I am an APPLE

I am an apple. What are you?

Lyrics for the poem:

Stoicism,

I am an apple,

I am an apple with a stem,

A crease,

All apples are the same,

We are the same apple,

Like cloned apples,

In a world of mirrors.

Transcendentalism,

I am an apple,

I am an apple with a stem,

A crease,

My apple floats,

Slightly above the ground,

I feel high,

Everything I feel, think and hear,

Will lift me higher,

Until God,

I am near.

Dualism,

I am two apples,

My apples both have a stem,

A crease,

My apples look the same,

But they are not on an equal plane,

With competing realities,

They will remain philosophical,

Within my deepest fantasies.

Humanism,

I am an apple,

I am an apple with a stem,

With a crease,

With eyes, heart,

And many organs,

I am alive!

Reductionism,

I am an apple,

I have no stem,

I have no crease,

I am a round red ball,

Am I an apple?

Am I a jawbreaker?

Am I a bouncy ball?

Am I a human?

Relativism,

We are all apples,

We have stems,

We have creases,

Our stems and creases and shapes,

Are shaped by our experiences,

With the world,

With knowledge.

Absurdism,

I am a banana.

Theism,

I am an apple,

I have  a stem,

A crease,

And a halo.

I am holy,

Guided by God,

My life will never cease.

Empiricism,

I am an apple,

I have a stem,

A crease,

A shape,

But I have no color.

All the curves of my shape,

Are mathematically made,

There is an event,

An experience,

Attached,

To each shape of the curve,

To each length,

Of my height,

Of my body,

Of my stem,

What I smell,

Touch,

Taste,

Feel,

And see,

Is the formula,

For you and me.

Hedonism,

I am an apple,

I have a stem,

A crease,

And someone has eaten me,

They took deep gluttonous bites,

From around all sides,

I hope all those bites were pleasurable,

I gained great fancy,

From the feel of the teeth,

The lips,

It was like a hungry kiss,

Now I miss your lips,

But there is not much left to offer,

Your never ending hunger.

Constructivism,

I am an apple,

I have a stem,

I have no crease,

I have been sliced apart,

But wasn’t it nice,

To still be placed carefully,

To still almost look like an apple,

But I enjoyed being created,

I was an active part of my creation,

Not just some kind of passive,

Machination,

Some apathetic factory production,

I am a unique apple.

Holism,

We are 3 apples,

We have stems,

We have creases,

Our stems are still attached,

To our twigs,

To our branches,

To our tree,

We still love our daily radiation,

Our photosynthetic nutrition,

Brings about much satisfaction,

For our growth,

And daily interaction.

Modernism,

I am an apple,

I have an artificial stem,

Someone has taken a bite,

Perfectly placed,

For the highest chance for sales,

For the perfect advertisement,

To avoid societies,

Rebuke or perhaps chastisement,

I am worried more about money,

Than I value my own life,

Give me some coins,

Dollar bills,

My appetite,

Will never be filled.

Existentialism,

I am an apple,

I have a stem,

A crease,

My freedom,

Will always be,

The most unique thing in this world,

I am surrounded by nothing important,

Just a gray cloud,

Of perhaps apples,

Perhaps nothing,

They do not affect my will,

My life,

Because I am an authentic apple,

I am free,

I am unique,

And I am true,

To my true self.

Utilitarianism,

I am an apple pie,

In fact,

Am I an apple pie?

I could be any pie,

But I have no stem,

No crease,

I have a hot streak of smoke,

Dwindling in the air,

My past of being an apple,

Is not even a care,

I am an apple pie,

Would you like to have a bite,

Would you like to have a try?

Nihilism,

Cake

Do you love ‘cake’? Then watch this video:

Here are the lyrics to the poem:

“Let them eat cake”

‘They’ve got the distance,

They’ve got the speed,

They’re all alone,’

“Let them eat cake.”

Cake is everywhere,

In quotes, songs, song titles,

From books, magazines, on TV,

Even in the bible.

Cake is everywhere.

But what is cake?

A bready, sugary, short, fat, cylinder,

Held together by eggs.

Tastes good.

Used for celebrations, birthdays, accomplishments,

Even death.

You cannot escape cake,

No matter how hard you try.

Someone will peddle you,

You will never have an alibi.

Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, or carrot cake,

Show your true personality,

With the decorations.

Then dive in, indulge,

Until you achieve full satisfaction.

Calories will come, bloatation will come,

Perhaps diabetes will come too.

But will you let that stop you?

What will you do?

Nightmare's, Dreams, and Hallucinations

New poetry collection released as a poetry book. Check out the book trailer below!

Download the book e-book for free: click here.

Love's Arrow

Love’s Arrow

As the arrow pierces your heart, fear not,

The end is not near,

New life has just begun.

Naturally, nervous hands grip the rough shaft,

With each turbulent tug more blood drips.

The blood spits,

it spews,

it spouts, like a never-ending fountain.

The mistake is never forgotten, as you breathe your last breath,

Each breath, pulls you closer, to your timely death.

A Frantic mind wanders,

then it wonders:

What if you had not felt the fatal pull,

remained together with your fateful dart?

With your drastic instinct, you made yourself extinct,

As you would rather die, than to have an arrow pierce your heart.

A Star in the Sky

A Star in the Sky

---

Close your eyes and what do you see?

The darkness without the light.

Lost,

Blackened,

With not a single light in sight.

 

Light sprays out from stars,

Lying all throughout the universe,

They are speaking and sparking,

Hoping to illuminate life,

And converse.

 

A billion years ago,

A light shone towards this place,

Today as you walk out the door,

It calmly lands on your face.

 

Look at all the millions,

Stare up at all of the billions,

Of stars in the sky.

Look up and ask yourself why,

Why you can’t join them,

To sparkle and shine.

 

Become a star sparkling in the sky,

Make sure to shine bright,

You never know,

Who may need your light.

Sweet Death

Sweet Death

I am the darkness that seeps into your light,

I am the torment that twirls, whirls and chokes,

Anything in its sight.

The sun scowls down at me,

The sky trembles,

The sky hides,

Behind its clouds of fear.

I stop,

Stand,

Stare.

I take a good look,

At this pathetic world.

Dopey peasants pattering around,

Peddling insignificance,

Exchanging naught and zilch.

They will gasp soon,

They will promise anything,

They will grasp at what lies around them.

What is radiating in their emptiosphere?

Upstairs?

In their bottomless pits of wonder?

Don’t they see?

What great feelings I bring?

The sweet feeling,

Of no feeling.

Warmth comes,

The greatest warmth they have ever felt,

The longest sleep they will ever get,

The blackest dreams they have ever sought.

Ahhhh,

They cannot forsake,

This pathetic world.

Ahhhh,

If they only knew death,

They would embrace it.

Ahhhh,

Sweet warmth,

Sweet zilch,

Sweet calm,

Sweet death.

There is no phone ringing,

There is no adolescent singing,

There are no appointments,

There are no more disappointments.

They don’t exist,

You don’t exist,

You will feel,

As if,

you never existed,

At all.

A starving sea gull

Poem text:

Do you ever sit and think,

about a seagull circling an oilrig?

The seafaring bird flies closely to the tip top of the waves,

its small black eyes scouring and scanning,

for any sign of movement,

for any sign of life,

for a single piece of floating and edible trash.

