Entries this day: AM Fone GET_Orientation Zzzz

AM

8:26am JST Thursday 29 December 2005

I woke up around 3:30am with some dreams, but chose to sleep instead of write. Again at 7:am, but I got up for breakfast in the Yacht Club instead. A man named Teru came up to me. His full first name is Teruaki, but his mom calls him Teriyaki when he's in trouble, so I think he prefers just Teru.

Hung out with Christina downstairs in Topaz as her "assistant" for a few minutes. I would say "おはようがざいます" to most people as they came by. She was like, "this is Rob, my assistant." One passenger was like, "your sister?? wow...."

Fone

11:03am JST Thursday 29 December 2005

Amazingly, I was able to call the PB office on my phone during the GET Orientation! I looked down and it showed I had a signal, but I didn't think it would actually work (could be just thinking it recognized a non-usable signal or some such)... I called PB office and they answered! I was like, "I'm just testing my phone from the ship," but they didn't respond past that; I wonder if they could hear me, and if the signal got interrupted by lack of radio waves or by a hangup.

GET Orientation

12:38pm JST Thursday 29 December 2005

The GET Orientation went smashingly well; we pulled together the nutty cobbler of performance pieces into one show smooth as buttah.

I'm really glad to see Pepe having so much fun and really engaging the passengers; he had been a bit concerned about a low level of energy toward the Spanish classes. I was like, "you get to make it happen, yo."

Chowed lunch (on the early shift; oops) with リく and met やのママ、 大崎、さりー、and　五十嵐（いがらし）. りく convinced 大崎 to sign up for GET; I wonder if she can get a finder's fee!

Zzzz

12:08am JST Friday 30 December 2005

Now performing our first time change of the voyage:

11:10pm SGT Thursday 29 December 2005

Today:

1. Talked with Petra about computer / network stuff and how to present it to everyone.

2. Went through a bunch of stuff in GET Room 7... the 51st voyage teachers had left a ton of stuff there. Lisa and I grabbed a lot of the food.

3. Went to dinner and inquired about vegetarian card.

4. Went to ___________'s lecture about Second Harvest, the concept of which feeds people in Tokyo with food that would otherwise be thrown away.

   I left before the questions, because last voyage they were always outrageously horrible, and I guessed they would be no better this time. Carla came out and said they had asked, "why were you drug addicted at such an early age?" and "why did you have a child out of wedlock?" and "when you lived in a cardboard box, what did you do when it rained?"

5. Sat in the hall and waited for some/anyone to come say HI. Francois is a good magnet for that. Met a dude named 上原 from Okinawa. He was super talkative in English. Then met 智恵 (ともえ), also from 沖縄, and she was super talkative in Japanese, despite her good fluency in English. I got several new vocabulary words, including [coincidence] and different kanji. I drew her a map of the US and she drew a map of Japan, and we described where we had been, etc etc. Good times. Oh, and she taught me things about Japanese kanji that no one had ever taught me before (or at least not in a way that stuck): 新　is the kanji for 立, 木, and axe, but I can't seem to find that kanji now. She taught me the name 都道府県 in a way that I will probably always be able to remember (the pronunciation, if not the kanji); I never knew there were more than 県 and 都.

   The conversation broke down due to lack of vocab when I tried to explain we had Alan Nelson on the ship, talking about how the US should pull out of Okinawa, but I didn't remember how he proposed to give the Okinawans non-military based jobs.

   We have both seen Hotel Hibiscus.

6. Said bye when the first midnight rolled around, and then went downstairs. Saw Stacy and reminded him about time change and he looked *SO* happy for such good news. Huge high five. I hope he is able to sleep beautifully.

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