Wow, you are a downer. And we were having a pretty nice day. day.

So I am 24 years old now. Thanks for everybody who sent their birthday wishes. Erin will be following me to this plateau on the 24th. I am a bit freaked out about this birthday. I am now out of the college-aged group of people and have entered into the young working class. Seriously, if I were to go to a ‘Quarter-Draws’ or ‘Penny Pitchers’ night at the bars in Columbia (my college home for those of you who didn’t already know… Columbia, not the bars) I would be that guy who was just a bit too old to be there. I would be too old to take that victory lap known as the 5th senior year and too young to be the cool old guy who returned to college after a few years of world travel and working crazy Gump-ish jobs (the book not the movie). Topically this seems not to be a problem, however all of my friends have asserted themselves into their new roles among the young bourgeois. Hell, one of them is a policeman protecting the public from the criminal and one of them is an engineer actually designing stuff that if he jacked up could cause serious problems. Yep, the guys that (may or may not have) beer-bonged malt liquor with me (or not me) are now designing the bridges you drive on or pulling you over and enforcing those pesky open container laws. Sweet Jesus, my friend Mo actually has a job too (Good job Mo, we are all proud of you).

Even many of my new friends, the ones I have made here in PC Jamaica, have a plan of what they are going to do post-PC. One was pre-accepted into pharmacy school, while another has been promised a mostly free masters complete with fellowship. What am I (Patrick) going to do? Don’t worry, for those of you concerned because you can’t come up with anything, you can rest assured that I don’t know either.

Now some of you might say, “Tricio, live in the moment and enjoy your time living on that tropical island. You can figure everything out when you are back in the states.” There is a bit of wisdom in this advice. Such pearly nuggets as… Carpe Diem! Live in the Now! Blah, blah!

Okay, rock on with the cliché, but if there is one thing that I hate worse than planning ahead is being stuck waiting. If I wait until I get home, I will have to wait another year to go back to school, but if I start now I have to work around minor problems like lack of internet, spotty phone connections, and any other problems I might incur attempting the application process from a different country. Such is the problem facing me (and really for that matter ‘us’… as Erin resides in the same boat). If we want to go to grad school when we get back we have to start the ball rolling now. I have yet to take the GRE, which I probably need to fly back to the US to take. There are applications (and application fees, not an easy hurdle on our $2250 per year salary), letters of recommendation, interviews, and so on and so forth. Remember that your invitations to my pity party are in the mail, so you can expect them any day.

I am just worried about trying to accomplish all of this while teaching and taking care of 100+ pickni dem. And I think our toilet paper is lying to us. It maintains it has aloe in it and I disagree, as it feels superfluously scratchy on my crack. And if it feels coarse on my gluteal cleft on Earth, it will most definitely feel rough on Uranus too.

Galactically Yours... Patricio