Lay-Off's are Real Life

Well I guess it happens to the best of us. It's almost like, as soon as I get used to being somewhere, I am put into a situation where I have to give it all up and move on. My company is shutting down, and as of April 20, 2012 I will no longer be an employee at Hovensa. It kind of stinks, you know. I was really enjoying what I was doing. I met so many great people, and in just a few months we're all going to have such different lives. My journey begins again to find another adventure. Who knows where I will be? Alaska? Australia? Maybe I'll come back to California. That would be great actually, because at least I'll know people and I'll be where I wasn't quite ready to leave before. This life on this island has just been a pitstop in my ever-running journey. This is my never-ending story.

What else can you do when you find out you're going to lose your job? Other than spruce up your resume and cover letters, throw them out there, and work with recruiters... you party! I mean, we only have 12 weekends left. We have to party, because it'll all be over soon. We got the news on Wednesday, so Wednesday night we all got together and made the best of it. Needless to say not everyone could drive home. It was interesting. Thursday was certainly unproductive. Thursday night I had dinner at Suzzy and Brandon's place. They bbq-ed, and the co-op's (our friends Meredith and Sacha), my friend Chiso, and I went over and we just forgot about our problems. We laughed, we cheers-ed, we ate, and we had fun. Friday night the same people came over my place and I had my first little dinner party. I made a lasagna, and put out a balsamic salad and wine, and I wore my new apron. It was a lot of fun, to just spend the time with the people I know I will soon not be able to do this with anymore.

We took it quite easy Friday night, because Saturday morning we got up and piled the booze and snacks onto Brandon's and Layne's speed boat and we partied it out to Buck Island. Buck Island is a National Reef Park island off the North Shore of St. Croix. The beach is gorgeous, the water is wonderful, and the experience was so much fun. I may or may not have gotten my finger jammed (resulting in a necessary split the past two days) in an effort to catch a football... but that's beside the point. It was such a long day though, that Saturday night ended early, and that was that.

Overall, aside from the bad news we received last week, the weekend was good, and we had a lot of fun just spending it with good friends, eating good food, and having good times.

I'm really going to miss it here.