A little bit of lagniappe...

BCS Selection Procedures

2009-12-30T16:53:00.001-08:00

BCS Selection Procedures

Bowl Championship Series Selection Policies and Procedures, 2007-2010 Games:

Automatic Qualification

1. The top two teams in the final BCS Standings shall play in the National Championship Game.

2. The champions of the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-10, and Southeastern conferences will have automatic berths in one of the participating bowls after the 2006 and 2007 regular seasons.

3. The champion of Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Mountain West Conference, the Sun Belt Conference, or the Western Athletic Conference will earn an automatic berth in a BCS bowl game if either:

A. Such team is ranked in the top 12 of the final BCS Standings, or,
B. Such team is ranked in the top 16 of the final BCS Standings and its ranking in the final BCS Standings is higher than that of a champion of a conference that has an annual automatic berth in one of the BCS bowls.

No more than one such team from Conference USA, the Mid-American Conference, the Mountain West Conference, the Sun Belt Conference, and the Western Athletic Conference shall earn an automatic berth in any year. If two or more teams from those conferences satisfy the provisions for an automatic berth, then the team with the highest finish in the final BCS Standings will receive the automatic berth, and the remaining team or teams will be in the pool of teams eligible for selection by the bowls as at-large teams.

4. Notre Dame will have an automatic berth if it is in the top eight of the final BCS Standings.

5. If any of the 10 slots remain open after application of provisions 1 through 4, and an at-large team from a conference with an annual automatic berth for its champion is ranked No. 3 in the final BCS Standings, that team will become an automatic qualifier, provided that no at-large team from the same conference qualifies for the national championship game.

6. If any of the 10 slots remain open after application of provisions 1 through 5, and if no team qualifies under paragraph No. 5 and an at-large team from a conference with an annual automatic berth for its champion is ranked No. 4 in the final BCS Standings, that team will become an automatic qualifier provided that no at-large team from the same conference qualifies for the national championship game.

At-Large Eligibility

If there are fewer than 10 automatic qualifiers, then the bowls will select at-large participants to fill the remaining berths. An at-large team is any Football Bowl Subdivision team that is bowl-eligible and meets the following requirements:

A. Has won at least nine regular-season games, and
B. Is among the top 14 teams in the final BCS Standings.

No more than two teams from a conference may be selected, regardless of whether they are automatic qualifiers or at-large selections.

If fewer than 10 teams are eligible for selection, then the Bowls can select as an at-large team any Football Bowl Subdivision team that is bowl-eligible, has won at least nine regular-season games and is among the top 18 teams in the final BCS Standings subject to the two-team limit noted above and also subject to the following: (1) if any conference has two or more teams in the top 14, then two of those teams must be selected and (2) from the teams ranked 15-18, a bowl can select only a team from a conference that has fewer than two teams in the top 14.

All teams ranked in the top 14, other than those from conferences which have already had two teams selected, must be included in the bowl selections.

If expansion of the pool to 18 teams does not result in 10 teams eligible for selection, then the pool shall be expanded by blocks of 4 teams until 10 eligible teams are available subject to the two-team limit noted above and also subject to the following: (1) if any conference has two or more teams in the top 14, then two of those teams must be selected and (2) from the teams ranked 15 or lower, a bowl can select only a team from a conference that has fewer than two teams in the top 14.

Note: in order to participate in a BCS Bowl game, a team (i) must be eligible for post-season play under the rules of the NCAA and, if it not an independent, under the rules of its conference and (ii) must not have imposed sanctions upon itself prohibiting participation in a post-season game for infractions of the rules of the NCAA or the rules of its conference.

Team-Selection Procedures

The bowls will select their participants from two pools: (1) automatic qualifiers, all of which must be selected, and, (2) at-large teams, if fewer than 10 teams qualify automatically. The following sequence will be used when establishing pairings:

1. The top two teams in the final BCS Standings will be placed in the National Championship Game ("NCG").

2. Unless they qualify to play in the NCG, the champions of selected conferences are contractually committed to host selected games:

Atlantic Coast Conference-Orange Bowl
Big Ten Conference-Rose Bowl
Big 12 Conference-Fiesta Bowl
Pac-10 Conference-Rose Bowl
Southeastern Conference-Sugar Bowl

3. If a bowl loses a host team to the NCG, then such bowl shall select a replacement team from among the automatic-qualifying teams and the at-large teams before any other selections are made. If two bowls lose host teams to the NCG, each bowl will get a replacement pick before any other selections are made. In such case, the bowl losing the No. 1 team gets the first replacement pick, and the bowl losing the No. 2 team gets the second replacement pick. If the Rose Bowl loses both the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions to the NCG, it will receive two replacement picks.

A bowl choosing a replacement team may not select any of the following:

A. A team in the NCG;
B. The host team for another BCS Bowl;
C. When two bowls lose host teams, then the bowl losing the number one team may not select a replacement team from the same Conference as the number two team, unless the bowl losing the number two team consents.

4. After steps No. 1, 2 and 3 have been completed, any bowl with an unfilled slot shall select a team from the automatic qualifiers and/or at-large teams in the following order:

A. The bowl played on the date nearest to the National Championship Game (for 2008, Orange Bowl) will pick first;
B. The bowl played on the date second-nearest to the National Championship Game (for 2008, Fiesta Bowl) will pick second;
C. The bowl hosting the game that is played in the time slot immediately after the Rose Bowl game (for 2008, Sugar Bowl) will pick third.

The rotation noted in paragraphs A, B and C is as follows:
January 2007 games: Sugar, Orange, Fiesta
January 2008 games: Orange, Fiesta, Sugar
January 2009 games: Fiesta, Sugar, Orange
January 2010 games: Orange, Fiesta, Sugar

All teams earning automatic berths must be selected.

5. After completion of the selection process as described in Paragraph Nos. 1-4, the conferences and Notre Dame may, but are not required to, adjust the pairings taking into consideration the following:

A. whether the same team will be playing in the same bowl game for two consecutive years;
B. whether two teams that played against one another in the regular season will be paired against one another in a bowl game;
C. whether the same two teams will play against each other in a bowl game for two consecutive years; and
D. whether alternative pairings may have greater or lesser appeal to college football fans as measured by expected ticket sales for the bowls and by expected television interest, and the consequent financial impact on Fox and the bowls.

Tie-Breaking Procedure

The following steps will be used to resolve any ties in the standings after the computation is carried out to full decimal points:

A bowl choosing a replacement team may not select any of the following:

1. Look to head-to-head result;
2. If the tie is not resolved by paragraph No. 1, then evaluate results against the highest-ranked common opponent in the BCS standings;
3. If the tie is not resolved by paragraph Nos. 1-2, then calculate tied teams' place in BCS Standings using all six computer providers (i.e., do not throw out the high and low computer rankings) and the Harris and Coaches polls;
4. If the tie is not resolved by paragraph Nos. 1-3, then draw.

Conference Automatic Qualification in Future

The conferences have developed athematical standards of performance which be applied to determine the number of conferences whose champions will automatically qualify for a BCS game after the 2008 and 2009 regular seasons. The champions of no fewer than five conferences and no more than seven conferences will have annual automatic berths.

