COSMIC RULE OF ALL SAILORS

After waiting for some time on the news regarding my upcoming disembarkation, It seems that there is now an information about it. The latest news that I heard and was notified on memo was that who will be the guys replacing us and I already saw on paper on who is going to replace me. For now it's just a name drop and there is no specific details yet on the date and flight schedule, but it's good to hear that my return to the Philippines would be very soon.

Upon confirming this information, I immediately prepared to pack my luggage in case there's a possibility that my disembarkation will be on short notice.  The only problem I have for the moment is the "where" and not the when part on disembarkation. Its rumoured that its possible that my batch will disembark in Ecuador which from what I know is not exactly a "convenient" for travellers especially on the joining / departing crew. From what I heard Ecuador , Is very similar to the Philippines when it comes to transacting business. CORRUPT, TOTALLY DISHONEST and EXPLOITING POWER FOR PERSONAL GAIN .

From what I heard on some of the crew , customs or to whom has the authority in charge in disembarkation and embarkation of ship's crew , ask bribes to have crew get past security checks on their luggage and this is not the worst - from what I heard almost everyone in charge in taking the crew to the airport are asking bribes as well , from agent , service boat personnel all the way to the customs in charge. A very big hassle and annoyance over sailors. Anyway this is just rumours I heard from the crew , I still have to witness this first hand to verify if it's true.

At October 17, 2015 in the afternoon , this ship heaved up anchor and went ahead to Ecuador finally after more than a week of being at anchorage, From the latest news, this time it's not Esmeralda and it will be libertad area. I have no information on what is the procedures but , I guess I'd find out sooner or later.

Out of the blue and all of a sudden , I received news early in the morning of October 19, 2015 about our flight details to go home. From what I recall, Me , Pump man Sepulveda , A.B. "Ryan" and oiler teston will be disembarking and catching a flight on American airline flight from Ecuador going to Miami then connecting flight to los Angeles California , then going to Narita, Japan then finally to manila Philippines.

It was totally unexpected that Fitter Lorenzo would be left behind and apparently there's a rumour that the reason why he got left behind was because his replacement backed out when it came to his knowledge that he would earn less. Anyway as a result fitter is very unhappy on the news , expecting that he will disembark along with us. As for oiler teston , he himself isn't happy that he'd be going home early

As for the moment, the four of us aren't happy to learn that our disembarkation will be in south america given that its not exactly travel friendly.

On October 20th it was finally confirmed that our disembarkation and flight will be on the 22nd and that crew who will replace us had already left the airport in manila and is enroute to ecuador

 Few days later.............

After a long and tiring voyage hurling myself back to the Philippine, I'm finally here. However despite my success being away for some time - I am greeting with much horror and despair on what i left behind before I went overseas. My home has been much devastated with internal conflict amongst family members and its sad to say that nothing has changed from where I left off several months ago. My house looked more like a dying planet when I arrived , everything was either dilapidated, broken or non-existent at all.

I guess this is always part of being an OFW , as soon as you depart away from home and to a faraway land, the people and life we left behind will immediately descend to chaos and on my case this is what just exactly happened. Soon as I arrived to the Philippines and went home , all my personal savings are immediately stripped and channeled to the house. Can you imagine my savings worth of 110,000 just immediately went kaput in over less than three weeks ???! Worst part is that I haven't even spent that money on personal luxuries and essential equipment I need for work. Its more like that I’m working for nothing

Apparently based on what my sister has told me , the situation in the house is in total financial chaos and I'm caught in the middle of it. Worst part is that I'm the only one in the house who is financially capable as of the moment.

Sad as it may seemed , but it looks like that my vacation here in the Philippines will be the shortest and most of the time will be spent in replacing and acquiring equipment that I will need on my next contract. I'm already broke and yet I haven't bought yet the equipment I need. It's obvious that as soon as I get then last remaining money left I had on the company , I will be processing my papers immediately for the January 2016 departure

In other news,.