The Gull’s giant white and grey wings flap,

they slap and slide through the wind,

the gull’s starving stomach growls and calls out to it,

as piercing as its beak’s call might be to a human.

The seagull’s heart skips a beat

its stomach starts to warm,

as a familiar figure walks and skips up and down a beach.

The other day the same figure cast a fishing line from a boat,

several days former a chorus of noises and movements

had caused a similar emotion from a ship.

The sea bird hovers ever closer now,

for nature’s lesson,

has never been taught this easily before.

The sea bird’s piercing call comes,

it is met by a stray fry,

a chunk of an unfinished cheese burger,

half a slice of an onion,

slightly gnawed on,

many more delicacies on their way to quiet its stomach.

The seagull knows not what it does,

the humans know not what they do,

the seagull’s stomach is quieted,

the human’s spirits are uplifted,

both of their hearts are warmed.

The seagull cannot find any fish,

the humans have caught most of the fish,

the seagull has found a human,

and humans never seem to run out of French fries.

This world is a prison

Welcome back everyone!

I haven’t posted a blog in a while and that is because I will no longer be doing blog posts. Instead, I will be doing monthly giveaways and monthly poetry videos. This month’s new video is called “This world is a prison”. Check it out and let me know what you think!

English Teaching Story 3

This week I have created the blog, using a new video format! Let me know if you like it.

English Teaching Story 2

Welcome to story 2 of the series where I tell about my English teaching experiences. Click the links below to check out my social media pages or to go to the first story in the blog series.

FB page: https://www.facebook.com/Sam-German-poetry-142944589638891

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skgbooks/

First blog post: www.skgediting.net/seasidesammy/2020/9/28/english-teaching-story-1

Snowy winter grounds and no campers.

It was early 2014 and I was working at a summer camp as a groundskeeper. I found a TEFL course at a local university called “Richmond University”. It was an in person 100-hour TEFL course. It was to be over the course of 3 weekends and each weekend it was both Saturday and Sunday for 9 hours each day. Four hours straight, an hour lunch and then another four hours. It also included an online grammar exam that was worth 40 hours.

Both kids and adults love games.

The course included a lot of games and interactive activities the first day but then over the next few classes the course delved into lectures and PowerPoints. These ranged from teaching approaches to general English grammar topics and other ESL topics.

Lunch is a great way to get to know colleagues or fellow students.

I met another attendee who I met with for lunch one day at the Richmond cafeteria. He found out that I was going to book a hotel for the next weekend, but he said he lived in the area and I could stay with him and his wife, who was also in the course.

I was a little shocked as I had only known them for a week. When I showed up, the man was no where to be found and the woman was hungry. We decided to go out to Chilis for dinner, but once there we realized that I was valentine’s day. When we got separate checks, the waiter looked at me like I had punch 25 babies. The three of us laughed about it all night and still joke about it from time to time today.

The final weekend all the attendees had to perform a 30-minute demo lesson. I volunteered to go first, as I figured that I would be teaching first every day as a teacher, so I might as well get used to it. I was very worried and practiced my lesson many times alone. Sometimes on the couch and other times in front of a mirror. When I ran the lesson in the class, it went smoothly. Later in the summer, I passed the grammar test and had the 100-hour TEFL in my hands, ready to head abroad.

I saw many different people in the course, some young, some old. Some were going to the University of Richmond and others were local high school teachers looking to get another certificate. No matter who they were, the ones who had taught the most previously, performed the best when asked teaching questions or grammar questions. It would continue to be a trend as I went about my English teaching career. No matter their age, if they were a non-native speaker or 73 years old. The teacher with the most experience, always outshone the others.

English Teaching story 1

Welcome to the first episode of this blog series. I will be sharing stories related to my English teaching career and also a lesson to go with it each week. To see more blog posts follow me on Facebook or Instagram.

Somewhere in Norway.

It was the end of my last trip in Norway, and I was considering a new career that could lead me back there. I had just spent seven years studying Wildlife Biology, Psychology, Archaeology, Theatre, and Film. I was feeling like it was a waste as it seemed like I couldn’t get a job anywhere. In Norway I had applied for 84 jobs and only gotten one email back. In future months I would apply for 140 jobs in Virginia, get 8 interviews and zero job offers. A few days before leaving Norway, a Norwegian friend recommended that I consider teaching English. She reasoned that the in ten years that most of the English teachers were going to retire and Norway would need new teachers.

Picture of Concordia

When I returned to the USA, I set off looking for master’s programs related to teaching: English programs and Education programs. I found a program in Minnesota I liked called “Concordia College” and I applied for it. I went through the process, submitting documents and fees but at the last moment I was rejected. I was now left to search for more programs, but the more I looked the more I found nothing that worked out either.

I turned to online programs. They also looked great, but when I looked at the money I was making, I estimated that it would take 4-5 years to get the master’s degree in education that I needed. That is when I found out about TESOL and TEFL certificate programs. (TEFL stands for “Teaching English as a Foreign Language”) I had two options, take 4 to 5 years working on a masters and then start teaching, or get a certificate and start teaching immediately. With the second option I would be able to gain experience and travel right away, whereas with the first option I would be stuck in America for half a decade. In five years, I would have four or five years of experience. I chose to go with experience and the certificate.

Lesson 1: How to deal with failure

When I was rejected by Concordia College I was crushed and sad. Like many other failed plans, yet you can only stay in doom and gloom for so long. I have learned over the years, that the best way to deal with failure is to create a new plan and goal and start working towards it. To replace failure with thoughts of success and to replace bad experiences with past or future amazing experiences.

Osman chapter 12: Leaving the Ship

We arrive at the final chapter of the story of how I taught English on an oil ship. If you want to start at the beginning then click here.

Time is not on our side.

The weeks were now flying by. I printed in the radio room, saw Uzgur leave and another radio man come. Lots of new Scottish guys arrived as well, they were just as interesting as the others.

I continued to put up ads, about five to six every week but I saw some of them disappearing. I could feel a negative vibe from the crew related to the ads, but I had to put them up. One day the head of security came to me and formally asked me not to put them on the glass part of the door. The complaint was that they couldn’t see a person on the other side of the door. It was a legitimate complaint, so I moved them farther down on the door away from the glass.

They looked like this except more blood involved.

The next event close to leaving was that there was a fight. It was between two students, the only two students in one of the afternoon classes. Apparently one of them had told the other what to do and the one being told what to do took exception to being told what to do and a fight had broken out. The man who told the other man what to do bit him on the head and apparently ripped and twisted his flesh like a crazed animal until he bled. The two were separated, fired and kicked off the ship. I was later told that in the Ottoman Empire whether you start the fight, defend yourself or let the person punch you, that you would still be fired. Thus, if someone attacks you, you should beat their ass.

When the roads cross, which way do you go?

The time was coming for my departure and I was certain that I would be leaving on the PSV again. Then one afternoon I was called up to the radio room where I met the logistics coordinator. He told me the PSV I would be traveling on was actually going to be the helicopter and not to tell anyone, not even my company. It was quite the dilemma because my company would be arranging my flight. They needed to know the time I would arrive, and they needed to arrange a taxi to the airport. If I arrived at the airport and they didn’t know, they would wonder how I got there and why I didn’t take their taxi. I figured it was better to have the guy on the ship mad at me then my company. My company could fire me for lying which was more than the ship could do to me. So, I told them. Then the captain of the ship got mad at my company and the radio man, the logistics coordinator got mad at me and my company thanked me for telling them and then asked me not to tell anyone else.