The standards will be based on results from the 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 regular seasons, using institutions that are members of the conferences during the 2007 season.

The data will include the following for each conference (1) the ranking of the highest-ranked team in the final BCS standings each year, (2) the final regular-season rankings of all conference teams in the computer rankings used by the BCS each year and (3) the number of teams in the top 25 of the final BCS standings each year.

The standards will not prohibit the champion of any conference that has contracted with a bowl from playing in one of the participating BCS bowls. For example, the Big Ten and Pac-10 champions will, by contract, play in the Rose Bowl every year unless one or both qualifies for the National Championship Game.

Cross-cultural Experience Essay

2009-10-28T06:12:00.000-07:00

Peace Corps Volunteers must be open to ideas and cultures different from their own and may need to modify their appearance or behavior appropriately. Give an example (between 250-500 words) of a significant experience that illustrates your ability to adapt in an unfamiliar environment. Please highlight the skills you used and the perspectives you gained. You may draw from experiences in your work, school, or community in the U.S. or abroad. Please list the date(s) of your experience.

“Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”

Growing up in Louisiana, we never took public transportation. As a result, I grew up with no experience in using trains, busses, or metro systems, and I never imagined myself ever using one. This all changed during my trip to Belize in June of 2006. After completing a five-week long archaeological dig, myself and three other students decided to stay an additional week and visit Guatemala.

After the dig, we were dropped off at the bus station following the instructions “Head towards Banque;” it all sounded so simple. The four of us enter the open aired station and look for a ticket counter, instantly realizing it did not exist. We immediately look for someone to ask and receive nothing but unwelcome looks. Fortunately, we find a semi-friendly vendor who is willing to explain the process to us.

Turing to look for our bus we see a row of brightly painted school busses; finding our bus we board it and take our seats. We didn’t see a schedule of arrivals and departures and knew the road system was not going to be as standardized as those in the States, so we were unsure of how long the ride was going to take us. Actually we were still pretty unsure if we were even headed in the right direction.

Finally on our way, the bus began making stops, where there were vendors selling snacks and trinkets through the bus windows. The combination of vendors shouting, the noise of the engine, the animals running free in the streets, and the smell of dry unsettled dirt, sweaty people and gasoline fumes made the whole experience quite chaotic. I was hesitant to even leave the bus for a bathroom break because I was unsure how long we would be stopped and did not want to be left behind.

As our trip continued, the bus became increasingly crowded, forcing many people to stand. The group of gringos seemed to be a spectacle to every person on board; so much of a spectacle that the discomfort was thick in the dusty air. My friend eventually awoke to a child petting his blonde arm hair, staring at him in curiosity and amazement. Yet as the ride continued our tension eased and we became more relaxed about our surroundings and lack of personal space. Finally after the uncomfortably long six hours in the overcrowded bus with no bathroom breaks, we reached the boarder of Guatemala feeling unsure of our new surroundings.

Looking back on this experience it amuses me how unprepared I was to use public transportation, especially in a foreign country. However, my perspectives on public transportation have changed greatly. I have become a confident, avid user of public transportation and less concerned with personal space or time efficiency. Two years later while in Peru, I was more than comfortable packing tightly into the small, overcrowded combis and only used the bus or metro while living in Washington, DC. My cross-cultural bus experience in Belize has not only impacted the way I travel but also how I view people of other cultures abroad and at home.

"Funemployment" article in the LA Times

2009-10-13T16:00:00.000-07:00

For the 'funemployed,' unemployment is welcome

These jobless folks, usually singles in their 20s and 30s, find that life without work agrees with them. Instead of punching the clock, they're hitting the beach.

By Kimi Yoshino

June 4, 2009

Michael Van Gorkom was laid off by Yahoo in late April. He didn't panic. He didn't rush off to a therapist. Instead, the 33-year-old Santa Monica resident discovered that being jobless "kind of settled nicely."

Week one: "I thought, 'OK . . . I need to send out resumes, send some e-mails, need to do networking."

Week two: "A little less."

Every week since: "I'm going to go to the beach and enjoy some margaritas."

What most people would call unemployment, Van Gorkom embraced as "funemployment."

While millions of Americans struggle to find work as they face foreclosures and bankruptcy, others have found a silver lining in the economic meltdown. These happily jobless tend to be single and in their 20s and 30s. Some were laid off. Some quit voluntarily, lured by generous buyouts.

Buoyed by severance, savings, unemployment checks or their parents, the funemployed do not spend their days poring over job listings. They travel on the cheap for weeks. They head back to school or volunteer at the neighborhood soup kitchen. And at least till the bank account dries up, they're content living for today.

"I feel like I've been given a gift of time and clarity," said Aubrey Howell, 29, of Franklin, Tenn., who was laid off from her job as a tea shop manager in April. After sleeping in late and visiting family in Florida, she recently mused on Twitter: "Unemployment or funemployment?"

Never heard of funemployment? Here's Urban Dictionary's definition: "The condition of a person who takes advantage of being out of a job to have the time of their life. I spent all day Tuesday at the pool; funemployment rocks!"

It may not have entered our daily lexicon yet, but a small army of social media junkies with a sudden overabundance of time is busy Tweeting: "Funemployment road trip to Portland." "Funemployment is great for catching up on reading!" "Averaging 3 rounds of golf a week plus hockey and bball. who needs work?"

As frivolous as it sounds, funemployment is a statement about American society. Experts say it's both a reflection of the country's cultural narcissism -- and attitudes of entitlement and self-centeredness -- and a backlash against corporate America and its "Dilbert"-like work environment.

"Recession gives people permission to be unemployed," said David Logan, a professor at USC's Marshall School of Business. "Why not make use of the time and go do something fun?"

Jean Twenge, co-author of "The Narcissism Epidemic: Living in the Age of Entitlement," said in some cases, many employees had lost balance between work and life, with too many late nights and weekends spent at the office. When they stop working, they realize how much they had given up.

Nina Flores, 28, quit her job as a jury consultant in Costa Mesa on Feb. 1 and has no regrets.

"You figure out how much . . . you miss when maybe you're tied to your BlackBerry all the time or, in my case, traveling for work all the time," she said. "I can't imagine doing that again and sacrificing everything I want to do for me. . . . I think it is a new way of thinking."

For many younger people, Twenge said, work is less central to their lives. These days, more people than in the 1970s are saying they want jobs with a lot of vacation time, according to preliminary data from Twenge's generational surveys. Younger employees today also are less willing to work overtime. And, when asked if they would quit their jobs if they had money, more are answering "yes," though the majority still say they would continue working.

"It really suggests there has been that generational shift that work is not the be all and end all," said Twenge, an associate professor of psychology at San Diego State.

Flores said she finds herself looking into jobs she would have never considered before, even if it means taking a big pay cut. What's more important, she said, is flexibility, lots of vacation time and something that doesn't have "that 9-to-5" feeling.

