barbados wrapped up sweetly and smoothly, but not without a delightful pattern of people giving me free food. two women, one of whom i worked with (mrs. ford) and the other i only knew because i walked by her everyday as i made my way to the bus stop (merl), both voluntarily made me a barbadian delicacy: conky. this labor-intensive delight is enjoyed by all on the island during the month following barbadian independence day. the trick, though, is that it must be made in the home. in other words, there are no conkies to be found in the frozen food section of the local supermarket. and i must say, their work paid off. d. e. licious.
let's see. we swam with sea turtles (and puffer fish) in the open ocean. a definite highlight there. that same day included jet ski rides and a few lazy hours on a catamaran (i'll post pictures later - the files are on my other computer).
internships ended, but not before all the walls in campwood were painted peach and then overly decorated for christmas with santa puppets, frilly streamers, cheap mobiles, and, of course, a tree with borderline tacky decorations. oh, how i'll miss it - and the cutiepie children.
a note on the music preferences since returning from barbados. highest on the current list are rihanna and beres hammond. rihanna, well, she's from barbados, sings well, and did wonders in distracting the roommates and me from the group drama that emerged in our final week. and then beres is notable after seeing him in concert at the barbados gymnasium. smooth reggae. totally one love type stuff.
arriving stateside, i was a bit bombarded with some pretty serious world news - and i'd thought i'd done so well at keeping updated on the newsworthy moments of the globe...
check this out:
a few days ago, an iraqi journalist threw not one, but two, shoes at the president of the united states during a press conference. this is one of the greatest signs of contempt in the middle east - here's wikipedia's explanation:
"In the Arab world, shoe flinging is a gesture of extreme disrespect.The shoe represents the lowest part of the body (the foot) and displaying or throwing a shoe at someone or something in Arab cultures denotes that the person or thing is 'beneath them.' Showing the bottom of one's feet or shoes (for example, putting one's feet up on a table or desk) in Arab cultures is considered an extreme insult."
bush's clever retort: "size 10, he he." the man then got tackled by a couple secret service men, the others - do note they have sworn to take a bullet for the president - stood back, laughed, ultimately failed to respond. but it does make you wonder how no one saw it coming. i mean, honestly now, the CIA must have had some sort of tip. bring on the conspiracy theorists. ten bucks says the journalists must remove their shoes at the door at the next press conference - or better yet, sit naked (adding ease to the public speaking tip of imagining your audience naked...). needless to say, our favorite shoe-tosser has made it big. he now has several facebook groups devoted to his work. those of you with facebook, search the name muntadar al-zaidi (or just shoe thrower if spelling the arabic name is too taxing of an activity (and understandably so) for winter break, and take your pick of "all hail the shoe thrower," or "let's make the bush 'shoe-thrower' a hero!!!" or, my personal favorite, "free the shoe thrower guy." just great.
in other news - amy poehler has left snl. here is one of her finest moments (palin 2012):
a sad sad day. i suppose it just calls for a poehler lookalike to run a botched campaign for public office (a la the unforgetable sarah palin/tina fey brilliance).
more on the news highlights later. i've got a final in 5 hours and have yet to study. so for you prin kids that wanted the semester system instead of quarters (so that we'd be more like everyone else - something they teach against in grade school, mind you), imagine that finals week is just wrapping up and that lovely worry free lifestyle of sleeping in and tree decorating has yet to begin. my best wishes to all come the fall of 2010.