Ok, so I wasn’t this excited.

Before I knew it, I was plugging ear plugs into my ears, putting muffs on and marching towards the helicopter, careful to avoid its rotating blades. The takeoff wasn’t as dramatic as a jet’s takeoff. The helicopter moved backwards and forwards a few times and then skipped off into the sky, ascending higher and higher. The water was deep down below, and the ship soon disappeared on the other side of the horizon. I looked down at the water and remembered what the radio man told me, “The helicopter training isn’t that important because if the helicopter crashes, you will probably die when it hits the water.” I mean it seemed like there was nothing to worry about now, except the helicopter crashing.

This guy didn’t wait.

We arrived at Antalya airport and quickly got through customs as we went through the VIP section. I had met an Ottoman guy on the top deck of Osman before leaving who promised we would hang out in the city center and leave together since our flight was at the same time. However, as I made it through security, he was nowhere to be found.

It is hard to burn 7 hours in an airport.

I had seven hours to kill in the airport. I took turns reading different books and watching people walking by. Halfway through the layover I went to burger king and ate my food as slowly as possible. Finally, it was two hours before my flight, so I was able to check-in.

The new Istanbul airport

When I arrived in Istanbul, I had one bag with almost everything I owned, no home and one person to contact. It was my boss’s brother, where I would stay until I found an apartment. He was the typical plump Ottoman man; he was friendly and as hospitable as possible, even though he spoke almost no English. My legs were wobbling on land and when I laid down to sleep on his couch that night, I could almost feel my bed still rocking. It was only when I looked up at the ceiling that I realized I was finally back on land.  

A big thanks for keeping up with the blog story! I hope you enjoyed it. This is the end of the story, I’m not sure where I will take the blog next. We will see next week.

Osman Chapter 11: The Ship's Heart

Chapter 11 has arrived! This week I will be invited to check out the engine room of the ship. If you haven’t read the other chapters and wish to start at the beginning of the story then, click here.

One of the PSVs (Public supply vessels) that would frequently visit Osman.

One of the biggest challenges on the ship wasn’t getting shipments on time, keeping the correct amount of sludge in the pipes or even keeping the ship afloat but it was something much simpler. Something that most people would never be able to imagine: trash segregation. There was a lot of trash on the ship, and there were many systems that had to be paid attention to. The cans had labels in Osman and in English and they even had a different color based on which kind of trash they were. Yet, there was still a huge problem when it came to getting people to put things in the right can.

Here are some examples of segregated trash. We had a lot more bins though.

There was general waste, plastic waste, paper waste, and metal waste; there were also special bins for razor blades, and aerosol cans. The kitchen could throw disposable food off the ship, but the rest was kept in these bins. Sometimes the trash didn’t even make it to the bins though. One day after a weekly safety meeting, about 10 steps from a general waste bin there was a banana peel sitting on an arm chair. Of course, in the next safety meeting a picture of the infamous peel was shown and trash segregation was mentioned once again.

The ship sits still, but the gossip travels fast. This is the top deck of Osman. We had a barbecue up there.

Sometimes the trash in the cans wasn’t the only trash on the ship though. That would be the words and gossip that came out of peoples’ mouths. There was good gossip and there was bad gossip, but no matter what kind of gossip it was, it made it around the ship faster than a speeding bullet. One morning I told a student about minimum wage in Alaska and by the last evening class at seven PM, another student was asking me about it. When I went to the break room after my final class that day, a food worker there also commented about the minimum wage salary in Alaska. The gossip wasn’t always good though. The gossip could be at its worst during the mealtimes in the mess hall.

A photo of race segregation in high school. The ship also had cultural/national segregation.

There were segregated groups that grouped together. They didn’t get together intentionally, but it happened naturally based on race or nationality. I tried to bounce around and when I did, I ran into more and more gossip. One day I sat at a table with Scottish, Canadian, American, Australian and south African workers. “Did ya hear about that damn safety man Steffen”, one asked the other. “No, what’s it?” responded the other. “He used to be a welder before he got into safety. Guess he couldn’t hack it.” There was a bit of a “macho” mentality on the ship, nobody wanted to show any weakness. Hard men, with stone mouths with as many tattoos as possible but they gossiped like little girls on a school yard. I tried my best to sit with them but there wasn’t much to talk about.

The attitude of many on the ship.

They were set into their routine of trying to act manly, so the only times they opened their mouths were to talk about women, sex or gossip. Eventually I returned to the Osman and Uzbek table. It was better to not know what they were saying, then to hear all the vile talk that I could understand. Sometimes I could still hear the gossip from afar though. When they were bored of gossiping about their fellow workers, they would scan the room and analyze different eating habits. “Look at that fuck, he only eats three portions every day and always cleans his plate,” said one. “He eats like my 15 year old daughter.” Said another. “Look how he slurps his soup, he looks like a camel. Just put it in your mouth sissy fuck it’s not that hot.”

A few of my students.

One day at the Osman table a man came up to me. “I heard you’re writing a book,” was his opening. The word got around the ship fast. I didn’t see myself as the Shakespeare of writing books or even close to being well known, yet they were still excited. “A lot of people think of the drilling and things on top deck as the most important, but the engine room is where everything else happens,” he continued. “Without the engines, the ship would die.” He was very serious about the engine room. He talked to me for the entire lunch about the engine room and even invited me to visit him. He wanted to show me all the engines and machines that were there.

PPE = gear a doctor might wear during Covid19.

It was going to be my first time going out of the accommodation area, so I needed special equipment just to go. I had to get boots, gloves, coveralls, a hat and goggles. The ship was split into two sections: the accommodation area and the working area. The accommodation area was where the mess hall, gym, living quarters, cinema room and English training room were located. The working area was the rest of the ship and took up about sixty to seventy percent of the total length of it. After a week of planning with him and getting the equipment from the ship’s store man I was finally ready. I entered the side locker on the way to the work area and the floor where the mess hall was. I didn’t see him. Every floor had different areas like this where there were changing rooms in between the two sections of the ship. These side pockets also had showers and lockers for the three hundred workers on board. I kept seeing people coming and going, they said hello and disappeared as fast as they came. I waited for ten minutes and then asked the next person who came into the locker “Where’s Ferhat”? He looked Osman, so I thought he would know.

Directions: they are everywhere.

The man knew English and told me how to get to the engine room: “Go outside, walk sixty meters, take a right, walk up the stairs and go inside”. They weren’t the best directions I had ever been given. I walked outside and there was the sea waiting for me. The walkway was about 2 meters wide. I walked along it but wasn’t sure how far sixty meters was. Soon I ran into another worker and asked him about the engine room, so he was kind enough to lead me there. Inside there was still no sign of the missing Osman. There was a bald man sitting looking at a screen, an Osman guy wandering about about and two old Croatians sitting at a table. I asked them where Ferhat was and they said he would be there shortly, and I could make myself some coffee. “I’m going to need half an Osman lira for it though,” one of them joked. I sat down at the table with the Croats and made small talk for a bit. Then another Osman student Murat came and sat down. He was a rough looking guy from Adana and had a huge Mustache the size of Texas. He joked and chatted with us as well. Finally, after about half an hour, Ferhat arrived. He also sat down, and we continued to drink tea and coffee for almost an hour before we got started. We put on our helmets and began our aquatic safari.