Amanda Rounsaville, 34, of Los Angeles quit her job as a program officer at the California Endowment in late March. A self-described workaholic who rarely called in sick or used vacation days, Rounsaville found a certain peace last month during her three-week trek through northern Mongolia with two friends, sleeping in $3-a-night, tent-like gers.

"I literally found myself smiling uncontrollably at being that far away from everything," Rounsaville said.

Enjoying the solitude, she found herself contemplating: "Do we work to live or do we live to work? Do I have life goals that are not work goals?"

Both Flores and Rounsaville discovered that they like themselves better when they're not consumed by their jobs.

"This is the best version of me," Flores said, adding that she feels "completely healthy," relaxed and focused.

Rounsaville agreed: "The rat race puts blinders on you and makes time fly, and then the next thing you know, you've missed the chance to be your more exciting self, or to push yourself in a gutsier direction."

For some in older generations, watching their children embrace an escape from responsibility is difficult. So while a young unemployed person might be saying, "This is awesome. I'm having a really good time," their parents are probably asking, "Haven't you gotten a job yet?" Twenge said.

Flores' decision to quit her job was initially met by concern and worry by her parents and some friends, but she thinks it's partly because they simply can't relate. By the time her parents' generation reached their late 20s and early 30s, most were married with children.

Van Gorkom's father had a similar response. Since being laid off as Yahoo Music's director of user experience design, Van Gorkom said he has purchased a laptop and started shopping for a new couch, "which my dad doesn't understand." As he spends money, his father is nervously asking Van Gorkom whether he needs any money.

USC's Logan isn't convinced funemployment is unique to this generation. The notion of slackers -- or whatever label is in vogue -- has been around for decades. What's different, he said, is the new social media that allows the unemployed to find each other and make plans through Facebook and Twitter.

Andy Deemer, one of Rounsaville's traveling companions, points out that they went to Mongolia with "someone two people removed from me that I had only met once two years ago at a cocktail party." The 36-year-old New Yorker and college pal of Rounsaville's, said they connected with that third travel mate through Facebook and word of mouth.

The daily lives of the unemployed have never been more public. They can post online photos of globe-trotting vacations, blog about their long lunches and broadcast via Twitter the day's weighty choices, as @james6378 did last week when deciding between Lucky Charms and Frosted Flakes cereals.

By thumbing their collective noses at employment, they also are sending a message to corporate America, Logan said.

"People are saying screw it and they're leaving companies," Logan said. "We need to figure out how to make companies work better for everybody. Until that happens . . . early retirements and furloughs are going to continue. People are going to opt out of the system."

Deemer, an independent filmmaker who also worked at CNET and about.com, said he actually enjoyed corporate America, up until November when the Internet start-up he was working for failed to get financing. After it tanked, he sold his New York apartment, put his belongings in storage, turned his parents' Beijing home into base camp, and embarked on a spiritual quest to find various mystics and shamans around Asia.

"I'm a little worried," he said of his future financial stability. "There's a nagging sense of fear that does gnaw at me when I consider it."

But Deemer has taken big risks before in the name of fulfilling a dream. He quit his CNET job to make the low-budget cult movie "Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead," which still makes him "smile big." He expects no less from his Asian adventure.

With his friends in tow, Deemer has already managed to visit a fortuneteller in Myanmar and a tarot card reader in Thailand, and to spend a few days with Saffron Revolution monks near the Thailand-Myanmar border. In Mongolia, he searched 10 days for a reindeer-herding shaman, finally tracking her down on his last day.

She wore tight jeans, a glittery purple sweater and a rhinestone headband. She typed on a laptop. He found her both mystical and authentic, though when he returned from his Trans-Siberian adventure to Beijing, he felt unchanged.

But since he was seeking answers, the Mongolian shaman had one for him. On a Post-it, she wrote his fortune in Cyrillic. The last sentence, in a nutshell: Go back to work.

4.5 months...

2009-09-22T22:50:00.000-07:00

...and counting.

"Unemployment Rise Shows Recession Far From Over"

I would classify myself in the "people who would really like a job but have given up actively looking" category. Also, I would like to note that unemployment statistics really don't account for the recent graduates who cannot find a job, yet do not qualify for unemployment.

New Car

2009-08-30T21:26:00.001-07:00

After nearly a month of searching for a car and 2.5 years of not owning one, I finally found my new car! 2009 Toyota Corolla LE, with 9,700 miles on it. Not bad for a used car! I just hope that I don't have to worry about buying another one for a long time!!!

DC Bucket List

2009-07-26T12:21:00.000-07:00

I officially have one week left in beautiful Washington, DC. Of course anytime you live anywhere, you get so caught up in your busy schedule that you miss all the wonderful things around you. This being said, I have decided that the best use of my time left in DC is by being a tourist and visiting everything that I've missed since I've been here. My bucket list for the week is as follows...

DC Bucket List

-Capitol tour

-Afternoon in Georgetown

-Air and Space Museum

-Walk the Monuments

-Paddle boat/canoe potomac

-National archives

-Spy Museum

-Eastern Market

-Botanic Gardens

-Newseum

-Kislak Collection at the Library of Congress

-Nat Geo Museum

-Vietnam Memorial

-National Postal Museum

-National Cathedral

-Mount Vernon

My New Plan...Thanks Stuff White People Like

2009-07-23T18:45:00.000-07:00

#120 Taking a Year Off

January 11, 2009 by clander

When someone goes through a stressful experience they usually require some time off to clear their head, regain focus, and recover from the pain and suffering. Of course, in white culture these experiences are most often defined as finishing high school, making it through three years of college, or working for eleven months straight with only two weeks vacation and every statutory holiday (”they don’t count because I had to spend them with family.”)

Though you might consider finishing school or having a good job to be “accomplishments” many white people view them as burdens. As such, they can only handle them for so long before they start talking about their need to “take a year off” to travel, volunteer, or work abroad.

It is most common for the person taking the year off to use this time to travel (see Post #19 for reasons why). Generally, they will start off with a set amount of money that will use to travel for as long as possible. This explains why a white person with an $800 backpack will haggle with a poverty-stricken street vendor about a $2 dollar plate of food.

If you work with this person, be sure to give them a FAKE email address on their last day on the job or you will be inundated with emails about spiritual enlightenment and how great the food is compared to similar restaurants back home. Also, within the first five days following departure, this person will come up with the idea to write a book about their travel experience. Sadly, more books about mid-twenties white people traveling have been written than have been read.

Some of the more enterprising white people will extend their time off by working abroad as a bartender, ski lift operator, or english teacher. Their stories, emails, and publishing plans will be identical to the previous white person but will include additional stories about working and complaints about “tourists.”

Finally, there is the white person who takes a year off to volunteer at home or abroad. Though they are equally likely to write long emails about their experience, these people are often using the experience as an excellent resume pad for their application to law school. This way they are able to put off real life without the crippling derailment of a career or education.

Regardless of how a white person chooses to spend their year off, they all share the same goal of becoming more interesting to other people. Sadly, the people who find these stories interesting are other white people who are politely listening until they can tell their own, more interesting story about taking a year off.

Thankfully, there is an enormous opportunity for personal gain. You see, whenever a white person takes a year off it opens up a valuable apartment, job opportunity or admissions slot. Consider it to be the most pretentious form of affirmative action.

