The First Day of Class

I have never been so scared in my entire life...

They did a really good job of scaring the shit out of us today. What with the time we won't be getting paid while waiting for commitments, and the stories of people getting caught in long lines and dragged down to the bottom of the ocean, or the indigenous people of yakutan chasing you out of bars. Aside from this though I got really excited as well and wanted to get out on the boats. What lies in my way though is a 3 week training course that is semester long marine ichtyology (fish) course jam packed into 2 weeks with one week of sea training lopped on top.

The instructors were nice though. We have two named Mike Vechtor and Mike Todd. The fact that the second instructor had two first names gave me a little chuckle but the most interesting character in the class has yet to be discussed

Fu- Manchu

There's a guy in my class that from here on out will only be referred to as Fu-Manchu. He is Asian and as you might expect he has a Fu-Manchu which in and of itself is hilarious and/or disgusting but the fact that he is Asian and fulfilling his own racial stereotype only adds to the splendor of the portrait. He is also "that guy" in the sense that he is the consummate over-achiever and will only serve to annoy the entire class I imagine throughout the course. He asks a lot of questions and attempts to make jokes. I mean ATTEMPTS because most are met with failure. Luckily for him he sits at the front of class and his embarrassment (or his accomplishment as he may not realize he's retarded) is only shared by the poor souls that share his row and the instructor. If you're unaware what a Fu-Manchu is, and I'm sure most of you are, I've included a photo of a stereotypical Fu-Manchu (seen at the top). If i were to vote him for a superlative it would be "Most Likely to Be Dumped Overboard" or "Most Likely to Play a lot of Pokemon" Anyhow, this is a character to keep in mind because I have a feeling he will be referred to quite often.

Relations

The most interesting thing that I learned today had to do with the conflict of interest policy. As most of you could understand it is a violation to own any ship or vessel that conducts commercial fishing and also a conflict of interest to accept any form of payment from people on the ship (i.e. bribes, dinner, etc). What is also entailed in this are sexual relations with any members of the crew. Once again this is easily understood and not out of the ordinary. Our instructor then went on to say that some of these boat operators attempt to get us to drink and take us out to dinner in an attempt to discredit us. Because by accepting these "gifts" our data is considered compromised. Some of these crews go so far as to hire women to have on the boat to tempt you into having sex with them. My instructor said that some of these women are almost forceful with their advances and don't take no for an answer. Some of the captains assign you "buddies" which are women who are supposed to follow you around the boat and try to "seduce" you. I'm sure it sounds awesome to some reading this but you'll lose your job of course... and probably get syphilis.

The Rest of the Day

The rest of the day was spent studying and doing homework. There's talk we may go to Denali this weekend and do some hiking. I miss everyone and please comment if you guys read this. I'll love to hear from you.