It looks like there are some news going on lately in international airports about some sort of airport security planting evidence on travelers both tourist and overseas Filipino workers. This caused a lot of scare on travelers that most people going in and out on the NAIA international airport had to pack their luggage's in plastic to avoid bullets being slipped in. Travelers and OFW's who are unlucky enough to fall for this bullet scam will get to pay a nasty extortion fine of 80,000 Philippine Pesos to the beloved crooked aviation security group (who are apparently the ones behind who planted the false bullet evidence on helpless unlucky victim)

Lately the incident of "Bullet" scam in NAIA international airport per year had an increase of 750 percent in just within a month. So basically criminals and crooked people in the Philippine airports are getting bold doing their extorting business

I don’t want to believe it either but , recently NAIA international airport in the Philippines has been proclaimed to be one of the worst airports around the world   by travelers  magazine's and from seeing it on my point of view as a traveler OFW. I could say that they're definitely living up to their name as the worst.

SOME VIDEOS OVER LOOK

Some videos i made during my stay on my previos ship , hope that in anyway this will be useful

Unmooring work

Putting fenders for ship to ship mooring ops

Anchor dropping , gravity type with audio

FIXING THE LIFEBOAT

ENTRY MADE OCTOBER 12, 2015 MONDAY

Past few days have no significant thing that happened well at least not anything that’s very important, for the moment this ship is still stuck in anchorage in Panama (pacific side) and I have no idea on what are they still waiting here for. My suspicion will be that there's an incoming vetting inspection probably on this ships next destination.

There's a lot of hints that vetting inspection will be on next port and that the two of us O.S. are currently doing work in the engine room and painting some stuff. Our presence in the engine room apparently is not met with question and as a matter of fact I myself ask on why the hell am I doing there when I'm supposedly doing work on the deck. Even the BOSUN is figuring out why where currently doing work there. Us deck crew suspect that chief engineer is behind this.

In other news…

Wiper Glenn's replacement has arrived a few days ago. A brand new engine cadet and without any past work experience of any kind on a ship. Plucky little kid and well-mannered to be honest, I think he'd fit along just well here in this ship. Unfortunately for this little kid, his luggage was left behind and the airport made a mistake in sending his stuff halfway on the other side of the planet. It must be horrifying for the little kid to have no equipment of any kind and trapped for a whole year on this ship, If this were to happen to me now then I'd be having serious problems on my working in the ship - absolutely horrible.

It’s a good thing that after a few days, The one of the NSB superintendents boarded this ship for a routine inspection on the upcoming vetting and along with him was the engine cadets luggage. So he's exactly saved by the bell.

In other news in relation to work…

For the past three days, much with my surprise and O.S. "theo" , we were ordered to work on the engine department and help out the engine crew, and I have basically no idea why the maintenance problems of the engine get dumped to the deck department - the only thing I knew is that our lovely chief engineer is worm tongue his way again to the ship's captain's ears to pluck a few guys on the deck to clean up their problems. BOSUN is also asking on why the hell does he need extra guys from the deck to do their work.

So on the couple of days that went by , Me and Theo was busy painting the whole floor area of the engine spaces plus removing all the garbage left behind by the two technicians who boarded and disembarked in panama . Wasn’t really a problem around in the engine department , the only problem I could foresee is that the temperatures in the engine department is exceedingly high especially in this tropical country like panama  - more than enough for me to wear my coveralls wet and maintain it that way. From my rough estimates the temperature in the engine room is not less than 37 degrees Celsius and very hot for my preference. Anyway despite this inconveniences , I was still able to work and record it on video on what exactly is the maintenance work done in the engine room. Hopefully I would be able to upload it soon when I get back in the philippines.

After the slight side track in working on the engine department, Me and Theo went back to the usual jobs done on the deck like chipping, polish and painting some stuff. (and the latest was chipping off all the rust on the grating platforms on the life boat deck.)

CROSSING PANAMA CANAL

ENTRY LOG MADE ON OCTOBER 02 , 2015

Just another tiring day again on work, and it’s a bit busier than the usual because today was supposedly the day this ship is going to cross panama canal. Work was already suspended at noon time to give way for us to rest and the only thing we did was pull out a few more mooring ropes in the aft and forward area. From what I recall we pulled out on 6 ropes forward and 4 ropes aft.  After that noon time wasn't exactly a rest time and all of us crew had to help out on the provisions , on my part in particular is the bond store.

