i'm feeling more yogic already...

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i present to you.... laughing yoga.


click here to check out a preview of this brilliant masterpiece

i foresee a video purchase for myself in the very near future.

The Reinvention of the English Language

I was watching 24 last night. I'm hooked. I love the show. But I always found Keifer Sutherland's pronunciation of the word "nuclear" - a pronuciation he shares with our esteemed Chief Idiot - to be singularly offensive.

"NOO-KYOO-LER"

Like "whole 'nuther" and similar linguistic aberrations, it just sends me up the wall. So anyhow, I'm watching 24 last night and every character that has an opportunity to say "nuclear" - and there are many opportunities since a nuclear warhead is a central plot point - all of them say "nucular". NUCULAR! I was beside myself. Government sanctioned mispronunciation of the English language brought to you by Fox. Wonderful. Thank you President Dubya and FOX TV for validating the dumbing down of our society.

So I decided to look into this phenomenon and i come across this unbelievable find (read the usage description and click on the 3rd red audio icon at the top of the entry). The mispronunciation of nuclear that's pervading our language has now made it's way into the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

What's next? "Strategery"?

Christ.

readjusting

the past few days have been bittersweet. i'm glad to see all my friends and be around familiar surroundings but none of it seems normal to me anymore. i found myself overwhelmingly sad the night of my arrival on tuesday the 3rd. you could probably chalk the upwelling of emotion to exhaustion or jetlag but i think that it also has to do with the close connection i felt to the maldives - now half a world away.

getting over the jetlag has had it's ups and downs. friday was the first day in a while i felt normal. i've been pretty active - back on my exercise schedule, trying to ease myself back into this life, etc - but i've been getting exhausted at the weirdest times of the day. exhaustion to the point where all i want to do is sleep. thankfully, i took the rest of this week off of work in order to reaclimate myself to this timezone. seeing how this week has been for me, that was a wise choice.

i called my mom today for mothers day and got the news that my parents are putting their house - the home we shared as a family since 1978 - up on the market. so strange. i knew that they were going to be selling soon but not this soon. selfishly, i wanted to be able to have at least one more holday season there but i guess that won't happen. it's for the best. now's the best time for them to sell, the prices in their area are ridiculously high so they'll make a sick profit, and then they can retire in style (or at the very least in moderate comfort). not a bad reward for them after so many years of such dedicated and disciplined hard work. still though, it's sad to know that it'll be gone soon. i have to plan a trip to go back home before it's sold.

so i mentioned that i left my car with the guys at platinum motorsport while i was away to get some work done. well the work is done and it is frikkin awesome. she looks evil. she sounds evil. braking is vastly improved. torque and overall performance is vastly improved. and (*gasp!*) i think, if i drive conservatively, the gas milage has improved by a large margin! i'm talking 3 or 4 mpg which on a large car like this one is pretty damn good. on the highway, at 65-75mph, the car levels off at just above 2000 rpm and just purrs - almost silent. i am so happy with the work that platinum did. it's practically like a new car. if any of you are considering getting any sort of mod work done on your car, do youselves a favor and go talk to george at platinum. you won't regret it.

i bought some of my own scuba gear at a local dive shop a couple days ago and signed up for my advanced open water course classes. real cool dive shop, this place. the guys who work there are knowledgable, helpful and single-mindedly obsessed about diving. they teach a different method of diving there. there's PADI which i think is the oldest and most widely known dive training method and SSI - the form these guys teach - which is almost as widespread. all of the certification i did in the maldives was PADI so it'll be interesting to see how (if at all) the SSI training method differs. now i just have to be disciplined about going out and diving. they organize boat trips practically every weekend to catalina or to the channel islands. they also do once every 2 month trips to baja california or more exotic places like the galapagos and micronesia. and these guys are literally just down the street from where i live! i'm telling you, all signs are pointing me towards diving.

now if i could only figure out how/when to turn it into a career....

the 22 hr flight back to reality

02 may
time to say goodbye to what feels like should be my daily reality and get reacquainted with my actual daily reality. and what a harsh way to say goodbye/hello. 4 hrs from malé to singapore, a 3 hr layover in singapore (hopefully some durian tasting), 5 or 6 hrs from singapore to tokyo, a layover in tokyo, 11 or 12 hr flight to los angeles. brutal.

speaking of brutal, my final bill was the epitome of the word. granted 75% of the charges were diving related but still... ouch. cancel my ski vacation, please. looks like i'll be eating top ramen and mac and cheese for a little while.

