First Dorm night… Jan 14/08

In keeping with my nightly routine of writing my blog before bed, here is a summary of today’s events. Had a horrible sleep last night. After I moved in yesterday night, my A/C was still not working. I thought that with it blowing hot air and having the doors flung open I’d have enough air to make it through the night but that was not so. I ended up having to move me and Fig next door to a vacant room just for the night and because of my inexperience with A/C set it way too cold. I woke up in the middle of the night freezing and then woke again later to try and skuttle fig off to the bathroom (he wasn’t feeling well.) So I preceeded to have alternating nightmares of freezing to death and dealing with a sick cat on a foreign island. In the morning, I had no choice but to move fig back to my oven room because our cooler room was about to be occupied by the lucky student who has working air conditioning. I was beginning to worry how I would keep him cool enough while I went for my scuba class this morning when I got a call that I wouldn’t have a class until the afternoon –thank goodness! I purchased a small fan for fig which made the room somewhat decent and while I was “scuba-ing” some wonderful technician made the room livable again. Unlike candleglow, there is no airflow between the concrete apartments so although it was quite doable before to use no a/c or little a/c on a regular basis, here it is not an option.
Scuba diving was fantastic. I was a little apprehensive the first moment I stepped into the water just because I’d never dove in the ocean before but it was a fantastic experience. I think Mike and I definitely lucked out with the instruction we received in Edmonton because I felt fairly confident with all of the material, putting the equipment together and maintaining proper buoyancy. The water here is just incredible, it’s this beautiful teal color and the fish are spectacular. Within the first 10 minutes of getting in the water, I saw a ray go gliding past, a 8 inch long puffer fish and coolest of all, an octopus!
Because I only got one dive in today, I’ll get to do three tomorrow. I’m extra excited because Alexandria is going to come dive for one of the afternoon dives!!
In the evening I finished up all of my laundry for the past week, unpacked all of my bags, bought groceries and utensils etc. The hope is that I’ll be able to eat real food tomorrow a.m.:) Officially “settled in” to my place, complete with functioning A/C. Now if only I can get my internet installed I will have the perfect accommodation.