Handling on the provisions on the shore side was apparently piss poor job on the ship chandlers side and there were some items that got broke during it was being transferred from the supply boat to our ship and as a result a few item got broken in the process, luckily no case of beer was broken nor even wine bottles. As for the bond store matters, it turns out that the Budweiser beer purchased here was way too expensive, as in about 25 U.S. Dollars per case. Obvious no one in the crew will be interested enough to buy that kind of beer.

After the doing work on the provision, 3rd mate Keith Cadua said that is should arrange the items in the bond store, took me till 5 pm to finish the whole deed and sort out the broken item , and re arrange them.

At night time 7pm , the ship finally resumed to transit the panama canal and stopped right in the middle of the transit (Gatun lake)and apparently will resume later at around 2pm the following,'

 since I'm still on bridge watch keeping duty, I did my usual job in maintaining a watch. Work isn't that heavy really it's just basically roaming on the whole ship and check for the anchor if it's still in position and it's much easier and not hectic with 2nd mate OLAN around.

Close to 2am in the morning, I heard a sound on my walkie talkie that Conti agulhas sister ship was also here in gatun lake panama as well, upon listening further I heard it was CONTI Guinea , and they were surprised as well to see (visually) Conti Agulhas on Gatun lake. Incidentally one of my acquaintance during CSM Cape days was also there,  Mr. Jermonick. I had a brief talk with him on the radio before the communications was cut off and gave me a warning. He says that as much as possible I should try to avoid being assigned in CONTI Guinea because the captain there was Mr. grigoras , One of the baddest mother fucker captains out in NSB. He added that if we think Sorin was an asshole in NSB , then Mr. Grigoras is the Devil incarnate,

ALLOWANCE CANCELLED

Entry log SEPTEMBER 25, 2015

After two days of travelling and heading west , ship has finally arrived in Panama for its later transit on the canal. For the moment its estimated that this ship will be spending a few days at anchorage and most likely it will transit on about the 30th of September. In the meantime I'm still on guard duty during that time and most likely I will be on the bridge to steer the ship when the time comes that it will cross panama canal.

For the moment there is nothing to do but wait and sit out our fat ass at anchorage until there's word that we will transit and do the normal maintenance work we usually do. After work , both us deck and engine ratings take some time off in playing "call of duty : modern warfare" game for an LAN versus.

In other news …

I'm currently busy to remedy my HP laptop's problem, and all I can say is that its situation is getting worse. Earlier I thought that only multiplayer games cause my computer to shut down , now it seems that even single player games are having a problem as well. So for the record my HP laptop that I just bought last October 2013 is nothing more than  a multimedia device and internet machine - other than that it basically useless.

As for the news on work.

It's mostly bad news. First off is wiper "Glen" will be sent back home on a case of badly infected foot which he got when it got badly burned from a steam pipe . Apparently based on his case is that the liquid was so hot that it burned right thru his safety shoes. If the burn he got on his foot was bad enough then what's worse that came after was that it got infected. The infection was so bad that he's unable to walk for a couple of days and that he's right foot is badly swollen which included all of his digits, and to add more , it was so severe that he's having fever's already.

2nd Mate Olan of course had to remedy the situation and see if antibiotics will do the trick - but it didn't , so he had to make the call to report this to captain gorge which will inform the agent here in panama canal to send him to a local hospital for treatment.  After glen disembark and when to the hospital we haven't received word from him for 48 hours and , it was then clear that he's admitted and serious injuries. I hope it's not as serious as gangrene.

