Entries this day: AM_Dream Departure Fruits_party Sheik_date Sparty ready_for_first_day

AM Dream

6:07am SGT Saturday 07 January 2006

I did not have my curriculum, etc finished. I didn't know what was due.... I was being called out by Matt in front of everyone else; they all knew what was up..

Departure

6:08am SGT Saturday 07 January 2006

The watertight door just closed; I think we will be leaving Singapore soon.

6:39am

We haven't left yet, although the refueling ship has just recently left our side. I'm about to go upstairs to see what I can see.

7:43am

We must have just started to move as I was writing the text above. I got some hopefully unusual pics of Singapore (at least from PB perspective) in that they were at dawn in Singapore, and near a port but with very few people on deck.

I also got a pic of the *first* gondola (hanging cable car) coming out of the gondola station. But they sent just three cars out each direction and then stopped sending more cars out...

Fruits party

1:00pm SGT Saturday 07 January 2006

The Fruits Party was today; all sorts of fruits were available buffet style for 1000 yen per person. The staff and volunteer staff helped greet people in a long-ass queue into Topaz Dining, and then the hula team performed hula up in front of the room. It seemed to go quite well, and everyone had fun.

After our performance, Peter's Band performed; they were quite genki and amazing with their drum stylin's. Peter's Japanese is quite good; I'm impressed.

For the actual fruit eating part, I enjoyed a lot of dragon eyes, mango, canteloupe, jack fruit, and dorian. The dorian was good only if I didn't sniff it.

Sheik date

9:00pm SGT Saturday 07 January 2006

Tonight was Carl, Dan and my date with Carla, Yuki and Rei across the hall. I dressed in my white gown from Egypt and red/white checked head thing from Jordan. I became Mr Sheik, and Dan and Carl were my body guards in business suits and sunglasses. I put Francois looking out my front pocket (on the left at chest level) to complete the silly outfits.

We tried walking side by side with them flanking me as we walked through the ship, but the corridors were too narrow, so we resorted to single file.

Relatively little response as we walked around the 7th deck of the ship, but Maruan recognized it as a gag of unparalleled genius and took some pictures of us.

Our arrival in Yacht Club was much more appreciated; several people took pictures, and our three dates were like, "oh my god!" etc. For super added hilarity Forward Body Guard (Dan) served Mr Sheik's food and carried it to the table.

The Forward Body Guard tasted Mr Sheik's food and water to make sure it wasn't poisoned. We then dropped the pretense but joked like, "what if we had forced everyone to clear this side of the room before Mr Sheik came in??.." etc.. hilarious!!

During dinner, we asked the girls what they thought of the letters and which ones were allocated to whom and who they thought wrote which ones. They guessed Carl for the eloquent one, then me for the 'normal' one (perhaps Carla recognized my handwriting), but that left Dan for the misspelled one in crayon.

It seems they never decided which ones were for which of them.

We never gave them a straight answer, only "one of us likes one of you; one of us likes two of you; and one of us likes all three of you lovely ladies.." the last spoken like The Ladie's Man.

After dinner walk around to the front deck, we gazed at the ships on the horizon and joked that they were all pirate ships coming to get us. The wind was brisk; Yuki in short sleeves stayed huddled behind me; I enjoyed the bit of contact and warmth, because it began to sprinkle big drops of rain.

Down the front secret entrance and in pairs, with Front Body Guard in front and Back Body Guard in back, we paraded through free space and into Hemmingway, where I was called habibi by one of the arabic speaking bartenders. I don't remember his name, but he was on 49th voyage.

We joked that Mr Sheik should pay for everything, obviously being incredibly rich, and then joked about an incredibly poor sheik, whose oil field has dried up, and has no palace, no cars, no food... as I am still on my quest to spend 0 dollars on the ship.

(( although it must be noted that Hitomi has blessed me with $50 for laundry (and chocolate) on the ship; she wants to make sure I have clean clothes available. I'm not sure how I will go about buying laundry tokens and chocolate, but not putting it on my card. ))

They bought four ice creams and two brownies. I had a bit, not feeling comfortable in taking much of what I didn't pay for.

Sparty

10:12pm SGT Saturday 07 January 2006

Spa Party = Sparty

SO

Much

Laughter.

We had 12 people in the 4 person hot tub. Then the bubbles turned off. More people got in. Then the water began to drain, and we were all trying to squish down to keep the water up.....

10:14pm

I need to work on curriculum, but now going to Sunshine Bar until 11pm, cause Rei is going... Eeek.

11:07pm SGT Saturday 07 January 2006

At the party thingie I chatted with Erica, who I was unable to say much about at the see-how-much-you-don't-know meeting with CCs and GETs. I still don't know much about her, but she asked me about my U2 concert T, and I told her the story of having "Bust A Move" by Young MC and playing it over the phone to Sam Malone who played it over the air live, and then how I won free basketball tickets, cheered for them on the air, but then out of the studio said I couldn't go, and was offered PopMart tour tickets for U2.

Told Rei and Erica that story, plus how the band came out of the lemon as the audience went apeshit and how Bono got a girl out of the audience and sang to her and put his head in her lap while singing....

- - - -

Carl told us the story of missing a week of school to drive various vehicles in a chain of good will and good friends for a trek from perhaps Virginia to Tampa, Florida just to see a show from that U2 tour.

ready for first day

12:57am SGT Sunday 08 January 2006

Aight. I'm ready for the first day. Gots all my books in a row, and pretty much know what all I will do, starting with leaving the classroom to show them the GET Board. That will be a good start.

We will work on introducing ourselves and introducing friends. I'll introduce Francois.