i spent the morning wandering around the island videotaping things - "mundane" things like the experience of walking from my bungalow to the reception area and out to the dive jetty or the walk back to my room from the reception desk at blue lagoon on the westernmost part of the island. i just want to remember all of this. every nanosecond. not just because this place is so perfect but also because this place is so perfectly timed in my life. and i guess i'm afraid that, with all of the minutiae that manages to fill my head over the course of a day/week/month, i'll lose sight of the subtleties of this place. i mean, sure you're bound to forget the real subtle stuff... the way breeze hits you as it rolls in off the ocean, the sweetness of the air... those things are lost to any sort of permanent record. but sights and sounds i can record. and maybe if i record enough of it the subtleties won't be too difficult to recall at some point in the future.

mondays apparently are a big arrival/departure day at kuramathi. the front desk people seem busier than normal - maybe even a bit frazzled. can hardly imagine how challenging it is to check out tons of guests - all of them speaking any number of languages - while at the same time trying to check in others. but they always manage to do it all with grace and a warm smile. in fact, all of the staff members were this way. you can't help but form a personal relationship with the ones you're in contact with the most. i don't know if that's just how they are or if that's the resort protocol. i like to believe in the former.

the flight from kuramathi to malé was great. little 16-seat dehavilland twin prop sea plane. definitely the way to go. it wasn't as airconditioned but 15 minutes and poof you're in malé as opposed to the 90 minutes by "speed" boat thing. plus the view of kuramathi from the air as we took off was spectacular. have to remember to book a seaplane transfer when i come back.

i was greeted by ismail and hassan from impex, the tour company i used to book my accommodations. and, as i had 6 hours to kill before i could check in, hassan offerred to hang out with me at the local airport hotel. we sat by the pool and exchanged stories over lunch.

before he worked as guest relations for impex he was a divemaster for several resorts as well as different live-abord dive safari boats and filled my head with stories of dives where you were surrounded by manta and whale sharks and other fantastic creatures. he said the way to really see the maldives if you're a diver (which i guess i now am) is to get a group of friends together (7 or 8) and book yourselves on one of these boats for 7 to 11 days. all you do is dive. 3 or 4 times a day in different locations each day. then combine that with a week stay at a resort? sounds like the makings for an unbelievable holiday. now all i have to do is find 7 or 8 friends willing to do it. any takers? i'll organize the whole thing. so hassan and i stayed poolside at the hotel for about 3 hrs talking about diving, movies (he's an avid movie buff - deniro, pacino, brando), his kids, diving, diving, movies, diving. i asked him to be my divemaster if i was to book one of those safaris. hopefully he'll accept.

he then offered to take me around malé so we boarded a dhoni and made our way across the bay from the airport to malé where we climbed on his motorcycle and took off around the city. my first impressions of it weren't far off. it's a very small but extremely bustling city. no crime. very clean. the sun was setting so everyone was finishing with work/school/whatever and coming out to enjoy the evening playing soccer, jogging, or just hanging out. apparently there's not a lot to do for someone with interests like those hassan has - american music and movies. there's a newly built carnival, lots of bollywood films and indian music, a bowling alley, small cafes everywhere. but that's basically it as far as diversions. it was all so new to me i was loving every second of it but i could see how one could get bored here. he took me to meet his wife then we tooled around a bit more and he dropped me off at the dock for the boat ride back to the airport which is where i am now - waiting for singapore air to take me kicking and screaming away from this amazing country.

i will never forget my time here nor any of the people i've met along the way. this place seems to have a transformative effect on practically everyone - tourists and residents alike. everything slows. everyone is friendly. nothing is too important to allow kindness to lapse. i can't wait to return.

last day of diving

01 may
did my first nitrox dive today in a new location for me - rasdhoo channel - which is the channel in between kuramathi island and rasdhoo island. strong current, fairly poor visibility because of all the plankton and particulates but the water was warm and i was able to go down to about 28m (93ft). i must have been breathing harder this morning because i blew through my tank in about 40 minutes - not exactly what i was expecting from my first time under using the new air mixture. i have another nitrox dive this afternoon which will fully certify me for nitrox - yay!

the marine life on this dive was probably the most awe inspiring of all of the dives. tons of black and white tipped reef sharks, some lionfish, a group of stingrays and... drumroll please... an enormous manta ray. i'm talking huge. 9 feet across maybe. massive. we were swimming along about 25 m down and literally out of nowhere this thing comes flying in over the reef to within 3 or 4 meters of us, mouth wide open scooping up all the plankton and whatever else happened to be in its path. so incredibly graceful and frightening and alien and beautiful. never seen anything like that in my life. i wish i'd been able to get some better shots or maybe some video but i was too astounded to think about pictures. apparently mantas haven't been seen around here in a couple of weeks which made this sighting really special. what a gift.

the second dive of the day - and my second nitrox dive - was back at three palms, where i did my deep water certification dive yesterday. more cool stuff, a couple of turtles, a huge porcupine fish (i want to say it was the size of a soccer ball), an eagle ray, lobsters everywhere. there's one more morning dive that i technically could do tomorrow depending on whether or not i want to just relax. maybe i'll fit it in.

