The difficulty of keeping up.

Recently I have the dicovered the true difficulty of keeping up with any kind of work while on vacation. I maintain the steady medium of being exactly 9 days behind on my commonplace book every day. Then there are Jim's assignments. They may be simple an short compositions, which I originally plan on writing on the boat just before they are due, but then when I discover how righteous the boat is we are travelling on, I can't focus and end up drinking my face off, dancing my ridiculous moves in the ship's discoteque, and getting 2 hours of sleep before having to brutally awake at 5 in the morning, get on a bus, and listen to Antonis talk and talk and talk into the bus microphone foe hours on end as he doesn't realize that there are 5 people awake, and they are not listening. I think he talks just for the sake of talking. Perhaps he simply loves the sound of his own voice, or maybe he is doing it just to bug us. Today, I actually sat down and wrote in my commonplace book for a good hour and a bit, and made it up to June 6th. Today is the 13th. What I should really be doing right now is catching up so I can eventually get around to Jim's assignment. Luckily all 3 teachers are pretty leniant with assignments and due dates are not strict. Hopefully a few assignments get dropped from the work load... Once I get back from Greece and I've settled down a bit in BC, I am going to have to use crack down and intensley study for 3 weeks straight to get everything done. I had to get my parents to tell my boss that I won't be able to work for that whole time. He won't be happy about that, but I really don't care what he thinks.

Thank goodness for reggae.

Yesterday evening's boat ride to Crete was tough to say the least. I could tell from the moment we boarded the ferry that it would be far less smooth of a ride than the ships instructional video indicated. I couldn't have chosen a better seat either. Soon After departing, Sean was experiencing sea sickness at its worst and he was one of the first to use the fancy little foil bags tucked neatly into the seat backs. Sean's bag had a hole, and soon his vomit was in a pile on poor Christine's lap. As I was already quite nauseous from the rocking of the boat, seeing this happen did not help my sickly state. I had to quickly turn away, and that was when I discovered how well the barf bags served as a fan. Not only was I having a difficult time handling the rocking, but what really gets to me it the smell. I know that Chris doesn't usually get sea sick either, but he too at the sight of Sean's sickness became ill. The next thing I new, I had both Sean and Chris in my row, heaving away. It was more than I could take. Chris recalled later the look on my pale face as I quickly turned me head away to avoid watching the nightmare, cranked up my Bob Marley and increased the speed of fanning. The poor stewardess who worked the ship was darting here and there, collecting the foil bags, as Christine repeatedly shouted "more bags, paper towel, now!!!" How did Christine manage to avoid puking as she simultaneously helped Sean and Chris who were on either side of her, heaving away. I must have seen about 5 bulging green garbage bags, full of vomit, carried down the aisle just on that 2 and a half hour ferry ride. After such a traumatic trip I am very surprised that I was one of the few who held onto my cookies. All I can say is: Thank goodness for Reggae, Gravol, and the barf bag fan. I slept like a dog that night, a dog who had gone through the washing machine 3 times.

Broadening Horizons

For my first out of Canada trip, I am shocked at my own personal reactions to such drastic changes. First off, as an islander, I am usually quite nervous and paranoid when in the city, especially in Vancouver. Howver in Greece I have been 100% relaxed about everything. Even in a busy city like Athens, I was always comfortable, and simply happy to be moving out of my usual routines. I am not very homesick, but I do miss the friends and family back home. Yestrerday I rode a donkey up a steep hil in Santorini, and the day before I rode an ATV around the island. these are things I never anticipated doing, especially the driving one since I've seen the crazyness of Greek transportation in action, but it has been awesome. I can't wait until we continue to Crete.

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