An engine room on a ship. The one on Osman, looked pretty similar.

There were doors with handles and doors that slide open with a button; like a door in a Sci-fi movie, or maybe a US prison. In the first room there were dozens of machines and engines. The sound was loud even with ear plugs in and ear muffs on. We went from room to room and he checked engine after engine. He told me the whole tour would take forty-five minutes and he had to do this route each shift. He wrote things down and checked more engines. Different engines did different things, and some of them had backups, just in case the main ones stopped working. I can’t remember what all the machines did but some of them included supplying the ship with hot water, storing all the shit and urine and mixing it into sludge that could be released into the sea.

What an engine workers life was probably like.

There were also engines that powered propellers, kept the ship cool or warm, distilled water and many other things. I asked questions about the engines and Ferhat knew all the answers. I couldn’t imagine a job like this, twelve hours a day, checking the engines three to four times each shift and then making sure nothing was wrong. Yet, without it being done, perhaps the ship would be in trouble. He joked that he didn’t need to go to the gym, because of the number of stairs he had to go up and down each day and the heavy pipes and other materials he might need to lift. He was in better shape than me, and I went to the gym every day while I was living on the ship.

Freedom!

After almost an hour of walking through room after room and yelling to be heard above the engines and make it past the earplugs we called it a day. I went back through a side door and came out on the bottom level of the ship. At first, I had no idea where I was, but then I saw the laundry room as well as the stairs and the elevator, so I was on the lowest level of the ship. I was excited to see all the engines but also relieved that it was over. I had gotten to see the heart of the ship and Ferhat had been right, without the engine room the ship would die, or be a very miserable place.

Osman Chapter 10: Trials before Blessings

Here we are in chapter 10! This week many bad things will happen and then a good thing will happen at the end! If you want to start at the beginning then click here.

Nothing but blue to see, and the smell of sea.

The next morning there were no students at the level two six A.M. class per usual. With the free time I took the opportunity to go to the top deck. As I gazed out at the horizon the French warship was no where to be seen. The Ottoman warship was missing as well. I went back down to the bridge to do the daily printing and to learn about the most recent gossip about the warships.

Nothing but smiles.

Uzgur was smiling as I entered the bridge, he was talkative and in a jocular mood. The warships had agreed that both of them would leave and for now no military action would be made against Osman. I finished my printing and showed him the list of students who hadn’t come yet. He promised to take the list to the captain who would talk to the students individually.

The following day the captain came back with news that some of the students were too far behind and they didn’t feel comfortable being in the class. With the new crew, I had noticed that there were a couple of students that were so far behind that the class was almost impossible for them, so I wasn’t surprised. They would end up getting laughed at and teased by their friends and one of them had told the radio man that he couldn’t understand anything, so he didn’t want to come anymore as well. I decided that I would make an extra class on Saturday since there were no classes then. I called it “Beginner catch up class” or in Ottoman: “Super cok beginner ders”. I put up posters along with the normal crew list with their class times. I came up with a creative idea, but I made one mistake. I added two confused looking people and then speech bubbles where I wrote common English mistakes that Ottoman students make. I.E.: “How old are you?” “Fine thanks and you?” “I am very money” etc. The only problem was that this enticed some people aboard the ship to add their own bubbles.

The daddies of the coop right?

One person added “I love cock” and put it right above the confused girl’s head. I decided to report it to the radioman and asked him if I should write a focus card. These were cards where anyone on the ship could report a safety hazard or complain about something. He laughed and said “No, let’s tell the captain.” The captain also laughed and said there was nothing we could do because there was no way to figure out who had done it. He said to write back “Come to the OIM’s office (the captain’s office) and you’ll find the biggest one”. Then the radioman started to talk about how one of the helicopter pilots from Cameron had a large cock too and the captain asked him how he knew.

I decided to do nothing, I thought that writing a response might get me more responses and they might write on future posters for more entertainment. Half a day later the message was still up and the talk of the ship. One of the head guys on the ship asked me to scratch it out, but I had a better idea. You know if you turn the second “C” in “cock” to an “O” it changes the word to cook? So that’s what I did. Then I added “ing” on the end. “I Love cooking” it said, which was a little bit sexist since it was above the girl’s head, but it was better than cock.

The mess hall was like a frat hall, even though most of the workers were 40 to 50 years old.

I assumed people on the ship might write on the posters at some point, as whenever I heard the foreigner’s conversations, they usually talked about three things: “Women, cocks and masturbating”. These of course were the western foreigners on the ship. I sat with them a few times and it was silent when I sat down, that was until someone brought up one of the three topics. Then they could talk for hours. I still figured if cocks and raunchy conversations were the worst thing about the ship, then everything would be ok.

In theatre the broken leg is a great thing, on an oil ship: not so much.

However, there were soon injuries in successive weeks. First a guy broke his leg on the stairs. There were constant reminders in safety meetings about holding onto the rail, and in those same meetings half the focus cards focused on people walking up and down the stairs, with a coffee in one hand and a cell phone in the other. Perhaps they were holding the handrail with their foot and hopping down. This man was apparently carrying laundry down the stops and missed the last two or three steps and crashed down, and cracked his ankle, with a minor fracture. He claimed he was holding the handrail when he fell but nobody believed him.

These fleshy sticks weren’t meant to go in a grinder

I thought that would be the end of it, that maybe everyone would be on edge and extra careful about safety, but I was wrong. The very next safety meeting there were two more injuries. One man twisted his wrist and had to be taken to Antalya for X-rays. He returned in under forty-eight hours and was working again though. Then there was a man who got his finger stuck somewhere it didn’t belong. He also went to Antalya, but he wasn’t so lucky. Part of his finger was amputated after his glove got stuck in some part of a machine and tugged his finger in after it. It made me glad that I was an English teacher.

Cranky tears, know no age.

That was until the new crew arrived. The classes went well and were pretty typical lessons, but one class came in and they were overly pushy. Immediately complaining about reviewing old content that half of them couldn’t do anyways. Demanding that the class be ended early because they were tired and more. I was happy to let them leave about five minutes early. I wondered if the last few weeks were just subsequent hell weeks. Then there was an announcement. “Do not use the elevator, maintenance is being done on it.” Well, I didn’t think anyone would be using it anyway since it hadn’t been working for almost two months.

Pretty close to how our elevator worked.

What I imagine the Scotsman on the radio looked like.

It wasn’t but a day later where the message “The elevator is working, I repeat the elevator is working” came across the PA system. A second PA announcement followed “WOOHOOOOOO”. Perhaps it was even more “O’s” than that. Something good had finally happened, and in relation to this week I had to say “it was about time.”

Osman Chapter 9: Crew Changes

Chapter 9 is here! This week, there are crew changes on the ship, which cause chaos and a French warship shows up!

If it’s your first time viewing the blog or story then click here to start at the beginning of the story.

