Dubai

I'm in Dubai right now.
Dubai is Dubai, construction crazy and land of sky scrapers and extreme buildings in general. Nothing particular about this building apart from the fact that this is that I see from "my" window.


...and I had my hands "done"!!

The Karoo near Graaf Reinet

On that same rotation I stayed in a B&B outside of Graaf Reinet (nice little town in the Karoo). It was a working sheep farm and I was able to go and walk where ever I wanted on the huge farm. I took quite a few photos.
This is the farm where I was staying.

In the evening the long shadows on the hill I thought looked very nice.



and here is a "postcard" picture for you...very South African!!


Of course a little goofing off never hurts.

on the way to the Owl House

This is the view on the way to the Owl House. An absolutely beautiful place...If I remember right it is called "Valley o f desolation", I am not sure why.

The Owl House, South Africa

My last rotation off in South Africa I went to New Bethesda in the Karoo. This small village claim the fame is The Owl House. First the photos, and then maybe one day I'll explain.

This has to be the saddest, most desperate place I have ever seen in my life. I makes the slums of Kiberra look happy and hopeful. When I passed the door to enter the garden I was so overwhelmed with the general feeling of the place that I nearly turned around and left without visiting the place.
I am told some people go there and view it as a inspiring artistic place. I saw the sad concrete "scream" of a lost woman.
I know a all bunch of you (if there is a "all bunch of you" reading this) are going to thing that it was m projected feelings onto the place, and more a statement about my life etc etc etc .... psychological babble ..... how can a woman alone be happy...etc etc etc...but it wasn't. If there is one thing I do well in life is being honest to myself.

The sad part wasn't about being alone. The sad part was about not being able to live without expressing it so loudly, about being so devoured by it that it takes your life beyond what other people can handle (this small village was never able to handle this woman) and being so desperate that your scream for what ever it is you want actually isolates you even more. It might appear as a form of communication, but from my point of view, since communication is about getting a message across, alienating people from you by your attempt at communication is not good....Now if all you want is express yourself with no care for the results and no worries about being understood..then it is something else.

I don't know, Helen (the woman of the Owl House), came across to me as being tortured by a need for expression that she could neither control, nor channel into something that would make her happy, but that's just my take on it.

Another book challenge

I've joined Melissa's book challenge.

Last year she hosted the "Expanding Horizon" book challenge...and I messed it up and missed it by one book.
This year she is doing the "Armchair Traveler's challenge" and since I am planning on doing some armchair-traveling on my time off I thought I would join.

Between here and home I am going to try to go to Dubai and Ethiopia. Dubai to visit a friend, and Ethiopia just for a short visit to see how things are, drink some good coffee and gets a sense of how to handle my next longer trip back. Of course I am not sure I will be able to make it work, but so far this is the plan.

The sun is waking up

Thanks to A.'s blog I just found out that the sun i back to being "active" and having sun spots again!!

You can see the NASA article about it.

By the way

Today around noon I am supposed to leave the rig and go to town.
It will likely happen, but it isn't true until it happens..... everybody knows this.

I am looking forward to a bath, especially since this morning we had no water to take a shower, and I am looking to the quiet, but I am not looking forward to the politics in the office. I am REALLY not looking forward to that part.

Am I supposed to be insulted?

I was talking to one guy who has been working in the office and is now at the rig. I forget now what we were talking about but at one point he said: "Oh! this is why you are so........ principled", with "principled" said in a disgusted way.

I guess it is an insult now.
Either way, I just said ignored it and continued the conversation.

What ever the reason why he thought I was so "principled" I forget, but yes, let's face it I AM "principled"...is it even a proper adjective? I don't actually know.

the blog follower

I just spent some time reading a all bunch of blogs that I follow..or I should say "I used to follow" I haven't had much access to the internet in the last few months...and I remembered the feeling I get when I read the blogs of people cooking, reading, sawing, being so creative with such wholesome life. I makes me want to stop my job, and it makes me feels that my life is seriously messed up.
...but not enough to take the office job....
I wonder why? (I mean, I wonder why it is not enough to make me take that job)

I follow quite a few blogs and most of the blog writers do not know that I follow their blog.

Once I had a weird situation: I just left a message saying "hello, I've been following your blog for a while and I thought I would just say hello" and gave a link to my blog. After this that particular blog was password protected... I guess it wasn't something this person was ready for, or willing to have happen.
I don't mean to pry or to be a voyeur. In a sort of a way when you follow somebody's blog you nearly feel like you know them..maybe it s weird...But really it is just like reading a novel as it is being written. It just reminds me that there is a real world out there where people notice the first fall colors and where they make hot chocolate to celebrate.
...and they don't spend 36 days on an offshore platform, and they actually know what the season is, and the first thing people ask them isn't: "where are you going next?".....

Thirty six days and counting

I have been on the offshore rig for thirty six days already. I am nearly finished but not quite yet.
Honestly it is a long time not to be able to go anywhere and most of all not to be able to go anywhere where there isn't noise...lots of noise....people talking, engines roaring, motors growling, hydraulics hissing , pumps churning, breaks squeaking, speaker blasting announcements and all that kind of stuff.
I'm tired of it.

I have just finally made, once and for all my mind up about the job offer for a permanent (as permanent as jobs ever are!) in the office in Johannesburg. After much troubled thoughts about it, after having changed my mind many times I have decided not to take it.
I cannot give up 5 months of holidays per year for 5 weeks just so I can go home in the evening. I cannot know today what I will do at 3:00pm on March 23rd in two years. I cannot picture myself getting up in the morning the first day of that job knowing that it is the first day of many which will be the same. And most of all I cannot put up with the brutal office politics.
I have to find a nice way to turn it down...I have already turned it down twice and each time they have come up with a better offer, but this time this is it.

I am looking forward to a few months of time off.... I know I am lucky! how many people can say that: "I am looking forward to a few months off"!
Maybe I'll regret it later, especially with the situation the way it is, but I'll deal with that when I get there. I'm not ready to make the reasonable decision which I think will not make me happy.

By the way I am still reading "The Corn King and the Spring Queen" and still enjoying it. I am about two third of the way through but I have little time for it, and it is not one of those books you can just pick up and put down in a second.