New Years Eve, mostly spent hanging around the workshop.

Dave went out to help organize a BBQ at Masai camp and invited Graham and I to go out there, well at least I thought I was invited. Of course as soon as I got there I was put to work, even though there were already five other crew there, who laughed at me when I asked if they needed any help. We have too many people already, one of them said.

There was on other girl there on her own, an American girl named Sydney, who had gotten sick climbing Kilimanjaro and had to come back down, so I decided to make friends with her, which was pretty easy as she was relatively chatty and friendly. I was glad to have someone normal to talk to even if it was a perfect stranger. After about two hours of just hanging around, Dave came up to me and said he would pick me up in the morning and to continue "helping". A heads up would have been awesome, I had nothing with me, as I had no idea I would be staying the night, no change of clothes, no toothbrush, no sleeping bag. Luckily there was a sleeping bag on the truck and Sydney let me bunk in with her.

We had dinner and then Sydney and I went into the pub and had a game of pool, which I won. I then conned her into dancing in the nightclub to the pretty awful music that was playing, which the DJ kept interrupting every thirty seconds by stopping the music and yelling, ARUSHA! ARE YOU READY? ARE YOU READY?! Making dancing almost impossible. There were a few local guys who kept trying to dance with us, and who as usual wouldn't give up. We ended up making the shoo motion and waving them off. Rude I know, but they don't seem to understand anything else.

There were only about fifteen people dancing on the large dance floor making it seem quite empty, there were three overland trucks in, so there were heaps of people actually in the pub. So I did what I do best. I said to Sydney, more people need to be dancing. Yeah they do she said. Watch this! I said climbing up on the speaker box when a decent song came on.

People are sheep, all they want is for someone else to go first. So up I got on the speaker box and half the pub slowly made their way onto the dance floor, there were now about fifty people dancing, I was on the speaker box punching the air with my fist….everyone else followed. The countdown to New Year's approached and the song Titanium was playing. I was belting it out, although no one could hear me, Criticize, but all your bullets ricochet, shoot me down but I get up. I think this is my theme song at the moment, I'M BULLET PROOF NOTHING TO LOSE, FIRE AWAY, FIRE AWAY, RICOCHET, YOU TAKE YOUR AIM, FIRE AWAY, FIRE AWAY, I realize I'm not going to give up, it's going to take a lot more than some grumpy old overlander to take me down, SHOOT ME DOWN, BUT I WON'T FALL, I AM TITANIUM…..as I'm belting out my anthem I hear the countdown fade in…..6! 5! 4! 3! 2! 1! HAPPY NEW YEAR! I scream from the top of my podium.

I realize things could have been worse for new years and hell they could have been better, especially considering the year I've had, this was the place I had to spend New Years, but I guess you can't win them all and if nothing more it was a pretty original experience. I guess the resolution I made tonight was to stop letting my boss get to me, I've had worse, granted I've never had to live with my boss before, but I've been in worse situations before and its only for three more weeks.

I ended up staying up until about 1am, I couldn't stand the idiot DJ anymore, I attempted to go to bed, but unfortunately the party and the awful music went on until 5am and I had to be up at 7am.

I woke up in the tent this morning, not actually knowing if I had slept at all after an entire night of horrendous music. Sydney and I got up and took the tent down and went to help with breakfast. Dave turned up to take everyone to their correct shuttle destinations and I jumped on the truck and went back to the workshop.

When I got back, the next morning I realized how tired I was, and I thought, screw it, its New Year's Day I'm going to fall asleep on the lounge….and that is exactly what I did. My boss eventually got back and it was obvious he wasn't happy about it, I decided to ignore him. A wise man once said, We are only as happy as we choose to be….and today I choose to be happy no matter the a****** that gets in my way.

The next morning, I was punished for my lazy New Years Day, as soon as I stepped out of my room, I was ordered to put up four slashed tents that have been sitting in the office….it wasn't even 9am yet! Which is the official start time around here, and that's pretty much the way it went on all day, him finding me stupid jobs to do and running me ragged.