Hey y'all. I got a new camera.

Dear World,
So this blog entry will be mostly pictures. I try to post a lot of my pictures on my Pinterest, too..so look at that. CHECK OUT MY BOARDS, BRO
Anyway, I got a new camera at my parents' place over the weekend because I wanted a cool excuse to get outside. It worked. I even got to drag Dad along. :) Here's the cool stuff I saw:

Bumble Bee getting all up in some Jasmine.

"OMG you guys I just got a perm..do you like it??"

Seagull enjoying the breeze.

The pier at Kure Beach.

Feeling about two feet tall under some cypress trees.

Catching a Cardinal mean muggin me.

Cool bridge in Greenfield Park, Wilmington. 

Hiss!

Squawk!

Chomp!

....and that was my weekend.

Love,

Steph

Dreamin.

Dear World,
So the official moving countdown is underway. I move on June 7th. One day after my last day of work. I have a house full of stuff to get rid of, I am throwing away/giving away over half of my clothes, and I am frantically visiting family members to squeeze in a little more time before I go.
So I went to visit my siblings, the Lawsons, this weekend down in Georgia. We had a blast, as usual, which involved copious amounts of white zinfandel. Early Saturday morning, we went to Keegan's karate thing, where he moved up to an orange belt.

It's kinda blurry, but you get the picture. Kowabunga, d00ds.

Kowen and I got bored after watching Keegan do his thing, so we went outside and picked 180 dandelions. (Yes, we counted.)

Also, during my grand tour of the neighborhood, we found some fish bones. 

So on to the main highlight of this post-- I'm thinking my generous amount of libations, along with moving anxiety, led to some INTERESTING dreams!

Crazy Dream 1:

Friday night I had a dream that I was walking down College Street on USC's campus, where I saw Darius Rucker dressed in a chef uniform (complete with crazy print pants). I was stuck on the phone with someone and tried getting them off the phone so I could get my picture taken with Darius Rucker! Meanwhile, all these people kept passing by and yelling out "HOOTIE! WHASSUP HOOTIE!" and all the while I was thinking I know his real name! I need to just get off the phone so I can impress him with the fact that I know his real name.

After getting off the phone, I went to pull up the camera on my phone, which was painfully slow. By the time my camera was ready, he was gone. My heart was broken. I want to get a picture with Darius Rucker.

Crazy Dream 2:

In this dream, I was on the islands and I was desperately trying to find a job (not much of a stretch, really). I was sitting in a school library with the principal and some other lady, who were interviewing me. Everything seemed to be going fine so far, until I asked about the curriculum. 

"Do your teachers have the freedom to design their own curriculum?"

As an older and wiser teacher, this is something I always ask, so I don't get stuck with some stupid scripted program.

They exchanged glances and looked uneasy as the woman blurts out "Our Language teachers administer mandatory spelling tests every week." 

CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP.

My face must have crumpled because the principal firmly stated, "This isn't negotiable. It is mandatory. It is required." 

I start sputtering. "Spelling tests are quite pointless if you are not teaching students the meaning of the words and emphasizing that over mechanics. Knowing how to spell something is not essential to student success-- it is how to use the words in their writing and to figure out their meanings in their reading that is important."

The principal stopped me by putting up his hand, talk-to-the-hand-style. 

I'm never going to find a teaching job in this backwards island.

...And that concludes my crazy dream segment. More to come!

Love,

Steph

Shakira, Shakira!

Dear World,
In an effort to brush up on my Spanish, I am listening to Shakira, Selena Y Los Dinos, and whatever else Pandora is suggesting for me. I'm really into learning this way. (And dancing along.) This also ensures that my neighbors will soon realize how crazy I am.

However, they say that St. John is the world's largest open-air asylum, so I'm fitting in just fine! So now, I'll regale you with my cool adventures of the week:
Our landlady brought a bottle of champagne over as a wedding gift. We drank it with our next door neighbors on Friday, hearing tales of their travels around the world, and getting some great advice for island living. (I'll take everything I can get at this point!) Turns out, neighbor lady is also very interested in the arts, so I agreed to be her art-event buddy. Our husbands seemed to be very okay with that, so long as we leave them alone. After staying up until 3 AM with our new friends, we went to Honeymoon Beach again on Saturday. We sat around on the beach reading, and took a cool dip in the clear waters of the Caribbean.

Later on, we met Thomas, a drink expert at the Our Market Smoothies stand, and sipped on fresh fruit smoothies while he gave us "Life Lessons." We then moseyed over to the Barefoot Cowboy, where they were roasting a whole pig for the weekend. I feel so at home here, coming from South Carolina. After our long day of fun in the sun, we came home and I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies.

In other island news, I heard back from the Jaywalk with Jumbies folks and it looks like I will be leading ghost tours around St. John! I'm really excited about this. We will work on the tour over the summer (it is just being created) and it should be ready for tourist season in November!

So much going on, so little time! I need to get back to being productive.
Until next time,
Stephanie

PS-I'm going to miss the beauty of St. John.

Iguanas are hilarious

Dear World,
Week 1 of my St. John adventure has been a success. Every day here I see something cool. The other day, I was flooded with lizards! I looked out into our courtyard and saw a gaggle of iguanas running up a tree. (Including a pair that were mating!) They scurried up the tree very quickly as I ran for my phone to take a picture. I finally got out there and chased away most of them, but this little (he's actually the size of a cat) fella must have thought that I wouldn't see him if he stayed very, very still:

I saw another one running and wish I had a video of it. He got up on his hind legs to run, which made him look like a cartoon character. I promise I will try to catch another one doing that on film, because it's too funny not to share.

Later on, it rained and a bunch of little brown lizards flooded my cabin through the cracks in the floorboards. I saw at least four of them in the house yesterday.

These little guys are absolutely everywhere. I can walk out my front door and see dozens of them. They especially like this nifty little pond outside our cabin:

The weekend was full of excitement, as we spent Saturday visiting Honeymoon Beach to snorkel and lay around eating ice cream. Easter Sunday was filled with torrential downpours of rain, so it was a lazy day to watch the storms, and old eps of X-Files on Netflix. Thus far, island life is treating me well, and I will post more pictures soon!

Love,
Steph