Chris Rose is a Brilliant Writer...The Voice of New Orleans

2009-07-21T07:53:00.000-07:00

Chris Rose: Take a true dream vacation this summer, courtesy of C. Ray Nagin

by Chris Rose, Columnist, The Times-Picayune
Tuesday July 21, 2009, 5:00 AM

The Times-Picayune Archive
Trying to save cash this summer? Why not take Raycation? Spend a week visiting all the attractions that Ray Nagin promised us over the past eight years but which never really happened.

Times are tough; everybody knows that. That's why "stay-cations" have become all the rage across America: The practice of staying home and being a tourist in your own town.

You can save a lot of money that way.

But I've got a cheaper and much more exciting travel idea: This summer, me and my family are taking a "Ray-cation." It's a Dream Vacation - literally. We're going to spend a week visiting all the attractions that Ray Nagin promised us over the past eight years but which never really happened.

It's been the hallmark of his two terms in office, really - the notion that you don't actually need to do anything as long as you think of an idea and then announce it with much fanfare. It follows on his recent advice to tell the Census Bureau that New Orleans is your home if here's where you'd live, if you could, rather than where you actually do.

You follow?

Anyway, that's how me and my family decided to Raycation this summer; taking the grand tour of Hizzoner's dream world. Without spending a dime!

Hell, you don't even have to get out of your seat.

The first advantage to a Raycation is that you don't have to deal with the insufferable indignities of Louis Armstrong International Airport - not since our Mayor sold that sucker. (And lucky thing he did that in his first term since selling airports has recently become strictly a buyer's market!)

The one thing we will miss by not going to the airport is a ride on the high speed rail that connects the airport to the Union Passenger Terminal downtown. That would have been a kick for the kids, I'm sure. But, hey, it's hard to pack everything into a Raycation.

So we'll start out by checking into the gleaming, towering Trump luxury hotel on Poydras Street. Man, it's like a hundred stories tall! Hollywood stars live in the adjacent condos!

I had first considered staying at one of the big national casino resorts that line Canal Street, but I didn't think that would be appropriate for my kids. All those crowds, all that traffic. Talk about Sin City!

There's probably even hookers.

And, I don't mean to sound cheap here - I want to spread as many Benjamins around the local economy as possible - but I think I'm going to ask for the "Houston rate" over at Trump, following on our mayor's generous offer to discount all hotel rooms for Texas hurricane evacuees.

Once we settle in - and eat that sweet, sweet chocolate they put on our pillows - I suppose we'll start out by walking around downtown. Even though the sky is filled with cranes - a bit of an eyesore, really - we can still take in the breathtaking splendor of our new City Hall, an architectural crown jewel of the South - and a structure that does this city proud.

"That ham is baked," the Mayor once told us of the new municipal complex. "It's ready to come out. You're going to like that one."

Like it? We LOVE it!

Now, maybe you're thinking: You're going to walk around downtown? Isn't that dangerous?

To which I offer a hearty Hell No! Not since we got all those crime cameras installed. Ray's crime prevention program has the knuckleheads on the run in this town.

"As promised last year, all 242 crime cameras were repaired," the Mayor announced in May. (And I don't mean to be picky but maybe he meant 241, because the camera that was pointed directly at that murder scene on Leonidas Street the other night was, well, broken.)

But enough of the downer news. Murder, schmerder! There is a big, bright, bold city to behold! The Jazz theme park, performance venue and museum on Loyola Avenue, for instance, right next to the newly developed Hyatt Regency complex. "The state's biggest capital project ever," Ray called it in 2007.

And let me tell you something: Chicago's Millennium Park has nothing on this place. The exhibits, the interactivity, the concerts. Parks. Green spaces.

Incredible. Only a visionary could have come up with this. I wouldn't doubt if Wynton Marsalis moves back to New Orleans now.

After all, there are performance spaces everywhere in this town, from the refurbished Municipal Auditorium to the new riverfront amphitheater which features Celine Dion a hundred nights a year.

Ray, he loves that Celine Dion.

So much to do and see! Especially since we're taking our Raycation this year during the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. That means we'll be right in the thick of the festivities: The parade! The masquerade ball! Comedy night at Harrah's! Fireworks!

What a great idea, to take a day that otherwise might bum us all out and transform it into a lively celebration of New Orleans culture.

What will he think of next?

Whatever it is, you can count me and my family in! I'm telling you, there's no shortage of wonder on a Raycation. It is a dreamer's paradise. It's so beautiful that sometimes it's hard to believe it's real.

It's Ray's World, and we're just living in it.

A few photos that make me smile....

2009-07-13T20:00:00.001-07:00

Welcome to your Quarter Life Crisis

2009-04-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

Welcome to Your Quarterlife Crisis

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BY KATE CARRAWAY April 01, 2009 21:04

Submit your Quarterlife Crisis Today!

Imagine a day in the life of a couple you probably know. He’s 27 years old, and she’s 26. They wake up beside each other in his downtown bachelor apartment and have sex that neither of them particularly enjoys. They’ve been sort-of dating for a while now, but they’re not willing to commit to each other: he likes her, but doesn’t know if he always will. She can’t decide if she likes him more or less than the other two guys she’s sleeping with.

He bikes to work at an advertising agency, where he uses his master’s in English to proofread ad copy, and spends several hours reading music blogs and watching movie trailers, periodically Twittering updates about his workday to his 74 followers. He doesn’t really hate his job, but feels as if his skin is crawling with vermin most of the time that he’s there, so he has a plan to move to Thailand, or to maybe write a book. Or go to law school.

At her government job, she instant messages her friends and mostly ignores the report she’s drafting because she’s planning on quitting anyway — and has been planning to quit for about a year now. She spends her lunch hour buying boots that cost slightly more than her rent, then immediately regrets it.

He listlessly works through lunch, then goes to the bar after work to meet up with some university friends, where they talk about their jobs and make ironic jokes about other people. Back at home, he wonders why he feels so gross and empty after spending time with them, but it’s mostly better than being alone.

She walks to the house that she shares with three friends and spends a few more hours on celebrity gossip websites, then clicking through the Facebook photos of girls she knew in high school posing with their husbands and babies, simultaneously judging them and feeling a deep pit of jealousy, and a strange kind of loss. “When did this happen for them?” she wonders.

They both eventually fall asleep, late and alone, each of them wondering what it is that’s wrong with them that they can’t quite seem to understand.

This phenomenon, known as the “Quarterlife Crisis,” is as ubiquitous as it is intangible. Unrelenting indecision, isolation, confusion and anxiety about working, relationships and direction is reported by people in their mid-twenties to early thirties who are usually urban, middle class and well-educated; those who should be able to capitalize on their youth, unparalleled freedom and free-for-all individuation. They can’t make any decisions, because they don’t know what they want, and they don’t know what they want because they don’t know who they are, and they don’t know who they are because they’re allowed to be anyone they want.

