Entries this day: AM_a_bit_better Class Dream1 Dream2 Staff_GET State_of_My_Life Today nonverbal_communication spooning

AM a bit better

07:14am IST Friday 08 July 2005

Going to breakfast.

I'm in an okay mood, but still a bit rough after last night.

07:30am IST Friday 08 July 2005

I just learned that Kuni went to Free Space to wait for me last night. I probably could have kissed her.

07:56am IST Friday 08 July 2005

Class starts in four minutes. I just woke up Shawn who apparently didn't hear his alarm this morning at 7.

Random pictures from today:

Maryann eyetagging me:

Piggybacking Katt:

Minoru practicing martial arts:

Class

12:44pm IST Friday 08 July 2005

Today after my HWG class I had to vent a bit with Kris and Petra - I just want to throw HWG off the boat for not talking! As individuals they all try to talk, but when in a group they just clam up like the air has been poisoned.

Massaged Petra's shoulders and back until lunch time.

HWG stands for Happy Wonderful Girls.

Dream1

2:52pm IST Friday 08 July 2005

Jimmy was on the boat for a second and when he left, he left a note on my bed (between my bed and Minoru's). He wrote it on the board between our beds. He put Francois on Minoru's bed because he didn't know whose bed was whose.

I went downstairs to do something with my phone and I saw one of the housekeepers who spoke really good Japanese.

Dream2

3:32pm IST Friday 08 July 2005

We could just take pills and escape the pull of gravity. Kris was there and Angie was there. Some guy invited us to join him flying around. We were floating and not using space suits, so we had to hold our breath. We went so far away from earth that it just disappeared. When it was time to go back, I didn't know how we would find the earth again, but we pointed back where I thought earth might be, and I didn't take into consideration the sun, which would be a much heavier mass and easier to see than the earth, but we were so far away we couldn't see it. We were flying back and were supposed to be outside earth's gravity, but I was dragging on the carpet, so it didn't quite work. Kris said she was scared, but I wasn't scared so much as just dragging along the carpet a bit.

Staff GET

3:55pm IST Friday 08 July 2005

I'm going to head up to teach my Staff GET student. Her name, it turns out, is Asuka, not Yasuko. Yasuko is my Japanese teacher.

Fuck; I missed the food part of Tea Time.

State of My Life

1:26pm IST Friday 08 July 2005

State of My Life Address

1. I'm on Pb's 49th Global Voyage, between Bergen, Norway and Dublin, Ireland. We'll arrive in Ireland at 5am tomorrow.

2. For most of the ports, I have chosen to simply wander around with little or no pre-planning. Plenty of fun has been had in this manner. Hanging out in the internet cafe next to the boat in Norway resulted in meeting a cool guy named Thomas who told me a lot about his country. In Le Havre I joined Kris and Dave plus a couple Japanese passengers walking around and chowing at a couple different cafes and a picnic next to an old church. In Italy, wild and exotic fish and fruits were viewed and chowed at the local markets. Plus we zoomed over to Taormina for a fun time climbing. Memories of Barcelona excursion from La Rambla to Park Gruell (sp) via Sagrada Familia with Niveen will always be cherished.

3. I lept into the frigid pool yesterday just for fun. I tried to escape the water faster than humanly possible, but I was limited by my own beliefs in physics.

   I declared it to have been the worst possible idea ever, so when I did it again, Brandt was like, "you're worst idea ever has been replaced by a new worst idea ever: jumping in a second time."

   If I do it enough times, the first time could be considered sheer genius.

4. I am super tired. It's the middle of the afternoon but I'm falling asleep on this couch.

5. I have kissed three women on the boat. Two others I have tried to kiss, but they were too smart for me.

6. Super busy; super tired on the boat; I think that is contributing to my angsty mood.

7. The salsa performance is complete, and the initial Get to Know a GET Teacher things are complete. So I am not in the midst of 'preparing' for anything

8. We are 5 or 6 days (of 15) into the second semester of classes already.

9. I had Niveen come to both my classes and the students interviewed her after Dublin.

10. We just had Irish Night last night, and I was in a grouchy mood.

11. Minorou is our roommate these days. I am glad our room is so close to Topaz Dining and to the classes.

12. I have yet to do a video tour of the boat, but I would like to at some point.

13. I have about 60 euros remaining. Maybe 45 left over from Europe. But we are out of Euro-accepting countries. Oh, save Ireland.

