New Year, New Me…that’s the goal, right?

I’ve been working on this list for quite some time now, thinking hard about what I want to accomplish in the upcoming year.  Like most, my list has a few things on it that are the typical “New Year’s Resolution” which you will read shortly.  For many years, I’ve had the same things on my list of goals, but I’ve never accomplished any of them completely and had to ask myself why – what’s holding me back?  The answer…ME!  I am the only person standing in the way of my success and it’s all because of my own excuses, which leads me to my first New Year’s Resolution for 2012:

Start following my dreams and stop making excuses!

There are so many things that I have said I want to do over the last five or six years and I haven’t done them because I didn’t have the money or didn’t have the money.  I would say those are the two primary excuses that I seem to make for anything and everything!  Photography is my “dream job” – taking pictures of kids and weddings is what I’ve wanted to do since I worked for an incredible photographer in college.  Everyone tells me I can teach myself, but I’d rather take classes and learn everything I can about the art.  Since I’ve been working on ships, I use that as my excuse for not taking classes.  Well – I’m determined to start taking some online classes to educate myself and start taking some better photos – cause I have no idea what I’m doing when I take them now!

I love Zumba and want to teach it on ships – just for fun to the crew, but I’ve been saying it for 3 years now.  I’m going to take the certification course this year!

I want to take dance classes again – I miss it!  There are classes all over the country where I can just take one class at a time for fun and exercise.  I’m going to set aside my fear of the unknown and do it.

I’ve always wanted to take a Bartending class and I think it’s because of teaching the mixology classes on board that I’ve always wanted to take a class and learn all the fun stuff and mixing drinks the right way (not just pouring ‘til the glass is full :)!)  I’ve learned so much while working on ships, but would love to have it as a backup job when I’m home and I just need to learn how to do it!  What’s stopping me…NOTHING THIS YEAR!

The New Year’s Resolution on everyone’s list….lose weight!

I need to lose 30 more pounds.  The only person holding me back from that?  ME.  I am my own worst enemy and do my own self-sabatoge.  Not anymore.

Wash my mouth out with soap.

My Mom did it to me – only once – as a kid…but I obviously didn’t learn much because I’ve only gotten worse!  I need to get better with my language.  It is not easy in the industry that I work in because we definitely talk like sailors, but I would like to clean it up a bit. 

Be better with money.

I started working on this over the course of the last year, but I’d like to get even better with it!  I need to educate myself on a retirement plan and all the ins and outs of investing.  My personal want/need/goal of the year is to purchase a condo in the Orlando area as well as one in the Philippines and rent them out when I’m not there.  I hope and pray this one works out – I know it’s lofty, but I think I can do it and succeed!

Don’t sweat the small stuff.

Simple enough.  A work in progress.  Letting the little things roll of my back and not worrying about things that, in the end, won’t matter.

Be present & live in the moment.

The last year has been a tough one, but I’ve made it through and I’ve come out on top!  I want to enjoy every person, place and activity that I can! 

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land, there is no other life but this.” ~ Henry David Thoreau

Trust myself.

Listen to my heart, my head and my instincts and TRUST that they’re telling me the right thing.  I seem to trust everybody but myself.

Share my passion.

I’ve posted this before – but it has been my mantra since the day I found it.  It sums all of my goals and resolutions up perfectly.

Here’s me at the end of 2011…let’s see what 2012 brings, folks! 

Boi-oh-Boi Bumba!

I recently joined the Prinsendam on November 27th and really have not gotten of the ship at all.  We’re on a 24 day Amazon River cruise, which I did last year and hated.  Between the heat, the dirtiness and the bugs – I was perfectly ok if I never had to come back.  Well….I’m here again!  The only thing I didn’t do last year that guests and crew alike had raved about was the “Boi Bumba” Show.  Truly, I didn’t really know anything about it other than it was full of incredible lights and costumes.

The day before we arrived in Parantins, Brazil I was sitting in the Entertainment office on the ship and talking to Kelly (Event Manager) and my friend Britta.  They had both mentioned that the Shore Excursions department had handed out the escort forms for the crew to go to the “Boi Bumba” for the following day.  I had not signed up/requested for a tour, but mentioned to Kelly and Britta that I wished I would have signed up.  Well, lucky for me – Kelly took one of the escort tickets from the cast (since they get all the tours anyways) and gave me one - this was one happy lady!