When a contemporary 25-year-old’s parents were 25, they weren’t concerned with keeping their options open: they were purposefully buying houses, making babies and making partner. Now, who we are and what we do is up to us, unbound to existing communities, families and class structures that offer leisure and self-determination to just a few. Boomer and post-boom parents with more money and autonomy than their predecessors has resulted in benignly self-indulgent children who were sold on their own uniqueness, place in the world and right to fulfillment in a way no previous generation has felt entitled to, and an increasingly entrepreneurial, self-driven creation myth based on personal branding, social networking and untethered lifestyle spending is now responsible for our identities.

IDENTIFIED FOR THE first time in 2001, the Quarterlife Crisis has been written about most notably by Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner in the New York Times best seller Quarterlife Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties. The themes of twentysomething ennui are everywhere in pop culture (Garden State; Lost in Translation) but it’s also been explicitly addressed: on Gossip Girl, Blair Waldorf explains some bad behaviour with “I was such an overachiever, I was headed for a Quarterlife Crisis at 18”; in the John Mayer song “Why Georgia” (“I rent a room and I fill the spaces with wood in places to make it feel like home but all I feel’s alone / It might be a Quarterlife Crisis or just the stirring in my soul”); Quarterlife was a successful web series about seven twentysomethings with creative tendencies. There’s also a terrible metal band from Long Island called Quarterlife Crisis who look like an apathetic version of Insane Clown Posse.

Says Michael Kimmel, a sociologist and author of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men, “The Quarterlife Crisis is a kind of anticipatory crisis: ‘How is my life going to turn out? I don’t have a clue; I don’t have a map; I don’t have a vision for it.’ The mid-life crisis is a kind of ‘Is this it? I had a big plan, I had big ideas. Now I’m 48 and I guess I won’t get to do those things.’ The mid-life crisis is understood as one of resignation. A Quarterlife Crisis will resolve itself by hooking itself into a plan.” What that plan could be, though, might be vague, or feel altogether impossible to create.

Attempts to manage the Quarterlife Crisis might be as banal as drinking a lot, doing a bunch of drugs, sleeping with idiots and myriad other kinds of self-flagellation, but broader attempts are made to find some sense of purpose. An obvious choice for panicking twentysomethings with a post-undergraduate sense of displacement and for the ones that aren’t fulfilled by their jobs is grad school. James, a 28-year-old student, says “Quarterlife crises are the reason that so many universities have turned lower-level graduate programs into a cash cow.” Graduate and professional school can provide a direction and delay other choices about career and stability. And, while it’s true that higher education can “help students improve their personal and professional competency,” it can also “leave students feeling insecure about their abilities and their job prospects,” says Marc Scheer, who is a career counsellor and educational consultant, the author of No Sucker Left Behind: Avoiding the Great College Rip-Off and an advocate for considering options beyond formal education. (He also has a Ph.D.) Scheer emphasizes making an informed choice. “Whether graduate school is a wise move depends on each individual student and what they want to study. Law school can be helpful, but mostly if a student can gain acceptance to a top-tier school. Getting a Ph.D. could be dangerous for some students, especially since Ph.D. graduation rates are obscenely low these days, and few tenure-track jobs are available. So it really depends.”

Among the implicit promises made to this generation of twentysomethings was that they would have work that was engaging and creatively fulfilling. A 27-year-old freelance graphic designer with a graduate degree who is struggling to find work, Prescott says “You could always say the whole premise of education is that if you study, get good grades, acquire skills, you will have more options in a ‘career and life’ point of view. If you get a degree, you don’t have to work in a factory or have to work in a farm. That’s proving to be a huge lie, because you have people coming out of school and there are just no jobs, especially in ‘middle-class’ fields.” The dissonance between a twentysomething’s pre-career expectations and the dissatisfaction they feel as part of the working world can be hugely defeating. As Kimmel says, “They don’t have much of a life plan about how to move from Point A to Point B. What happens very often is they have very big ambitions, [but] there is a mismatch between their planning for their lives and their ambitions.” He also says that the conflict is made more difficult because 25-year-olds are living “in an economic environment which is the most inhospitable in our history.” David J. Rosen, the author of What’s that Job and How the Hell Do I Get It, a career guide based on interviews with young professionals with “cool” jobs across a variety of professions, says “Generally, being happy at work is huge part of having a happy life, and a cool and interesting job is one that leaves you fulfilled, not bitter, or not with that existential career angst that you were meant for ‘more than this.’”

SPENDING MONEY IS as fraught as making it. Multiple degrees, trips to Peru, and keeping up appearances on Saturday night all communicate values and desires, and having no consistent sense of “want” can reinforce the problem, often with trail of debt. Anya Kamenetz, who is a 29-year-old staff writer at Fast Company magazine and the author of the book Generation Debt: Why Now is a Terrible Time to be Young, says “As recently as the early 1990s, Americans had less than $10,000 of student loans on average. Now the average is over $20,000. As of about 2006, young people had $4,000 of credit-card debt on average, and those with debt were spending a quarter of their income on debt payments.” Kamenetz says “Debt and lower income can affect your choice of jobs. It can take longer to move out of your parents’ house or stop accepting those cheques and become fully independent. And many young people find themselves asking the question: ‘Why haven’t I made more progress?’ It makes people feel like failures when really there are larger trends at work.” This is also, in part, what has led to the “Boomerang” trend, where adult children move back in with their parents after leaving for school or work.

Scheer identifies another, more insidious problem with grad school, and with delaying career choices generally: “Graduate school presents some ‘opportunity costs’ in that students can’t work while they go to school. So, for example, someone who goes to medical school and doesn’t finish residency until their late 20s or early 30s won’t financially catch up to their friends until they are in their late 30s or early 40s or later. These are all important factors to consider and not be unrealistically optimistic about.”

The Quarterlife Crisis remains largely a middle-class, Stuff White People Like kind of problem, and usually manifests itself where certain problematic social norms used to exist, like who had access to education and interesting work, and who was allowed adventure and self-determination. The twentysomething void is, in large part, due to the important evolution of sexual equality, and when sex, relationships, and family-building changes, everything does.

Kimmel says, of men in particular, “Part of the Quarterlife Crisis is a kind of malaise that the end of your youth is really the end of fun. And that you’re never going to have any fun again, because you have to work. You’re never going to have sex again because you’re going to get married. Your life is over.” So why bother? Literal and figurative fucking around is infinitely more appealing to men who are still sorting out what they want their lives to look like.

“Grown-ups understand that the choices we make also involve choices we don’t make,” Kimmel says. “We have some regrets and we carry [those] with us. Guys don’t get a lot of help in this from each other or from our culture. Culturally we have got to show guys that the other side of this is actually terrific.” He points out that, statistically, married men are happier and have more sex, and that fathers experience lower levels of depression. Still, Kimmel points out that very young marriage has the highest rate of divorce, and that men would do well to spend their unmarried years focused on their own growth, rather than Halo 3.

