Leaving Lumut

Back again! My last blog post was about Bali. After that, I returned to the job in Lumut on July 30. My last day at work was on August 8 and on that evening we had a good bye party on the beach. Thanks for the choice of place Bas, Cumar and Mohindra, thanks for the bbq squid Kai, and thanks for the other nice food and the company and all the rest, all you others who made this a memorable night! And sorry Bas and Cumar about the late o’clock ball kicking thing! The celebration incapacitated me for a large part of the following day. Oh, yeah, super thanx to Esther for taking care of the wreck of me in the small hours of the morning, arranging a place to sleep. Sniffing a bit of deja vu, anyone from Søren Larsen?

Before the party, I had to do some fairly rough negotiations over the contract, regarding the interpretation of “Company shall refund traveling expenses at start and end of contract from home address…” All for no reason, I am quoting my reference letter from the Captain: "...performed his duties in a safe, professional and efficient manner and proven himself to be a good seaman and an excellent shipmate." Finally the employer and I came to an agreement which allowed me more or less what the contract entitled me to, and made me refrain from suing the shit out of him. I realize that it may not seem very loyal for a former employee to post this information on the Internet, but my primary loyalty is to the ship, to good seamanship, and to other sailors out there. People I have sailed with are reading this blog, friends of mine, and it would be deeply wrong of me to give them the misconception that the Albatross, under the current management, is a good place to look for a job. Sometimes life for both employees and employers would be so much easier and work would be so much more efficient with laws, labor unions, clear rules, and all that stuff that you are used to from the civilized parts of the world. Why spend time making fuss about bullshit, when there is business to be done, and oceans to be sailed?

Anyway, on Monday the 10th, I finally got on the bus to KL. I spent a couple of days in the big city, just being super lazy, doing internet stuff and thinking about the nearest future. I will go back to Sweden to pick up my studies at university, but before that I am visiting Japan again. I had two different options for school. One was to be back around the end of August when the school year starts, the other one was to jump onto courses that start around the end of November. I have been thinking a lot about it and decided to go for the latter option, to be able to spend more time in Japan. Can't believe it has been more than eleven years since the last time I left my second home country! At the time of my first visit I was 3 months old, and after that I have been back on a more or less regular basis, until I left in March 1998, not to return until now. This time I am going to get a grip of that son-of-a-bitch language, and get more or less fluent. The plan is to study Japanese 24 hours a day, except for some days when I skip lunch and do 25 hours.