Some of the engine folks helped pack glen's luggage and 3rd mate keith cadua already prepared wiper glens travel documents. So it very obvious that wiper will be not going back on this ship. Since that the engine crew is one man short on the list , we have received word that a replacing crew will be an engine cadet. A lot of folks including us here in the deck are talking about why the hell the manning office (or NSB) planned to send a cadet to replace an engine wiper's job ? ,

There's a lot of talk that NSB is short changing people again - both engine and deck crew agree that it's not appropriate that they send in a cadet to do an engine wipers job. Anyway it's not strange that NSB is cutting a few corners just to save money - even if its most of the time unreasonable. Another bad news that came (well in some ways) , was that the extra 100 U.S. dollars pay (as deck watch keeping allowance) for the O.S. position has been PERMANENTLY CANCELLED. In other words only the O.S. - O.T. will get the extra 100 U.S. pay for doing a work meant for an A /B . Honestly I'm not surprised in hearing this and have already expected that sooner or later , this perk will be shut down, once the main NSB office finds out.

Frankly and off the record, I'm more relieved that they removed this and it gives me more of an excuse on why I should stay away from any bridge related work. After all there's no reason for me to be involved in any of it , now that O.S. personnel are not receiving / taking any money from it, and there is no means that I should be coerced to do work of an A.B. now that we don’t even profit on such a thing. Let this so called O.S. - O.T. position deal with that problem. As a matter of fact there is no such job position as O.S. - O.T. , and this is just a make believe position made by the company as a scape goat in paying less on a work intended for an A.B. . Just imagine that an O.S. is actually doing a work of an A.B. and being paid less than it was supposed to be - an VOILA it's an O.S. - O.T.

Anyway like I said it's no surprise that NSB is short changing people even up to the point that there are really cutting off perks , salaries and stuff their crew benefit with and set them aside from any mediocre shipping companies . Sooner or later at their rate , they're going to lose employee's and crew due to their bad management practice.

Anyway the only thing I could say about me being an O.S. - O.T. temporarily is that I can now do what an A.B. now does , in other words my skills now already match to an A.B. Probably its most likely that I will now reach that rank sooner than expected. The only problem now is that some people doubt my abilities of being an A.B.

HARDWARE IMPERFECT

For the moment things have turned upside down for me, first off was my gaming laptop HP broke down very recently due to suspected battery reasons. Second is that I can't play "Call of duty : modern warfare" videogame together with my crew mates because of this. In other words my hp laptop is pretty much useless and finding a replacement will take some time and money. i can still play games with my tablet PC  acer but the graphics fell short compared to my HP laptop.

I tried to restore It and reformat my computer thinking it was some sort of virus but apparently it didn’t work and the worst part was that all the system updates I made was deleted. As in all of it. I was back from scratch and asking help to my crew mates was not helping at all and ended up me losing more data on my works. Fortunately for me some of the data that is stored on my HP laptop is backed up using my acer tablet pc including this diary , so my diary / journal  data loss is the least to worry about. In the meantime I will be using the lenovo laptop temporarily to update my journal while my Hp laptop is out of commission.

I'm thinking a number of solutions about this and my HP laptops situation hasn't made any progress, power is still a big problem. I'm starting to think that I should be buying a new one instead of repairing it. My laptop as only been around with me for less than two years and yet it hardware easily got degraded. Somehow I'm starting to think that HP brands are inferior to any other brands. I'm still yet undecided on whether I should buy a new one or repair this HP when I get back home in the Philippines.

I could buy a new laptop but I still have to save at least a month's salary for me to at least get a 900 U.S.D. budget to buy a high end gaming laptop. Repairing and bringing my HP laptop could be much easier and cheaper in some extend than buying a new one but the problem lies on the "service centre's" and repair shops in the Philippines. Most shop's in the Philippines including the ones who are located inside the malls have been reported to be a chop shop and cannibalize branded computers. Replacing them with substandard and inferior parts. Another option I had been thinking with is buying a new one in the Philippines , in there I could make a proper selection what I really want to buy as a gaming laptop, the only problem in there is Gaming laptop prices are higher compared to the U.S. for some reason and that there's a possibility that the selection of computer there isn't as extent and updated as it is in the united states or in europe.

Tsk ! If I haven't just bought only the "action camera" (used for surveillance and education purposes) I could have now enough money by now to buy a brand new gaming laptop, I guess there's nothing much to do as of the moment but wait and be patient on using a tablet PC for the moment.