WOMEN ALSO FIND themselves conflicted, usually more than men, about the trajectory of their twenties as they relate to relationships. Sarah, who is 27 and works at a non-profit, wants to travel and get a master’s degree, but feels conflicted about doing either. “I want to have kids, and every day that goes by, I have this number in my head. It’s 32. It used to be 30. That’s only a few years from now. I’m thinking, if I don’t do some of this stuff now, before I have kids, am I going to be able to do it?” Women are roundly considered to be in biologically ideal form for baby-making in their twenties and early thirties, which are also prime fun-having and career-building years. For women who want all of the things promised by (theoretically) equal education, work and sex lives, the conflict of desires can be catastrophic. Leah, who is a 26-year-old with a demanding corporate job, says “I feel tied down because of my job, but at the same time feel that while I am single and young I should travel because I don’t have any obligations to other people, and it’s only going to get harder as I get older.” Sarah says, “Am I going to have regrets? Once you have kids, your opportunities are over. That’s probably not true. But everyone seems to change. All of the women who I work with who have kids, they change. Their priorities shift.” Sarah’s boyfriend doesn’t feel the same pressure. “He doesn’t have that kind of timeframe. He says ‘I don’t even think about that.’ Of course you don’t think about it.... [Men] really don’t think about it.”

In 1973, the average age for women to get married was 23, and for men, 25. By 2003, the average age for both rose about five years, a significant change that reflects both marriage-free cohabitation and purposefully delaying serious commitment. It also means that twentysomethings are increasingly going it alone in their financial lives, where they would historically be building assets and houses and portfolios alongside their partner. Women, especially, are buying homes on their own. It also means that loneliness and isolation are far more likely, particularly when being separated from the close friendships that make up university life happens without a family or back-up community in place.

THE EMOTIONAL TUMULT reported during, or remembered after, a Quarterlife Crisis has a scarily ineffable quality. This isolation and its private anxiety are pervasive, as is a longing for the way things were in the predictably structured eras of high school and college or university. The directionlessness and resulting immobility is made worse when twentysomethings going through the Crisis compare themselves to their peers, past and present, further convincing someone in the throes of it that they’re not only alone, but the worst kind of failure. Says Leah, “A lot of [my friends] are settling down and getting ready to take the next steps towards marriage and families and it makes me question why I am not doing the same, and I realize that the amount of effort they put into finding a partner and getting married I put into my career. So how could I possibly have time for both?”

Twentysomethings are also inundated with constant but mostly empty communication, as the increasingly primary social sphere exists online instead of real life. Nothing could be more alienating to someone in the midst of a crisis than a tool like Facebook. Says James, “All sorts of half-forgotten acquaintances and abandoned friendships reappear in this spreadsheet of potential reasons to feel terrible about yourself. If you’re as petty as I am, you spend a lot of Facebook time gauging your own feelings of inadequacy in direct relation to other people’s success. All these people you couldn’t give a shit about a couple of years ago are now these omnipresent benchmarks and counterpoints to measure against whatever you have or haven’t got going on in your life.”

Adair, who is 30, found herself mired in a Quarterlife Crisis and sought professional help. She says, “I worked with a life coach, and he helped me a lot to realize that I was creating a vicious cycle in my life.... It was a cycle with four different phases, and I’ve followed it basically throughout my life. The steps were: I would get really excited about something, something new something different, something stellar, big. I went off to school totally excited and ready for an awesome experience. Stage two would be like ‘Oh, this is it? This is kind of boring now.’ After one-and-a-half exciting and non-stop years, I realized that I wasn’t excited about being there anymore. Stage three would be ‘What am I doing, why am I choosing to do this?’ In that third stage I would inevitably have some type of breakdown, [which] usually consisted of crying and talking through the feelings of emptiness and boredom with a friend or family member. Then I would have kind of breakthrough in that experience and get myself back up. At that point, I went abroad to Seville, Spain.... Now every time I’m faced with a change or new situation or find myself bored, I ask myself if this is a part of the cycle, or is this genuinely how I’m feeling.”

Having so much — youth, ability, independence — can feel like the worst possible scenario. What remains, though, is the potential for the years with anxiety and without direction to be reclaimed. Scheer sees real opportunity here. “If you feel you’re in crisis, this is a great opportunity to draft a five-year plan with steady concrete goals to help you get to where you want to be. Anyone can transform their life in just a few years.” Michael Kimmel says “There is life on the other side of this, and it’s actually a pretty good one. Growing up may be hard to do, but in the end, the gains outweigh the losses.” In other words: it might just be time to grow the fuck up.

CRISIS COPING: Finances

Credit Canada can help you get out of debt and come up with a financial plan to stay that way. More than just debt control, though, they offer free counselling and workshops for anyone who needs advice on how to better manage their money. Call 416-228-3328 for a free consultation, or visit www.creditcanada.com.

Living in Canada has dozens of income-related categories where you can compare your job’s wages against those in other cities, or check out lows, averages, and highs for your field at www.livingin-canada.com. Statistics Canada also calculates average earnings by occupation and city, and has wage information based on sex, age and level of education. Visit www.statcan.gc.ca and click on “Labour.”

Banks are a good place to turn for free investment and financial-planning advice. Many offer seminars and workshops, or online services if you’d prefer to handle it privately. If you don’t have a bank, trywww.weblocal.ca/tags/investment/Toronto, which links to local financial and investment services. MEGHAN DEAN

CRISIS COPING: Social

Social groups and clubs are a great ways to meet people with common interests. Toronto Sport and Social Club offers multi-week leagues as well single-time events in everything from dodgeball to yoga for 20 to 39-year-olds. Go to www.torontossc.com or call 416-781-4263.
The volunteer-run Toronto Outdoor Club provides mostly free or donation-based events for hikers and symphony-lovers alike, and groups people by age. www.torontooutdoorclub.com.
Toronto Craft Alert connects people to design-related activities around town. Get on their mailing list atwww.torontocraftalert.ca for information about offline events, as well as online forums.

For the online-inclined: indie-rock kids congregate on Stillepost (www.stillepost.ca); punks at Toronto Hardcore (http://tohc.ltwzine.com) and everyone on Facebook (www.facebook.com).
For more options, visit umbrella sites like www.meetup.com/cities/ca/on/toronto,www.directory.torontodirect.info/Groups_Organizations/Social_Groups and www.groupsnearyou.com. Expect to find groups for knitters, motorcyclists, writers, foodies, debaters and many more.  MD

CRISIS COPING: Career

Whether you’re looking to move up, across or change fields entirely, a career planning service can help. The Toronto Public Library offers online and in-person services. Their website,www.careerbookmarks.tpl.toronto.on.ca, gets you from aptitude test to job search from the privacy of your home. Every second and fourth Tuesday, the North York library (5120 Yonge) offers free sessions with a YMCA Employment Information Services employee. Next workshops are April 14 and 28 from 2-4pm. Call 416-395-5535 to find out more.

Colleges and universities also offer free career guidance for current and sometimes recently graduated students.

The provincial government offers services via the Ontario Work Info Net. Click on “Career Planning” to take a self-assessment test and get connected to local career-counselling services. Go to www.onwin.ca to get started.

