We're breaking and rebuilding and we're growing, always guessing, never knowing

Ok so this orientation nonsense is just taking up too much of my energy and my soul.  I've been super exhausted the last few days.  By about 8:30 this morning, I was already starting to fall asleep in my lecture. I hope this isn't a preview of what classes are going to be like.


We sat through a few presentations about on-campus living, life at Ross University, and MTBI results, which took entirely too long.  My MTBI (which gives you clues to your personality type and reveals your strengths and weaknesses) was kind of interesting.  My personality type is ENTP:
I am an Extrovert, which means that I get my energy from the outer world, I am outgoing, and I go for a breadth of interests (rather than depth).
I take in information using iNtuition, from patterns, looking at the big picture, and thinking about the future, rather than the here and now (I thought the other option for this category fit me better, but what do I know about myself?).
I draw conclusions by Thinking (rather than feeling), meaning I make my decisions based on logic and reason, rather than sympathy and circumstance.
And finally, I deal with the outer world by Perceiving.  I prefer to be spontaneous, I am open to change, and I like to have options.
Now that I've bored everyone, I'll give you a summary of yesterdays orientation lectures, which I found way more interesting than todays.


A journalist/radio host came to talk to us about island life.  Basically, she told us to pretend we are on vacation and don't let the "island time" thing get to us, use good manners (everyone here says "good morning/afternoon" to everyone else), and she gave us a brief history of St. Kitts and Nevis (despite how it sounds, she was actually very entertaining and she was pretty much the only speaker who held my attention).

• The first British colony that was formed in the Caribbean was on St. Kitts by Thomas Warner in 1624.
• Alexander Hamilton was actually born on Nevis.  His mother wasn't fully white.  Scandalous!  His house is still there and is open to the public as a museum.
• When the French came here (after the British), the British let them stay here as long as they were on the other side of the island.  Basseterre (capital of St. Kitts) separated the French and British sides and it means "lowlands".
• There are a number of forts here.  I can try to expand on that once I've seen some of them.  We are getting an island tour on Friday...maybe then.
• The majority of citizens are descendant from African slaves, although people from Asian, Scottish, and European descent also came here.
• Slavery was abolished on St. Kitts in 1834, before the US.

She also gave us some examples of local foods:

• Saltfish - salted cod sauteed with onions, apples, and other stuff.
• Johnny cake - some kind of deep fried dough?
• Ting - grapefruit soda made locally
• Conch burgers/fritters.  More on this later

Another fun thing; hissing : St. Kitts :: wolf whistle : US.  Figure that one out, smarties.


I won't bore you with any more orientation stuff, but we did go out to dinner last night to a place called Ballahoos, known for their Caribbean cuisine.

I tried the conch fritters and it wasn't really my taste (then again, what is?  I eat PB and J and cereal whenever I can).  The sauce was pretty good though.  I also got a side of vegetables (mom, you should be proud).  Pumpkin is apparently huge on the island and they put it in most things to add "texture" although I think pumpkin has a really strange texture that you wouldn't want to put in other foods...whatever.  So I tried their pumpkin and squash.  Guess what.  Didn't like it.  So I didn't eat most of it (sorry mom).  I loved the broccoli though!  She's choppin' broccoli...

I was supposed to go to Elvis' to play volleyball today, but by the time we started taking our EXAM (yes, I did say exam) I was so exhausted that I was falling asleep and getting a migraine (from being so tired).  So I decided to skip out on volleyball (sadly).  I'm also broke as a joke, so that saved me a little bit of money.  However, that means that I don't have anything else super interesting to tell you fine folks.  I will later though, because here's what the rest of my week looks like:

Tomorrow: Leadership development (activities, could be fun) and going to the theatre in town to see "The Help"...again. :D

Friday:  Island tour and beach party

Saturday:  Catamaran trip to Nevis and playing on the island with a party afterwards

Sunday:  Ziplining!

So pumped.