In the past few days there have been changes regarding on my work, apparently folks on the deck decided that they have to transfer me and change job descriptions and as a result I am now doing work as an O/S - O.T. instead of O.S. theo. Personally I did not met this sudden change with enthusiasm - because of two reasons, one is that im going home soon and I should focus my attention in preparing to go home, for me doing work as an O/S - O.T. is just another unnecessary distraction.  Second reason is that I'm used in working as an O.S. and being just an O.S. is not bad at all compared to being an O.S. - O.T. or A.B. , being a plain O.S. means that I have plenty of rest hours and rest days to attend to myself and my well-being (health).An O/S - O.T. and A.B. does not have any holiday at all in practice. I was forced to accept the new work description because of the fact that I receiving the money called "watch keeping allowance of 100 U.S.D." on the previous months without actually doing watch keeping.

Anyway I hope that this work rotation is just temporarily and that this will be over soon within a month , otherwise I'm screwed.

Lately I took interest in watching anime shows (on whatever that’s left of my free time ) and been currently hooked up watching it. The japs have really had a way to capture audiences on their anime, I was never a fan of any anime but given with my circumstances that I'm "imprisoned"  and have nothing  much to do but watch. Well for the record I did enjoy watching those cartoons and it’s a good pass time indeed.

On the past few days I was on watch keeping , my health was faltering a bit and my sleeping pattern was all but messed up. I'm not used to the rotational working schedule of an A.B. that is working 4 hours in the day and another 4 hours at night. Back before I was on watch keeping , I usually enjoy 8 hours straight working and the rest of the hours of the day as a straight rest , since the disruptions I had problems in adjusting on my new temporary working schedule. For now I had a bad cold and an occasional cough every now and then and with some chills - flu like symptoms. I asked 2nd mate Olan for some meds and he  gave me some anti-flu tablets called "bio-flu" (local medicine in the Philippines) which is a combination of nasal decongestant , antihistamine and analgesic anti pyretic  med. Not exactly the thing to rid of my flu but something to take the edge off on the symptoms.

In news related to work.

It seems that we have a new captain on Conti Agulhas and that our current captain just only stayed here for  roughly two months , apparently from what I heard on the crew the recent departure of Captain Romaniuk was that it has something to do on the twelve new tanker ships NSB will be launching soon. From what I heard Captain Romaniuk will be one of the captains that will fetch the new ship from the dry dock. I had no other details on these new twelve tankers ships of NSB . The only thing I knew is that this will be launched probably new year or before this year ends. In the meantime our replacing captain for Romanuik will be Captain Gorge Pornitiche , my former captain from Conti Greenland.

I'm ok with Captain Pornitiche since I had work with him on Conti Greenland before. In fact He's more reasonable and lenient compared to the other two ship captains I had encountered here in Agulhas.

Last saturday on this we had some sort of barbecue party at the poop deck , nothing special but this is the first time in six months that a barbecue party was held at all. Somehow our former captain Sorin and Captain Romanuik is not very fond of these at all. From my understanding Captain Romanuik says that barbecue parties are just for children , the same thing goes with captain sorin. Its fortunate that Captain Gorge Pornitiche don’t mind at all on these barbecue parties. Barbecue party was great to be honest

As usual pre caution, nobody in the crew carried a digital camera nor cell phone during the party. ABSOLUTELY NO PICTURES OF ANY KIND. , certainly there isn't anything wrong about taking pictures during the event but apparently from what I heard in this company there is are some ship official's that got a bad rep and got reprimanded years back when "pictures" of their party leaked out in the social media and this principal company saw it. I'm not sure why CSM / NSB took those harmless pictures in a bad way but it was clear that they don’t like their crew having fun at all.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        

CYCLE OF A NIGHTMARE

Entry log AUGUST 30 , 2015

La Havre, Normandy France discharging operation went real quick, as in only 20 hours of discharging. We started off practically 2 am in the morning , when the French pilot boarded and ended 48 hours later on the same time.

