Entries this day: Before_eleven Tahiti! before-eleven

Before eleven

10:43am HAST Sunday 12 March 2006 (day 13136)

We will go into a new timezone tonight.

Last night I helped up in the newspaper office; wrote a couple of title images. Gazed at Saki's graceful beauty as she worked with some others on the GO-TA-NI project, a collaboration of individual artists.

This morning I meditate not for a full 30 minutes (giving lots of blessings to ロシェル from the end of my UH days, and wondering what our lives would have been like had we (I ?) chosen to keep the baby) because I was super tired and didn't wake up in time, then chowed a bit at the last minute in Yacht Club, wondering why I seem to want Rei, and realized I just want *someone*, which is the exact same thing Maggie says I said before, when I didn't have a girlfriend. I'm glad to be aware of this pattern.

I think I'm on the right track with my mind/spirit/meditation dealio; I took time for myself this morning: did a bit of laundry and cleaned the cooling fans for my computer in an attempt to revive the one that stopped.

I believe I should work (a lot) on my Palestine presentation, though right now I am going to engage the masses on the ship during the ドキドキ meet the guests thing in 5 minutes.

11:52am HAST Sunday 12 March 2006

Did it, and am glad I did; I know now whose lectures I'd like to attend. Plus I remembered to take the game boards to Kiichi for lamintation.

Tahiti!

Tahiti!

Hello Tahiti and the rest of the world!!

Thanks to everyone who has sent me updates!

We have arrived in Tahiti today, and the place seems quite beautiful. Even the port
is nice, and they are usually not all that great compared to the rest of their
respective cities.

The recent days are like a blur; I can hardly remember enough to put together a
"summary," since I don't even know when I last wrote, BUT I know I didn't get to an
internet cafe in Rapa Nui, so I'll start with that story.

Rapa Nui is the local name for what I've always known as Easter Island.  It's
dubbed the most remote inhabited island in the world, and has a pretty amazing
history, due in large part to that distinguished honor.

Apparently, the civilization that made the enigmatic (*) heads (called Moai) used
up all the island's resources to the point that the civilization collapsed (similar
to what may have happened to the Mayans), and has never recovered.  There is a
quarry of unfinished Moai on one corner of the island; they were just abandoned as
if no one noticed the imminent collapse.

(*) first time I've used the word 'enigmatic' in a sentence.

In our 7 hours on the island, we saw several moai, large waves crashing on large
rocks, two volcano calderas, more moai, and a lovely beach with super calm water.

In the water at this beach I had my underwater camera and Francois. For some
reason, the camera stopped working, and I lost track of Francois.

Oh man.  Francois; where are you???  I searched and searched, until I just got too
tired from holding my breath underwater and trying to find him.  I gave up. 
Floated on my back, releasing Francois to the world, becoming one with the idea of
admitting to everyone who would ask about him that I lost him.

Thanks to Petra and Lisa for helping look for him.

Our time was up; we headed back, and I found Francois.  Just like that.  Face down
on the bottom.  So happy!

-- - - --

After Rapa Nui, 6 days and 5 timezone changes to Tahiti!  Went swimming in a huge
lagoon last night and saw a waterspout (tornado) a couple of kilometers out on the
water!  Scuba diving this morning with sharks and more fish than I saw in Acapulco
or Seychelles, and the sea floor completely covered in coral.  Really nice, and
pretty bummed that my camera wasn't working; I forgot to charge the battery last
night.

Super short, but our time is shorter!!!!

   Love Love Love
    - Rob! 

before eleven

10:26pm NZDT Monday 12 March 2006 (day 13136)

Today has been / was / is being pretty good, I think. I set up my computer in GET Room 3 to work on Palestine. I have set a date for my Palestine presentation: tomorrow, and then Yuuka was all, "wait; that's when we have speech contest preparation" which is what I had already said but people didn't agree, so the thing got moved to the day after, which is fine with me, cause it gives me another day to prepare.

The missing element, I decided, was my knowledge of the history of the region, as in I knew basically nothing. Looked it up on Encarta, and Joel gave me some reading material to help.

During Staff GET with Kiichi, I saw Akane, and scheduled to meet her at 11 in GET Room 3, which is super convenient for me, given that I will already be there with Fantastic Rabbits' class having just ended.

Today I put some Fighting Goats' pictures on the network so they can do show-n-tell tomorrow.

Also today I filled in the gaps on my curriculum from the past 2 weeks; most of which I was able to recreate given the notes I wrote during class and gave to my students after class.

Today was Indonesia crew day, a cool event put on my Carla and Laura, and originally the brainchild of Carl and Tony.

Ate dinner between Simon and Thomas, the core of Rhombus, a up-n-coming musical group from New Zealand.

Gotta call Kiichi to reschedule my lesson with him; I hope I do it in good time.

Just got back from newspaper where I wrote 2 small-titles, and noted that one that I drew yesterday was scrapped and redrawn by someone else. Ah well. King (Chieko), who is apparently super-allergic to mosquitoes, asked about my love life after a discussion that Funky had described his as "not going well." I said, "it's not going well," but I don't know what I mean by that.

I took a phat nap today, but I'm still tired; I'm glad we get an extra hour tonight; I'm going to go use it now. Bedtime!