Bootiemas!

Conjugation of "to bootie". I bootie. You bootie. He/She booties. We bootie. Ya'll bootie. They bootie. And on Mondaymas, the day before Spicemas/Carnival, apparently, half the island of Grenada booties.

Yeah, I'm reporting late, but I was busy... first stressing, then celebrating... I didn't get to go to the Tuesday festivities, but Monday was awesome, particularly since it helped rip me out of my funk, thus I won't bitch too much, for at least the next, like... 1.5 blog entries. Maybe 1. But definitely 1. Or not.

Anyway, I was determined to do something for the Mondaymas as a break from studying for biochem, so I headed over to Lori's to see what was up. After checking out her *awesome* pictures from a summer in Europe, we managed to get outside just in time to be invited along by an EXTREMELY nice 4th termer to cram into his car for a grand total of 6 (in a four seater, starting with three in the back, one in the trunk/back, and two in the front, and switching, by the end, to two in the front, one sitting on the gear shift, and three in the back) and drive to the Carenage to see what was going on in town. I had heard something about events going on at the new stadium (where the Cricket World Cup was last term), so that was our tentative plan. For those who don't know, the Carenage is the road in downtown St. George's that runs alongside the harbor, and it's pretty cool.



Serene, eh?

Problem was, when we got to St. George's, we couldn't seem to get to the road that headed to the stadium... we kept getting diverted, and the town proper seemed to be somewhat deserted, so we decided to park, and begin walking along the correct route to see where we could get.



Helloooo?

Turns out we kept getting diverted because otherwise we would have run right over the parade! As we walked to the outskirts of town, we saw more and more people until we saw a bunch sitting in the graveyard overlooking the main road, and then it was score!



Now, this was a serious bootie parade. There was a serious interest in bootying going on. From my study of anatomy, I wouldn't have thought it possible to gyrate butts like that without dislocations and hip fractures happening elsewhere, but the spirit of Carnival was in the air, and the soca truck was blasting, so bootie they did, and the funny thing, bootying is infectious, though I am certainly not a pro, nor was I wearing any variety of feathered bikini, but the love was there, I assure you.



"Hey buster, my face is UP here... above the feathers."

And the weird/cool part... if you turned around from the blasting soca music, colored costumes, and rump-shaking, this was the view:



You'd almost expect to hear birds chirping and see graceful butterflies floating by, but wait!





Even the birds and bugs bootie in Grenada! As do many of the children, which was kinda odd, but not all of them...



Er, no thanks on the sequins; I'll just hold the flag...

Of course, I'm one to talk considering some of the black sequined, feathered costuming my 11 year old butt used to be stuffed into when I was an ice skater, and that was when it was cold!

Carnival was hot; my goodness it was. Particularly when one is dancing, shaking or whatever, or actually, even sitting in the shade.

We ran with the parade for a little while, and then were starting to get uncomfortably hot, so headed back up to the car... and promptly got stuck behind the parade. Whoops! We couldn't find a way to get out of town (variations on a theme), so at a stop light, we asked a cop, who promptly told us nothing in the way of directions and instead starting yelling at us about having three people in the front seat of the car, and insisted we fix the situation immediately, a difficult thing when you're in the middle of traffic and behind a parade... it was similar to this time that we saw a girl wearing some variety of sequins and feathers climb onto the hood of someone's car before emulating Paris Hilton in that Carl's Junior commercial (sans burger), thus got the idea (once out of sight) to put Jason on the hood of the car (going slowly), thus ensuring an (almost) correct level of passenger occupancy.

At a similar time, Lori and I just decided to walk along the Carenage and meet the guys on the other side of town, thus negating the necessity of endangering Jason's life, but it was funny!

We met up on the other side of town, again with Jason sitting half on/behind the gear shift (carefully), and throwing himself backwards between the seats as we passed police officers, so we all became quite close on *that* trip!

Midway back, Danny, our benevolent driver, willing to risk cop-shout and broken struts for us, said the magic words "does anyone fancy a beer?" Oh, heck yes, I do. So we headed to his gorgeous house (HOUSE, like real people live in!)to drink Carib and chat about diabetes (hey, we are all medical students after all). His place has an enviable view, thus the beginning of my better attitude on Monday night and extending through, well, now, even.



So gorgeous views, the best bootie-party of the year, and a view overlooking the rainforest... all right all right, I'll be a good girl for a while... I think doing it helped me on the biochem exam too.

In case my spirits threatened to drop with the onset of classes (though I really like parasitology and genetics, which makes them easier to study), last night, I decided to celebrate my biochem test in conjunction with the big Aquarium party (I believe corresponding to the one I sprained my ankle at last term), but since the island has raised the prices on bar-drinks (apparently), we decided to pre-drink at my apartment...

We didn't have pizza, since I believe my apartment to be the ultimate beer/pizza pad, but beer and rum-raisin ice cream substituted well. Jay, David, and Nina came over, with Jay playing my guitar, us having a singalong, and all sorts of cool stuff... Simpsons, card tricks, tips on playing the tables in Vegas (I'm hopeless at gambling; I truly am), and so forth, before we swung to campus, picked up Laila, and grabbed a bus to Aquarium.

We got there around midnight and the party was hopping; though we went down the wrong hill and had to hop the wood fence to get in because we were not about to walk back up the way we came because it was also POURING rain, a situation that does not lend itself well to girls in heels that don't want to sprain anymore ankles. Had a lot of fun, danced the night away, and grabbed a taxi home. Good times.

As a quick addendum, no, medical school is not one gigantic party, but the beginning of term offers a few more opportunities to get out and have fun without sacrificing too much in the way of schoolwork. But for first termers, find a study groove that demonstrably works for you before you dive into the party scene. You have to know what works for you because once you get behind, it's half-impossible to catch up until after midterms. What worked well for me is taking one day a week to myself, that is mine, thus enhancing my play time for one day increases the intensity with which I study on the other days because I don't feel the burn out.

It's also far more interesting to write about, though David suggesting allowing my Manlocks study aid from histology, to become introduced to the wonderful world of parasitology... I'm tempted, but I think said fictional character would hang himself if he ended up with explosive diarrhea from Crpyto and a half-rotted face from Leishmania, so time will tell... I may just make up imaginary episodes of House as a memory key, especially since the show's not coming back on until September 25th.

In other news, now-hurricane Dean did virtually nothing to us, since I've gotten some questions on it. Some students reported that surf was a bit up on Grand Anse beach, but I don't think it was anything spectacular or particularly dangerous... I'm told we had wind and rain, and we certainly had rain, but I didn't notice any significant difference between Dean-rain and rainy-season rain. Pull for Jamaica though; poor guys...