these are days.

I've been super laze about writing of late. Actually, strike that. I've not been super laze. I've been thinking about writing, and have been meaning to write, and more than all this, I've actually been wanting to write. The past few months have been somewhat antithetical to this, though, and so while there has been sufficiently interesting happenings to report, my mental state has not been such that I've actually wanted to write. And so I haven't. But I'm feeling better now.

It's a sunny morning in Santa Barbara, and that's a rare thing of late. These days seem to dawn consistently gray and overcast, and yesterday even ended that way, with a misty shroud hanging about the hilltops. Everything is in bloom now, more flowering trees than I've seen at once in my whole life, in all colors and shapes, which helps to brighten even the dreariest of May Gray days. This area, very unfortunately, lacks my springtime favorite though, so abundant in my homeland of MN this time of year:

oh, lovely common lilac, I can almost smell your heady fragrance.

but the jasmine bushes are well represented, and that almost (but, not quite) makes up for the lack of lilac. The house that I grew up in in St. Paul had 2 lilac bushes in the yard until sometime in high school when Daddio decided they had to go, reducing me to stealthily stealing bunches from unsuspecting neighboring yards. I'd do it when I lived in Minneapolis, too, walk around late at night with a good pair of scissors, searching for a lilac bush near enough to the sidewalk so as not to be trespassing while I stole the lilacs.

School finished last week. The stinky boys I started the program with are now certified commercial divers. Of about 30 that I started my classes with, 6 graduated (plus 3 stragglers from other semesters):

MDT Class of Spring 2007.

From the top, my left to right: Casey, student x, Simon (conveniently, these first 3 are the aforementioned stragglers) Josh, Evan, Nick, Nate, Carlo, Rob. Bottom row: our esteemed instructors Ed, Don (my favorite), Geoff, Dan (the WI native). The ceremony was bittersweet, I'm excited for the grads to be on their way, but will certainly miss their presence in school and in Santa Barbara. The ending of the school year itself was bittersweet. I'm glad to be done with classes, but the scattering to the winds of all my classmates, those who I've spent long hours and days with over the past months, feels a bit like being untethered. But I also feel pretty free, and that's a pretty decent feeling, too.

down in the valley.

I have a friend whose birthday is in January. Maybe it's residual frustration from having a birthday so near to the winter holidays, and hence, having her birthday folded in with the likes of New Year's and Christmas, rather than the separate entity most people experience. Maybe now that she's an adult, she's making up for all those lost and forgotten birthdays. Whatever the reason, January, to all her close distant friendly acquaintances, has become Januar-ME, wherein every weekend celebrates her with her own chosen activity. It tends to be a bit over the top, but it's amusing nonetheless.

With my 31st just around the corner, I'm having a similar sort of month, a sort of I-pril.

I suppose it started right around St. Patty's Day, that wonderful day of indulgence and debauchery. Maybe there was something in the air, something that told it was time to make a change that would make me feel a ton better: I gave my 2 week's notice at the restaurant. My rationale was that 1.) I'd started to really dread going there, and 2.) if I quit that very night, my last night would coincide with the beginning of spring break, allowing for a full 5 days of freedom. So I gave my notice, and immediately felt a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. It felt like the best decision I'd made in forever. I struggled through my remaining shifts for the next 2 weeks, and then I was free!

My original plan for spring break was to head to Baja for some camping, but confusion over current border-crossing requirements left me uncertain and, not wanting to arrive at the border (6ish hours drive from here) only to be turned away, I chose to head further inland instead, toward cold and snow and mountains and forest. I decided to head to Yosemite.

There were several reasons I wanted to leave the restaurant, the largest of these was the feeling of being overwhelmed. I'm somewhere between introvert and extrovert. Obviously, time spent at the restaurant is extrovert time, and my time away from the restaurant didn't feel like enough introvert time to recharge for the extrovert time, basically creating an unpleasant vortex in my life. So I left the restaurant, largely, to find more time for myself. Strangely, this hasn't really been the case.

When I left for Yosemite, I was entertaining ideas of a quiet campground, an isolated site near a melodic brook, lots of time for reflection, peaceful nights fireside. Yosemite wasn't quite the place for this. Much of the park is still closed due to residual snow, so visitors are confined to the Valley for sightseeing and camping. Because they fill up most nights, reservations are necessary in the campgrounds. The point of utmost ridiculousness was on the morning I planned to leave. The first night I stayed in the park, my neighbors, Joe and Ted from Pittsburgh, PA came over to introduce themselves.

Ted, me, Joe near Lower Yosemite Falls.