The YWCA and YMCA also provide free career services. www.ywcatoronto.org and www.ymcatoronto.orghave all the details, or call 416-261-3457 (women) or 416-928-9622 (men).  MD

CRISIS COPING: Psychological Help

Toronto’s Psychotherapy Referral Service helps you find a professional trained to deal with stress, anxiety, depression and uncertainty. Call 416-920-0655 or go to www.prstoronto.com.
Try www.therapists.psychologytoday.com/rms/cities/Toronto-Therapists/.html to be connected with someone who can help determine if you need psychiatry, which are covered by OHIP, or clinical therapy or psychology, which are not.

For a less traditional approach, try a life coach. The Toronto Holistic Directorywww.torontoholisticdirectory.com links to practitioners, workshops, and over-the-phone consultation options.  MD

CRISIS COPING: Education

Like its career section, Ontario Work Info Net at www.onwin.ca offers links to local education advice and counselling services. There’s also a section dedicated to financing your education.
Universities and colleges provide information, counselling and programs for people struggling with what to study, and how to study it. U of T has two options: the Academic Bridging Program, for students looking to upgrade past knowledge as a way of obtaining an Arts and Sciences degree, and the Transitional Year Programme (TYP), for people with incomplete diplomas due to financial or personal circumstances beyond their control. For a free appointment at the Academic Bridging Program, call 416-978-4444. For more information about the TYP, call 416-978-6832.

The Chang School at Ryerson also offers flexible continuing studies courses geared to people in their mid-twenties and thirties. 416-979-5035. The School of Continuing Studies at U of T (416-978-2400) and York’s Division of Continuing Education (416-736-5000) also provide opportunities to enhance your professional qualifications.  MD

Jane Looks Quizzical
Am I having a Quarterlife Crisis?

1. You make an impulse purchase. It’s
a) gum.
b) a Marc Jacobs dress that you can’t afford.
c) your fifth beer on a Monday night.

2. You stop dead in the street and can’t breathe. Panic attack. You deal by
a) going home and taking a bath.
b) sending an angsty Tweet from your iPhone.
c) registering for a dating website and marrying the first person you meet.

3. You wake up in the morning and dread going to work. You
a) start scouring Monster.com for a better job.
b) call in sick for the second day in a row and watch back-to-back episodes of Saved By The Bell.
c) quit your job and apply online to seven different graduate programs.

4. You take up a new hobby. It’s
a) fostering cats.
b) Second Life.
c) unprotected sex with strangers, because having a baby might give your life some structure and purpose.

5. You step on something odd as you come in your front door. It’s
a) water, because you just cleaned the floors.
b) a dust bunny, because you don’t vacuum.
c) a cockroach, a pile of unopened bills, and a $300 vintage comic book you ordered on eBay when you were drunk last week.

6. You’re hanging out with friends. Everyone is worried about
a) the calories in beer and nachos.
b) their tangled dating lives.
c) turning 30 and moving back into their parents’ basement.

7. You rent a movie. It’s
a) Helvetica, a documentary about a font.
b) The Last Kiss, where Zach Braff gets engaged and then fucks it up.
c) A triple bill of Fight Club, Withnail & I and Betty Blue.

8. You wake up to a furious beeping sound. It’s
a) 8am.
b) 9am, and you’re late for work because you keep hitting snooze.
c) 3pm, and it’s your smoke alarm.

9. The two words that best describe how you see the future are
a) “limitless possibility.”
b) “option paralysis.”
c) “total desperation.”

RESULTS:
Mostly a): Nothing is wrong with you. Except that being this well-adjusted is slightly abnormal.
Mostly b): You’re not in crisis, yet, but you’re starting to show some signs. Time to think about a five-year plan.
Mostly c): You’re in full-blown Quarterlife Crisis–mode. Immediately get to a shrink, and hang tight: the storm will eventually pass.

http://www.eyeweekly.com/article/55882

Mardi Gras

2009-02-26T21:04:00.001-08:00

Mardi Gras, my favorite holiday! In New Orleans we get the whole week off of work/school for the glorious event. Living outside of the state, you get nothing! However, being such an important part of my cultural heritage (and having missed last years celebrations) I decided to allow myself the time to go home for the occasion.

Despite what many people may think, Mardi Gras is not about beads and boobs. Beads yes, boobs no. To dispel the myth, the only people who flash at Mardi Gras are not from New Orleans. In fact, the people on the floats in the parade are likely related to us or are friends of ours. That would make it quite embarrassing if it actually did occur, not that anyone in their right mind would do so.

With that said...Mardi Gras happens to be my favorite time of year for a number of reasons.

1. There is nothing better than a city wide party (think way bigger than block party) where you can see everyone you know. This provides ample time to catch up on things, life, and everyone related to them. This is part of what makes New Orleans a community. Also during this time, you are introduced to those they are with. Thus, making new friends and expanding your social circle. A very realistic Mardi Gras situation would be meeting someone 6 blocks away and walking to do so. In the process running into 3 different people you know and having 20 minute long conversations with them. At this time you may be offered beer and the use of a toilet (if you are really good friends). On the way back, you run into 3 different people from before and the process continues.

2. Aside from the city wide party. Often times you and your closest friends will set up shop at one part of the parade route. This provides a place for family and friends to come see you and a general meeting up point. This spot is all about location. It must be convenient to bathroom and beer as well as in a safe area and within walking distance of other friends. Ladders are often times part of this set up, food, coolers etc. Which leads me to another part of Mardi Gras....

3. The Barter System. Everyone works on the barter system during this fabulous holiday...with the exception of bartenders and cab drivers. The group behind you has a table of crawfish, you have a box of fried chicken...you trade each other for it. You have a spot close to the parade with ladder, they have beer...you trade. The guy on the float has some AWESOME beads that you in your drunken state cannot live without...you have a beer...you trade. Life was much simpler with the barter system.

4. Drunken revelry. It is my belief that in order to keep ones sanity, one must cut loose. This happens usually more than once a year in New Orleans, but this longer than a week celebration is what keeps us sane..."its through losing our minds that we find our hearts"-fred leblanc

The list continues and I'm getting tired, but bottom line...I MISS NEW ORLEANS!

Monterrico Beach: E-mail sent to friends on 8/12/08

2009-01-01T22:48:00.002-08:00

So this past weekend we decided to go to Monterrico Beach on the coast of Guatemala. Its one of those black beaches because the sand is composed of volcanic rock...its pretty damn beautiful and the waves were massively huge. Apparently it is one of the most dangerous beaches because the waves are unpredictable and will come and sweep you away in a minute...it actually seems possible.

Anyway, so I decide to go with some friends I've made out here...Jean Paul who is my friend who owns the Spanish school...he's from New Orleans. Rachel who is from London and Stuardo a Guatemalan. Since JP and Stuardo live in Guatemala currently we actually take Stuardos car...ROAD TRIP! Sweet...so we get a case of Gallo cerveza and put it in an ice chest for the road trip. Before we leave Antigua all of us are miserably hung over (en Espanol, estamos de goma, or at least the guatemalan version of hang over) from the night before working at the bar with a large private party. Some how the group had convinced us to do tequila shots, and the night ended up being quite a blur...for those of you who don't know, I feel that tequila is a drug and should never be consumed by me. Anyway, we end that night by passing out in the sofa area of JPs bar...slumber party of 5 people. This is aside the point...we wake up hung over or still drunk as hell and to remedy I start drinking mojitos. I have two before leaving Antigua.

