i have a date!!

Funny how some words find new meaning here on the ship. Take the word 'interesting' or the word 'special'...never will i be able to understand them in the way the dictionary writers intended!

Lately the phrase: 'Do you have a date yet?' has nothing to do with a person from the opposite gender accompanying you to a special event or romantic evening. It now has everything to do with the time and date you will leave the the ship.

I got my date today!!! Magda and i will leave on the 19th of February 2010. So many things to do still...

As my emma friend reminded me time and again:

'Don't count the days, make the days count!'

Time for art...

I always work on my art in periods of excitement or intense depression...

Here is my latest piece.

(Front)

The picture is of my dad. I am posting a pic from the front and then one from the back. I was done with the front and just needed to erase the pencil marks. As i turned the page to start on a new one, i saw the light shine through and was amazed at how much i preferred the back!


(Back)

My whole visual Diary is a series of incomplete artworks and as a professional procrasinator i am thinking of calling the series 'unfinished'.

Let me know what you think of the dad-heARTworks...

Another planning meeting and therefore another drawing

This really is a tool to help me concentrate!

Every line helps me to remember what we talked about. :)

So that is 3 down... 8 more to go.

A few months ago i drew one of the Chief Mate, its in my journal and i still need to take a picture of it. Will post it soon.

Okay i am off to finish packing the last of the Programme Room boxes.

PS: Left is Dominic Bothello - Chief Engineer
Right is Shirley Booth - Training Coordinator (This drawing is a little exaggerated)

vegetarian?

Each Friday i am blessed with a 'Friday Bad joke' email from a good friend in New Zealand.
This week's opening joke was a great quote that made me laugh for a few minutes.
Everyone who knows me knows that i love my meat (being South African and all!) and Vegetarianism is not something i understand (except when it comes to pork...cannot eat that stuff!)

Here is the quote: (special shout out to my brother Daniel!)

"VEGETRIAN? I think that's an old Indian word meaning 'lousy hunter.'" - Andy Rooney

The things we do to concentrate...

Each wednesday i get to attend the Planning Meeting with the rest of the leadership team.

Sometimes it is exciting but mostly just hard to concentrate.

I usually sit and doodle but decided to practise my drawing skills again.
Here is the result of today's 1.45 hour meeting.

It is our Chief Engineer, Johan Crezee.

Challenge Accepted

In High School my cousin had a project which i always wished i had. They were asked to illustrate25 different words using a variety of medium. There were words like 'clouds', the sound of purple, the texture of a rainbow...obviously you couldn't just colour the A4 page in purple so you had to be creative in illustrating the points.
Yesterday i asked for ideas as i didnt know what to draw.
Bridget, my aussie sister, suggested i draw GREEN.

so challenge accepted. For this month i will work on an artwork illustrating GREEN. Watch this space...

So what's new?

So many things are happening onboard that it is sometimes too much to update the blog...

New year crept up like a thief in broad day light. It is crazy, my mind hasn't really got use to the idea of december and i already have to force myself to acknowledge that it is JANUARY!

The ship is getting emptier by the day and goodbyes seem to get harder. I said goodbye to Kaylee on Sunday night and had to bite hard as not to cry. We went through 2 difficult line ups together, Wellington and Bangkok, and she helped and supported me so much. So there we were standing on the family landing both trying not to cry and both failing terribly. I really strongly dislike saying goodbye. My mother tries to comfort me by saying that she hasnt said goodbye as much in her whole life as i had to in my 4 years onboard... It just made it worse.

So there is barely a line at supper or lunch. It might get longer than 2 people but it is far from the 'normal' 10 - 15 people line that we were use to in the good'ol times.

Devotions we can fit everybody in the Main lounge when the walls are both closed.
Even the one each sign is not being used as much...

I am waiting for the day when this hits me...i will probably sit and cry for a day or so. Magda (my best friend for the last 4 years) and i joke by saying that it will only probably happen when we leave the ship and fly home (whenever that is???).

In the meantime everyone is busy packing. Packing up the programme props, curtains, flags, lights etc. Packing up the ministry tools, packing up the fancy cutlery...boxes everywhere! The only escape is crawling into a Ted DeKker book or Vivo City where boxes arent the order of the day.

Empty pieces of paper call out to me - begging me to fill them with strokes of ink. If you have any ideas as to what i can draw, please comment as my creative juices are at 43% at the moment.