my departure instructions arrived early evening. looks like i'll be transferring back to malé by seaplane! i've heard the transfer by air is the way to go. it's faster and you get a birds eye view of the atolls. brilliant! come to think of it, in looking back on this past week, despite all of the unknowns everything has worked out great. now i just have to go to reception and pay the bill. eek.

into the blue

30 april
it's threatening rain today. the sky is filled with low-lying dark clouds, the air is thick and sweet. bliss.

i've been waking up at around 4:30 or 5 the past few days for some reason. maybe it's anticipation? restlessness? no idea. though waking up before sunrise has allowed me to try to reestablish my morning meditation schedule. plus swimming in the warm sea water under the stars before anyone else is up is just an awesome experience.

a funny thing happened on the way to this part of the world... chris, the friend of mine who introduced me to this meditation practice (as well as being my first flash/actionscript tutor), happened to be on the same flight with me all the way to singapore. he, his wife madhavi, their 2 month old son miles and about 15 others from the meditation group were on their way to india for a birthday celebration of one of their masters, i think. turns out they'll all be on the same flight with me when (if) i return home. there are no coincidences.

i became a certified open water diver last night (*fanfare*). i completed my deep water dive training course this morning at a place called three palms. dana, once again, was my instructor. it's nice to be able to have the same instructor for both courses. i'm familiar with her teaching style - and her thick austrian accent - and she's familiar with my knowledge base and my habits. i had to do a test during this course - both at the water surface and at depth - where you have to write your name and pick out in sequence a bunch of numbers that are scrambled on a chart. sounds easy but apparently at depths deeper than 20 meters the excess nitrogen in your bloodstream can cause you to go a little goofy. they call it nitrogen narcosis. you're basically high on nitrogen and this intoxication can cause all sorts of judgement errors - like not seeing numbers on a chart when they're there.

three palms was amazing. it's an enormous wall of coral that site about 2 meters below the surface and descends down to about 42 meters, then a small sandy shelf and then it just drops off into the deep blue. simply breathtaking. there were lots of big creatures down there today. a couple of spotted eagle rays, a couple of white tipped sharks trolling the bottom, a big black tipped reef shark accompanied by 5 or 6 tuna basically 2 meters below the surface, a huge napoleon wrasse, 2 different kinds of lion fish, a sea turtle, 2 big spotted moray eels, a couple of lobsters, the usual masses of triggers, parrotfish, moorish idols...

anyhow, i basically passed with flying colors. only took me 30 seconds more to do the test at 30m than it did at surface level. and eventhough it seemed to me like i was breathing harder, apparently i only used about half of the amount of air that most others use while taking the test at that depth which means that i was relaxed. to be honest, nothing feels more normal and natural now than being underwater or on a boat on my way to/from being underwater. strange that something so foreign only a week ago could now feel so commonplace - as common as getting up in the morning and brushing my teeth. and while my normal reaction to the commonplace is generally not to think about it and even to take it for granted, i'm acutely aware of how unique these opportunities are and how privileged i am. a completely different sensation altogether. commonplace yet unique. the challenge, and it's a big challenge, is to see if i can carry this with me into everyday life.

i'm continuing my training by picking up a nitrox certification. nitrox is a richer oxygen/nitrogen mixture. regular air is about 21%/78% oxygen/nitrogen. nitrox is 30-40% oxygen. this allows you to dive longer without being subject to prolonged decompression stops before you surface. anything that will allow me to stay under longer is ok by me. another book, another test, another certification.

went to the spa today and had a massage. a special ayurvedic (ancient indian healing arts tradition) treatment called shantiram which is a full body massage done with hands and feet. it was interesting but as a massage, only... eh. i think it was more the odd sensation of having a small south indian woman pour gallons of strange smelling oil all over my mostly naked body and then massage me neck to toe with her feet that threw me off. don't know what this says about any hangups i might have but you get the picture. they had me wear this hysterical spa underwear thing made of paper with an elastic waist - basically a speedo diaper or maybe an inedible version of edible undies. and no there are no nor will there ever be any pictures. the oddity of wearing it will be burned into my memory for a lifetime. no need for any other reminder.

looks like the dive at hammerhead point tomorrow isn't going to happen. i was the only one to sign up so they have to cancel it. kinda disappointing but it gives me a reason to come back here (like i need any more reasons). in fact, i already have an itinerary in mind for next february/march. what can i say? i'm a planner. so instead i'm doing 2 more dives - this time using nitrox. one new place and one i've been to before. looks to be some interesting diving. it'll be especially nice to not have the usual time constraints and be able to enjoy the dive a bit longer. more time to soak everything in and hopefully fire off more photos.

i can't believe i my time here is almost up. where did that week go?