Merry Christmas!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

I had a fun day over at Kat's place. It was nice having wine, food, and the family together. I was especially glad to see my aunt who lives in Switzerland (Long's mom), since the last time I saw her was when I was traveling through Europe in 2004. Everyone was busy taking a lot of family pictures, and it was cute when my dad and his 4 siblings sat with grandpa for a photo-all 5 of gramps' kids were there with him, which doesn't happen very often. Well, another Christmas has come and gone, and now 2008 is sneaking up on us!

Another amazing day

We had another successful and amazing whale watching day yesterday. It was a sunny and clear, with the island (Catalina, that is) in perfect view. For our first trip, there were reports of 4-5 whales blowing past some oil islands, so the captain headed straight out there. It took a while to get out there, then we didn't see a single thing for a very very long time. Where were those 4-5 whales? Possibly Grey's, long gone, continuing their trek south. At moments like these, you start to lose hope and feel a bit disappointed that you will have to send all those guests back without having seen anything. That's the chance everyone takes when going out on these trips though. Those chances are worth it when you see something awesome though, which we finally did--a blow in the distance! It turned out to be the small blue whale that we've seen a couple of times this week already. To top the trip off, we came across about one to two hundred common dolphins on our way back. The second whale watch of the day was even better than the first. We headed out and found a fin whale, and while we were waiting for it to surface again after a deep dive, a superpod of common dolphins surrounded the boat. There were over a thousand of them, swimming and jumping and circling us. After forgetting about the fin whale and hanging out with the dolphins for a while, we went in search of the blue we saw earlier. The sunset painted the sky in beautiful shades, which made an awesome backdrop to the view of the island and our blue whale sighting. We found the small blue (now nicknamed "Jr.") again, he gave us a great fluke-wave-goodbye, and then we headed back, ending another great whale watching day. My job rocks.

One Week

Wow, I fly out in exactly one week!
From now until then, my week will be:

-Work my 6th day in a row today, leading another whale watch trip.
-Tomorrow as my ONE day off to get all my stuff done and my butt in gear before the trip.
-Christmas with the family at Kat's place.
-Work Wednesday-Saturday.
-Begin my long trek to India on Sunday.

I'll be flying LA-Tokyo-Singapore-Mumbai, so you can imagine it will be a very long and tiring trip. Anitza gave me this neck pillow thing, so hopefully it will work and I'll actually be able to get some rest. I'm kind of sad that I'll only be in Tokyo for an hour. I'm pretty interested in visiting it, so I guess it will just have to be another trip at another time. And India is a big enough trip by itself.

Amazing

We are starting up daily whale watch trips at work and I went out on a trip to train today. When going on whale watches, people have to realize that they have to be prepared for anything--they may see nothing but the horizon and endless blue water, or they may see something absolutely amazing. Today was one of those amazing days. It was one of those days where you scream and jump up and down because you are so excited. Where your heart thumps and your breath is taken away. Five Orcas. Yes, FIVE ORCAS. As in Killer Whales. As in Shamu. FIVE! ORCAS! Off our coast! One of them was a cute little baby, and one was a beautiful big male (with a huge dorsal fin!) Oh, it was absolutely unbelievably amazing. And to top it off, we ended the trip with a Blue Whale sighting-blows and fluke and everything. *SIGH* Just another day at work...How can you beat stuff like this? It makes being poor and pursuing what you love worth it....

Dangerous Stuff

Television shows on DVD can be dangerous. There should be a warning: YOU MAY SPEND PART OF YOUR LIFE ATTACHED TO THE TELEVISION. On the two days I had off last week, I managed to watch the ENTIRE first season of Heroes. 23 episodes in 48 hours. Alicia and I rented just Disk 1 on Saturday night, which only has 2 episodes on it. After watching the first episode, we drove to Target to buy the DVD set....I never got pulled into the Heroes craze last year, but had become somewhat intrigued by it a couple of weeks ago, so finally decided to see what it was all about--and it was great! I just couldn't get enough...Season 2 is online right now, so I'll have to watch all of them and get caught up...oh, dangerous stuff, dangerous stuff...

