[insert generic title here.]

It's not that I don't want to write, it's just that every time I sit down to write, I get all blocked and my mind becomes completely blank. So perhaps just quick updates here and there, until I'm feeling back up to blogger snuff.

I'm finally feeling healthy again, and am no longer sleeping all my days away. Classes continue to go well. Last Tuesday was the last in-pool session for the scuba techniques class, and amazingly, I successfully completed the skin diving ditch and recovery. I do think the instructor was being kindly in passing me, because I've heard stories from those who've failed the exercise, and my attempt was actually a bit shoddy in comparison. But, I shan't argue, as I'll walk away with an A. For the same class, Saturday was our first day in open water at Leadbetter Beach, just a stone's throw from the college. We worked on free diving, configuring equipment, determining weight, and demonstrated some basic skills underwater. Towards the end of class time, the instructors cut us loose to dive on our own, with a buddy. Due to a receding tide and swell and surge, visibility was about 6 inches or so. At one point, I completely lost sight of my buddy Dave, truly and honestly could neither see him nor distinguish the outline of his body, when he was no more than 2 feet away from me. I ended up holding on to part of his kit for most of the dive. Fortunately, for the remaining 2 classes we'll be diving from a boat, which should make for far lovelier conditions.

Friday was the first day (of 2) of a Nitrox diving class.

Quick background: Your average scuba cylinder contains compressed air, composed of (essentially) 21% oxygen and 79% nitrogen. This combination works perfectly at saturation (ie under a constant pressure, ie at the surface, or at a constant depth underwater), but the high concentration of nitrogen can cause the bends if pressure decreases too rapidly (again, think bottle of soda, shaken: opened slowly [replicating slow gradual ascent], bubbles dissipate without much drama; opened quickly [replicating bolting to the surface], bubbles come out of solution too quickly, and spill all over ever'thing. "The Bends" is caused by pesky, though initially tiny, nitrogen bubbles not being able to gradually dissolve from within the tissues back into the blood stream and out through the lungs, but rather coming out of solution quickly, increasing in size, and shooting willy-nilly into tissues, joints, veins, arteries, etc.).

So, Nitrox is a breathing mixture with an increased percentage of oxygen (typically 32% or 36%, as opposed to the 21% in compressed air/scuba cylinder breathing mix), which is overall safer for a diver to breathe, because less inspired nitrogen means less chance for errant and wayward nitrogen bubbles. I actually earned this cert in Thailand, but I don't remember any of it. Plus, what diver doesn't want another plastic card in her wallet? We have another in-class session for the class, and then hallelujah, we get to do checkout dives, which means a glorious day of diving from the Spectre.

o street.

My body is still doing battle with some kinda somethin, and I'm not yet sure who's winning. I started taking antibiotics last week, and felt good enough to actually do stuff all weekend, but yesterday and today I feel super tired again, like maybe the mean bugs ravaging my sinuses came back stronger after a brief respite. I can't say I've ever really had sinus issues before, but I have a world of sympathy now for those who deal with this regularly. I have a *sinus headache. I never really knew what that was, and I had no idea how painful and persistent they are. The nurse practitioner I saw last week told me infection in the sinuses is especially difficult to eradicate.

What's interesting about being sick is the way it affects a person. Most of the time I feel ok, if a little tired. But I can't really sleep very well, even though I'm always tired. And my mind is a bit fuzzy. For example, I'm usually pretty good about remembering where I put things, and it's not too terribly often that I misplace things. Last week, however, during a visit to the Ross Dress For Less (SB's version of Marshall's), I purchased a pair of cheap sneakers for use at school and work. I have no idea where the shoes are now. I'm pretty sure I didn't leave them at the store (but I keep forgetting to call and ask), but they are nowhere to be found here in my room. I've searched high and low. No clue. The possibilities I've come up with so far have been that I either dropped them on the way into the house from my car, or that I accidentally put them in with the garbage and threw them away. It's not a huge loss, really, they cost about $9, but I'm totally disturbed by the whole episode.

Halfway through the module now. Tomorrow is the last in-pool session for my scuba class. I'll have one last chance to do the skin diving ditch & recovery, but the state of my sinuses doesn't bode well for accomplishing the feat. Fortunately, I should still be fine on scuba, when I can de- and ascend as slowly as necessary, and so should be able to fully enjoy the obstacle course.

The weather here has been a bit insane for February, even in SoCal. Saturday I was on the beach in a bikini, playing frisbee with my friend Rob, who was so gracious to invite me and assorted MDTers to join him and his parents for beach & BBQ at a beautiful spot called Jalama.

Jalama Beach, toward Point Conception.

It was lovely and serendipitous that I was feeling good and had the day off to enjoy the 84-degree February day. The drive was lovely, and lovely drives are especially good for the likes of my antsy-pants, which tend to be especially antsy in the dead of winter, no matter how amazing that winter might be, with the exception of amazingly resilient viral annoyance. We sat on the beach and talked, threw the frisbee for the dog, threw the frisbee to one another, watched the waves, ate burgers and dogs, sat around the fire, and marveled at the millions of stars in the sky.

the chronic.

It's been a rough couple of weeks. Rough in the way that a person can sort of make it rough on oneself, as in becoming too attached to possibilities, but I've also continued to be sick, and that hasn't helped much. I don't get sick very often, but it tends to get pretty ugly and quite dramatic when I do. The cough and cold that presented itself a few weeks back has escalated into some kind of chronic discomfort and sinus pressure, so today I had an appointment at the school's health clinic. Amazingly, an appointment with a nurse practitioner and a 10-day course of the antibiotic amoxicillin was all free, owing to my status as a full-time SBCC student.

winter is winter is winter.

No matter where it happens, winter is winter. The days are short, the overall health of the general public isn't so great, temps are lower, clouds more frequent. Winter is winter is winter is winter. I'm not at my best during the winter season. I've been sick for weeks and weeks, it seems like. Actually it's been about a week, but it feels like forever and ever. What makes it worse is that I can't seem to get sick only once around here, but take multiple hits when the system is already ailing, and so must weather several different species of cold/flu during the span of a few weeks. I poo-poo'd the idea last semester that somehow this one-two punch is bred deep in the bowels of the MDT facility, passed around from student to student and back again, but I think I'm finally starting to believe.

Last week, I had the pleasure of joining my friend Xima (pron. SHE-ma) at a delightfully ratty establishment called the Old Town Tavern (OTT for short). For those of you who joined me for my 30th at the Otter Stop, you'll have a good sense of Wednesdays at the OTT, which offer the added bonus of being karaoke night. I had no intention of singing, but after a few screwdrivers, I took up the mic without a second thought (and for those of you who joined me for my 30th, you know how painful this can be [with the exception, of course, of my rousing Don Henley vocals on "Leather & Lace," accompanied only by the fair Michaela P.]). The set list included "Feel Like Makin' Love," "Proud Mary" (in the style of Ike & Tina), and backup vocals/ dancing to Troy and some other random guy's rendition of "Paradise City." The one that per't near brought the house down was "Don't Stop Believin'" in the style of Journey. The karaoke-meister referred to the song as the *true karaoke anthem, and asked us to follow it up, immediately, with another timeless Journey classic, which I can't remember at the moment, but which might have been "Any Way You Want It."

Before arriving at the OTT, Xima mentioned that she'd never gone there without running into someone she knew. Sure enough, right as we walked through the door, someone tapped her on the shoulder to say hi. I certainly didn't expect to run into anyone I knew at the OTT, but not more than 5 minutes after walking in, someone tapped me on the shoulder to say, actually, to slur, hello: one of the first semester MDT students. Coincidence enough, no? Later in the evening, after finally relinquishing the mic for the night, I looked across the room and spied a vaguely familiar face. Sitting at the bar was none other than chronic-cough Lisa from down the hall. Slovenly though she can be, she's a decent enough girl (and it came out in the conversation that she does have some sort of chronic cough, which belies no real infectious concern).

Third week of the semester this week, which means we're almost half-way through the first module. I have only one more week of First Aid, which I'm pleased about. It seems we've gone over the heimlich and chest compressions and rescue breathing about 230 times, and have watched about an equal number of poorly scripted/acted/costumed video segments. I haven't the faintest what I'm certified for now, but I will definitely be more comfortable and prepared should I be witness to an emergency situation.

