The beginning of the end - Kira Symmons

Each week somehow continues to be better than the last. The highlight of my week continues to change throughout each week as it progresses because every excursion and activity we do has been a great experience and continues to reaffirm my love for St. Maarten. Not only have the experiences and beauty of the island made this trip great, but the people really do make the place. I could not have asked for a better group. 

On Monday, we had no class for Memorial Day. We spent most of the day celebrating the holiday by relaxing, swimming, and playing volleyball on the beach. Due to the rain, we moved to the restaurant Rosie’s right on the beach, where we met a lot of visitors from the United States and spoke with some locals who were spending their afternoon there. In the evening, we headed down by the pool for karaoke, where we sang patriotic songs. We ended the night at Big Cee’s in Cupecoy, enjoying the food and recapping the day.

Tuesday was a day to reset and hone in on our group’s project and campaign book. After class, I spent the rest of the morning looking out at the beach by the pool and getting my work done. After an afternoon of work, we headed down to Maho to walk around and try the Taco Tuesday specials at 3 Amigos. We will definitely be back there on Tuesday for the tacos.

We had our final lecture this week in Dr. Hayes’ social media analytics class. Now, we have learned about all the tools we need to navigate Quid, and now we will focus on gathering data for our video and book. As the week comes to a close, we have learned the necessary skills and tools from the past few weeks to put our ideas into a formulated plan. Now I will use those skills to complete my social media analytics report for our campaign book. 

On Friday, we had another boat excursion to see Prickly Pear Cays and Anguilla. It was a beautiful and sunny day to sit out on the front of the boat and soak in the beautiful ocean and islands around. Marisa and I had back to back social media takeover days this week, with our second day being on our boat day. We got the opportunity to enjoy our boat day while being cognizant of capturing the wonderful views and memories being made each day on this trip. It’s great to be able to look back in the future and see all the things we did during the excursion.

Over the weekend, we went back to our favorite spot in Marigot, the French bakery. We got our pastries and drinks and then settled down in the cozy seating area to work as a group and create a rough draft of our campaign book so we can spend our final week working on critiques, doing touch ups, and preparing our final draft. After a long afternoon of working and a little exploration we ended the night in Maho at one of our favorite places.