La Havre is convenient to go on shore leave on the seaman's Centre, and the transportation is basically free, probably I suspect that after visiting the seaman's center , I could practically go around and visit the surrounding place. Unfortunately due to short of time , I never got to go ashore and see the surrounding place (and neither any crew) - made the next time I visit this place I can go on shore leave and see how beautiful la Havre is.

Internet in France is very convenient compared to any nearby European country I seen so far , they even surpassed the Dutch and Germans when it comes to internet service. The internet is fast enough to use and truly unlimited for 48 hours which is good for heavy downloader's like myself. Internet in France is very much the same to the Philippines when it comes to charging their customers , which is based on number of hours used and not via bandwidth.

As for the news on work …

For the moment, I'm trying to avoid 3rd mate Keith as much as possible for being such a dick during unmooring operations on la havre locks. I had a feeling that one day this little gremlin will be a monster to reckon with in the years to come, and for some hunch I sense in him arrogance at an early age, anyway it only proves on my theory that most Filipino sailors start out good people them become asshole when they get to be ship officers. Honestly It never occurred to me , he'd be a dick during unmooring ops. But ever since he got a promotion as third mate , he soon started to have air in his head at a very fast rate. I was totally caught off guard went that prick scolded me when I already let go of the mooring wires early inside the split drum when it's picking up tension.

To make more of the insult. dickasaur , scolded me for the second time a few minutes later.

Anyway he's not going to be my problem anymore after Conti Agulhas if he ever decided to be just another Asshole later on - its NSB crew's problem not mine. The only thing I could care of is focus on my upcoming vacation and wanted to have quality time in the Philippines.

This incident will definitely cause friction and tension between me and 3rd mate Keith, and it's obvious that in the days to come I'd have a less friendly approach with him.  Anyway for everyone's info this will be the second incident that keith became a dickasaur , the first one was in Dominican republic about dropping a mooring wire again.

In other news ….

Apparently from what I heard on the recent departure in la havre france, the time of travelling from La Havre to Amsterdam is just as short as 18 hours, in other words there's little time to rest and wash clothes., So after the unmooring operations early in the morning , expect that we will be berthing in Netherlands sometime late at night in the same day.

About news on work.

It was a surprise that I was given a time off at work on my birthday, I hadn't expected at all that I would be granted such time. Seriously It never occurred to me - not at all. I guess I should thank chief mate Oleg for having me celebrate my birthday. Strange and ironic isn't it , that kindness is given by the people whom you least expect , Compared to my own kind years before I was never given a chance to have this. I guess strange things are expected to people whom you least expect

SINCERE HEARTS

Entry log august 29 1984

Happy birthday to me ! Happy birthday to me , happy birthday , happy birthday , Happy birthday to me - you old dinosaur.  Well cheers to me , I am now officially an adult , and an old hag. Years passed by and I hardly felt that I'm now a fully grown Hag errr…. dinosaur errr…. I mean adult by now. Seriously It never occurred to me that I have now reached that age and since it's my birthday. I am not going to write anything about politics or any other worldly affairs in the maritime community and on work , I can write that on the latter - for now I'm writing on something philosophical , something to think about on my life and what I had been through.

For now despite my advance age , I haven't gone anywhere in life beyond "settling down" - For now I could say that I'm a full fledge standalone bachelor. A lot of people at my age (and younger than me) are now saying that I should live in peace now and settle down , but of course I would really love that but apparently the situation I had been through in all those years are somewhat hostile for me to thrive and as a result my progress in life is has been suffering from "arrested development" . From my overall observation , I am ten years (give or take) late on what I should had been doing in life.

Anyway , for now I am going to write about my love life since I'm already an adult (and it's my blog anyway )

(MY) Love Story

So when does love begin ? Some people say that love begins during high school or maybe even in college , the thing when you're old enough (as in really old) to handle a connection with someone. Honestly I don’t think love starts at that period, it starts at an early age. People and society tend to ignore and this dismiss it entirely as some childhood fantasy , maybe so but perhaps they always brand this because they never understood it entirely nor even be open in talking about it.