Scuba class is going really well. Last week we worked on new exercises: skin diving ditch & recovery of fins and mask, and ditch & recovery of scuba gear. This week we continued working on the skin diving ditch & recovery (mastery of this skill, plus swimming 880 ft. in under 18 minutes will earn an A in the class), plus the bailout and buddy breathing exercises. The bailout is an exercise that's only performed in a closed water environment (i.e. a pool), but it's a fun challenge. Underwater and in full gear, we move to the pool ladder, remove fins and completely deflate BCD, then climb the ladder, exiting the pool. Topside, we remove the rest of our gear and turn shut down our air supply. In reverse order of importance (BCD, fins, mask, weight belt, regulator), we stack gear up the right arm, and jump back into the pool. Once back in the water, we: turn on air, stick regulator back in mouth, step into weight belt, replace mask and clear of water, place fins on feets, don BCD using over-the-head method, and finally check that everything's in place and properly adjusted. We went through the exercise twice. I hope we get to do it again. The buddy breathing exercise was also really fun. The skill (2 divers alternating breathing from the same regulator) is a bit arcane and outdated, but is still widely taught, for whatever reason. For this exercise, a donor diver, in full gear, leads an out-of-air maskless recipient diver around the perimeter of the pool. Being the donor and swimming my hapless partner around the pool was a bit stressful. Being the oblivious recipient was sheer bliss. I barely had to kick, as my surroundings glided past in lovely, blurry shades of turquoise.

brusha, brusha, brusha.

Admittedly, I am not the tidiest person in the world. As in all things, my cleaning habits tend to ebb and flow, now the apartment is unfit for human occupancy, now you could eat off the floor. Ok, you can never really eat off the floor because, if you did, it would be coated with the hair I've shed over the past several months that no vacuum cleaner could tear from its imbeddedness in the carpeting (but to food, somehow, it's attracted like a magnet). But you get the idea. Basically, life gets a bit messy until I have time and energy and sufficient will power to clean. It's a cycle. The revolutions become shorter as the years pass, but a cycle all the same.

There are areas I do tend to keep consistently clean and tidy, though: the kitchen and the bath.

When I was preparing for my move to Santa Barbara, I knew having a space of my own would be important, despite the cost. I knew no one here, so sharing housing was not really an option. What I found, just in time, was the yellow room, a *studio in a big Victorian, conveniently located downtown, close to school and much else. 7 other people live here, but we all have separate spaces, with no common areas, save the hallways. I've been happy here, mostly the people are decent. Like with any rental, there are pitfalls and annoyances, like people not locking the door when they leave, or the front light bulb that's been dark for the past month, the dryer that doesn't stop internally rotating when the door opens, the couple who monopolize the laundry presumably because they live nearest to it. At the moment though, these are the least of my worries.

The term *studio here is a bit of a euphemism. My *studio is really just a big bedroom with a half-fridge and a microwave in one corner. I share a bathroom (the sink in which doubles as a kitchen sink, for cleaning dishes, etc.) with 2 other women who live on the floor: Angelina, who I usually refer to as *cell phone, due to her, literally, incessant use of said device; and Lisa, who's lived here a few months, who I've nicknamed *coughy, after a terrible cough/cold combo that lasted about 3 weeks. I've become somewhat accustomed to *cell phone's idiosyncrasies. She'll leave dirty plates in the bathroom for weeks, deposit her personal garbage next to the toilet, but then, at some point, will whirl through, thoroughly disgusted, leaving a somewhat cleaner and tidier bathroom in her wake. The dishes and garbage are sort of annoying, but she's not around that much.

*Coughy, on the other hand, I'm still adjusting to.

She didn't start off on the best foot by snagging a roll of my TP, nor have I particularly enjoyed regularly cleaning the shower drain of her hair. But it was during her monumental coughing/cold combo that I really started to think not-very-nice thoughts about her. As I mentioned, she was sick for a solid 3 weeks, coughing all over the place, big, ugly-sounding, deep, guttural coughs. (And yes, I'm totally anal about the people I live with or am close to getting sick and the possibility of contracting said illness because being sick interferes with my ability to dive. But the possibility of getting sick before the swim eval was, understandably, very especially worrying.) And in my fully paranoid mind, I saw her coughing all over everything, running her hands all over the place. In my mind, no surface was safe to touch. The worst part was, while she was sick, she repeatedly left her toothbrush and toothpaste out on the counter top. A few nights ago I came across the glass top for one of those country-style candles that come in a jar. It had been mysteriously sitting out on the counter for a few days. I thought about tossing it into the garbage, but then realized there was water in it. Correction: it was filled with solution, and her contacts were resting at the bottom. Tonight though, the best find by far: used dental floss right next to the sink.

There's something about the situation that makes me want to behave like an absolute adolescent, like instead of just asking her to be cleaner in using the bathroom, I have this urge to stuff used ear swabs into her tube of toothpaste. Really. How horrible. But writing it out has proven to take the edge off, and to give a bit of perspective.

So when next I see her, I'll try to overcome the adolescent urgees, and just ask.

mindless.

The beauty of this semester, beyond that I'm diving, is that I have class only 2 days a week. Never mind that one of those days is 12 hours long for the next 3 weeks, or that class time the other day spans 6 hours, it's lovely to have scheduled class time only on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Today's class and lab combo was Intro to Commercial Dive Equipment. Eventually, I'll be diving surface-supplied equipment, so rather than diving with tanks attached to my back, I'll be diving with a hose attached to an air supply at the surface. Surface-supplied diving requires special equipment, most notably the helmet like the one shown below (and it's pretty amazing to have found a picture of a woman donning a helmet!):

The pic gives an idea of the size. Diving helmets are made from fiberglass or spun copper, with a decent heft, and a price tag of $5000+. Santa Barbara-based Kirby Morgan Dive Systems International's helmets are an industry standard, and, due to the current elevated need for commercial divers, back ordered until 2008. The MDT program has several Kirby Morgan helmets for us to dive, but before we can, we need to know how to rip them apart, and put them back together. This is one of the main objectives in the Commercial Diving Equipment class. Today in class we watched Instructor Dan do it. It doesn't seem so difficult in the beginning, but as the disassembled parts start to multiply, and the mask becomes barer and barer, the task feels increasingly challenging. Fortunately we have exploded diagrams to help us determine which parts go where, which I wish I could illustrate to you here in this entry, but I can't find a suitable file format to attach. Rest assured that the diagrams are helpful in their way, but also serve to render the novice extremely cross-eyed in attempting to decipher. With all things Marine Tech though, practice is the key.

I'm not sure if whatever happens to a person post holidays has only just now caught up to me, but I'm about as lethargic as they come. I'm on a 2-week hiatus from diving in the harbor, but still working the other 2 jobs. I only log about 5 hours per week doing office work, and since I still don't have a set schedule at the restaurant, and therefore am only working sporadically, I actually have time on my hands. Which is nice, it really is, but as I've mentioned before, I'm not great at having time on my hands. It makes me feel useless and bored. I know I should really try to appreciate it, and not try to fill it up with nonsensical tasks, but it makes me restless when I don't have much to do.

It's a bit different at the moment though, like some bizarre combination of feeling bored and useless, and also not really feeling like doing a damn thing. I don't feel like going to the gym, I don't care to clean, don't really want to cook food or do laundry, I don't even care to revise what I've written. I really just want to lay in bed and read, which I can do, since I've got some time to do it. I suppose I'll just chalk it up to it being winter, and a delayed reaction to an uber busy holiday season followed by intense catch up upon return to SB.

hustle, and flow.

First day of classes today.

When I returned from my 2-week holiday visit to the upper midwest, I assumed I'd have oodles of time to myself: for library visits and reading, for hanging out with friends, for sleeping, for biking, for outings of uncertain intent with my crush, for preparing for the swim eval, for researching possible career paths, for registering at school. Time passed all too quickly, as it is typically wont to do, and so yesterday found me scrambling to accomplish all manner of school-related tasks at the last minute. During the day, I hunted for parking with a good majority of the 17,000 returning SBCC students, I registered for classes, visited with Financial Aid and learned of the glitch du jour explaining the heretofore absence of loan check, and I had maintenance checks performed on pieces of equipment. Late last night found me populating my dive bag in preparation for my first diving class today, searching for those items purchased specifically for the program so many months ago, neglected all these months.