14. I got the new version of Where In The World, and have been testing it for bugs a bit.

15. I haven't totally missed the internet as much as I thought I might. It's been so busy on the boat and there is so much to do. I am trusting the advice to just go go go.

16. I will meet my Staff GET student soon, for the first time. Her name is Yasuko, I think.

17. I haven't met my Japanese teachers in a while.

18. I am recording this into tape 14, and have transcribed through tape 3.

19. I am falling asleep as I write this.

Today

Someone saw this fish today!

I don't know who took the picture, but probably Ikuko, of Happy Wonderful Girls.

11:11pm MST Monday 08 August 2005

In the English version of today's paper, there were messages sprinkled in various places. Stuff like

Rob you better
meet our demands
or the rabbit gets it
Here are our demands
1) shave the left side of your head
2) wear your shirts backwards till Vancouver
3) remove your ugly nail polish
4) read Ode to Francois in the next GET meeting

For a while I debated doing as they requested, and basically decided not to, though I followed the 'letter of the law' by

1) shaving the left side of my head (and the right side)
2) writing "your shirts backwards till Vancouver" on a shirt and wearing it
3) replacing the partially chipped nail polish with a new coat (*)
4) reading Ode to Francois in today's GET meeting (**)

(*) Actually, Katt had already done this nail painting the previous night, so it worked nicely.

(**) This is the only thing I performed as requested, and Kim got a video of it!

Fei is the CC translating the paper these days so he was the obvious culprit, but he had a good alibi: a sheet of paper from the supposed actual captors telling him to put that stuff in the paper.

The pictures of Francois were taken with a "Canon EOS Kiss Digital N" according to the information recorded within the photos. I wonder if N stands for something that got truncated.

I queried Matt the artist to see if he had done it, and he said he had not, but he told me he had seen the pictures on a girl's computer. So I'm thinking Nicole; she has a nice camera, though I don't know what make or model.

Kim thinks it was Joel the CCC; he would definitely do this type of thing, and he has access to the CCs and basically has access to GET street.

- - - -

Tonight was a formal dinner, and I luckily got a four-seat table alone with Natalie; we shared fun stories and I told her about my skating accident and subsequent palm reading. She got 90% of the story, but I cropped parts of it for time.

After dinner I chatted with Naho (one of my students from Cheerful Dancing Fellows) for over an hour to continue our conversation we had had during the end of Chat With today.

After that I went to the top deck where No Music No Peace festival is going on. Basically the music is not good enough to make me withstand the freezing cold wind so I came downstairs. I may go back up at 1:30am to watch the merengue performance (starring Natalie, Shawn and Miki) and then the Irish dancing performance starring Dave, Carissa and Kuni.

2:10am

I did go back at 1:30 and saw those performances. Beyond that was more guitar stuff so I left.

nonverbal communication

5:21pm IST Friday 08 July 2005

Was just talking to Kuni a bit. I find it strange that I seem to be seeking women with whom I cannot speak. I wonder if that's because I just want to focus on the language of love... I think that is not in my ultimate best interest.

7:01pm IST Friday 08 July 2005

Just talked to Sean from Ireland. He showed me Belfast on the starboard side of the boat. I'm meeting Natalie for dinner in Yacht Club now.

Ooooh I just saw my first aquatic life: jellyfish!

spooning

1:02am IST Saturday 09 July 2005

Had a spooning workshop tonight led by Maryann and Pat. Before the workshop they did a puppet show using spoons. The spoon dressed like a girl taught the spoon dressed like a boy how to spoon.