Lowering Sails

Ann & Me riding the booms and bringing down the sails while guests look on.

This photo was taken by one of the guests aboard our ship for the canon battle at the Tall Ships Festival. I think it's a pretty cool shot, with both of us riding. It's also nice to have since I don't have many photos of myself hard at work while crewing the boat. I look determined...or scared...haha.

Food

Food: Vietnamese. Scott, Alicia, Phil and I cooked a Vietnamese meal (my first!) recently, and it was delicious. I bought a Vietnamese cookbook a couple of months ago because I wanted to start learning how to cook all the dishes that I loved eating while growing up. We made spring rolls for an appetizer, and chicken with ginger in a caramel sauce, sauteed green beans and steamed rice for the main dish. Nothing fancy. It was fun cooking with friends, and I'm glad my first attempt at Vietnamese cuisine went well.

Food: early Thanksgiving. Phil's mom was in town last weekend and cooked a tasty Thanksgiving dinner for him, his brother, and their friends. Yum. I love Thanksgiving meals and was pretty excited that I was going to get to eat it a couple of times this year.

Food: not settling well. I was working a sleepover program this past Wednesday night, and although I tried to hang in there and stay, I ended up going home at midnight. Some sort of stomach bug caused nasty things to happen to my body. Nasty things as in stuff coming out both ends. Over...And over again. Painful. Ugly. Nasty. That was probably too much information, sorry. But everyone else around me heard about it, so I thought I shouldn't leave you guys in the dark.

Food: not eating it. Sadly, due to whatever bug I had, Thanksgiving came and went and I didn't get to enjoy another yummy meal. I ate a tiny bit at my Aunt & Uncle's house, but didn't get to enjoy it like normal (as in stuff myself with pumpkin pie and stuffing, two of my favorites, and everything else.) I actually slept most of the time I was over at the family's, got home at 5pm and went to bed until 8 the next morning. Ugh. Being sick sucks. Friday, all I could stomach the whole day was 6 saltine crackers.

Food: eating it again! I ate my first meal again yesterday. Yay! The bug's gone, and I'm back to normal.

Food: okay, enough talk about it. Until next time...

Checklist

Ticket to India, check.
Vaccinations, check.
Cut my hair, check.
Travel visa, check (Well, almost. I don't physically have it yet, but It's currently being processed.)
Lonely Planet guide, check.

The trip is coming up quickly, and I'm almost all set to go. I haven't been abroad since my trip to Europe in 2004, so it is very exciting that I get to travel again! Although excited, I'm also pretty nervous about going for some reason. Watched Darjeeling Limited this week to gear up for the adventure in India...
Not only do I get to travel, but I get to experience an Indian wedding. And not just any Indian wedding, but one of my dearest friends is getting married. Soon, Resh will be married and living in Boston. Wow. We're all really growing up, aren't we?...

Quote-o-the-day

Conversation between Kiernan and me while I was watching him (3 yrs old) and his little brother Miles (6 months old) a few weeks back.

Kiernan: (asked me a question, i don't remember what it was.)
Me: Because I'm babysitting you and Miles.
Kienan: NO, you're BABY-sitting Miles. You're BIG-BOY-sitting me!

Now that there's a baby in the house, he is no longer a baby and is now a big boy. Haha. Kids are so funny and can say the darnedest things. I can't believe that he walks and talks and is a little person now! So cute.

Letting Go

I had been talking about chopping my hair off for a long time now and just never got around to doing it. The truth was, although I wanted to cut it, I had become quite attached to my long hair and couldn't bring up the nerve to let it go. But it was time, I had to just jump right in and do it--and I finally did it last night. The hair was put in a ponytail and 10 inches was cut off, which will be donated to Locks of Love. It's a little weird having short hair again, and I am feeling a little sad about the loss of something I had become attached to. But it's good to let go....Sometimes, you just have to release your grip and let go...