathon web-surfing sessions. I feel like coming up with an expression for my surfing similar to the ''jack of all trades, master of none'' because at the end I always feel like I accomplished nothing. Hell, I KNOW I accomplished nothing.
Anyways, after replying to one email, I went looking on a bunch of apartment-hunting websites for Paris, which always makes me wish apartments were as cheap as they are in Toronto (which really isn't very cheap but just cheaper than Europe). Then I started thinking how summer in Toronto is great with many events and I remembered that I was interested in selling T-shirts for Caribana so I started looking up T-shirt sites. Then I thought about giving some of the money earned to charity so I spent some time looking up caribbean charities (very difficult to find one that was in many countries), then I looked up charities in general. This took me back to looking up volunteer programs in South America, then back again to reading up on volunteering in the Caribbean.
Now thinking about Jamaica, I went to a site to catch up on Jamaican news and was reading an expats comments about living in JA and finding employment in JA. This reminded me that I need to look for a job for when I get back to Toronto soon so I took a detour to the job sites in Toronto and the U.S, checking out what was available. By this time, a few hours had passed and I thought to go back to my email to continue responding to people offering their apartments but I saw I received an email from Grinnell (the college I attended in the States) and one item they highlighted was this one. It reminded me a little of the isolation one can feel at Grinnell, great school that it was, and were it not for friends in similar situations, it could be unbearable at times. Then I realized that I have only eaten once today, a huge meal at a Portuguese restaurant. I am going out later so I should eat and I recently resolved to eat out more often, even if by myself, because my ticket restos are piling up. There are only so many restos one can visit in one weekend. I have around 25 left and I will be getting another batch at the end of the month. So I am now on an internet quest looking for cool restos in my area where I can get a nice healthy-size meal before coming back home tonight and preparing to go out.
At the end of these marathon web-surfing sessions. I feel like coming up with an expression for my surfing similar to the ''jack of all trades, master of none'' because at the end I always feel like I accomplished nothing. Hell, I KNOW I accomplished nothing.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Helpless
I just found out that a high school classmate of mine was senselessly killed in Jamaica on Thursday. He and his girlfriend were trying to be good Samaritans after hitting a cyclist on Wednesday. They took the cyclist to the hospital and made arrangements to help him out. The next day, my former classmate and his girlfriend were last seen as they went to bring crutches and medicine to the man. Later on that day, in the early afternoon, my former classmate made a call to his father asking him to send him a large amount of money very urgently and his girlfriend's debit card was shown as having withdrawn $15,000JAM (the max daily limit). Their bodies were found with their throats slashed on Friday. See the newspaper article here.
In Jamaica, we always used to say when you hit someone, especially in certain neighbourhoods, the best thing to do is to continue driving then call the police or go to the police station. My former classmate, RIP Taiwo, and his girlfriend were trying to do the right thing by not only stopping but also offering as much help as they could. They ended up dead.
There were 300 murders in the last 70 days in Jamaica. 300! That's over 4 murders PER DAY. I didn't know Taiwo personally, i.e. I never really talked to him, but I certainly remember seeing him in class & around campus and I know others who spoke to him often so I can put a face to the story in the paper. While all the murders have an effect on each of us, it is, of course, these ones that hit close to home that hurt the most. The sad reality is that with such a murder rate, it is very difficult to find someone in Kingston, Jamaica who has not been personally affected by the frequent murders.
A few years ago, while still in Jamaica, I remember reading about a a survey done in Jamaica which showed that crime was the number one thought on Jamaicans' minds - 24/7. Sometimes, because I now live in safe Toronto, I forget how I used to feel but trust me, I have not forgotten the actual feeling. That constant fear - It would overtake me while waiting for my father to pick me up from school in the evenings when there weren't many students left on-campus, while waiting at the bus stop, when walking down my street by myself in the evening (even in a residential neighbourhood), when going to sleep at night...It was always there. In my last few years in Jamaica, my parents' nerves were shot. They got so scared they used to take turns staying awake keeping vigil for strange noises at night. Our car was broken into twice before it was stolen, clothes were stolen from our laundry room while we slept and we'd heard far too many stories of people being held up in their garages. And we lived in one of the safer neighbourhoods! Plus, that's not even counting other incidents. My cousin's throat was slashed (a very bad time for our family). My uncle (his father) had previously been shot but, unlike my cousin, had miraculously survived. My aunt was held up at knife point while shopping down town. I even remember, when I was little, my mother being held up while my cousins and I were in the car.
So, as far back as I can remember, the murder rate and crime in general has always been bad in Kingston. While the crime is spreading to the other cities, tourists who come to the island don't know about any of this because they're kept insulated from everything in those all-inclusive resorts. I'm not knocking those resorts because I know that tourism is one of the few things we have that help the Jamaican economy and is one of the things we can feel good about. So to tourists, please continue going to Jamaica - for you it is the land of wood and water.
Anyways, with regards to crime, all Jamaicans agree that murder is the number one priority. It's funny and sad how we Jamaicans are always thankful if someone was only held up or only got stuff stolen because that means the perpetrators LEFT THEM ALIVE. Although it happens far too frequently, we are equally or even more angry when they take all the victims' money and other valuables yet still end up killing them, like they did with my cousin, my classmate and many others.
Jamaicans love our country. I would go back to live there in a second if stuff like this didn't keep happening. This was the reason my parents left the country. We had a good life in Jamaica but the crime was getting to be too much. When murders are committed, we feel so helpless. I ALWAYS FEEL SO HELPLESS when I think about the murder rate. How do we get people to stop committing these murders with wanton abandon? How do we get others to inform when they have information? How do we stop others from hiding information after being bribed? How can we assure the ones who have information that their life will not be in danger if they share the information? How do we stop the corruption which helps in keeping the criminals hidden? How do we change the mentality of a country?