For me love starts at an early age. Despite ages have already passed, I still remember my very first love and her name.  If my memory serves me correct I was in the third grade with her and she was my seatmate , things didn't exactly progress between me and her other than being classmates and just friends but it was very obvious that I like her a lot. Sadly things will never progress any further on the fact that both our parents hated each other.

The next love interest I got myself into was in the following year. On fourth grade , I met her at school and had been good friends since I lend her my notebook and helped her out on her homework. She has short hair and always wear a "head band" accessory on her hair. I still remember that her favourite class subject was science (same as mine) and dreams of being an astronaut someday (me a scientist) .

The most awkward moment between me and her was that one day our teacher caught me day dreaming and staring at her in the class room. Worst part was that the whole class saw it and instantly figured out I had a crush on her. She was so embarrassed at that moment that I saw her face flushed red. Sadly me and her got separated when she moved in on another country (her classmate told me it was in Australia) at the school years end. I never or never got to confessed to her my true feelings.

On the middle fifth grade and sixth grade, My love interest back then didn’t started out exactly as "friends" . She was basically more like a school rival or in some ways an opponent classmate, we competed on almost anything from grades to all the way done on the teachers attention. Turning point on our rivalry was one day I caught her cheating on one of our exams and told it to our teacher, I felt terribly sorry on what I did and should have turned a blind eye on it   after that incident i decided we had to have a heart to heart talk about it.

I guess little by little we got close to each after that until we became good friends and in some ways a romantic interest. Our classmates would always tease us being a couple. We were both happy at that time. I guess the mistake I made during those happy times was I should have decided to stayed with her all the way till high school. It was a big mistake for me to swap her with my ambition to join some elite high school during those times, a mistake that up to now i regret and had to live with. I still remember that day she asked me if I'm going to stay on our school and join her in high school, I said that I'd be changing schools for high school.

High school was a very turbulent time for me and was constantly plagued with problems both back home and at school. It was for the best that I shut myself out and my heart from all those problems, I fell in love I guess on the last parts of my high school years and it was all by accident. Never imagine her to be my dream gal at all, actually I just treated her as an "Assigned" (or arranged) prom partner, since proms here in the Philippines get "assigned" and not exactly invited or asked out like in western countries, yes I fell in love with her inadvertently .  Anyway I had got no option in backing out probably because of school pressure from our school advisor (teacher) , I back out - my reputation will terribly suffer and my grades are already falling apart back then , I had no other choice but to accept - reluctantly. Prom day came and wasn't really looking forward to it, but the thing to make me have a change of heart was that she was nice to me throughout the prom, took me by surprise and normally didn't expected to be treated nice.

It was a very romantic relationship ,though officially we never declared to be boyfriend and girlfriend. It lasted until my early years in college, but like any other sad ending in a relationship - we separated ways due to major difference on how we view our relationship.

I guess that will be the last time that I really feel in love head over heels with someone.

Over the course of the years my romantic love live fell dark and silent because , I was kept busy and left rebuilding my life on the aftermath of a series of domestic problems. Things were so bad back then that I had to set aside everything and focus on picking up the pieces reconstructing on what's left of my life, it was not even certain that I would finish high school or even reach college at all.

I got my hands full on those hard years focusing on necessity and survival, there is absolutely zero time and monetary budget to even create and maintain a love relationship. This hardship dragged on until I was back in college some years after. Although I was practically afloat , funding on my college could not sustain any romantic relationships.

For me the Filipino society is backward when it comes to love compared to other Asian countries, probably too conservative in the wrong sense. Anyway I don’t exactly think that love starts somewhere on college or beyond it, and don’t really believe in being too young to fall in love like most adult always say. For me they're saying that because they're so full of hypocrisy and never get to understand young people. Filipino Society is very judgemental on that fact, and very medieval. 

I haven't found her yet , and maybe there's a possibility that I never will. But to find the meaning of existence is to be that something is out there meant for me and I won't stop losing hope that maybe I will encounter her someday.

