Entries this day: Miki One_big_entry Playing_dodgeball Wall_in_NYC act natalie_massage

Miki

1:04pm CEST Thursday 30 June 2005

The boat is really rocking, and I'm totally lovin' it. I just had lunch with three women, but I only knew one of them (Kuni).

Kuni suggested that I go to Cafe Latino to have salsa lessons (there are far more women than men who show up (because the women are mostly over 50), and Natalie always encourages guys to join), so I will probably do that, to get some salsa pointers and get good points with Natalie so I can get Francois back; I left him at a lecture recently and she picked him up, but has been pretending not to have him. But tomorrow we will be in France, and Francois not in France is just unacceptable.

I had Superbeginner and Beginner lessons today, but I had been scheduled to do the Intermediate and Advanced. Petra caught the mistake and got it sorted so everything appeared normal for the students.

3:07pm

I went up to the top deck and watched the hot tub POURING water over onto the top deck. It was reallllly cool. I recorded some of them, but missed the best ones.

So I went to salsa, and it turns out we will be performing in a few days, which totally petrifies me, cause I can't salsa for shit. But I can do it, I'm sure.

Met one of the girls there who looks Japanese but has really good English. Turns out she has been in the US for a while in high school, and I'm like, really??? cause she looks like early 20s to me. Amazing.

Her name is Miki.

One big entry

2:57am CEST Thursday 30 June 2005

If making out is considered fune magic, I had some fune magic tonight. Lovely and delicious.

Playing dodgeball

8:30pm CEST Thursday 30 June 2005

Just played dodgeball with a volleyball up on the top deck. Fun times, though the Japanese rules are different than what I'm used to. They use only one ball at a time and catching the ball does not make the thrower out. Getting hit by the ball forces a player to the edges of the opposite side of the court, and if that player ends up with a ball and can hit someone on the other team, that player is resurrected.

Now it's time for Niveen and Eilat's lecture. They have barricaded the door to make it look like a checkpoint. I saw it, ran down to get my tape recorder, came up and found I still was not late. The line hadn't moved at all.

Wall in NYC

10:30pm CEST Thursday 30 June 2005

Grrrrrrr.

We are planning to protest the 8 meter tall was in Palestine by erecting a wall in New York City. Lots of internal PB politics.

act

12:30am CEST Friday 1 July 2005

We just had our Envision Peace meeting where we changed the name from Envision Peace (the name I had given) to ACT, a much shorter word with broader implicatable meanings. Now I'm in Sports Bar with some latino music kickin' it through the system.

natalie massage

2:01am

I found Natalie in Sports Bar and gave her a 30 minute back massage in exchange for Francois. I heard from Dave that Natalie had Francois, but when I was all, "Natalie, have you seen Francois? I'm really worried about him.." and she would cover her bag and say "nope..; haven't seen him.."

Tonight I was like, "alright, Natalie, I have *got* to find my rabbit. I will do anything that takes less than an hour."

She was like, "you can give me a ten minute massage and I will look for him."

"Ten minutes? He must not be worth very much to you."

"Well, I don't want to really put you out just to get your rabbit back."

Later, I found her and gave her a real hug, and was all, "really truly thank you for recovering my rabbit for me. I have definitely enjoyed working with you since we've been on the ship," etc etc and she returned the compliments.

I gave her a 30 minute massage in her room, with no funny business, especially considering all three of her roommates were there: Petra, Yoshiko, and Katt.

Katt is really really really really really particular. Today she was going through earrings, looking for appropriate earrings for tomorrow, and I don't mean just one pair for the day. She has like, all the cutsie stuff that would just drive me bananas.

Right now I am just thinking I will stay local in France, though I don't know who will be there.

Okay, goodnight

I know I am up super late every night, but I figure I can sleep in after PB. One of the guys on the 48th voyage, during the handover meeting said, "don't sleep; you can sleep after PB; it goes by soo quickly."