November 23

Well, Oceans is awkward.

Basically every Friday night is Flames night. Get really drunk. Go the bar, Flames. Do stupid stuff. Laugh. Be mildly entertained. Feel like crap the next day.

The first weekend, I participated in this ritual. I drank like 4 beers, so I was intoxicated enough to be there and if you remember I described it as Roadrunners. Cool.

The second weekend I was going on an excursion the next day, so I was responsible and stayed in. Good for me.

Last weekend, I tried to make it to Flames but sadly passed out drunk too early. I'm too old for this.

This week a wrench has been thrown in the ritual and all hell as broken lose. A silent, awkward hell.

Here is the back story...

We wanted to have a Thanksgiving. Cool. We wanted to start Thanksgiving at 6-7. Seems reasonable. Well, one of the activities, chumming, had recently been going later - 8:30-- because of an extra activity called towing. So, we asked the boss man, Enrico, if the chum people could not tow so that they could enjoy Thanksgiving. A few people also talked to Enrico to get our curfew extended to midnight. He agreed and seemed okay about it.

All of this happened like Tuesday or Wednesday.

So Thursday rolls around and Enrico has decided to dig up a 2 year old project of surveying seals. He decides we need to go out at 6pm-12am and 12am-6am to watch seals. On a Friday night.

Clearly we felt as though we were being punished for asking for lenience on Thursday.

So, a few people volunteered for the shifts. I'm not that nice. And a few randomly got assigned to the shifts. Unlucky and upset.

This weekend is not a big weekend. It's a normal Friday. The only thing is that people from another program, White Shark, are leaving soon. A few people have close ties to them so it's important to them.

Just wait, I and Flames become directly involved in this story soon.

One of the people on the 12am-6am shift, the shift that takes away Flames, is "sick" and got taken off of it. Obviously someone had to replace this person. One of the guys was put up as a replacement.

This guy happens to be a guy I like as a person. He's nice and friendly and all that jazz. He also enjoys going to Flames.

I made the mistake of saying "I'm not sure," when asked if I was going to Flames tonight. Which was the truth. So when this gentleman was put up as the replacement for the shift, he came to me and asked me to take it.

I clearly felt as though I had two options: go to Flames or take the seal shift. If I didn't do one of these and chose to stay in instead, I would run the risk of being talked about in a negative manner.

However, after speaking to someone I consider to be closer to than the others I realized I did have the option to stay in. I shouldn't feel obligated to either be forced to be social and drink (I want to do neither) or deal with a stupid shift in the middle of the night just so someone could get drunk.

For a legitimate reason, sure.

And I know for my actions I have to suffer the consequences. I honestly don't think the guy will be that mad at me. Mildly disappointed, perhaps.

Maybe I am selfish but I don't really feel that way. At some point in my stay here I am going to get a crappy shift doing something I don't want to do. And I'm okay with that. I won't ask someone to take the shift just because I want to go have fun. (My version of fun is probably different and includes too many episodes of Criminal Minds.)

I think I am just in my rational. If certain people dislike me as a result, oh well. Most of the the people leave next Saturday anyhow. And I know that the people I am closest to here won't fault me for it.

My goal in life is not to please everyone (because that's impossible) but rather to be a good friend to those close to me.

On a separate note, I was on a chum trip today and it was cool. We saw a 4 meter shark (that's like 12 feet!!) and a total of 8 sharks. It was fantastic. There were like 4 at the boat at one time.