White unlined paper
Dear mom,
I watched AM Los Angeles the other morning and felt like I was from another planet. On one hand it’s so familiar (complete with Kmart ads) on the other, it’s nothing like anything I experience here. Between that and D*** leaving, I felt homesick – like I wanted to fly home myself to get a hug from you. Saying goodbye to D*** was sad. Goodbye is easier for the person who leaves I think.
One good/fun thing came out of D*** leaving – all goodbye parties and activities. Two of the clubmates are married. The guy is Californian and the woman is Japanese. She has friends who run the jet ski company (that will be an up and coming adventure) he’s Chomorro and she’s Japanese (all these Japanese women have to get their green card some way) and they took us for Korean food. HOT! Out of control hot – but very good. They had this coal set up on the table (built in) and they peeled meat off then cut it with scissors off the bone. Wild. With all my Asian food eating, I’m quite proficient with chopsticks now.
The big clubmate party for D*** was bowling. I’ve bowled here more than I did in my entire life in CA. Then again there isn’t as much to do here. The time before I came here to Saipan, the clubmates were so obnoxious that the bowling alley called our General Manage to tell us to never come back. So when we go now, we way we’re from the Nikko or Diamond Hotel. We’re still loud but we have a good time rather than be obnoxious and destructive like past clubmates were.
The Diamond Hotel just hired 3 people from CA to do a sports program like the clubmates here. They had to make a year commitment, develop the program themselves and there’s only 3 of them! They have to eat with other employees in the employee cafeteria (the woman hates Filipino food) and their housing is off-property. We at PIC have it sweet. I’d also rather work for an American hotel rather than a Japanese one. PIC is overbooked or almost at capacity most of the time whereas the other hotels aren’t. We’re successful because of the SEA department (Sports, Entertainment, Activities.)
With the PIC’s opening in Phuket and soon in Bali and Australia, there’s a need to have the SEA departments be similar. Now with only Guam and Saipan, it’s ok for the structure and procedures to be different, but the question came up – will Phuket be like Guam or Saipan? Answer: make all 3 the same. It looks like Saipan will be the one to change and there’s going to be a lot of changes. Management is shifting too as people leave for Phuket, lower management is moving up and new positions have to be filled. Positions are even being created since expansion is so great right now. A bunch of veteran clubmates just made the jump to management. Had D*** wanted, he would have been put into upper management due to his experience. He was told if he ever wanted a job, he’d be given one. The director of SEA is leaving to be the director of SEA in Guam. He’s the one who hired me so it’s sad to see him go. His assistant director will now be our director here. He’s not well liked by management so the rumors were rampant that if D*** had agreed, the up and coming director would be fired and D*** would have been offered the SEA director job. Ain’t bureaucracy great. We have an executive/corporate SEA person here so I think he’ll take over and the new director will be fired anyways. Things are a-changing.
We rarely have Korean guests but we had a Korean doctor here who took me to dinner. It was fun until he made a pass at me then I only wanted to go home. Korean’s are more pushy than the Japanese. We have the Korean garment workers here for lunch sometimes and they’re very rude and pushy. I’m glad this is a resort for Japanese guests. We had 120 Australian guests and when they left I was exhausted. They wore us all out.
I’m going to Bird Island tomorrow with one of the supervisors (not Hiroko) and her boyfriend who’s a local. I hope it doesn’t rain.
So take care. I miss and love you.