Ship men leaving, much like they did on Osman.

Now everything was falling into place. My daily habits and schedule were working perfectly together. I also knew all the students; their names as well as their true levels, so it was much easier to plan the classes. I hadn’t messaged Darren for almost a week and had every part of my routine down, including doing laundry and eating. Yet when I went into the classroom and looked at the crew members from all the crews, their test dates and other information there was something looming over my head; “February 24th, 25th and 26th.” These were the days when the new crew would come on board and by the end of the 27th; they would be mixed in with the other classes.

Trying to figure out the crew changes and curriculum with mixed crews felt like entering a matrix.

Some classes were behind the others, and now there would be crews coming who had already completed certain units in the book that would be added to the chaos. Now it was time to send lots of text messages to Darren again. It was my first time facing the crew change, so no matter how much I talked about it or planned for it, it was impossible to know how it would go. Crew member shifts were also changing for those who would be staying on board, so I was also guessing when they would come to class. For the two classes that would still have Crew A members I planned three lessons and had them ready based on different scenarios. Scenario A: The same students come but no new ones. Scenario B: the same students do not come, only new ones come. Scenario C: the class is mixed with both crews.

Things getting serious

Darren recommended that I head up to the bridge and ask the radio man about the different students. He could tell me who was coming on which day and what the shifts would be for the students who still be on board. The radio man worked with me over the next fifteen minutes checking all the students work times and dates of arrival. When I was about to leave, he told me I should go to the top deck, because there was an Ottoman warship patrolling along side the ship. Apparently due to threats coming from Cyprus and the European Union, the Ottoman Empire’s leadership had sent a warship to protect Osman while it was doing its exploration drilling.

Looks scary or sexy, depending who you are.

As I exited the stairwell and was greeted with the smell of the sea, I could see the towering metallic structure of the ship, making its way almost to the top of Osman’s top deck. Gigantic guns ready for action, Osman men in camouflage patrolling and running about, and others standing at attention with rifles awaiting orders. All of the sudden, there was a radio announcement blaring out of the warship’s speakers. It was in Ottoman, so I couldn’t fully understand it, but they seemed to be pointing towards the horizon. I squinted and tried to peer through the piercing sun and the white water that was flashing and reflecting to see. There was a tiny black dot on the tip of the water, far in the distance, where the water met the sky.

I was awoken at four A.M. with a siren shrieking. There was an announcement about the dot on the horizon. It was a French warship, which was coming at full speed towards Osman and its warship. The radio man went on saying that we should be ready at all times for an abandon ship drill, should anything happen. When seven A.M. rolled around there had been no other announcements, but I was awoken by another shrill noise, my alarm clock. In the class I had a stroke of luck, no students came. Then when ten AM came, only old students joined the lesson. A bit more relaxed about the crew change situation I went to the bridge to see how the warship situation was going.

A lot of action on the top deck.

The radio man Uzgur looked serious. No smile was on his face and he was furiously typing on his computer. He couldn’t take it any longer and went out onto the deck to smoke a cigarette. He apologized for not being friendly when I came in. He told me to look out onto the water and there you could see the French warship, now only a hundred meters or so from Osman. Directly fifty meters from the French warship’s guns were the Osman warship’s guns, they were both pointed at each other. Neither ship had much commotion on it, with men standing at attention and ready to take orders. Uzgur said, there was a lot going on, on the radio. There were a mix of threats and commands which were mostly being ignored for now. The French ship was demanding that Osman leave Cyprus’ waters. The Ottoman’s were demanding that the French warship leave The Ottoman Empire’s waters. Then they went from demands to threats and from threats to commands. Then the cycle continued but there was still no movement on either of the ships.

The main sources of entertainment on the ship were the gym and sleep.

I wanted to continue watching the exciting stalemate, but it was about twenty minutes until my third class. I went back downstairs to the classroom. When one o’ clock arrived, there were only crew B students. I did my normal thing, going to the gym, showering and relaxing until dinner came. At the dinner table there was the latest gossip about the warships around the dining room’s tables. The French warship and the Ottoman warship wouldn’t budge. I finished my dinner as quickly as possible and headed upstairs for the final class.

Mixing it up in the class like this. Unfortunately there were no girls though.

Seven P.M. swung by and the class was a mix of one crew B student and three crew A students. It was also a class mixed with crew A students who were in different units. My plan for this scenario had been to do the unit that was the furthest behind, and the more advanced students didn’t seem to mind. As the students left the class at eight fifteen, I was able to relax. Now I knew where all the students were and planning the lessons would be easier.  The day was over and now I felt more comfortable with crew changes. The other ones would be much easier. The only problem at this point was the students who wouldn’t come to class, yet is extra free time on one’s hands ever a problem? I went up to my cabin for the night. The warships suddenly crossed my mind again, but then I relaxed. I was sure they wouldn’t do anything. Thirty minutes later I crawled into bed, hoping for a good night’s sleep.

Osman Chapter 8: The Radio Room

Welcome to the weekly blog! This week we continue with the story of my experience being an English teacher on an oil ship. If you want to start at the beginning of the story to catch up, then click here.

Our radio man wasn’t this handsome, but he was trying to be.

Before I even left Adana for the ship, the other teacher “Darren” had messaged me on WhatsApp and advised me to have a good relationship with the radio operators. Another radio operator named “Samet” had also messaged me, telling me about the PSV. Having a good relationship with the radio operators wasn’t going to be my only goal, but everyone. Because on a ship of even two hundred men, I assumed that gossip could get around quickly, and any bickering or fighting wouldn’t have much room to bounce around. Therefore, I greeted every person I saw on the stairs or in the hallways and chatted at every opportunity. In a realm full of gossip, it’s best to let them know everything about you, rather than to be a mysterious figure followed by many rumors.

Loads of a stairs. A dream or a nightmare, depending who you are.

My first day going up to print, I climbed the four flights of stairs and met another radio operator, this one was called “Uzgur”. He turned out to be a very talkative and friendly one. I often stayed up on the “bridge” talking and hanging out for a good thirty or forty minutes when he was there. The first few trips he helped me print or copy what I needed but soon I had mastered the printer and he only talked to me as I copied. There was also a door with a deck where people working in the radio room and bridge could smoke. I called it “NAV deck” a few times but some workers got upset at me and said I should call it “The bridge”. Before I knew it, it was part of my routine; climbing the four flights of stairs, copying, and talking with the radio operator. Due to the time I was usually ready to print and their shifts; it was usually Uzgur. I was fine with this as he was the most open and friendly of the radio operators.

Syria. It’s hard to find a non-political map nowadays.

I also chatted with the DPO, which was a fancy name for the person who kept the ship aligned properly. The acronym actually stood for “Dynamic Positioning Officer”. The first one I met was named “Daane” with two As. He was from the Netherlands, but Samet used to joke around with him and say he was from Syria. He didn’t appear to like the joke, but Samet really enjoyed it.

“I have so many things to show you”

I learned a lot about the devices and instruments in the radio room as Samet showed me how to zoom and change the cameras and Uzgur showed me different mapping, tracking and frequency devices. He also showed me how to work the public announcement (PA) board and how to change it so the user would send a PA everywhere including the accommodation areas. The PA announcements were usually sent to the working areas and only the drill PA announcements were broadcasted everywhere.

