I decided to go snorkeling again this morning, while Doc, Kat, and Brett went diving along with Doug and Nish. The boat ride over was annoying because I ended up sitting next to Tom, while the rest of Tom’s party sat on the other side of the boat. No sooner had he sat down then he immediately turned to me and launched into a story about some friend of his and volcanic sequences and moss and people spending thousands on hotel rooms and the geology bonehead of the year award. Seriously. What the fuck?! And he told the story as if I should know the people he was talking about! I tuned out and just made little “hmm” noises every few minutes or gave vague smiles, while trying to show as little interest as possible. Thank god I had my sunglasses on. When it seemed like his story was possibly winding down (or maybe that was me simply giving up), I gave a final smile and turned to Giovanni, the dive/snorkel master sitting on the other side of me, and began a conversation with him instead. Rude, maybe, but it seems apparent that Tom does not understand social cues such as obvious boredom and discomfort in his “victims.” The boat dropped us off on South Water Caye and we walked around to the other side of the island. Tom was quite eager to get in the water, so he walked on ahead of the rest of us. The sad part is, the rest of his family was making fun of him behind his back, rolling their eyes and making snide comments. I almost felt sorry for him. At one point he turned around and said (and I quote) “Everyone, please note the sand underneath your feet. Now, you’ll notice that […]

We didn’t sign up for any adventures today, so we slept in (which was only 7 a.m. for Doc and 8 a.m. for me). After breakfast of pineapple, cheese, and yogurt, Kathryn and I did some yoga out on the end of the boat dock. Later in the morning I took the laptop into the lobby of the main house, got hooked up to the internet, and e-mailed Mom to see what time her flight left on Sunday so we could be sure to be home in time to take her to the airport, in case we were too tired to drive back to Dallas on Saturday night. I chatted for a bit online with Brittney, who told me that Dallas is covered in ice and basically shut down today. I was doubly glad now that we had decided to drive to Houston and fly from there, because if we’d tried to reschedule our flight out of Dallas we may never have made it to Belize. After lunch (a much-too-highly seasoned cheeseburger and rather tasty french fries) I took my book and a towel down to the beach and laid in the sun for a little while. I got an hour or two of reading in, and fell asleep to boot. Luckily I’d coated myself in both sunscreen and bug spray, so I wasn’t any the worse for wear. Doc worked for a little while on the laptop and spent some time organizing his photography that he’d taken this morning and the previous day. Taz, the fluffy striped beachcat, visited me while I was sleeping and gave himself a good bath. Doc got a photo of him licking his butt. I’m not entirely sure what we did the rest of the afternoon and evening, as I did not take notes […]