It’s 2005! And what is the first thing that I did on the first workday of the year? Overslept.

New Years Eve was a lot of fun. I spent it at a bar in Hoboken with Ben, Tracey, Tess, Malinda, Brad and Caren who stopped by for part of it. I have two observations about Hoboken – they still allow smoking in bars which was disappointing to someone who had gotten used to the cleanliness of NYC bars, and there are no streetlights on any of the corners – a death maze if there ever was one! But other than that I enjoyed my visit to Hoboken. Maybe I’ll go back again one day.

The rest of the weekend was spent recovering from New Years. I watched the film "Maria Full of Grace." It was excellent – showing what happens to a young girl in Colombia whose poor economic conditions lead her to become a drug mule, smuggling pellets of heroin in her stomach. It’s disturbing at times to watch and sobering knowing that this is a reality for many. If only one of the pellets breaks inside of a person’s stomach, they die immediately. But the lure of the money makes it worth the risk for many. Very sad.