Today began Advanced Scuba Techniques, the class which explains the necessity for some of the skills in the swim eval: the class focuses on retraining the diver from the basics up (including skills used in skin diving, a sport in itself, and a world apart from scuba diving), regardless of class and rank. Today we worked on finning at the surface and underwater, some breath holding, and a few types of dives used in skin diving. For the scuba portion of the class, we assembled gear while listening to the instructors discuss the dos and don'ts of gear assembly. Once in the pool, we practiced basic scuba skills like mask flooding, mask removal, and regulator recovery. It felt good to be in my gear again. When I work in the harbor, I breathe from a regulator, and I wear my wetsuit/mask/fins, but that's about where the similarity to scuba diving ends. I felt at home in my own gear, from my ridiculous pink gauges and my amazing ScubaPro S600 to my super sweet new BCD. I'm excited to be in the class. Even though now, post-swim eval, I find myself wondering how I didn't pass the swim eval in the first place, I know I wasn't ready before. It feels especially good to be in the class now that the skills are a fun physical challenge, rather than the scary impossibility they seemed before. I'm also quite happy to be focusing on diving this semester, having finished the rhetoric and theory last semester.

I also started First Aid for the Dive Professional today, a once-a-week, 6-hour-per-day, 4-week-long class, after which I'll have qualified for just about every dive-related first aid cert ever conceived. It's very, very intense, so I'm already counting down the days.

With that, I'm off to bed. Something about the breath-holding skills gives me a mad headache.

done, and done.

Prior to the blog of a few days ago, I hadn't made much mention of the swim eval, mostly to appease my highly superstitious nature. But the swim eval was today, 17 January, beginning 8 am. To recap all the exercises necessary to pass, in order of performance:

- 75-ft. underwater swim, without surfacing for air;
- 150-ft. underwater swim, surfacing no more than 3 times for air;
- 50-ft. rescue swim, i.e. swimming 50 ft. out to victim, and towing him back in (like the last time, I was the only female present);
- 300-ft. swim, using fins and snorkel, no mask;
- underwater recovery of 10-lb. weight from depth;
- 1000-ft. swim in under 10 mins.;
- 10-min. water tread, first 5 min. normal tread, next 3 with wrists out of the water, next 2 with elbows out.

Happily, today, unlike 23 August, I confidently finished each and every task. The two that sealed my non-diving fate last summer were the 150-ft. swim (I came up for the last breath sputtering, and stayed up too long), and the 1000-ft. swim (my time was 15 seconds over the allotted). Today, I swam the 150-ft. only surfacing two times for air, and I improved my time on the 1000-ft. swim by more than 2 minutes. Needless to say, I'm pretty damn pleased with myself.

In preparing for the swim eval, I was so preoccupied with practicing and visualizing and obsessing that I was somewhat surprised this morning to find how much I'd missed all my stinky boys. When I sat down this morning in the classroom, my instructor Dan (a native Wisconsin farm boy) commented to me that this morning must feel a bit like being at home. He was referring to the cold (freezing!) temps we've been experiencing of late. I, however, caught up in my unexpected happiness to be back at the facility, to see the faculty and my old and new fellow classmates, replied in the affirmative, adding "I sure have missed you guys."

a day no pigs would die.

Happy MLK day. I didn't realize it was MLK day until this evening, when the mail, generally late in arriving anyway, showed up not at all. Then I remembered it was MLK day, and a verse of the song "Happy Birthday" by Stevie Wonder popped into my head. A funny story about that song, which I'll note here (as this entry proves to be of the random free-form variety, rather than the planned pre-formed variety), the first time I heard that song was in Paris, at the Chicago Pizza Factory, or something similar. The song played in a loop, but only swatches of it, so that all I ever really heard of the song that night was the rambunctious HAPPY BIRTHDAY!/ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!/ HAPPY BIRTHDAY! part, and nothing else. I don't think I heard the entire song for many years afterward. Now though, it's included on my list of timeless classics, not only for the quality of the song, but for the content/ subject matter as well.

I know you won't believe it when I say it, but winter comes to southern California, too. Not the same winter that comes to Minnesota, but rather that winter's quieter second cousin. When I first got back to SB after the holidays, it was unseasonably warm - hot even- during the days. Then it cooled down, and then the wind picked up. Overnight temps have been in the teens, wind advisories (with gusts up to 35 MPH) have been issued. It's so cold and windy that I've not been on my bike in several days, and working in the harbor has proven to be a challenge.

When I returned, I'd wanted to take some time to recuperate after so much activity over the holidays. Unfortunately though, financial concerns dictated otherwise, and I returned to the restaurant the day after coming back to SB from the north country. Four days later I went back to diving in the harbor. The water temp had dropped to around 50 degrees, and let me tell you, that is cold. In a week of going to the harbor 4 different days, I cleaned a total of probably 6 boats (a number I could typically accomplish in one day). Between equipment malfunction, adjustments, and mishaps, I completed so very little. Saturday was the worst: I arrived at work with temps hovering in the 40s, with a terribly strong wind whipping around the harbor. The wind combined with cold is bad; the wind combined with cold and wet exposed limbs is so very bad. I cleaned one boat, and came up thinking positive thoughts about continuing to work, which vanished by the time I'd tied off to the second boat of the day. By that point, I could no longer feel my fingers, the wind had so thoroughly robbed them of any feeling. I had a meltdown then. There were tears falling inside my mask as I cut the compressor, untied the boat, and sped away back to the dock. I took a long shower, and massaged my poor, prickly-feeling fingers as they slowly regained the sensation robbed from them by that devil wind.

I would have given up that day, but I'd left a boat half cleaned, and so I returned to the harbor today. The temp was higher, in the mid-60s, but the wind still whistled menacingly through the boat masts. In preparation, I'd raided my closet, and donned every spare piece of neoprene I could find, and it helped to keep me warmer than I had been during my previous attempt. The albatross was still my numbed, dead fingers, and so after cleaning the second half of the previously unfinished boat, and another for good measure, I returned to the dock for a long shower, and an uncomfortable call to my boss. I'm not bailing on the job just yet, because for whatever unfathomable reason (which relates to setting my own hours, and liking the man I work for), I like this job. There are bits and pieces I'm not crazy about, but for the most part, I enjoy the work, and I feel the experience is valuable. So I don't really want to quit, but I do need to take a break for a while.

Winter break is almost over. Classes start next week. The day I've been preparing for since 23 August has almost arrived: I retake the swim eval on Wednesday. I've been to the pool multiple times since I've returned, and I'm feeling really good and strong. The 2 tests I failed in August were the 1000-foot swim in under 10 mins., and the 150-foot breath-holding exercise. I worked on the swimming all semester in PE class, and have been working on the breath-holding this week at the pool. The breath-holding exercises really come down to mind control, because we can so easily convince ourselves that we absolutely must come up for air, when really, physiologically, we can continue to swim underwater for eons using what we have already stored. So working on taming the mind right now is equally important to the actual practice of the breath holding itself.

And with that, I'm off to bed, for tomorrow I'll awake to spend more time practicing at the pool.

Wish me luck ;)

word of the day.

While checking my mail just now, I spied the word of the day. It hovered above my inbox in the space usually occupied by links to such informative sites as www.areyouaslackermom.com, or www.coffeefool.com (A shocking secret coffee co's don't want you to know!), and DeclutterFast.com (How To Declutter In Only One Day! When You're Serious About Clutter). The word of today was:

nascent \NAS-uhnt; NAY-suhnt\, adjective:
Beginning to exist or having recently come into existence; coming into being.

It was the first part that caught my attention, the part I really liked, the part about beginning to exist. Maybe it struck me because it's the beginning of a new year, and the beginning of a new year always feels like starting over, like being offered a fresh start after the recent indulgences of the holiday season, turning away from the multitude of mistakes of the previous year. For me, the beginning of the new year, much like a birthday, is also a time to reflect, assess, forgive, forget, and above all else, to resolve.

Every year I make a list of things I'd like to accomplish in the coming year. Not really the typical list of new years resolutions, but more a list of objectives, possibilities, of improvements I'd like to make (in myself, and in my surroundings), hobbies I'd like to consider, new adventures to undertake. I start working on the list in December, and finalize it sometime in January. After writing out the list in my journal, I read it again a few times over the course of a few days, and then set it aside for a while. A few times during the year I review the list, just to get an idea of how I'm faring, and then I review it again at the beginning of the following year. I shy away from concrete resolutions which, knowing myself, can only lead to frustration and disappointment, and stick to more abstract ideas.