What my friend was imagining.

Another thing I liked to do in my free time was to watch the waves and look at the sun; taking many pictures of them as they changed, or fascinated me. I asked Uzgur more about the waves and how they were measured, so he showed me the measuring system. It was based on the wind speed and the current. The first time we checked the waves they were two meters high! I told a friend on WhatsApp and he almost had a heart attack. “STAY AWAY FROM THE SIDE OF THE SHIP! HOW IS IT STILL AFLOAT?” he panicked.

What the sizes were actually based on

However, they weren’t two meters high in the air, they were two meters on the wave measuring scale. The radio operator told me that there were different kinds of waves. Ones that were small in size but moved quickly, others that were medium sized but moved slowly and lastly there were giant waves that moved the slowest. The strongest waves were the small ones that moved quickly. The measurement had more to do with strength than it did height. At night they had observed waves at eight meters!

Those who seek knowledge will always go farther than those who don’t.

I thought about it the next day while watching the waves again. I liked to go out onto the open area of the ship and watch them. How high were the ones today? Later in class a student guessed that they were one point six meters. As he and the others left the classroom, I stood up and looked out the window at the waves once more. Then it occurred to me. In the classroom I was teaching Uzgur English but in the radio room he was teaching me about the waves. No matter where you go or what you do, you’ll always be teaching someone one thing and learning a different one from someone else.

Osman Chapter 7: Weekly Safety Meetings

Welcome to the next chapter of the story of my life on an oil ship as an ESL English teacher!

To begin from the start of the story click here.

The feeling of completing a lesson.

I completed the first wave of level two and three classes, as well as the first abandon ship drill but now the next day loomed. My first weekly safety meeting and all those level one classes. I also needed to get my face fitted for an oxygen mask, as I was reminded by the guy who helped me find the stairs when I was lost on the “NAV deck”.

Pastirma and fried eggs.

I woke up around six AM, as I had every day so far on the ship. I put on my clothes and headed down the four flights of stairs to the mess hall. There was a smaller sized crowd than normal. I had “Pastirma” and scrambled eggs. Pastirma is a “non-pork” version of Osman bacon that is super salty. I was told that people had to be careful of eating too much of it as it would emit a strange smell from ones pores if they ate too much of it. I grabbed a couple of fried eggs and a tomato slice as well and washed it all down with a cup of orange juice.

The calm before the storm.

Then it was off to the training room. I went through the normal rituals, unlocking the door, plugging in the printer, opening the laptop and turning on the TV. I browsed over the lesson plan and then waited for students to come in. About three minutes before seven the first student came in and then before I knew it there were three of them.

The nuts and bolts of English

This class was a unit behind the others, and there were two main students who were a bit older and one of them was a lot slower than the other one. We learned some vocabulary, did a few listening activities and then busted out the “Oil and Gas” book. There were two books we were using, Speak out and Oil and Gas. Speak out was a generic ESL book with vocabulary, listening, grammar and writing exercises. The Oil and Gas book was similar but had lots of vocabulary and exercises that tied in working in the oil and gas industry. This book was good but a bit too academic and advanced for the lower level class. I reviewed some tools with them, tools related to their job such as a spanner, wrench etc. For the final activity we read a dialogue together first and followed that by acting it out. It took them a few moments to get the gist of the role-play exercise but then it was off and rolling. “What’s in the box” “Some screws” “how many?” “14” “that’s too many”. They practiced several more phrases “That’s the wrong part number” and “Perfect, that’s the one we need”. Then it was eight fifteen and time to say goodbye. They waved enthusiastically and went to sleep, I waved back and got ready for the next class.

I cruised through the ten AM class and before I knew it, I was eating lunch. After lunch I wandered into the cinema for the first time since my tour with Steffen the safety guy. There were already three or four dozen people in the seats waiting and there were some people signing a paper on a clipboard. I walked past them and sat down, not really knowing what they were signing or doing. Then each person that came in signed the clipboard, so I asked a man sitting near me if we needed to sign in. “Yes,” was the answer.

A scene from the episode.

 It wasn’t long until the meeting started. Steffen spoke in English and another Osman gentleman translated every twenty seconds or so. They showed a PowerPoint presentation which focused on trash segregation, and also pinpointed the main safety precautions. Stair safety was the most popular topic this time. They showed a clip from a family guy episode where he falls down the stairs a lot and then decides to live upstairs to avoid going down the stairs. I never thought so much about a handrail before in my life but now with the ship weaving and bobbing sometimes; it seemed like a good idea, especially after that family guy episode.

The award for winning the weekly competition was usually a powerbank.

The main event of the meeting was when they randomly drew the winners of the week. These were drawn from the focus card reports that had been filed that week and then the ship’s captain gave free power banks out to the two lucky workers. The focus cards were written when there was a problem or a safety issue. There were usually around two hundred of them written each week. Don’t be too alarmed; some of them could be as simple as a person not shaving or someone not holding the handrail while walking up the stairs. Others could be more serious, not following safety precautions with equipment, leaving flammable material in a bad place and so on. After the meeting the students strolled into the classroom, some of them on time and others late due to the meeting and wanting to smoke afterwards.

Breathe…

The class went well and after reporting attendance and class notes I went upstairs to find the oxygen mask guy. He was Scottish and it was the same Scottish guy who gave me the H2S safety briefing on the first day. I was supposed to take a deep breath and hold it for eight seconds. He told me, “take a deep breath, then I will give a signal.” Actually, it sounded more like “Tek eh depp breth, en I well gev ya eh segnel.” I took a deep breath and gave him a thumbs up, then he said something that sounded like a mix between start and stop. It sounded more like stop, so I started breathing again. We did it three times before I figured out that he was saying start and not stop. He didn’t know that I was breathing and thought air was leaking out of the mask, so he pulled it as tight as he could, and it was already tight enough to begin with. After I realized what he was saying we progressed through the attempts much faster. He gave me a copy of the results and I parted ways with the Scotsman for the last time.

I usually feel like this picture at the end of the day.

After dinner and my final class, I closed the door, locked it, and headed upstairs for the night. The classes and hours were going by much faster now. I had completed my first week of classes, my first abandon ship drill, first safety meeting, and all of the safety briefings and other things I needed to do. I felt a sense of relief as I laid in bed that night. I had seen all the students and been through all the classes so the lesson prep would be much smoother now. Likewise, I had been through the safety meetings and drills, so they would also be much easier going forward too. Now just for one more thing to get used to, the painful feeling of waking up at six AM.

Osman Chapter 6: The Abandon Ship Drill

Welcome to this weeks blog! We are continuing the story of my life on an Ottoman oil ship as an English teacher. This week I experience my first abandon ship drill. If you missed the beginning, here is the first episode: Prologue.

Wht my class often felt like….

The second day with the level three students was another easy one. A single student came at seven AM and then two students came for the seven PM class. No students at ten AM and again no students at one PM.

Ok he looked a little bit friendlier than this.