I ended up spending my evenings at their campfire, and a day hiking with them. The last morning I woke up to find my keys locked in my car. Everyone I'd met stepped in to help, and at one point I stepped back to soak it all in: Joe and Ted; my other neighbors Karen and Dora, plus pooch Taylor; and the fantastically boisterous couple in the dually truck and fifth wheel camper, plus toddler, plus pooch, who'd reserved my site that night, all gathered in my campsite, around my car, trying to break in. A park ranger joined us for a few minutes, and later the tow truck driver (who actually did break in). I had to find some humor in it, because really, it doesn't get much more ridiculous than going out to find some solitude and ending up with 7-9 random near strangers in your campsite on a sunny Wednesday morn in Yosemite. I drove out of the park and actually did find some solitude that day, both on the road and later, in a quiet little campground near Paso Robles.

Now that I'm home and not working, I do feel I've got more time, but I've also started dating someone, and that also takes up a bit of time. It does balance out for the most part, now that I don't have to go to the restaurant. And obviously dating someone is a bit more enjoyable than going to work. It's nice to have time to focus on what I want to do, rather than rushing around. I'm making an effort to ride my bike more often, and reading more, taking more naps, enjoying myself. The feeling of guilt sneaks in periodically, like I should be working, but I figure there's more than enough time for that. Once I-pril's done.

no knut is good knut.

Did anyone ever watch the Great Space Coaster?



There was a segment on the program called "The Gary Gnu Show," the opening line of which was always "No g-news is good g-news." I seem to remember watching this show most mornings during my years-long daily captivity at this or that home-based childcare provider, though I can't remember the name of the specific provider (Bev, Arlene? It's hard to determine so many years later.). The memory of the show popped into my head yesterday when I realized the name (Knut) of the adorable baby polar bear I've been enamored of for the past 18 hours is actually pronounced ka-newt, rather than the silent-k pronunciation I'd assumed correct.



I'm not sure why the Dallas theme song opens the video (really, none of the songs seem to fit), but hold out for the unbelievably adorable shot of baby bear yawning at the beginning of the second song ("He's so fine" by the Chiffons.).

And just because I love Steven Colbert, I had to include his thoughts on the matter:



So the Gary Gnu reference is actually kind of fitting, in the eyes of the activists. And while zoos tend to bother me a bit, especially when you see something so imposing and restless as a polar bear stuck in one, there is some good that comes of it (ie awareness, education). And plus, seriously, this is the cutest damn thing I've seen in forever. Looking at pictures of Knut are like taking happy pills.

And everyone could use a happy pill every now and then.

the simple life.

Something about living out here has helped me to really, really appreciate time spent in other people's homes. For example, I work one day a week at a home-based office. The pay is ok, the work is easy, but what keeps me coming back is working from Karen's house. I love the feeling of walking into the house, I love the feeling of working in the house. It's soothing somehow, comforting to be inside a real, actual home (as opposed to the apartments, studios, houses of friends, which are temporary and merely functional). It's an interesting contrast. I didn't particularly feel this way in Minneapolis, but then I suppose there were more homes to visit on a more frequent basis, so I failed to realize the loveliness of a real, actual home.

Today is another case in point.

My dearest aunt Annette was in Anaheim for a few nights at the end of last week, and so we planned to spend a day together meandering. After a craaaaaaaaaaaaazy busy week of work and school (midterms/finals are mere days away!), I drove into the greater LA area Friday evening. As with leaving anywhere I've been a bit too long without break or respite, it felt glorious to drive away from my life in SB. Drinks and dinner Friday night with aunty and co-workers; a walk, breakfast and beach-cruiser bike riding at Huntington Beach on Saturday, then a mad dash to get to the airport on time. Initially I'd planned to continue south from the airport to visit a friend in La Jolla from Saturday evening until Sunday, but when the plans fell through, I headed back to the beach until sunset. I didn't leave then to come back to SB though, as I had one more task to attend to before heading home.

Earlier in the week, I mentioned having had a really amazing day, which I'll expand on now. Tuesday was our first boat dive for my scuba class. The school has a small boat, something like a 23' whaler, looking a bit like this:


The school's has an enclosed cabin though, an inboard engine, and a relatively small backup outboard, but the size and dimensions are about right in the picture (the school's is a bit roomier than this, though not much). Keep this image in your head, but now imagine that boat with 12 students, scuba gear, and 2 instructors. Needless to say, it was a tight fit. Regardless, we headed out to Mohawk Reef to do a navigation pattern and a short fun (read: no real objective other than to dive) dive. The conditions were better this day than our previous dive at Leadbetter, and we had around 10 feet of visibility, and the weather was bright and warm and sunny. After the diving, preparing to head back to the dock, we found the engine batteries had been completely and inexplicably drained. We fired up the outboard, transferred some juice from one to the other, and were soon on our merry way.