Having recently reviewed my resolutions from this time last year (when, as we'll remember, I was living in Minneapolis, in a great little apartment, in a great little neighborhood near the lakes; working at the aqarium, but also at the museum; Minnesota-winter overweight [as pics from the Flanagan wedding can easily corroborate]; generally unhappy, slightly depressed even, with no clue what I'd rather be doing, just knowing that where I was was not where I wanted to be.), it's a surprise I found the drive to move on at all. Even when I allowed myself to dream a little, to embrace the magical possibilities the following year might bring, the best I could do was a modest "find a new job I believe in," and "consider long-term professional goals."

Fortunately, inspiration came from without, during a visit by the cast and crew of the History Channel's excellent-but-now-defunct program, Deep Sea Detectives to dive the aquarium. An evening of jack & diets in the lobby bar with host Richie and underwater videographer Evan opened a world of possibilities, and shortly thereafter I realized another of my new year's resolutions, this one perhaps not so modest then: to be honest with myself. After that night in the bar, I finally accepted what I'd been forcibly ignoring for a long time, that I wanted to dive, that I wanted diving to be my career, that I needed to go somewhere other than Minnesota to make that happen. Scary things to ponder, obviously, but a beginning. The beginning of the existence of what's now a very happy and fulfilling reality.

immigrant song.

A day full of automobiles, planes and buses, et voila! I find myself right back where I started from, just over 2 weeks ago.

I've just returned to my home in Santa Barbara, and was pleased to find a few of my daily standards in stock: crunchy natural peanut butter and rice cakes. A few weeks' worth of binge holiday eating and plenty revelrous drinking has landed me what feels and looks to be a few pounds heavier, to the extent that, by the end of my stay in the TCs, the only jeans I'd bother with were those partially composed of god's gift to holiday overeaters, spandex. So returning to my rudimentary kitchen and simplified diet comes as a relief.

As you might imagine, my return is bittersweet. The time spent in MN/WI/IL was really a blessing. I'm amazed, perhaps now more than ever, by the abundance of amazing people in my life, both friends and family members. Perhaps they're easier to appreciate now that I no longer live in the area, partially because the old adage is true, and absence does make the heart grow fonder, but also because I'm much happier with my life now, and I feel more inclined to focus on good things, rather than wallowing in the darkness and despair that always seemed to characterize my existence whilst living in Minnesota.

Mother Nature was kind to me during my stay in the north country. I don't think temps dropped much below 30 for the entire 2 weeks I was there, and, being a native, I can easily recognize how featherweight that is for the holiday season. There were only a few days of nearly-plan-altering weather conditions, and my mind easily re-assimilated to that of a Minnesotan in the winter, enjoying the mild weather, the easy driving, the diminished need for layering. I even caught myself thinking that it really wasn't all that different from here in Cali, where nighttime temps will sometimes bottom out in the 30s, that Cali only has a bit more sun. I think I'd really almost convinced myself of this, and maybe it was as transparent a coping mechanism as has ever existed. Of course today I came to my senses when I landed at LAX, and exited the plane onto the tarmac, and it was not only sunny, but warm to boot, and not Minnesota-in-December warm, but mid-60s California-coast warm.

More than the temperature though, something else caught my attention upon landing in Santa Barbara. It was something I'd always remember in the springtime in Minnesota, but its sheer absence causes a form of amnesia in the wintertime. When I walked out of the airport this afternoon, when I walked outside, I could actually smell things, and I don't really know what things, but I could smell the outside.

And that's different. No matter how warm the winter in Minnesota.

lull.

Christmas is finally over. For the first time in a full month, I'm having a bit of down time, which is lovely. I think the bulk of my holiday binge eating and spending is accounted for, and now it's time to get back to consciousness, moderation, and frugality. I'm currently in the middle of the woods, miles from the nearest town. Snow is falling. Fat squirrels are feasting on cracked corn outside. The sky is gray. I haven't gone outside today. I've been drinking coffee, and snacking here and there, and catching up on long-overdue emails. I'm still in my pajamas. I may take a shower after spending a few minutes on the treadmill in the basement.

repost: stats & figures, 26 December.

December 26, 2004 was a much different day than today.

Largest and deadliest earthquake in 2004.

This is the fourth largest earthquake in the world since 1900 and is the largest
since the 1964 Prince William Sound, Alaska earthquake. In total, more than
283,100 people were killed, 14,100 are still listed as missing and 1,126,900
were displaced by the earthquake and subsequent tsunami in 10 countries in South
Asia and East Africa. The earthquake was felt (IX) at Banda Aceh, (VIII) at
Meulaboh and (IV) at Medan, Sumatra and (III-V) in parts of Bangladesh, India,
Malaysia, Maldives, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

The tsunami caused more casualties than any other in recorded history and was recorded nearly world-wide on tide gauges in the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Seiches were observed in India and the United States. Subsidence and landslides
were observed in Sumatra. A mud volcano near Baratang, Andaman Islands became
active on December 28 and gas emissions were reported in Arakan, Myanmar.

I woke up late on December 26, 2004 and checked email while i waited for coffee to brew. There was a message from Big Mike, a friend I'd worked with in Thailand. Normally jovial and light-hearted, I thought nothing of the subject heading "I'm still alive". I opened and read the message, to learn it truly was to inform friends and family he'd survived intact. His message that morning was the first mention I'd heard of the tsunami.

The epicenter of the earthquake that caused the tsunami was about 80 miles from an Indonesian island where I'd spent an idyllic 5 weeks. In such a low-lying and primitive area, all was destroyed, though all the people I knew there survived. The only casualty was Bunny the dog, who washed ashore weeks later, and received a heartfelt burial by all those who loved her.
In the weeks following, I was obsessed with gathering information on the tsunami. I clipped articles, and watched news footage, and researched online, and configured web content alerts. I found myself constantly on the verge of tears, if not crying uncontrollably, while thoughts of ravaged coastline, countless missing, and nameless dead played over and over in my head.
Eventually, recognizing unhealthy behavioral patterns, I forced myself to stop reading and watching and researching. I still can't figure out why exactly I reacted as strongly as I did to the tsunami.

Maybe it's this: If you live here, December 26 is still essentially a holiday (some have to work, but for the most part, it's still laid back like a holiday). If you live somewhere like Thailand though, it's just a day, a workday like any other. The December 26 I spent in Thailand was a workday like any other. So maybe that's why: because I worked there, and I knew what December 26 would have felt like, and how it would have looked, and I knew all the mundane tasks that would have needed to be accomplished before the day really began. And so December 26, 2004 could have just as easily been the December 26 I spent there.

obligatory.

I'm finishing my Christmas shopping today. Yes, it's 24 December. I am that person. It's actually early enough that stores aren't too insanely busy. I hope to finish early, that I might allow myself enough time for wrapping said gifts...

Happy holidays to all. Though I'm currently in MN, this picture is more relevant to my time leading up to the holiday (and gives me a bit of solace that my time in the wintry tundra, despite the mild temps and conditions, is short):

Wishing you peace & love.
xo, aa

rodeo, MDT style.

good, for nothing.

I'm so good at one thing: procrastinating. I'm procrastinating now, and hoping that by admitting it here, giving this fault of mine the credit it's due, that it might dissipate to the point of being manageable.

What's amazing about procrastinating is how many other things one can think to do instead of task at hand (in this case, studying), and how many of the things you've put off for months and months can somehow, suddenly, sound terribly enticing, urgent even. Here are some of the things I've done, or have been thinking I should do, this very day:

-Clean my car
-Wash clothes
-Browse fave shops
-Attend class at the gym
-Explore neighboring town of Carpinteria (I've been meaning to do that for so long)
-Buy fruit from cute guy at Rincon fruit stand
-Chat with downstairs neighbor
-Write blog entry
-Write emails
-Send b-day cards
-Cook stuff

This list is not inclusive: I've had far more random impulses today, I just can't remember where they are, because my mind keeps thinking about how I have these big tests tomorrow, and I keep telling myself that I'm going to start the studying in 5 more minutes, or after I do this one more thing... but I keep procrastinating.

That said, I'm going to get to the studying. Right after I run downstairs and throw a load of laundry in.

occupied.

Can't write now, studying...

I have finals this week. I'm a bit frazzled, but thankfully the multitude of cold germs I've been plagued by seem to have found new hosts, so I'm mostly free of illness as I commence finals week. Mostly I think I'll be ok for the tests, though one is obliged to be a bit unnerved and stressed before finals, so I feel a bit of stress at the unknowns.