The next morning, I was up for work at 9:00AM, went to the gym and then got ready for the show.  We didn’t have to take any buses or anything – only the tender from the ship to shore and then we walked to the convention center which was literally 2 blocks away from the tender pier.  I walked with Tina (the future cruise consultant) and Alexa (one of the cast members) to the facility and when we reached the entrance we felt like we walked from hell into heaven going from the heat to the freezing AC.  It was amazing!  We were greeted at the door by performers in costumes with trays of caipirinha (see the bottom for description) that were so strong, you only needed two to knock you on your behind.

We stood at the very back of the room (there were already 392 guests from our ship watching the show) on risers and waited for the show to begin.  I was really disappointed because on the tender ride over, I took my SLR camera out of the bag only to find out the battery was dead.  UGH!  Luckily, I had my little point and shoot – but I was really excited to get some good shots with the SLR.  Anyways, when the show began the music and energy took over the room for the next hour.  The costumes, music, colors and overall vibe of the room was just exciting and overwhelming all at the same time.  There are no words, pictures or videos that could describe how incredible some of the props were.  I have a few pictures here – they are blurry because of all the motion – but you can make out some of it!

   

  

I apologize that I can describe or give more information about it – but there are just no words other than GO SEE FOR YOURSELF!

Quote of the Day:   "We could learn a lot from crayons. Some are sharp, some are pretty, some are dull, some have weird names, and all are different colors. But, they all fit nicely into the same box." -Unknown

**Caipirinha (pronounced kie-purr-REEN-yah) roughly translates to "country bumpkin". It is made with cachaça, an intensely sweet Brazillian style of rum made from sugarcane juice. The Caipirinha is the national drink of Brazil, where it originated, and is a common Carnavale drink. Although it is more difficult to find, it's important to choose a premium cachaça for this cocktail in particular because the drink is not heavily flavored and a cheaper brand can ruin an otherwise perfect Caipirinha. You may also like the neater Caipirini.**

Devil’s Island

Last year we stopped on Devil’s Island as well – but I wanted to get off the ship again to see if I could see more of the island and see if there were any more monkeys this year.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have a ton of time to explore any more – but myself and the lifestylist Jo went out for an hour.  I did see monkeys…TONS of them this year. 

Last year we had only seen the squirrel monkeys (I think that’s what they’re called) – this year we saw lots of those but a ton of these bigger monkeys.  The downside is that this year, all the monkeys were very aggressive.  They were all screaming and yelling and it was almost a bit scary at times!  There’s not much to tell about the island because there isn’t much there – they speak French and there’s only a few tourists that stay on the island at a time. 

If you read the book Papillion, it has all the information about the original purpose for the island which was to house the prisoners.  Here’s some of my favorite pictures from the day and a small blurb from Wikipedia about the island itself…

     

 

    

“Devil's Island (French: île du Diable) is the smallest and northernmost island of the three Îles du Salut located about 6 nautical miles (11 km; 6.9 mi) off the coast of French Guiana (South America). It has an area of 14 ha (34.6 acres). It was a small part of the notorious French penal colony in French Guiana until 1952. It lies in the Atlantic Ocean.

The rocky, palm-covered island rises 40 m (130 ft) above sea level. The penitentiary was first opened by Emperor Napoleon III's government in 1852, and became one of the most infamous prisons in history. In addition to the prisons on all three islands, prison facilities were located on the mainland at Kourou. Over time, they became known collectively as "Devil's Island" in the English-speaking world, while they are known in France as the bagne de Cayenne (French: Cayenne penal colony), Cayenne being the main city of French Guiana.

While the colony was in use (1852–1946), the inmates were everything from political prisoners (such as 239 republicans who opposed Napoleon III's coup d'état) to the most hardened of thieves and murderers. A great many of the more than 80,000 prisoners sent to the harsh conditions at disease-infested Devil's Island were never seen again. As an island, the only way out was via the water; accordingly, very few convicts ever managed to escape.

On 30 May 1854, a new law provided that convicts would be forced to stay in French Guiana following their release for a time equal to their forced labour time, or, for sentences exceeding eight years, for the remainder of their lives. They were to be provided with land to settle on. In time, a variety of penal regimes emerged, convicts being divided into categories according to the severity of their crimes and their imprisonment or forced residence regime.^[1]

In 1885, a further law accelerated the process, since repeat offenders for minor crimes could also be sent. A limited number of convicted women were also sent to French Guiana, with the intent that they marry the freed male inmates; however, the results were poor and the government discontinued the practice in 1907.^[1]

The horrors of the penal settlement became notorious with the publicity surrounding the plight of the French army captain Alfred Dreyfus, who had been unjustly convicted of treason and sent there on 5 January 1895.^[2]”