Earlier in the week, I'd received a message from Cousin Chris, who is not my own cousin, but rather the cousin of my dear friend Michaela. I met Chris several years ago in San Francisco, when he was first transitioning from flight attendant to pilot, and we've kept in touch sporadically over the years, but, despite a handful of attempts, have never seen each other in person since that weekend. He now lives in Laguna Beach, mere hours from SB. He'd sent a message saying he'd be in SB Tuesday, and wondered if I'd be around. I responded in the affirmative, but sort of blew it off, not really thinking we'd be able to connect. When I returned from the dive, however, there was a message from Chris, and when I called him back, his first question was to ask if I wanted to go flying. I told him I'd leave immediately.

One thing that most people know about diving is that it's not safe to fly immediately after diving, due to the decrease in ambient pressure and the possibility of getting bent. And while this is a valid concern, there are ways to determine the limits of flying based on one's dive profile. Practically before I'd hung up the phone, I ran to inquire of my instructor if I was safe to fly below 8,000 ft. After checking the charts together, I was off and speeding to the airport. Chris is now an instructor, and let me steer the plane on the runway (I sucked at this), let me control a little bit of the takeoff, let me bank the plane 30 degrees to the left and right in a full circle, and just generally let me control the plane every now and then. I can't remember what he did, but one point we experienced zero Gs, which was mildly disturbing for me, but kind of fun in retrospect (basically we were in free fall, or more, I don't know. I was too busy screaming and trying not to totally lose my stomach), it was an amazing adrenaline rush, one that left me gasping and sweating.

After the flight we hung out in SB for a while, until he had to head back home. It wasn't until later that evening that I realized I'd left my hoody in his plane, so this weekend, knowing I'd be in the general area, I arranged to stop by to pick it up. It was a lovely coincidence that he was house-sitting at a lovely condo in San Juan Capistrano, and invited me to crash for the night. With no better plans, and not wanting to head back to SB quite so soon, I accepted.

So here's what my day has been like: Chris left for work at 9:30, allowing me full access and free range of the place. I've been sitting around all day, drinking coffee, and writing, and reading, and playing with the cat. There's television, and music, and a giant comfy couch and chair set. There's a little enclosed outdoor area (I'm referring to it as the *loggia, though I know it's not really. There's something faintly Italian about the enclosure, and I feel like I should be eating gelato and sipping chianti, or something.) with lots of chairs and a few tables to choose from. The place is cozy beyond belief. I never want to leave.

I will leave eventually though, because I've created another errand for myself before heading north today, and it's probably the only errand that could get me excited enough to drag myself from a day rife with sloth. I've plotted my course to the local shops, and soon I'll be off to look for some shiny new scuba gear.

accentuate the positive.

It's amazing how debilitating internet service outages can feel. I love to boast to anyone who'll listen that I don't have a television, but I fail to mention how much time I spend on my computer researching, browsing, postulating, organizing, reading, shopping, et cetera, et cetera. So as you might imagine, when the internet mysteriously disappears over the course of several days, I'm a bit put out. Though it has actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as it helps to put time spent on computer into perspective. I'll chalk it up to the behavioral residue of my former lame office job, but go forward knowing that a person certainly does not need to spend hours of her time comparing and contrasting dive gear bags (Akona roller backpack is ginormous and amazing), for instance, or looking for the best deal on a 5-disc yoga intensive in Estes Park, CO (I'm still a sucker for anything Iyengar yoga-related). I've yet to find comfortable surroundings for writing my blog away from home, but today (being the exception), I'm at the library, and preferred writing to studying.

Apparently, what little winter we get here in SB is winding down. This has been the driest year since sometime in the 30's, I seem to remember hearing. The temps are in the 60s and the nights are still cool, but there's little rain, and lots of sunshine. Which I sort of like, but it can't be good ecologically, I suppose.

Midterms/ MDT class finals are just around the corner. I have 2 tests next week for my classes: a written and practical application one for my commercial diving equipment class, and a day of diving at one of the Channel Islands. I'm preparing in earnest for both: diligently studying/practicing skills for commercial diving equipment, and shopping for diving necessities (so, actually, the dive bag shopping is sort of necessary!).

I think yesterday was about the coolest day I've had since arriving in SB, but I'll save that for when time isn't short and I don't have mounds of studying staring at me cross-eyed from across the table.

[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.