I went to study tonight with friends Rob and Carlo, and after a few hours of looking over books and discussing possible exam questions, we headed downtown to the harbor for the parade of lights. Not the kind of parade your mind would immediately conjour images of, this parade takes place on the water: a goodish number of boats docked in Santa Barbara, lavished with lovely, colorful Christmas decorations of varying motifs glided past a crowd assembled on Stearn's Wharf. The same sort of spectacle took place on Friday in the harbor where I work, so all this weekend at work, between diving boats, I puttered past sail- and powerboats decked out in their finest holiday regalia.

And strangely, there in the harbor, it finally started to feel like Christmas time.

pop pop, fizz fizz.

It started out, on Friday afternoon, as a novelty: a bit of congestion in the head, a sense of the teensiest fever. I awoke Saturday morning with enough of a head cold to preclude me from diving for the day and hence, from going to work, but not enough of one that I shouldn't enjoy my unexpected freedom just a touch. I spent some time in the drafting lab at school, ran errands, and browsed at some shops, but by mid-afternoon I was feeling pretty abysmal, and so returned home. Upon returning, and finding no cold meds in my keeping, I scurried up the street to the CVS to get some Alka Seltzer Cold & Flu, and some of that terribly flavored antiseptic spray for the scratchy throat, and then a bit further up the street to Ralph's for some soup (Ralph's is not the small neighborhood grocery it sounds, but rather a chain, formerly Safeway, somewhere between a Byerly's and a Rainbow in MN) before shuffling back home.

I spent the rest of that day and the next in bed. I happily slept through most of my Sunday. By Monday morning, I was beginning to feel a bit better, but was suffering the effects of a cold-med hangover during my early classes. It cleared off eventually, and the rest of the day was standard. The following morning I was feeling alright, but still had some congestion in my ears, and so took another day off from diving. I slept most of that day too, following the rationale (which was later echoed by my most sagest of friends, MZZ) that I wouldn't be sleeping so much if my body didn't need it. I also hoped that the added sleep would clear away any remaining cobwebs of sick that might be hiding in the furthest reaches of my sinuses.

But I heard it the other day, in the hallway, and only now can I grasp its full weight: the cough of one with whom I share the bathroom.

I can only make sense of it this way, that I actually recovered from what I had this weekend, but somehow, in the midst of the almost-recovery, I contracted cough-y sister's cough-y germs, and now I'm stricken with week's cold #2. And I'm not pleased with it. It's bad enough was sick all weekend and have sacrificed 2 days of work, and that I have to go for a whole weekend without delicious coffee in the morning, but now into the week as well. And I really must forgo the coffee because now, with the cough-y congested irritated-red-chapped-5-year-old-nose cold, the coffee actually makes my throat hurt. So now, not only am I grumpy because I'm sick, but also because I can't partake of a normal morning routine, and because I have to keep blowing my nose, and seriously, it really hurts, and because I have a scratchy throat, and because I feel like I shouldn't go to the gym at night, and because finals are coming up and because I'm still trying to figure out easy/cheap/handmade gifts to give all my beloveds.

I'm going to bed now. And hoping some other germ doesn't sneak in my window overnight.

for your consideration.

For all the frustration experienced since becoming the women's auxiliary to team boy-stank, there are moments when they almost redeem themselves. The first of these occurred the very first day, at the swim eval, before I knew the evils and pitfalls of team boy-stank: during the 150-foot breath-holding exercise, I surfaced for my last breath before swimming the final length, but started coughing and sputtering, rather than inhaling to descend. Gentle giant Swedish Simon was poolside, smiling and encouraging me to keep trying, convincing me I could do it, and I did, sort of. The coughing and sputtering was a deal-breaker for that particular event, but I did actually make it to the other side. A minor miracle in my mind, considering that prior to that day, I'd never even come close to accomplishing it.

Another followed a night dive at a site called Mesa Lane, where I was forced to ditch my weights post-dive at the bottom of a staggering flight of stairs. Afterward, when I returned to retrieve them, I turned around to find one of the Joes, who'd hiked down to help me when someone'd mentioned where I'd gone (and it was awesome that he came to help- not only was I totally spooked and sketched out finding myself alone on a long stretch of beach, and sans flashlight, but I was sincerely not looking forward to navigating 200+ stairs, after a cold dive, in a wet dive skin, hefting an additional 20 pounds in awkward-to-manage dive-weight form at 1am.).

There have been other moments, intermittently, small things mostly, but generally enough to keep me from losing my mind amidst the dark haze of testosterone that permeates the MDT facility. This week, in particular, certain members of team b-s (oh, I kind of like that...) have been especially sweet:

Upon leaving for T-day break last week, Carlo and I planned to hang out that Saturday night. While at a relaxed towny-ish bar called the Press Room, discussing our mutual confusion over the objective of the game of Cricket, and watching random clips from B&W movies from the '30s, he paid for the drinks. Sweet.

On Monday, I bought a bed and frame, but had no way of transporting it to my place. I called and asked my friend Rob, who not only agreed to help, but packed everything neatly into the back of his truck, drove it from there to here, but also manhandled the mattresses up and down flights of stairs, and held things in place while I re-assembled everything. Sweet.

This morning, I decided to drive to school, as overnight temps are now in the 30s, making for cold extremities on the bike in the am. Pulling in to the parking lot, a young woman pointed out that I had a flat tire. Later in the day, I mentioned the mishap to Brendan, who offered to help switch out the tire for the spare. A few others pitched in, but Brendan did most of the work, indulging my need to contribute every so often. Sweet.

So there you have it. Proof that the stinky boys, despite being stinky and prone to topics of discussion better left to poker tables and sound-proofed garages, have their moments of seeming human-ness and normalcy. And for this reason, I love them all, just a little.

run, like hell.

I promised myself I'd never do it again. I swore, up and down I'd never subject myself to it ever, ever again. I vowed the last time would be the last time. And now (you see it coming, don't you?), I've committed myself to doing it again: I've accepted a part-time position as a server/ bartender.

Santa Barbara is an expensive town to live in. That actually appears to be one of its defining characteristics, as everyone you'll ever talk to about living in Santa Barbara, at one point, will raise the point. Having worked at a full-time, 9-5 sort of job for more than a year prior to moving out here, I'd grown accustomed to having my nights and weekends free. I knew I'd have to adjust once back in school, and sacrifice some of that time, but figured I'd cross the bridge when I'd arrived at it. At the moment, I have 2 jobs: the boat-scrubbing gig, and a 5-hour per week office assistant position, and I need to work both primarily during the weekday hours, though I can squeeze in some boat time on the weekends. However, weekdays compete with school, so I'm limited to how much I can work. The current jobs are getting me closer to actually making enough money to subsist here, but I need a bit more.

I've been checking Craig's list with some regularity, and yesterday saw a posting for a server/ bartender position. The description and hours seemed appropriate, so I emailed. Within an hour someone had called back to set up an interview time. I went there tonight, and was pleased with what I saw. Santa Barbara has its share of trendy areas, which I tend to steer clear of. This place was the antithesis of trend. The place, much like the position I was there to interview for, had a feel of the Groveland Tap. When I walked in, a friendly blond was introducing the regulars to a shy brunette trainee with deep dimples. A few TV screens were scattered throughout, showing a variety of sporting events. There was a pleasant smell of frying and beer in the air.

The interview was brief, and more of a conversation than the typical question-answer format. I liked the guy, and apparently he liked me. After talking for 15 minutes, and without even filling out an application, and even knowing I'd be out of town for 2 weeks for the holidays, he offered me the job. I was hired this way with the diving service, too: just 2 people, having a conversation. No pretense, no nonsensical bureaucracy.

So obviously, I'm a bit hesitant. I'm not entirely fond of waitressing. People can be total arsewads when they're out to eat. But I do have a good feeling about it.

goodbye, yellow brick road.

Today I re-join the world of the [somewhat] normal.

I have just finished assembling my new bed. I have deflated the air mattress I've called home for the past several months (literally, several. Since the beginning of August I've been sleeping on things that necessitate periodic re-inflation.). It's a delightfully versatile and useful combination of daybed and trundle bed. It can be a twin-sized bed, it can be a full-sized bed, it can be a twin-sized bed for me and a twin-sized bed for a platonic guest.

Lovely.

to the teeth.

Happy belated Thanksgiving to all. There were so many people I had hoped to call, but having left myself only one half hour to chat before needing to leave for the dinner I'd been invited to, the list was necessarily pared down to the bare minimum of family. But thanks to those who emailed, and sent greets. You were all in my thoughts, and I was giving thanks for having each and every one of you in my life.