Around midday a knock came at the door and a large student with glasses came in to talk to me. He looked like a guy who liked to talk, and that turned out to be true. He came in and talked to me for about fifteen minutes and then left. The day was pretty quiet after that; I started my gym workout, edited one book and did the level three class at seven. As I was putting everything away and preparing to lock the class up for the night, I remembered that there were certain emergency drills on a weekly basis. I tried to recall where I was supposed to go. There was one where I had to go to the cinema and sit on the right side, then there was another one where I had to go to the lifeboat. I had completely forgotten the deck, but I had a faint memory from my tour with Staffen, he had said that I should go to lifeboat 2.

When all the stairs and hallways look the same, how do you find anything?

As I walked up the stairs, I ran into one of my students named “Vahap”, he was a welder from my level two class. I asked him which deck it was and he told me “Deck B”. I felt a sigh of relief and continued up the stairs.

Everyone’s favorite time.

I woke up and it was Saturday, a more relaxed day with no classes. Then I remembered that I had a student named “Barak” who needed to take an exam, because he had had to leave the class early the previous night. So, I got up around eight thirty and went to the class. After giving him the exam, the day was pretty quiet. I filled out the reports and prepared the lessons for Sunday and Monday. This day I wrote one poem and edited both of my books then around seven PM the student with glasses returned.

Is this your gourmet cheese?

His name was “Serkanhan”. I had previously tried to learn Polish and the name for cheese was “Ser” and kan, was like “can” in English, so this is how I tried to remember his name: “Cheese can”. He talked to me for about fifteen minutes and then told me that there was a drill tonight and asked me if I knew where to go, I told him lifeboat two on B deck. He said “wow”, and added that most people didn’t usually know where to go.

Hello sir, what beautiful music you have. Would you mind turning it down though?

I was preparing to leave around nine o clock when the dreaded screeching noise came. It sounded like a giant alarm clock that you wanted to slap and never hear again, but this giant alarm clock never stopped beeping. I calmly followed a man into the cinema room, and we were the only ones there. Then an announcement came “This is an abandon ship drill, please go to your primary muster point”.  The guy next to me jumped up and yelled “oh shit, primary muster point?”.

I often felt like I was on the Titanic.

My thoughts exactly, “Oh shit, primary muster point? B deck, right?” As I headed up to B deck, lots of people were running past me, many of them with life jackets, the further I went up the stairs, the less people I saw. It was apparent that I was going the wrong way, and I couldn’t find a door to go outside. I asked a man, who was in a hurry, “Lifeboats are on B deck right?” His answer was “No, follow me.” We clambered down the stairs and then I realized we had to go to “A deck”, not “B deck”. I also needed my life jacket, “Should I go back up two flights of stairs and get it?” I asked myself.

What an amazing device, I wonder who invented it?

Then I saw a locker filled with lifejackets, so I grabbed one. After a few moments of figuring how to put it on, I turned my card around and stood in line. We stood there for what felt like forever, and there were still people missing. They sounded the alarm again and this time it kept going for five or six minutes.

Scotland. What a beautiful country, but what the fuck are they saying?

The whole time my group was silent except for two Scottish guys, who spoke in thick dialects. “Aye did’yeh se’de farse down by de were-well-e?” “Naw’r deh stret far’lo deh begg’in.” “Seh deh Mester Flackersnap slepen on deh shep en’de Pharoh Islands?” I got “Mister Flackersnap” and “Faroe Islands” and that was all I understood. These guys continued to talk throughout the drill and finally the radioman reported that only three men were still missing. Four minutes later a dozen guys came walking out and shortly after that the drill was finally over.

Me, almost every night that I was on the ship.

Like all nights, I went back up to my cabin to go to sleep. Now I knew where to go, hopefully subsequent drills would be much easier.

Osman Chapter 5: The first day of teaching

The story of my first day of teaching on the ship called Osman.

This is the story of my teaching experience on an oil ship. If you missed the first episode, you can check out by clicking here.

6am, a time most people loath seeing; no matter how many hours of sleep they have gotten.

I looked at my clock and I couldn’t believe it was already six AM. I forced myself to get out of bed and shaved. After that I took a quick shower, as I hadn’t showered at all while on the PSV. The shower on that supply vessel had been suspect looking; there was one faucet that hung near the toilet, there was no barrier, no shower curtain and just the same tiles that were all around the bathroom on the floor. The water was also cold, and the entire ship was much colder than the temperature on Osman. After showering I tried to find the stairs that would take me downstairs and finally found them.

What a door inside a ship looks like. Beautiful, isn’t it?

Next, I tried to remember which deck the classroom was on. I glanced at the row of decks on a list near the stairs and thought I remembered it being “F deck”. However, when I reached the bottom of “A deck” which was right above “F deck”, there were no more stairs, only a door going out onto the deck of the ship.

A look out at the sea, during the wee hours of the morning.

I went out onto the deck and it was well lit, but as I looked out into the sea there was a swallowing darkness. I couldn’t see the waves, but I could hear them. I backed up and moved further away from the rail. Finally, I saw the windows of the classroom. Going inside, the starboard door nearest to the windows, eventually I found the classroom, with the lights on but nobody inside. I sat down and waited.

Our snack bar was a little bit less luxurious.

Fifteen or twenty minutes later the other teacher Darren came in. He asked me if I had eaten breakfast and I replied no. I had woken up at six and sacrificed breakfast over a shower and a shave just for today. He told me I could get some fruit from the snack room, but I didn’t dare leave the classroom for now. We sat for the next fifteen minutes briefly going over the lesson plans and then chatting with some small talk, most of which I don’t remember now.

Any teacher, gets to see many of these.

At seven A.M. no students came. Darren showed me how to record that in the “lesson notes” file and then told me he would leave around eight for the helicopter deck. There were calls on the broadcast system about the helicopter and people leaving. These calls would come almost every day in the future, and I would get used to radio calls coming over the broadcast every once in awhile. Darren left soon after and I waited for the next class that would be at ten A.M.

This broadcast booth looks similar to the one on the bridge, but there were less sliders on the board.

When that time came though, nobody arrived once again. Darren had told me that I could do my own broadcast for tardy students using the broadcast system or I could call the radio room and ask them to do it. On the first day I decided to let it slide and not to do any radio broadcasts. It had been expected that no students would come to the first two lessons, but after lunch, there would be students for sure.

A mess hall from a navy ship. The mess hall on our ship was a lot more attractive looking.

Lunchtime came at eleven A.M. and since I hadn’t eaten, I was more than ready to start as soon as the doors to the cafeteria opened. I had to ask a person going down the stairs where the mess hall was, and he beckoned me to follow him. Inside there were around a dozen tables for sitting and eating; two kitchen counters, a salad bar, a soup kettle, a dessert table and a second salad bar, plus a double-sided refrigerator and two jugs. One of the jugs was always filled with ayran and the other was filled with some kind of juice that changed from time to time. On my first day it was filled with orange juice. The other drink called ayran was a popular Osman drink, so it was filled and emptied every day. Ayran is a yogurt filled drink by the way. A Canadian girl in Istanbul once described it to me as yogurt mixed with sweat, but I had grown fonder of it than her. I met a few people at a table and chatted with them as I ate and then went back to the class to wait once again.

