Sunday, August 30

Just a Few Moments Remain

More laundry and a big mug of coffee let the morning turn into early afternoon, as I sat working on reviewing part of a grant proposal that Hannah (my awesome cousin) is using to apply for a Fulbright Fellowship. I really hope she is able to pursue her dreams in medicinal chemistry, especially if that means she gets to go abroad. In addition, I'd love to visit her while she studies abroad! It was great to whip out the red pen of track changes and hopefully provide some valuable input that will improve the proposal.

The days go by quickly here on the island. This weekend enters me into a countdown with less than 12 days on the island. To be more specific,11 Days, 1 Hours, 56 Minutes, 0 Seconds (last time I checked). In the realization that I'm returning to Virginia quite soon, I've gone ahead and started getting together information about where I can host book signings and create entries for upcoming deadlines on writing competitions. I have a handful of short stories I could polish into entries and more ideas that could blossom into entries. I'm now in need of a few good friends to review these stories and let me know what they think- so if you have a few spare moments in your day, let me know!

Off I go to see what I can create in the way of short story magic.

Update:

A trip to the beach is in order! Just after 1pm, the sun is not quite as bright and my skin is screaming, give me sun! I grabbed my suit, a book, a towel, snacks, water, and sunblock and off I went! I first stopped at Jumbie beach, since I have not been there yet. I know why- it's a good place to go if you would like to say you've been to every beach on the island. Otherwise, skip it. I went on to Trunk Bay and enjoyed the sugary white sand, a beautiful clear day, and soothing hot rays from the sun. No burn after 90 minutes without sunblock between 2pm and 3:30pm, except for the spf 30 I put on my face and neck. Nice. After a few hours out of the sun, I'm burn free and happy to be slightly more tan.

I caught up my dive log with my dive computer and I'm happy to report that since arriving in St. John, I've added 17 Dives to my logbook. Not bad!

I have some spelling errors I've recently uncovered in the blog. My apologies. I'd correct the spelling mistakes but it would make the chronology of posts all kinds of messed up, so I'm going to just make a blanket statement...if there's a spelling error, my apologies. I'm using open office for writing before I copy and paste my posts. Often times, I've found the spell checker to be less than satisfactory, so I just ignore the program's red squiggly underlines in general.

Another random note, I bought a case of Island Pure water from the market last night. I was hoping a few jugs of filtered and purified water might be a little treat for quenching my thirst. Nay, the water seems to have a dusty aftertaste. It's almost like when you leave rainwater in a barrel for two years, then chill it...that's the taste I'm sensing. It's rather unappetizing and I've never tasted it before with this brand of water... I wonder if it's a bad batch. I hope I'm not clogging my body with weird chemicals or minerals. Compared to this stuff, I prefer the taste of the cistern.