My weekend was blissfully uneventful. It was delightful to have a few days away from school. I did nothing out of the ordinary from Friday til today, but it's amazing what a difference it makes, psychologically, to have had that one day with nothing much to do save construct a veg dish for dinner, and meander on my bike, and lay around my place. Friday and Saturday were for work, and today was for preparing for the coming week, but Thursday was quiet, and mine alone.

I actually had a bit more than that one day off. Classes on Wednesday were manipulated to allow for more travel time for those heading out of town, and so I was finished for the day by noon, and came home directly for a nap. My evening class was cancelled, so I went to the library for movies, and spent a longer time at the gym. My Thanksgiving dinner was good, although I was surrounded by 4 couples I barely knew. I'm thankful for the invite, and everyone was very welcoming, and the food delicious, but it felt odd to spend a holiday with strangers. I was consoled by the fact that I'll be back in MN for the Christmas holidays, but the circumstances induced a bit of retrospective of Thanksgivings past, the few when I've been away. I suppose the one that's most memorable was senior year at CSB, with a boyfriend, when we drove out to Bozeman, MT. It was the beginning of this trend of snow-less MN winters, but Bozeman was white, and beautiful, with mountain ranges in every direction. The boyfriend spent his days ice climbing with friends, so I was left with the vehicle in a quaint little mountain/college town, free to explore. We gorged on Thanksgiving dinner, and passed out until the following day. I tried to take pictures of the feast we'd so proudly prepared, but all the images came back blurred, the lens steamed over. Others turned out though, one of us hiking on a beautiful white slope, amidst trees, the sunshine brilliantly reflected off the snow; another of us sitting together on a futon. This one I've kept, and treasured a bit as the years have passed. The relationship quickly disintigrated after that trip, but for those few days in Bozeman, we were happy, and we were perfect. I prefer to remember us that way.

grape soda.

Usually I don't start an entry here until I have an idea of what I want to say, and a few different options for title & registration. But I don't have these tonight. I think I have had a few over the past week or so, but they've escaped into the ether, and I don't think they're coming back anytime soon. And so, what follows will most likely be a mad jumbler of thoughts, any of which may have been itself considered as its own entry topic at some point, while scrubbing the underside of some boat, but just like "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas," underwater thought patterns seem to have gills, and don't adapt well to the air-breathing environment (and so, stay in the water, just to complete that analogy.). Not unlike Sea Monkeys though, they (the underwater thought patterns) do become revived if you simply add water. In any case, the heading "grape soda." is easily explained: I love grape soda, sometimes. I loved it this weekend, and polished off a full 2-liter bottle over the course of 12 hours, tops. I'd love it again tonight (probably because I'm staring at the empty bottle in the recycling bin), but am settling on water instead. In short, grape soda is delicious, fizzy purple nectar.

My head is spinning lately (as if the above hadn't given an indication of this?). We've reached the point in the semester where we're all thinking "Oh, shit. The semester's almost over." All parties involved respond in kind: instructors pile on more work, students work madly to make up where they've slacked, and to keep up with what's still coming. The classes aren't as academically challenging this module, but the skills are new and unfamiliar. Though I'll be far from the land of true Thanksgiving celebrations, where one can happily gorge on turkey and fixings for days on end, and hide the bloated outcome under fat pants and sweaters (oh, the joy of sweater season!), I will be happy to have a few days off to relax, and read, and watch movies, and maybe drink some grape soda.

I've noticed a strange trend when I tell people about my job, and if I haven't detailed it here before, I'll do it now.

My job is to scrub the underside of boats in the harbor. I'll give you an idea of what an average day is like: I drive to the harbor with my gear, change into my wetsuit, head down to the boat I use all day, which is a small skiff (maybe 8 feet long, 4 feet wide) with a small putt-putt outboard on the back. Sean, my boss, gives me a list of boats to clean, and off I go. When I arrive at the boat, I tie off to the dock, start up the air compressor (a motor that forces compressed/ pressurized air into a tube that's connected to the regulator I breathe from), gather the necessary accoutrements, hop over the side, and glide beneath the water's surface (always at the first boat, after the gliding beneath the surface bit, there's also a brief resurface, accompanied by unsolicited yelp in response to cold water temp). The tools used to scrub boat hulls include: a suction cup with finger holds (to hold onto the boat, but also gives good leverage while scrubbing, to work against), a putty knife (to detach flowy growing things like tube worms, or errant sea grass), a wire brush for cleaning metal (propellers, mostly), and lots of scrubby pads in varying degrees of abrasiveness (abrasion? abrasivity? Words are making me cross-eyed tonight). I scrub the boat, and move on, and so on, until the end of the day, or until it gets too dark, or until I decide I've had enough, or until I get too cold or tired, or until I've begun to obsess over how huge my arms (guns) are starting to get between this and swimming, or until I can't stand to pee in my wetsuit one more time (oh, that's a lie. Peeing in my wetsuit never gets old.).

In essence, the job is not much different from diving at the aquarium though. So it's surprised me to hear a few different people comment on the job being very physical and labor-intensive, sort of a man's job. Because compared to my everyday environment at school, with the in-house crane, tool sheds, equipment rooms, welding shop, tanks and compressors and chambers and so, so much more, the job is pretty unremarkable.

wipe out.

I've become slightly infatuated with surfing of late. I suppose it's an inherent risk of living in California, along the coast. Drive anywhere, at any time of day, and you're bound to see any make/ model of vehicle with a surfboard strapped on racks above, or sticking out the back. It's the subliminal messaging of the California coastline.

A week ago I realized I'd been too crazy busy, and hadn't taken any time to just hang out and enjoy my surroundings. To alleviate, on the drive down to Ventura Friday afternoon, I stopped off at one of the beaches on the PCH, took off my flipflops, and walked along the beach for a while. I make it sound very nonchalant, but actually, I was scouting for surfers during the drive, as I'd yet to see surfing, close up. The beach where I stopped initially had only one surfer, and I considered moving further down the coast, thinking I had misjudged the quality of swell at that particular spot. But soon there were more, and the waves were getting better, and I sat and watched until I was ready to get back on the road.

I'm not familiar with the Pacific, and it's been a challenge for me to get comfortable with it, let alone develop a love of it. It's cold, and harsh. The things that wash up on the shore in warmer, more tropical climates seem to introduce an area's marine environment; here, very little washes up, and so the dark water seems distant, mysterious, a bit scary. The surf can be big, and diving from shore poses a new set of cumbersome considerations. This has worried me a bit, considering that every reason I moved out here revolves around that big, scary ocean. I've taken steps to get more comfortable with it, like working in the harbor, scrubbing boat hulls, or simply exploring different beaches, familiarizing myself with the terrain. This is all helping, and slowly I'm becoming acclimatized, and slowly I'm getting more comfortable with all that's necessary for diving here, but it still feels as though something is missing.

Lately I've been thinking about my time in Thailand. Not intentionally, but memories, sensations will pop into my mind at the strangest times. When I lived there, I got on a boat every day to take people diving. I loved it. It was somewhat structured, but relaxed, and the diving was wonderful, not because we always saw amazing things, but just something about being in the water there. Between dives, we'd sometimes anchor in a bay for lunch, and even then, on the break, I'd be lying in the water, relaxed on surface, with a snorkel sticking off one side of my head. I loved it. The water was always inviting, and this is what I'm missing now. I haven't experienced that feeling here yet.

A funny thing happened though, a few days after watching the surfers on the PCH. Another day, driving, and stopping off at a beach to watch the waves. There was a feeling there, a tug of something, a connection to the water, an understanding of some sort, but all related to the waves, and surfing. So maybe learning to surf is the answer, the cure-all. In any case, it can't hurt.

Of course, there's another side to the surfing infatuation.

As regular readers may have noticed, I've come to refer to my male classmates almost exclusively as the *stinky boys. This was borne of the reality that, on any given day, in any given MDT class, one of those boys, and sometimes more, is going to smell unpleasant, whether it's the clothes he's wearing, or his lack of dental hygiene, or the gastro-intestinal response to the cheap tacos and beer he consumed the night before. But I also go to school with several guys who surf, and they are not stinky boys, neither literally (not that I've ever experienced, anyway. I'm sure they have their moments.) nor figuratively. For whatever reason, the surfers seem to be the nicest, most down to earth, normal, non socially challenged guys in the program.