About three minutes before the class started a student came waltzing in, he had his head shaved bald and bushy eyebrows. He set his notebook down and then left. Soon there were four students and later a fifth came in. The class went like any other I had ever taught before. Introducing myself, writing their names on the board, talking about where they were from and other basic “get to know you topics”. We did a maze using “simple present vs present continuous” and then spent the rest of the class playing an “adverbs of frequency game”, similar to “candyland” except they had to ask questions and answer using an adverb of frequency to get to the end.

After dinner three more students came and we did the exact same lesson. I added a second die to make the “Candyland game” go faster but it still drug on forever. We had a few minutes left so I used the adverbs of frequency to ask questions and burn out the remaining minutes. They all shook my hand and said that it was nice to meet me and then the first day was about to finally close. I took a photo of the daily attendance sheet and sent it to Darren via WhatsApp, did the lesson report and punched the students into the attendance file. I looked around the room and made sure everything was in place. Turning off the lights, I locked the door and headed back up the stairs.

Me after the first day.

I had spent all day in between the classes messaging Darren asking about the level one student classes and many things about the schedule and planning. The first day was finished but now Sunday might be even tougher, with a full load of classes. As I would soon grow accustomed to, the level two and three students skipped their lessons a lot but the level one students almost always came. Luckily the following day was level three followed by Saturday where I only had to do reports.

Planning. My life’s greatest skill.

In my cabin, I went over my schedule and now that I knew what my days were going to be like, I could plan when to go to the gym, write and plan lessons. My first plan was to do the gym four days a week, on those days edit one book and on the non-gym days edit both books. Finally, on Saturdays I would write a poem and edit both books. This plan would not hold, but it was a good start.

Osman Chapter 4: The first day on Osman

In this chapter, we’ll learn about what happened on my first day on the oil ship! Well actually, it was half a day.

Before we jump in, if this is your first episode in the series, feel free to checkout the prologue and catch up before reading this chapter! Click here.

Similar to how my cabin looked, except there was less space and there was also a bunk bed.

The cabin room was slightly smaller than the dorm I stayed in while going to University of Alaska, Fairbanks. There was one desk against the left wall that was accompanied by a large comfy chair. Getting up from the comfy chair and taking a right there was a bathroom with brand new interior design, a tiled floor, a small shower and a vacuum styled toilet. There were also cabinets on either side of the mirror. There was a sign warning people not to sit while pressing the vacuum button on the toilet, as it could leave a large hickey where the sun doesn’t shine. Returning to the main room there was a small sofa opposite the desk, sitting down the cushions gave little resistance. On the left wall next to the desk there was a bunk bed with curtains and a sleep blinder. Across from the beds there were two dressers. There were also many outlets strewn across the room. These outlets also included American outlets, it was the first time I had seen them outside of the US in Europe or Asia.  I wondered how crowded this cabin would be with two people, especially the desk. Luckily for me, I would be the only one staying here, the rest of the crew had to share rooms.

It’s almost three fifty.

I waited until my cell phone’s clock read “two fifteen” and then I tried to find the area I had just been in. I walked around for a few minutes and then asked where “Steffen” was. They had told me my safety briefing would be with him. He came a few minutes later. He was a guy from Scotland, yet he only had a slight accent. He had giant eyes and in a matter of moments I could tell he cared a lot about safety. I sat down with him and the teacher I was meeting who I would replace as the English trainer for one month named Darren. Steffen went through many slides, he played a couple of sounds that represented alarms for abandoning the ship or dealing with different gas leaks or fires. It was an abundant amount of information and I instantly forgot most of it.

Similar to what our lifeboats looked like. We never got to see them in the water (luckily) though.

That ended up not being too bad, as much of it didn’t apply to me anyway. Then he took me on a tour around the ship, he showed me where my lifeboat was and what I should do when I got there. I had to turn my card around, grab a life jacket, find the last number and stand on it. All the numbers for each lifeboat were painted in circles on the ground. If I was the first person there, I should stand on one, and if someone was standing on one, then I should stand on two. It all seemed simple enough.

H2s Gas. It’s dangerous. Worse than burrito night.

After Steffen was done with me, I met another Scottish guy. This guy was called “Gale”. His Scottish accent was much thicker than Steffen’s. I followed him up the stairs to the helicopter deck and had to repeatedly ask him to repeat things three or four times due to his accent. He brought me to a room where he struggled with the TV for a while and then taught me all about H2S gas and the dangers and what to do if certain things happened. He showed me the equipment and had me practice opening and closing the oxygen valve I would use to connect my mask to if there were a serious H2S leak or incident. The further he went along the more I got used to his accent and by the time he was done I felt like I was ready to go to Scotland.

Dinner on the ship was pretty good. Okay it wasn’t this good. (but close)

After Gale, I was finally able to meet with Darren. We ate dinner and he showed me more of the ship. We talked a lot about how to do all the paperwork associated with the job. There was an attendance list on the computer, a daily attendance sheet for the students to sign, a lesson notes file for every class of every day, a lesson plans file for the same, and there were the books. There were also four different crews to track and the crew shifts to track and the shift changes to track with each crew change.

One of the books we used.

Now back to the books. There were the Oil and Gas books, and English exercise books. The English exercise books also had workbooks for the students and a teacher’s book that had lots of interactive activities in it. There were two whiteboards on either end of the room and across from the teacher’s chair you could see through the windows and look at the sea.

What our real classroom looked like. The table is a little bit curved due to the panoramic photo.

There was a long table with a TV monitor mounted on the end near the teacher’s chair. The TV was also connected to the laptop and there was a printer behind the TV, resting on a chair. After several hours of talking about paperwork and how things worked, he let me know that I would need to plan the lessons for the following day because he would be leaving at eight thirty in the morning. We spent an hour or so working on the lessons for the next day and then I went back upstairs.

NAV deck, short for “Navigation deck. We called this deck “the bridge”. This is a photo from google and not the actual Osman NAV deck.

My main piece of luggage was still in the radio room so I went up to get it. The radio guy was busy, so I just grabbed it and left. Then I walked around this deck called “NAV deck”, which is short for “navigation”. I kept looking at the signs trying to find the stairs to head down to my cabin, but I couldn’t locate it. Finally, after my fourth or fifth time around a square shaped hallway, a guy came out of one of the rooms and asked me if I was lost. He directed me to the stairs; the sign was obstructed behind two other signs. In the coming weeks I would learn – go left, then left to get to the radio room, then go right, and right again to get back to the stairs. My cabin’s floor was just below the NAV deck, so I carried my twenty-kilogram bag back down the flight of stairs and found my cabin again. Inside, I only unpacked what I needed and then slumped onto the sofa.

One of the perks of being on a ship.

It had been an eventful day. I had woken up on the PSV ship and spent most of the day there. Then rushed through two different Scottish guys giving me safety briefings. Then I had gone over all the paperwork and planned lessons for the next day. I sat on the sofa in my cabin for ten or twenty minutes, planning the next day. I thought about how I would plan my weekly schedule, when I would write, go to gym and eat as well as plan my lessons and do all that paperwork. Then I wasn’t sure I even remembered how to get to the classroom in the morning. I would have to wake up early. I hated waking up early. I could wake up at five thirty, take a shower and shave, then go to breakfast at six am and be in the class by six thirty. I could also just sleep until six, have a shower and a shave, skip breakfast and be in the classroom by six thirty. As I lay in my bed thinking, I decided to go with the latter plan.