Haven't had any decent sleep lately , but it's my fault anyway - I had been hooked up playing PC games , specifically Fallout: New Vegas video game. It's really a good game and what I like about it is that it’s has a nonlinear ending. I could either choose to side with the NCR government , "Caesars legion" , Mr. House faction or an independent Las Vegas state.
Apart from
playing that game, I had been playing as well its predecessor game Fallout 3 .
This time I had finally figured out on how to install its DLC expansion game ,
frankly I'm not really that much interested in this game anymore - well at
least I'm not playing this as often as before I saw the "canon"
ending.
Anyway I
had been hooked upon these games for a while that I forgot what I'm supposed to
do on other work related agenda's like adding extra pockets on my coveralls and
such, heck I even forgot to go to the gym right now. Maybe if I got some extra
time I could come up to finish this priorities.
On the
other hand, this "isolationist" experiment is really working wonders,
I had been here for almost 3 months now and I could rarely be seen in the crew
mess and mingling over the crew. In fact the only thing I get to be seen on the
crew mess is during official hours like work and some papers that need to be
signed - nothing more. I take pride in being an isolationist , it’s the part of
being safe and having a secure environment on board a ship. The trick in being
an isolationist is very simple , not that hard to figure out - just prepare a
lot of multimedia stuff stored around on your personal computer (or any
multimedia device) , and not just store but really hoard a lot of it. I made
sure that the stockpile I had here is enough to last for at least 9 to 10
months.
Sure I
might get a lot of negative feedback about this but sometimes , I had to weigh
which will be the best of my interest. They say a stuff "No man's an island" but I say I'd
rather be a "City State" than mingle with these savages. Don’t get me
wrong , I'm not saying that my stay here in Conti Greenland is unpleasant , in
fact it contrary and people here are ok and way better than the one's I
encountered in Cape Tallin (or Stolt Strength - the worst by the way). I had
good working relations here and just happens that I'm test driving these
tactics for defensive purposes.
In other
news….
A lot of
people are asking me on why I haven't "extended" my contract yet,
well for a good reason - I HATE SPENDING A LOT OF TIME IN A GILDED CAGE !!! .
Sure they maybe a lot of money here if I spend a little time longer but at what
price ? Seriously I'm not really meant to spend a lot of time in a closed
environment and I find it very suffocating and mentally stressful, if I would
find myself trapped here longer than the intended 6 months contract.
A lot of
sailors might find what I'm saying to be a bit betraying on the sailing job ,
but on my personal view of things a person is not really meant to be confined
on prolonged periods nor spent his entire life at sea. Sooner or later a person
confined under these circumstances will find themselves to be having mental
(and social ) problems in the long run. I had only been a sailor for quite some
time now and I had seen what it does on people (especially Filipino's) confined
in such an extended period and my observations confirmed that a majority of
Filipino sailors are "mentally" unstable and lack the so called
social skill in coping up on the real world and fail to understand other people
around him / her.
From what I
had seen on my time, being a sailor is a mentally debilitating job. Sooner or later Filipino's exposed to
these condition in years will eventually succumb to having antisocial
personality disorder on one way or the other. Other people are resistant but
not totally immune to these stress. I'd be damned if I ended up like these and
that's the main reason why as much as possible I stay out of long working
contracts - ABSOLUTELY NO CONTRACT EXTENSIONS ! Period and I'm going to stick
with that.
In other
news related to work
A few days
ago , we celebrated O.S. "Ronnie's" birthday - actually there were
two birthdays at that time, aside from "Ronnie" , electrician
ferdinand curso ybanez was also celebrating his birthday on the same day.
As expected
A.B. Marlon Depallo Layos got badly drunk again and started doing his tribal
dance . Me like everyone else got a few drinks or so but not enough to make me
feel woozy and such , after four bottles - I just stealthy hid and left the
crew mess to enjoy a nice nap - and before the nap play "Fallout new
vegas" PC game. After two days the drinking session I was awaken up in midnight to be notified
that we will be dropping anchor at 1am early in the morning, I was caught off
surprise given that no further details
were given yet on this ships arrival at St. Petersburg Russia and I only found
it out on the that very same time. To make it more annoying aside from being
woken up in the midnight to drop anchor was we get to heave it again after only
five hours. Anyway Sleep deprivation is a norm here and I had already accepted
that fact, expect as a sailor that you'd get called to work in the middle of
the night in short notice - like it or not !