I also have a crush on a surfer, and probably every other surfer I've seen in the water. There's something about the surfers I've met, a sense of ease, of relaxation, of acceptance. Maybe it's the endless time spent waiting on waves, being so into something one has no control over. I don't know what it is. But surfers have taken over the place in my heart heretofore reserved for soccer players.

And that's saying something.

un souhait.

Please, oh please, let me wake up tomorrow morning to a Democratic House and a Democratic Senate in 2007.

Did you?

again, and again.

For a period in my life, at a rate of once every few months, I had a recurring dream. I don't know if it fits the proper definition of a recurring dream, because I wasn't dreaming the exact same dream every time. Rather, the dream always had the same theme. It was before, during, and after the year I spent teaching English in the southernmost province of the People's Republic of China, and my residence in that country was always a major factor in the dream.

The dream's theme was this: I'd be having a normal day, teaching classes or simply going about the day-to-day routine of living in China, when suddenly I'd decide to leave. The decision was always impromptu, and always immediately executed: I'd never tell anyone I was leaving, I wouldn't bother to pack, I'd just find some manner of transport away from where I was, get to the airport, and get on a plane. It wouldn't be until the decision was irreversible that I would stop to think what I'd done. Sometimes I'd realize the gravity of the situation while on the plane, sometimes it wouldn't be until after I'd landed, and sometimes I'd land in strange and random cities (once it was New Orleans). But once I realized what I'd done, and that I couldn't undo it, I'd panic, and that's about when I would wake up. Now, a few years hence, the symbolism is pretty transparent: my decision to go to China was somewhat rash, I never really prepared for it, and I had made a commitment to staying for the whole year, even though, for the bulk of my time there, I'd have preferred to do exactly what I did in my dream.

This morning I was disturbed to wake up from a dream with a similar theme, albeit with a different outcome. In my dream, I came to Santa Barbara and started the diving program, but then realized I'd also signed up for classes at a school in Florida. The disturbing bit: I just got up and drove to Florida. No packing, no telling anyone I was going, just getting into my car, and going to Florida to head to school. Once there, I found my way to my classes (strangely, all pertaining to French language and culture), and even met up with my old SJU friend Noah Whiteman, a fellow student on my French study abroad program. At some point though, I realized that I didn't want to be studying French anymore, that I didn't want to be in Florida, that I wanted to be back in Santa Barbara, studying diving, and so I returned. When I awoke, a bit of the old, familiar sense of slight panic was still holding on, but there was also a sense of relief, for the end result.

Significant? More than I can say. I still question what I'm doing here. I still question how the hell this is all going to work out when it still feels as though so many major pieces of the puzzle are still hidden somewhere under the couch cushions. I'm still trying to find validation that this is the right thing for me, that I made the right decision, that this isn't all the most colossal mistake I've ever made. A friend once told me how much she doubted moving to a new city, and going to law school, how she thought that any decision worth making always, always raises significant questions/ doubt/ worry, and that this, however confusing and counter intuitive, is the feeling of having made the right decision.

I'm holding on to this, and hoping that it's true.

like bowie say.

I've been having an email exchange with a friend from high school about moving, and living in new places, and adjusting, and dealing with the changes associated with it all. My mind has been in overdrive for the past few weeks, due to finals, and a visit back to MN, and beginning new classes and different jobs. Overthinking tends to get me in trouble, so I try to stay focused on tangibles, but I still meander into the potentially dangerous and generally uncharted world of pondering.

I was back in MN this past weekend for a wedding. Happily, I was able to spend good chunks of time with beloved friends and fam. I was back for 3 days, and somewhere in the middle I began gently nudging the wall of oversocialization. Ok, actually, about halfway through the wedding reception I ran straight into that wall, and had to take a few minutes away, to be quiet and not talk, and not smile, and just be away for a while. I felt better after the break, and stayed at the reception until very near to the end.

I've been away for over 2 months. I drove away from Upton Ave. on 15 August, which actually brings it closer to 3 months. I have met some really wonderful people here, and I'm really thankful to have them in my life, namely Alejandro and Dada, and Eric and Claudia. For the most part though, I'm not a terribly sociable individual, and don't spend too much time in bars or at parties, and I'm surrounded on a daily basis by the stinky boys, whose company I enjoy, but I wouldn't necessarily care to spend much time with them outside of classes or diving excursions. Most of the time, my limited social circle doesn't bother me, as I keep pretty busy, but sometimes it does, and I realize I need to be making more of an effort.

I flew into Mpls. at around 7am on Friday morning. I was wearing as many warm layers as I'd been able to scrounge together before leaving Cali. I'd left my flip-flops in my car at LAX, and had donned a pair of boots for my return. My head was covered with a hat and a hood, my fingers gloved, my neck scarved. I marveled at watching my breath come out in white puffs while waiting for the train shuttle. Once on the train, I scanned the streets and parks for the last of the fall colors, and was rewarded with a lovely, sunny morning view of the Minnehaha Falls area. I watched people get on and off the train, going off to work. At the Government Center downtown, I watched a man in a cheap blue bureaucrat's suit, complete with discount briefcase, head in to the building. For some reason, this man embodied everything, every last reason I'd left. As I watched him commence his workday, I realized how happy I am to have moved away from Minnesota. I can only explain the feeling as some combination of the cold, and his forced attire, and the lame bureaucracy I assume to be his job.

At the end of my visit, I was happy to come back to SB. Not happy to leave friends and fam and my sweet punkin niece (who followed me around all Friday afternoon and said aunty time and again throughout the weekend), but happy to get back to the routine of my daily life. What I hadn't anticipated, but probably should have, is how difficult this week has been, readjusting to my life here. A bit like going into withdrawal, really, after spending so much time with people I really know, and love, and cherish, coming back to a place where I know so few people, and don't yet really have people around who really know who/what/how I am, but instead so many casual acquaintances. There's no real emotional intimacy yet in my life here.

I know it will come though, eventually.

martini's law.

Weeks and weeks have gone by since I've been here at the blogger. Ever so busy weeks and weeks.

Last week concluded the first 8-week module (of 2 each semester) of the MDT program, which is apparently the hardest. Despite that I'd taken only 2 of the 5 offered (the others being dive and equipment classes, which I'll take next semester, upon passing the swim eval), I was stressed about the exams. My classes last module were Fundamental Practices of Diving (read dive physics/ physiology) and Rigging (recall knot-tying exercises of earlier blog). Rigging required a written final exam, and a demonstration of skills for the lab portion. For the lab final, each student was required to tie 10 knots, chosen at random from a list of 20, blindfolded; reeve a multi-part block (basically guiding a rope through a system of pulleys); and complete 3 different types of splices in natural fiber rope, and one splice in wire rope. The knots were not as difficult as I'd thought, and the rest of the final was easy. I passed with an excellent grade.

Fundamental Practices of Diving has been, by far, the most intense class I've taken. The material is dense and complicated, and requires quick and frequent manipulation of memorized information, such as using dive tables, and calculating partial pressures of breathing gases at depth. I'd studied most of the material before, for my divemaster cert., but the MDT instructor instilled a healthy fear of failing into each and every one of us, and in my case, it inspired me to keep up. The final was scary, but also a good challenge, and sort of fun in that way. I also passed this course with an excellent grade, which has allowed me to continue on to more advanced classes.

The new module began this week, with the following classes: Intro to Marine Welding, Hyperbaric Chamber Operations, and Hydraulics I. Monday was the first day of welding (and the intro class is only just welding, topside, dry), and me being the only girl, and never having held a torch in my entire life, having only the vaguest sense of what the hell I'm supposed to be doing, the instructor felt it necessary to call me up first every damn time, to demonstrate every damn thing, in front of all the stinky boys. I was a bit put out at first, but the stinky boys (who are really not so bad, most of the time) were helpful or humble, depending on their own [in]experience with welding. Of course, the obvious flashdance comparison came up in my mind, and since Jennifer Beals is gorgeous, I'll continue to allow that little fantasy (and that catchy tune... What a feeling!/Bein's believing/ I can have it all/ Now I'm dancin' for my life!/Take your passion/ and make it happen!) to run and play in my mind, as much as it wants.

