Mad at the World
I know I should start by updating what happened in Thailand and I will but have you ever had a regular day where nothing bad happened but you just get unexplainably angry about nothing? I am so mad right now and feel like breaking shit but I don’t have any real reason to be. I have been manic the last couple days, I hope it passes. I don’t want to freak out on somebody for no reason and I feel like I am at that point. I need some nice soothing music.
Maybe I am feeling this way because I haven’t written in over 10 days and I sort of use this as therapy. Anyway, Thailand was fun and I really enjoyed my time there but it was exhausting and took me like 5 days just to recover because as soon as we pulled out they started working us like dogs. I haven’t had a minute to catch my breath over the last week. If it’s not drills, then it’s more indoc or mountains of messages that have to go out and of course there is always Needle Gunning and sanding the deck and priming it and then painting it but about Thailand….
Thailand is sort of what I imagine Sodom and Gommorah to be like. Pretty much anything you want, and things you didn’t know you wanted can be yours. The place basically boils down to 3 things: Hookers, Alcohol and Haggling. Those are specific to Navy guys. My liberty buddy turned out to be really good. We had a good time and he wasn’t trying to pick up hookers on every corner which was cool. We went out during the day and sightsaw and shopped and then we went out at night and got fucked up but always were responsible enough to be back before we got in trouble.
The shopping in Thailand is crazy and it turns out just wasn’t for me. I really can’t stand haggling and you can’t buy something in Phuket unless you haggle. All the street vendors are from Nepal and they are all hocking counterfeit shit and they jack the prices up 3x what they should be cause they want to haggle. So I ended up buying very little even though it is cheap there. I bought a bag and a pair of board shorts which I needed. I didn’t waste my time with other stuff that I didn’t really need. My liberty buddy on the other hand LOVES to haggle. He thrives off it and it was like watching a master at work. He walked away with a lot of nice stuff on the cheap.
The weather was terrible the entire time. It rained buckets both days we had liberty but it was ok because I didn’t think the beach was that nice anyway. The highlights for me were the elephant riding, the Thai massage I got and of course having a drink or two. I was in desperate need of a massage, my back and this ship and my rack are apparently bitter enemies. Every day that I wake up it feels like I got beat up the night before, so we scoped out a massage place that didn’t look like a front for a sex parlor (which most of them do) and ended up in one down some alley which was a little sketchy but turned out to be ok. The little girl who worked on me was throwing me around like I was a rag doll. She was twisting my body into positions I never knew existed. An hour and 5 whole dollars later I felt like a new man.
I have found out that having duty the day before you pull out is just about the worst thing ever because when you are an IT on board a ship, you have 24 hours of watch on your duty day and you can’t leave your space. Now, that is of course bad enough but when you take that and then tack on another 12 hours of watch for the following work day it really turns you into something special. People saw a whole new side of me that day and I don’t think they are eager to see it again. I am not a very cheery person after being up and pestered for 36 straight hours.
I feel like I have been making some good progress over the last couple days with my qualifications and what not but of course the more I do the more stuff gets assigned to me so it’s a win-lose sort of situation. Today I had my first experience with the Pulper. It’s a machine down in the trash room that takes all our paper that can’t just be thrown away and turns it into pulp. It smells like a paper mill down there and naturally only the IT’s can run the machine so I got voluntold to head up that evolution today. I ended up doing about 40 bags worth of paper and the machine has a tendency to spit back at you so I am covered in pulp today. It’s quite a fetching look.
Today we got issued our Chemical, Biological and Radiological gear which should give you an idea of where we are and where we are headed. The brief that they give you before issuing your gear scares the shit out you and makes you pray to God that you never ever have to use that mask and suit for real.
Well I guess that’s about all I got for now. I am still pissed for no particular reason. I think maybe I will go run and hopefully work some of this out.
