Tuesday, thy name be sorrow, Wednesday's hump is a tough bump

Farewell party number 3 for Carroll last night. We keep hoping she’ll piss off, but then she is there the next morning. Just kidding. Due to a number of small unforeseen consequences, she ended up not being able to go until this morning. Last night wasn’t as killer as some of the other nights have been in the last week or so though, anyway. A nice dinner for about 20 of us at Tutka, a very good and relatively cheap Thai restaurant, followed by the usual shindiggeries of hanging out at Easy Bar with a number of magic leaf imbibers and the rest of us beer-swilling goons.

I was home around midnight, so all in all, an early night. I took a load of photos, which I will again try and upload onto facebook, but as we all know, this is almost an impossible task.

It was a fun and mellow evening. There was even a round of naming our testicles and penises. Peter called his willy “George Clooney” and his testicles Jack Bauer and …. Crap I forgot the other bullock…..it’s a female name because apparently every guy has to have a male and a female bullock because otherwise no one would have baby girls. I’m not sure of the biological reality behind that theory, in fact I think it might be bogus, but we ran with it anyway. Oh….that was it, his other ball was Xena, Warrior Princess. It was only male genitalia that was afforded this honour, apparently, women’s boobs are always simply known in whatever language as Leftie and Rightie. I think that is a bit off personally, I think they are even more deserving of a name each then our balls, because they certainly get more attention. One thing I am not sure of is how we reached this topic of conversation. Anyway, initially my balls got named after two Welsh soccer players (not my choice)…Ryan Giggs and Vinnie Jones. And then the female ball issue was raised. So I ended up having one ball called Cantona (I advised them he is possibly my favourite soccer player of all time) and Methanwy.

I got to talk to Regina and Peter a load and really like them, which is unfortunate, because they leave in a few days and aren’t coming back. In fact there appears to be a general changing of the guard underway. Célia and Noé will be here (as I may mentioned they will be doing their IDC at the same time as me) and James, Greg, Emily, Scott and Tim and Natalie will be here. Carroll, Ted, Regina and Peter are all vamoose though and I was having a lot of fun hanging out and diving with that crew. To all good things must come an end, I suppose.

Hmmmmmm, a touch of regret in my tone today. I knew it when I woke up. As my eyes flickered open to the dull light seeping into my room, I was aware of a subtle shroud of melancholy sitting upon my shoulders. It is passing strange for me, because, as most of you who do know me, I am not particularly prone to bouts of moodiness. In fact, I am ordinarily the one with the smile, the silly comment, the clown trying to make the audience laugh. Today, not so much.

Ah well, life rolls on. In fact, beyond that I am downright reflective. How silly is that? I suppose it derives from a certain level of sleep-deprivation, combined with a somewhat over-cast day. And the sense of departure for a group of people I have begun to like. What is most perplexing is that I actually feel mildly homesick. My family can attest to this, but I have NEVER been one for homesickness. Sure, throughout my life I have occasionally missed certain aspects of my home (such as good beer from a stone jug in a pub in the Vale of Clwyd; the mountains of Snowdonia; good-old-bad-for-you British food, etc), but they are whispers of nostalgia more than anything. Those fleeting moments have never lowered my overall enthusiasm. Even though when I am in Canada my blood-family are across the pond. I’ve always known they are there and that things are fine.

And today, it is not as though I have some prescient feeling of foreboding for my family in either Canada or the UK, but I simply miss my home. A fact that perturbs me, because I am actually settling into the odd lifestyle that is Koh Tao.

Anyway, enough self-pity, you don’t come here for that…..

Yesterday afternoon I assisted a Singaporean instructor called Karen on a rescue diver course. There is only one student. I like Karen, she is a funny wee thing who likes to pretend and occasionally to actually push me when we happen to be on the dive boat at the same time. She is a bit of a prankster. Not in the same vein as Noé, Tim or a few others, but in a more kindly way. I also like assisting on the rescue course (although this is my first one as a DMT). Getting to play act a fool in trouble in water or unconscious is simply fun.

Except our student is an odd duck. This guy just took his advanced course a couple of days ago. In fact he was one of the students that I assisted Natalie and Michael with. The guy that needed 8 kg in weights to get below the surface in a 3mm shortie wetsuit in the ocean!! For those of you that are currently scratching your head in a perplexed fashion, the thinner a wetsuit, ordinarily the less weight you need. And in sea water people also usually need less weight. The exception to this is if you are a fat bastard, then you need more weights, because you are simply more floaty. Except this guys wasn’t fat. Just completely useless. Let’s compare. I wear a 5 mm full body wetsuit. Again, the thicker the wetsuit, normally the more weight you require (they have small bubbles in the neoprene that make the person more buoyant). I wear 4kg and probably could get away with 2-3, but as I am helping students, I like to know I can hit the sand nice and solidly (for the skills portions). And the 3mm shorties that the students use are mostly worn through, so they are in fact more like 1-2mm. And the guy couldn’t even descend without hauling himself down a buoy line.

Well now he is doing his rescue. Today is his confined session. I have to be there in a couple of hours. ‘Twill be fun!! Ah well, a little time to finish off studying for my physiology exam, finish my reference letters for my prof’s in the US to send to U of T for my application and have a quick half hour swim.

I will return with a more positive attitude tomorrow peeps.