So getting on our way, we have 24 beers in the back of the car, and I'm 2 mojitos in whic due to my hangover makes me drunk again....and so we start our road trip.

About 30 minutes in we start drinking beer in the back and along the way we encounter cattle blocking the road, bad American music, lack of bathrooms, etc. Then we finally arrive at this dock where we are told to park the car and take a boat taxi to the hotel. We find small Guatemalan children to carry all of our bags and the ice chest and get on the boat where we continue to drink. We arrive at the hotel where we have reservations and the damn Frenchman who runs the place was extremely rude..."excuse me...and you are?" "well we did not receive confirmation from you and now we are struggling to get your rooms read" blah blah blah...I guarentee you we had confirmation, written in an e-mail document. We are angry at the man and decide to take our business elsewhere. We get back on the boat and proceed to drink more. Finding the Guatemalan children to carry our stuff back to the car, we then proceed to drive to another dock to attempt to try a hotel where JP and Stuardo know the owner (its nice to have friends with connections!).

On our way to the second dock we get a little lost, so we decide to pick up more beer since we have finished the case. We then finally make it to the new dock after finishing the six pack we had picked up and buy another six pack before loading our car onto a small wooden boat. They then proceed to load a second car on the boat that has about 100 Guatemalans on it and they all spill out taking up all the room on the side of the car. We continue drinking.

Finally arriving at our destination we decide to eat dinner at the hotel and order yet more drinks. I'm pretty sure we inhaled the food and I'm not even sure if it was good or not, but it tasted delicious at that point! After dinner we decide to get ready to go out and I change clothes and reapply makeup....I lay down on the bed and pass out, the others do the same.

Having passed out at 9 or 10 pm I awake MASSIVELY dehydrated1 I had no idea what time it was, I was lucky to know where the hell I was, and who the hell was in my room. No cell phones, no clocks, just a lamp, and looking outside a pitch black sky. The bad news was there's no water in the room, you can't drink the tap water unless you want to die, but that would have been a moot point anyway because the damn water was turned off, and the toilet wouldn't flush. So the breakdown is that there is no water to be found and only a half empty room temperature skank beer. You know its a bad night when you wake up with a beer from the night before on your night stand. The whole hotel is closed down for the night and there is nowhere to buy water. JP wakes up in a similar condition and we sit and talk about how dehydrated we are for about 30-45 minutes.

So we discuss the options.

1) We wait it out, but since we don't even know the time its not a risk worth taking. I then "cleverly conclude" since the sky is dark that we're probably a long way off from sunrise and likely screwed on that first option. Remembering that ipods have a clock feature I figure out that its 3 AM... GREAT! We then decide it is an emergency situation and that we need to get water.

2) I left my water bottle in Stuardos car, so we debate how to get my water bottle. The discussion results in me using my ipod as a torche (as the British say, aka flashlight) to fumble in the dirty clothes, one handed of course as I hold the ipod in the other...I finally score they keys in Stuardo's pant pockets...thank God he didn't sleep with his clothes on! I wasn't sure what he was sleeping in but I was trying not to look! I tip toe out, expecting to hear the customary "uh uh" of someone waking up, but miraculously no one stirred. With the grail in hand, we then race to the car tripping over shrubs and ill fated flowers, only to discover that my water bottle was like that of a man dying in the desert, not very full. Oh shit, big trouble in little China. Still dying of thirst we reevaluate the situation.

Option 3) we start trying to figure out how to break into the hotel kitchen area. Option three turns out to be a bust seeing as how we cannot find a single way to break into the kitchen for some bottled water. We then move on to option four.

4) We start taking ice from the ice chest and chewing it for water (yes I know its dirty and that is how desperate we were at this point). I fill the empty water bottle up with ice from the ice chest hoping that eventually it will turn into water to drink. However, we find ourselves unsatisfied with the amount of water being produced from this option and with the unhygenic nature of it, thus we continue to explore more options.

5) Our next plan of attack is to take the car and drive along the beach searching for an open lobby to buy water in. In the process of going to my room to get money, I see a table of food, rum, and a HUGE bottle of water sitting outside someone's hotel room.

I turn to JP and whisper...THERE'S WATER OVER HERE! He is confused..."Is it clean water?" "Who's is it?" This fridge type bottle of water (jug of water I guess you could say) with a pour spout is sitting outside the room (with the window open by the way) and is completely unopened. We debate over it for a few minutes and decide that it is an emergency situation and that it justifies drinking some of their water. And so we move on to Option 6) steal the Guatemalan's water. We grab it quickly and bring it to the car and pour it into the water bottle. We promptly begin taking turns chugging the water. We drank so much that my stomach was sloshing around with water and I couldn't drink anymore. After consuming more water than any one person should be able to in one sitting we look at the damage done to the water bottle and realize that the originally unopened jug was half gone.

We then put it back outside the room and think about leaving 10Q for the water, but then decide against it because it would only admit guilt, our hope was that since it was a large family they would assume that someone in their own group was the culprit. We also contemplated leaving a note, but then we couldn't figure out which language to write it in. Finally we say screw it...I mean if you were going to be upset about something going missing wouldn't you be more pissed off it someone drank the handle of rum instead of the water? I would! Anyway, the next day we wake up and realize that they have to know it was us because we rolled in so hammered the night before and the only other people staying in the hotel was a huge family of koreans...they wouldn't steal the water! Well the table outside had everything still on it that morning but the jug of water that we had consumed half of, which had promptly been moved to another location before we arose that morning.

Our first plan of attack when we woke up was to buy a few bottles of water to avoid turning paradise into a desert again. I mean seriously, here we are in the middle of one of the most beautiful places on earth and we are suffering like looters carrying a case of Heineken across the flood waters of Hurricane Katrina. We proceed to enjoy our day at the beach, remembering to hydrate along the way.

JP and I the day after the incident.

A little bit of lagniappe...

BCS Selection Procedures

BCS Selection Procedures

Cross-cultural Experience Essay

"Funemployment" article in the LA Times

For the 'funemployed,' unemployment is welcome

These jobless folks, usually singles in their 20s and 30s, find that life without work agrees with them. Instead of punching the clock, they're hitting the beach.

By Kimi Yoshino

4.5 months...

New Car

DC Bucket List

My New Plan...Thanks Stuff White People Like

#120 Taking a Year Off

Chris Rose is a Brilliant Writer...The Voice of New Orleans

Chris Rose: Take a true dream vacation this summer, courtesy of C. Ray Nagin

by Chris Rose, Columnist, The Times-PicayuneTuesday July 21, 2009, 5:00 AM

A few photos that make me smile....

Welcome to your Quarter Life Crisis

Welcome to Your Quarterlife Crisis

Mardi Gras

Monterrico Beach: E-mail sent to friends on 8/12/08

by Chris Rose, Columnist, The Times-Picayune
Tuesday July 21, 2009, 5:00 AM