In Jamaica, we always used to say when you hit someone, especially in certain neighbourhoods, the best thing to do is to continue driving then call the police or go to the police station. My former classmate, RIP Taiwo, and his girlfriend were trying to do the right thing by not only stopping but also offering as much help as they could. They ended up dead.
There were 300 murders in the last 70 days in Jamaica. 300! That's over 4 murders PER DAY. I didn't know Taiwo personally, i.e. I never really talked to him, but I certainly remember seeing him in class & around campus and I know others who spoke to him often so I can put a face to the story in the paper. While all the murders have an effect on each of us, it is, of course, these ones that hit close to home that hurt the most. The sad reality is that with such a murder rate, it is very difficult to find someone in Kingston, Jamaica who has not been personally affected by the frequent murders.
A few years ago, while still in Jamaica, I remember reading about a a survey done in Jamaica which showed that crime was the number one thought on Jamaicans' minds - 24/7. Sometimes, because I now live in safe Toronto, I forget how I used to feel but trust me, I have not forgotten the actual feeling. That constant fear - It would overtake me while waiting for my father to pick me up from school in the evenings when there weren't many students left on-campus, while waiting at the bus stop, when walking down my street by myself in the evening (even in a residential neighbourhood), when going to sleep at night...It was always there. In my last few years in Jamaica, my parents' nerves were shot. They got so scared they used to take turns staying awake keeping vigil for strange noises at night. Our car was broken into twice before it was stolen, clothes were stolen from our laundry room while we slept and we'd heard far too many stories of people being held up in their garages. And we lived in one of the safer neighbourhoods! Plus, that's not even counting other incidents. My cousin's throat was slashed (a very bad time for our family). My uncle (his father) had previously been shot but, unlike my cousin, had miraculously survived. My aunt was held up at knife point while shopping down town. I even remember, when I was little, my mother being held up while my cousins and I were in the car.
So, as far back as I can remember, the murder rate and crime in general has always been bad in Kingston. While the crime is spreading to the other cities, tourists who come to the island don't know about any of this because they're kept insulated from everything in those all-inclusive resorts. I'm not knocking those resorts because I know that tourism is one of the few things we have that help the Jamaican economy and is one of the things we can feel good about. So to tourists, please continue going to Jamaica - for you it is the land of wood and water.
Anyways, with regards to crime, all Jamaicans agree that murder is the number one priority. It's funny and sad how we Jamaicans are always thankful if someone was only held up or only got stuff stolen because that means the perpetrators LEFT THEM ALIVE. Although it happens far too frequently, we are equally or even more angry when they take all the victims' money and other valuables yet still end up killing them, like they did with my cousin, my classmate and many others.
Jamaicans love our country. I would go back to live there in a second if stuff like this didn't keep happening. This was the reason my parents left the country. We had a good life in Jamaica but the crime was getting to be too much. When murders are committed, we feel so helpless. I ALWAYS FEEL SO HELPLESS when I think about the murder rate. How do we get people to stop committing these murders with wanton abandon? How do we get others to inform when they have information? How do we stop others from hiding information after being bribed? How can we assure the ones who have information that their life will not be in danger if they share the information? How do we stop the corruption which helps in keeping the criminals hidden? How do we change the mentality of a country?
Sunday, October 7, 2007
This is me
My friends have often encouraged me to write a book or at least short stories about the things that happen in my life as I'm always telling them about some dramatic event that happened to me or my family. The stories that they've heard have included having my house surrounded by a SWAT team, being that girl at the office Christmas party, praying that our car will not explode after catching on fire with the whole family in it, having our roof blown off during a hurricane, bathing in the rain when there was no water in my house, getting lost driving to school even after 2 years practice, climbing up a steep grassy hill (cliff really) at the Plaines D'Abraham in Quebec IN HEELS, having a sketchy French guy really come on to me while staying in Montreal, and complaining about my family's love of going everywhere together even to get milk at the supermarket (we're 5 now 6 of us in the family AND one of my sisters and I are both over 21).
Truthfully, I don't think that my stories are all that different from many other people's but maybe if I tell you a bit about my life you will understand the background to the stories and thoughts that I will be posting...
I was born in Belgium to a Haitian mother and a Chinese-Jamaican father. I lived in an inner-city neighbourhood in Jamaica until I was eleven then we moved to a very different residential neighborhood. My move to the upper middle class area also coincided with my beginning high school, a high school filled with students from the upper echelons of Jamaican society. During high school, with my father's encouragement I decided to go to the USA for college. I left Jamaica at 18 years old to go to a top liberal arts college in the the middle-of-nowhere Iowa in the States. I did two years there before my parents success in getting approved to immigrate to Canada, prompted my transferring to a university here in Toronto. I transferred because I wanted to save them some money and also to live in a city and be closer to my family. It turns out that not much money was saved because I was getting a nice grant from my old school and I had failed to factor in other costs besides tuition into the picture when looking at Canadian universities. Anyways, I just graduated with a degree in Computer Science this past June. Yes I was one of very few females in the graduating class. I did a 16 months co-op as part of my degree. All in all with the transfer from the States and co-op it took me 6 years to graduate. I'm currently working on contract with the hope of going to France next year. Oh, another thing about me, I am constantly striving to become fluent in French and so I always try to do things that will bring me closer to this goal.
Today I decided to start my own blog and share my personal reflections and (sometimes) outrageous stories with the world. I may even tell you, in entirety, some of the stories I mentioned earlier.
Many people have big dreams and hopes for their blogs.
I just hope you like it.
:]
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