SCHOOL DAYS ANIME

Entry is based on August 26, 2015

Ship has been diverted to La havre France first, before going to Amsterdam. Apparently from what I heard on the bridge, the full discharge will be in france and the loading will be in Netherlands then slingshot its way to Ecuador. So obviously after Netherlands its going to be a very long travel again that will last for a month.

Possibly my disembarkation if this will materialize will be somewhere in south America , which will be a problem for me because of the temperature issue again. I'm not exactly sure if temperature's in that area will be cold enough for me to wear my travel clothes since I only carried clothes suitable and designed for European weather. Anyway whatever the case if this will ever be the reality I will have to make changes on my clothing style.

Currently playing network games of "call of duty: modern warfare" is temporarily suspended until this ship gets out of Netherlands, well good for me in this case in the sense that I get to spend some time doing other thing like updating my blog and other stuff. For the mean time its good that they had to suspend the games and I myself isn't exactly in the mood to play them at all for now because my game save there went corrupted and I had to forcefully start back down again to the rank of "private"  (from LT. Col.) I had to do some remedies to get my rank back again and all my equipment and fortunately for me I had an extra pc to come by so , it means I just update and upgrade my game saves using a "drone PC" . Hopefully I will get back my rank and equipment in days time.

In other news

Lately I had my interest in watching some anime material which I copied on 2nd mate OLAN's hard drive, one in particular titled "school days" got my interest probably because it’s a great drama / tragic love story. Originally this anime came from the "hentai" series but was toned down and revamped into a wholesome (well in some extent) love story. It has a great story plot, a must to watch for the non-anime (and anime) people.

RUDENESS AND LACK OF MANNERS OF PINOY SAILORS

Been some time since I last updated my journal, and I guess it's about time I write something. The days that went after this ships recent departure from kinder Morgan terminal in Galveston Texas have been relatively quiet. I had been busy doing mostly the usual routine maintenance work and some affairs related to the  bond store.

Apparently the latest news is that , the bond store inventory is not that accurate as it was supposedly and as I suspect 3rd mate keith caduas predecessor (3rd mate german corales) never even bothered to update it before he left and finished contract. As a result me and Keith have now been updating the inventory every so often and checking out why the numbers have been inaccurate. Anyway doesn’t surprise me that German was always such a dick and dumped all the unresolved inventory to keith after he left, I mean he was an asshole back then in Cape Tallin and It hasn't changed when I encountered him again here in Conti Agulhas.

For the moment I had been testing out the latest laptop computer (Lenovo) I bought to my sister during this ships stay in U.S.A. . The new computer I bought isn't really much to look at and from my perspective as a buyer, I only intend it as a gift and nothing more, This Lenovo computer I bought lacks the RAM power , I sufficiently need to run games. Its only has 4GB of RAM compared to my aging HP laptop that is 6GB Ram.  I'm sure that my sister will be delighted to see her new laptop and she needs a little reward after all in successfully taking care of mom when I'm not around.

Aside from the high end equipment that I will giving to my sister when I get back home, I'm also planning to buy a new car for myself. My sister has told me that there's a possibility that I could buy one this Christmas season and that the payment terms are easy , 60 thousand pesos for the down payment and the succeeding monthly payment will be just 10k

In other news

I recently ran into a heated discussion over someone who posted something on the internet (tinig ng marino facebook group page). Apparently the posting is basically harmless and does not have anything to do at all in regards to the maritime community but what happened was that someone butt in on my advice and sharing of wisdom in regards to matters of the relationship. From what I saw this "Navie trasga" guy is very rude and ill mannered, and not only does he even contradicted my posted opinions but that thunder cunt even has nerve in insulting my username like a dog that got loose from his yard and keeps humping and shitting his way through the neighbourhood. Of course I'm not just going to sit around and let that insult pass, the problem with Filipino sailors is that they love to insult people but are afraid to take an insult, So I respond on his message by hurling a lot of nasty words and beating the shit out of him (in cyberspace)

That's one of the many reason why people (and me in particular) don't like Filipino sailors , they always piss each other off. 

Here's the snap shot copy of what transpired. (its not translated)