some thoughts at 2am

(from 6/17):

one thing that always strikes me when i'm in central america is that being unhappy with your job is such a first-world problem. or even largely an upper-middle-class white person problem. people here are happy just to have a job. they have other, more important things to be unhappy about. so many of these people perform simple, semi-mindless jobs that here, in the U.S., high school or college kids would mope their way through. but these people perform them with the appreciation and excitement that someone in the U.S. would reserve for, say, a job pitching in the majors or something.

a really cynical part of me likes to (or wants to) think that this happiness is feigned, that it's just acted out so that these people can get bigger tips, or better customer comments or whatever. but it's largely not. i've talked to a few of these people directly even about this. and a lot of the people, especially the ones working on the cruise ship itself (who work crazy hours for only a little pay and a month off each year) are genuinely happy to work a job that would be considered only slightly higher on the scale of humanity than rape in the U.S. it sort of puts things in perspective.

i'm not a fan of heat. it takes until about zero degrees before i get really uncomfortable in the winter, but it only takes until about seventy-five degrees before i get really uncomfortable in the summer; esp. in the midwest and the caribbean, where the air is made out of water.

it's funny because when i'm working at accomplishing something i can at least tolerate heat. my stints working at the refinery, parks and rec, parking services, landscaping in august, etc. proved that. but i just cannot understand people who purposely put themselves in uber-sunny and/or hot situations as a form of leisure. if us crackers were supposed to live on the beach, we'd be black.

take this quote from my mom, for instance: "i'll sit in the shade now; i should get the sun i need from being in the water". grammatically, this sentence makes sense to me - idealogically, not so much.

so now, while everyone else is sitting in the sun, slathered in lotion and soaking up the alcohol, i'm sitting in the shade, writing and drinking water and wearing clothes. i'm awesome. or something.