Bumpy ride

A change of plans is afoot. And hopefully, before too long, two more pages of my already almost exhausted passport will be filled up by nice shiny looking stamps marred by my mug. But one must not get too far ahead of oneself.

Heading home straight off the ship this time. The main reason being my paranoia of rejection of visa applications :|. I refuse to elaborate, it's all too complicated and stupid. It's not all bad though, in the bargain I've squeezed my way out of a potentially very bugging 9 hour stopover at Singapore /:). Anyway, so barring a continuation of current weather conditions (which are awesomely awful, but hardly conducive to helo ops) I'll be going home in another 9 days.

this is what I'm hoping for :)

On a different and significantly more upbeat note: The Unbawa Revelations. As the author mentions in the linked article on his blog (which he has shifted over to Wordpress btw) the third book of the Game World Trilogy, after Simoqin and Manticore, is due to be released in December! So I shall dutifully shelve plans for a Samit Basu back-to-back and get back to Gabriel Garcia Marquez. But only when I get back home, right now I'm too busy watching old movies and staring out of the bridge windows at the furious elements on my off time to start on a book :).

Currently: slightly worried :-<
Listening to: Sheryl Crow - A change would do you good

The haunting

It lifts you, gives you wings. While the words speak of loss, the melody gathers you in its comforting folds. If you were wise you wouldn't have wondered if there could ever be joy in the midst of sorrow. You would have let go.

*

If there was nothing that I could say
Turned your back and you just walked away
Leaves me numb inside I think of you
Together is all I knew

We moved too fast but I had no sign
I would try to turn the hands of time
Then look to you for the reason why
The love we had passed me by

And as the sun would set you would rise
Fall from the sky into paradise
Is there no light in your heart for me?
You've closed your eyes, you no longer see

There were no lies between me and you
You said nothing of what you knew
But there was still something in your eyes
Left me helpless and paralyzed

You could give a million reasons change the world and change the times
Could not give me the secrets of your heart and of your mind
In the darkness that surrounds me now there is no peace of mind
Your careless words undo me leave the thought of us behind

You could give a million reasons change the world and change the times
Could not give me the secrets of your heart and of your mind
In the darkness that surrounds me now there is no peace of mind
Your careless words undo me leave the thought of us behind

A stray lancet of the prodigal sun leaves a splinter lodged in your mind. But you had! Hadn't you?

Feeling: mystified
Listening to: Chicane - No ordinary morning

Oh NO!!!!!

Dammit!!!! May Pippo Inzaghi rot in the blackest pit in hell X-(. I was pretty sure Liverpool had lost the match even before the second goal. But then the Kuyt header brought back flashes from Istanbul. And then Inzaghi pulled that bloody outrageous stomach ache act!!! I mean COME ON!!! The guy is acting like he's having a seizure one minute, and is walking off the pitch calmly the next, with Kewell dying to get a go at the corner quickly!!! Talk about time wasting. I'll not even bother ripping apart the German ref for the blatant inconsistencies... Ah well, next time!

Currently: fuming!!! X-(
Listening to: Prodigy - Smack my bitch up

Under construction

It's been a few days since I finished reading The Five People You Meet In Heaven. It's a nice book. Not quite light reading though, quite contrary to what the almost cheerily conversational tone might lull you into thinking. Well, I suppose it could be... but never mind. Thing is, it drew me into this immense but insubstantial gloom. Rather like what one might feel, having stumbled into a dense fog on a dark moonless night. The point being, you're in the middle of something that you don't like, that you can feel all around you, but can't see. You see, the book, through a surprisingly fresh point of view presents the vision of heaven we would most wish for! Well, those of us who believe in such things as heaven and an afterlife and all that jazz anyway.

But while tying up the threads in a fascinating, almost magical flourish, Albom inadvertently slipped a noose around my happy, winged, white robed ghost, skipping about in its future abode, and brought about its untimely demise :-<. If he were to be believed, we are all, even at this very moment, digging our graves building our heavens. Right, again, not all of us, but anyway, those of us who are, are paving the way to one and only one paradise. (One for each that is.) It's like the choices we make in life are visited upon us in heaven! Every step you take, you are making a choice, and by the time you die you've already picked your heaven, and it's not everything you've ever wanted, just one.

Now that might not necessarily be a bad thing, I know, but doesn't it reek too much of life? You can never have everything you want. Every day is a little give and a little get. You hope for a little better, and you take what you get. You cannot be in two places at the same time. You cannot be two things in one life. The main difference of course, is that in life, you might never get anything that you've ever wanted.Right, so having been put in such a fine mood, I was whisked out of it but a certain boat ride (read drive :D). And subsequently by the fantastic weather :P. (We're still getting battered by 40 knot winds and 5 metre seas, and are consequently out of production.) And I've made my peace with Albom :). Maybe I'll even buy Tuesdays With Morrie. But in the mean time I've not started on a book in a week. The longest break my somewhat battered bookmark has had in a couple of years I think!

Feeling: high
Listening to: Gorillaz - El Mañana

Storm!

It's a good thing I went out in the boat when I did. The weather's completely transformed today with a rapidity that can be considered positively scary! At 8 I was up on the helideck, a little late for sunrise, but I hadn't really missed much, and the sea, though not particularly flat, wasn't anything spectacular. But in another couple of hours, we were already suspending operations and heading away from land. (Inverse logic, I know, bad weather would usually have you heaving for land, but not with all the gear still deployed :|.)After shift I went out to the foc'sle deck, and I figured I wouldn't want to go near the bulkhead, and not even think about going out to the helideck! So I sat on this bench bolted down to the deck and conveniently covered from all the openings to the sea, and since the seat was still dry, I figured it was a safe spot :P. I have never heard the wind howl quite like this! It seriously sounds like screaming voices :-S. I figured I'll have a go at the bridge. Stayed there for close to an hour and a half! It's hypnotic, the way the bow is elevated on the crest of a passing wave, and then how it plummets to the void left by its passing! The higher the wave, the deeper the gorge! You've seen waves breaking on rocks? Here there be waves breaking on waves!And sometimes, the ship would dip so low, that the next wave would come snapping at the bow!! And sometimes the helideck would scoop up a mist on it's way up! Oh it was fantastic :D.
--

Eight hours later, we're still heading out to open sea :P.

Currently: weathered
Listening to: Goo Goo Dolls - Iris

Drink up me hearties! Yo, ho. . .