Another class, Hyperbaric Chamber Operations. For whatever reason, this class was one that caught my eye from the first. Quick background: when using scuba, a diver is breathing air, which consists of 21% oxygen, and 79% nitrogen (a bit of this and that also mixed in, but essentially what we breathe in the atmosphere is contained in scuba tanks to be breathed at depth). Nitrogen is an inert gas, and plays no real role in metabolic function. At the surface, it's harmless, and generally speaking, it's also harmless at depth, so long as a diver, upon ascending, allows the nitrogen to be released properly out of the system by ascending slowly, and by taking short breaks along the way (ie decompressing). If a diver ascends too quickly, the nitrogen in a diver's system can be released too quickly, forming bubbles that can increase in size as pressure on the body decreases closer to the surface, causing any number of problems, depending upon where in the system the bubble is located. As diving depth and time increases, so does the amount of nitrogen in her system, and the longer she'll need to decompress. Decompression can last for several hours.

A hyperbaric chamber simulates pressure and, in diving, can be used in 2 different ways: first, as a method to treat illness brought about by diving, usually related to gas bubbles in the system; second, as a way to decompress out of the water, and this is common practice in commercial diving. The chambers owned by the MDT program aren't huge, each measures around 9 feet long, with a 5-foot diameter, and looks like a big metal tube, with a bunch of gauges and meters and pipes and hoses coming out of one side. When going for a *dive, the divers get in, seal the hatches, and enough air is introduced into that air-tight space to simulate the same pressure one would experience at any depth between 0 and 165 feet of sea water. A few of us went down to 30 feet last week. Today we went to 90.

A funny thing happens when a diver is at a significant depth, like 90 feet. For whatever reason, nitrogen at depth can have the effect of making a diver feel a bit tipsy, like after having a few drinks. The effect is called nitrogen narcosis, or getting narc'd, or martini's law. This has happened to me one time, and I was deep: 160 feet. I felt silly and happy and wonderful. It's really an amazingly good feeling, except that you're at depth, with impared judgement, but you don't really think of that, because it feels so damn good, and everything looks really beautiful and fascinating. Today, sitting in that cold metal chamber, we got narc'd at 90 feet. Can't say I've ever felt so good in class.

back in the saddle, again.

The cheesy and overused title of this entry has a relevance to several different areas of my life at present.

1. I haven't written here for a few weeks, just as other forms of communication (email, phone calls) have suffered.

2. I'm working again, probably something that will endure, unlike the unfortunate experiment of trying to recreate my former work-hell in my new place of residence.

3. Related to the above, I'm diving again on a regular basis, in an attempt to overcome my aversion to excessive millimeters of neoprene and consequent need for ghastly loads of weight to counteract ang-as-fishing-bobber syndrome.

I'm on the flip side of my first big exam in the MDT program. Well, the first big exam following the swim eval, anyway. Monday marks the last official day of the first 8-week module of classes, the day for testing in Rigging, the day for demonstrating my blindfolded knowledge of the prescribed knots, bends, and hitches. But I'll save that ever-motivating anxiety for studying tomorrow. Yesterday was the big one: final exam for diving physics/ physiology class. This class met twice a week, for 2 hours; the text was the NOAA diving manual (which, if I haven't mentioned, is like the bible of diving. The best, most comprehensive several-hundred page diving reference one can own. I love this book.); the instructor gave much homework, and many pop quizzes and take-home tests, and had high expectations of us. The class is a building block, and unsatisfactory performance, as in all other MDT classes, hinders advancement to higher level courses.

The first time I studied the physics of diving, while studying for my divemaster cert., I didn't care for it, and passed with only the minimal understanding of its functions and applications (I also spent my days on a dive boat and my nights in seedy Thai beach bars with fellow dive bums... not the best conditions for studying.). This time around though, not only do I understand, but actually excelled in the class. This I find amazing actually, because part of doing well in this class is letting go of the idea that "I'm not good at math and/or science." Clearly I am. That said, I had no idea how much that one exam was weighing me down, and how anxious I was about taking it. Now that it's done, it seems life can resume again as before.

A few weeks ago, some friends asked me to join them for a night dive. I happily agreed, and that day went out to purchase a few night-diving accessories I'd been lacking: a dive light, a back-up dive light, and a hooded vest (not specific to night diving, but still a necessity). Wetsuits, vests, hoods, gloves, booties, etc., are made of neoprene, and is what keeps a diver warm under the water. Essentially, a wetsuit allows a thin layer of water to enter next to the skin where, because wetsuits are properly fitted as snugly as possible, the water is trapped and the body warms the layer of water, helping the body to stay warm. But, neoprene is buoyant, and a diver must compensate for this buoyancy with weight in order to descend for a dive. Adding a hooded vest increased my already-overwhelming need for weight, which I didn't quite realize until we were all in the water, my dive buddies a few feet below me, while my wetsuit defiantly floated me at the surface. I skipped the dive, and headed back to the shore to wait where total frustration kicked in. At about this point, I had a revelation I realized my training and experience, while decent, has still been pretty sheltered. I've never dealt with surf, or really poor visibility, or constant surge, or this cold, cold water that requires more gear than I've ever wanted to wear at one time. I realized I couldn't just simply assimilate.

I made a decision that I needed more experience diving in these conditions. As is often the case when light bulbs alight in one's mind, a serendipitous conversation occurred as early as the drive back home from the dive. One of my dive buds worked in the harbor, scrubbing boat hulls. I called the company the next day. My first day of training was 2 days later. So, my job is scrubbing boat hulls in the Channel Islands Harbor. I take a small boat, putter around in the marina until I find one of the boats on my cleaning list, tie off on the dock, fire up the on-deck air compressor, and I head underwater to scrub away all the marine growth and slime that accumulates in 1-2 months.

Lots of people go to the Marina on the weekends to sail, or clean their boats, or just to hang out. It happened that today, upon surfacing from beneath a boat, the owner had arrived in the time I was underwater. He asked me if I might look for a pair of glasses he'd lost over the side (not an uncommon request made of harbor divers, and usually accompanied by generous compen$ation). I descended to the bottom, no more than 10 feet. The bottom composition was a fine, gooey silt, which the slightest movement raised and suspended in the water, instantly and drastically reducing visibility. At one point, as I sat waiting for the water to clear, I looked down, hoping to see the tiniest fraction of the missing specs, and set my gaze upon one spot. Slowly, the water cleared, and for some reason, I continued looking at this particular spot. After a moment, I spotted not the glasses I was looking for, but something much more valuable. A wee octopus, camouflaged the color of the muck, was quietly and gently nestled into the muck, less than a foot away.

et, voila.

Full moon tonight. Did you remember? Did you know? Did anything strange happen to you today that was strange enough, in retrospect, to be attributed to the moon in full wax? If not, here's one: I had a date tonight.

I've been thinking a lot of late about men. Understandably. In my new, shiny, California life, I'm surrounded by men. The women I know here are few: those I spend a few minutes with here and there in the locker room before/ after swimming class, acquaintances I've met through volunteering, one of the few others in the MDT program. Men, on the other hand, are abundant in classes, in the community. I seem to find myself in random situations/ conversations, more often than not, with men. It's easier, I suppose. I don't know why, it just is. And I know there are some others of you out there who would corroborate this sentiment. It's not that I don't want to form relationships and have female friends, it's just harder, more time-consuming, with more politics involved. The women friends I have now I've had for years, and have already waded through, long ago, all the emotional proving ground. It's hard, and not for the faint of heart. Of course I'm exaggerating a bit. But only a bit. But guy friendships are usually way easier (at least at the outset).

So, I'm surrounded by men most of the time. I didn't think this would bother me. I thought it would be an interesting novelty. It is an interesting novelty. But the same group of men, gathered en masse, with only one woman present, begin very quickly to forget their social graces, especially when engaged in a masculine discipline like diving. One on one, all is well, and normal conversations can be had, but gathered all together, guys can have nasty, dirty mouths/ thoughts/ actions/ ideas, and they can be very unabashedly vocal about the aforementioned (no, not all, but I will generalize, for the purpose of et, voila blog entry), and it's starting to freak me out.

That said, obviously, naturally, it would be nice to find a decent guy to date here in SB, hence tonight's full-moon date. But how does one reconcile nice-guy date, with gross, inappropriate guy-friend? If one becomes privy to the latter, how can he be ignored in the former? Because that's about all I could think about tonight, sitting across from this guy at dinner, was how easily I could see him, nestled in with the rest of the guys, making tasteless jokes, emitting questionable smells, only able to discuss beer and sports...

So, how do the 2 fit together? Because I certainly never saw the guy-friend in any of my guy friends, or guy-husband/ boyfriend-of-friend friends. But does the guy-friend exist in every guy? How do men and women ever come together, if we are truly so different one from the other?