I didn’t
had any good sleep after the anchors were dropped and just spent my time
waiting on my cabin. After 5 hours, we were out again heaving the anchor and
this time headed for berthing and mooring.
During the
loading operations in St. Petersburg, the heater was switched on prematurely
and as a result , a lot of people are complaining that it's too hot inside. To
why it was switched on , I had no idea .. But some say that Captain Gorge
Potirniche was the one who ordered and insisted that it should be turned on
even though it's not winter yet. Problem with this captain is that he has an
anxiety issue which impairs his rational thinking, he's too exaggerated and too paranoid on even
normal routine work. he thinks russia is too damn cold (when in reality is its
still summer season here). so he turns on the heater like a blast furnace and
ends up a lot of people getting pissed over the temperature.
By the way
mooring operation in St. Petersburg was a change of pace, because there were no
mooring boats around to assist in the mooring and we had to use a heaving line
connected to a messenger line to bring out those heavy mooring wires. Took us a
long time in mooring to get it properly moored.
After the
loading operations this ship casted off and headed to Netherlands to discharge
its Oil cargo.
The rest of
the week was just spent doing maintenance work like chipping rust, polishing
those rust marks, and putting primer paint on it.
Rest day on
Sundays was broken off in the middle of the night as I was notified that anchor
will be dropped by around 9pm, at about 10pm to 11pm we finished dropping it
off and as usual we dropped it via gravity type. After that we received a
notice from the new captain , Ivaylo Dimitrov Kolev that we will be heaving it
off at around 3am in the morning and will await the pilot. In other words we
only have roughly 5 hours rest before mooring operations begin.
Mooring
operations in Netherlands was 3 : 3 : 2 , three heads lines (or stern line in
my case) , three breast lines "Loose" ropes and 2 spring lines.
Mooring operations was finished 10am in the morning.
During
cargo operations while I was in the crew mess eating lunch, I had heard that
most people here have submitted their intentions in extending their working
contracts , some of the people who submitted their extensions were chief mate
Anatoliy bayev, chief engineer revaz chavchanidze and wiper Anthony cruzat
evangelista.
Aside from
extension contracts , another rumour came in that this ship might be bound to
the African country Senegal after the discharging / loading operations in Netherlands. I had never been into Africa
ever before and not exactly sure on how will I react about it probably because
I do know very well that place is backward and that people there lack modesty
and proper manners, plus on top of that
the first thing that comes out on my mind when I think about Africa is
plagues , malaria , AIDS and "god-knows-what-kind-of-epidemic".
In other
news , a memo came in that O.S. "Ronnie" , 2nd Mate "Olan"
and A.B. "Ruben" will be disembarking on our next port (rotterdam)
since they already had finished their contracts of six months - so it means
that we will be receiving in new replacements by the next port , specifically
two new O.S. and a second mate. O.S. Joseph will be promoted to A.B. and will
be filing in on the vacancy that will be left behind by "Ruben" , so
instead of a new A.B. , an O.S. will be sent as a replacement.
Me on the
other hand will be transferred back to my previous working schedule , and will
be transferred back to forward mooring station, also there's speculation that I
might be promoted to O.S. - O.T. rank here which is some sort of quasi A.B.
position, technically I'm still an O.S. but the work description will be now
similar to a regular A.B. than an O.S. , Well being promoted is fine by me and
has its perks but the trade-off is that weekends off will be cancelled
PERMANENTLY and they'd just add only a 100 U.S. dollars on my pay for the
trouble.
Seriously
just between me and this blog, an O.S. - O.T. rank is a big joke and not
exactly a job promotion but rather just a change of job description, or on some
extent just an additional job burden.
