At this time one year ago, I lived in Los Angeles, was preparing for Coachella and to take my PADI Rescue Diver course in Nicaragua. I wanted to become a Dive Master for quite a few years, and the Rescue Diver certification was the next step on that journey.

Fast-forward to April 2012 and I find myself unsure of virtually everything. I am now once again a resident of Seattle, and now I am unemployed and a Dive Master. I got my DM certification in Khao Lak, Thailand in January and returned to Seattle one month later. I find myself unemployed (which is also different than last year at this time), and completely unsure of what it is I want to do. I am unsure of what I want to do, as well as unsure of what I should do now, as well as unsure of if I made the right decision in moving back home. I know, “home is where the heart is,” but I’m not sure. I know I’m in a place where I cannot make that determination now – due to being unsure (not to mention unemployed). I find myself on random crying jags, but I wonder if that’s because I’m not working full time, and have not so much to take up my time.

I don’t feel that I’ve been hibernating, but on some level, I think I have been. I didn’t realize how much I’d miss the sun of Southern California. I miss the people I met in my 11-year sojourn in Southern California, yet I love spending time with the people I knew in Seattle – the ones I get to spend so much time with lately. I get to watch some of my friends’ kids get older and older. I get to experience the changes week to week. I get asked to babysit and use those kid experiences as another reason to not have kids now. But I don’t get to go to other friends’ restaurant openings in LA, or new cocktail bars that are opened by other friends, unless I happen to be in town. I have tried to immerse myself in Seattle’s cocktail culture (and I think I’ve done a darn good job), Seattle’s restaurant culture (I’ve probably done a less good job on this one), Seattle’s bike culture (it’s far too big to even think that 2 months is enough time!) and Seattle’s dive culture (this one is easier, if even more clique-ier). Those four things have the potential to take up tons of time, and dollars. If only I had more dollars!

But I’m not sure if they will get me to the answer I am looking for: Did I make the right decision? Was moving home the decision I should have made? I know I should not look backward, but at this point, I’m less sure of myself. This makes me sad. In LA I was a churchgoer, but in the last several years, my church community has done less of a job feeding me than the online community I built. Some of those people weren’t even “church” people – but they got me through so much. I wonder if I had more of a church community in Seattle, if that would make me more connected. I’ve tried finding a church and haven’t been successful.

Reconnecting with people has been great. I had a great time reconnecting with my Grandma last fall before Thailand, I have had a great time connecting with my sister and other friends in parts of Washington. I’ve had a great time taking care of friends’ kids and thoroughly enjoyed late summer in Seattle. So, if a job will make this not sure feeling go away, I’d take it.

The other option is to buck up and make some dreams come true. I’m working on that one. I have taken some leaps of faith in the past few days and know I need to take more. I have talents that if some company doesn’t want to harness, I need to use them to make myself happy. I am a grown woman in her mid-30s, I need to make some dreams come true.

Dream #1 for 2012 was becoming a DiveMaster – I did that. On to Dream #2 – it awaits.

At some point not too long after that, I was approached by someone whose name I’d heard on twitter, and who was also on the Leadership Team of Bruce’s A Church Online, to see if I was interested in being his Ruling Elder counterpart in a part of the church. I was very interested (and still am, not to make that sound only past tense!) in working with the other members of the Leadership Team, to create this church.

In terms of my church shopping, this Church Online is much more my speed. For the past few years, my church in LA was less of a place to get fed, and more of a place to feel out of place, but see friends. I always felt bad saying things like that to my former church, but as a single woman without kids in her mid-30s, I didn’t feel like the appropriate demographic. As a part of A Church Online, there is a real feeling (for me, at least) of working on being the church to those that can’t find a place in a church building on Sunday. Making the community that I’ve built slowly online into a real Presbyterian Church (USA) congregation is so exciting to me. I’m thrilled to have a group of people to connect with on a regular basis in a group, instead of “just” via twitter. Working on Mission and sacraments and all the nuts & bolts will be an adventure, but one I’m definitely feeling up to.

How do you do Mission if you’re not in the same physical region? Do we all go out and do the same thing on the same day in different areas? Is there a way to really connect mission in different regions with an online community? I would argue that there is a way to do it. I went to Nicaragua in 2006 with the Presbytery I am still currently affiliated with, along with a pastor from PingTung Presbytery in Taiwan. We were interested in working on triangulated mission. I then was asked to go to Taiwan to speak about it. Nothing came of it (that I know of), but the options are out there. We are a connectional church, we will figure it out, I’m confident of that.

A Church Online may not be for everyone. It may be something that is an addition to a weekly church service. It may be someone’s only church connection. But, this just proves that it can be for those who need it. I know that it comes at a time where I need a church, and this type of church is what I need.

So, here it is: LUPEC Seattle Goes to Ireland.

Maybe this will get me back into the swing of writin’… I am going to try to do better. In between job searching and church searching and all that, I am going to try to do better.

That has a nice ring to it!

I got certified! I have one more “test” to do, and that involves drinking down a snorkel. Ummmmm, I’m scared, yes, I am. Regardless, it’s the last thing I have to do. I did my rescue (my first “victim” didn’t survive, my second fared MUCH better) and my liveaboard and it was fantastic. I am so happy I came to do this here.

There is much more to write, but I have to prepare to go on another liveaboard, one that I am going to get PAID to go on. SUPAH, EH??

More photos will come when I’m back on land again. But, the flickr feed is updating as I type. So, check it: flickr de Noelle.

Regardless, back to the title of this blog. I bought a panettone. An imported one. It was 500 THB. This is the reason I find myself now babysitting on a Saturday night. Yeah, I’m exciting, I know. The sweet bread is delicious and I wanted one, from when I went to the market to get my secret Santa gift! That was over two weeks ago, so I’m still behind on things… All in all, it was delicious, and as big as my head. Seriously. I have pictures that prove this. They will come later.

I have assisted with more courses, helped with some Discover Scuba Diving courses and also have done a bit of guiding. I tried to write a map of a location I’m doing, in 1 meter visibility, and instead went back on the 1st Saturday of 2012 with another DMT (FINALLY!) and got proper measurements and also was able to see. It was amazing. After so many times of thinking I knew where I was on this dive site, to finally know where things are, from MEMORY, is wonderful.

Sunday I get to go back to the wreck where I went initially (see the post Well, That Sucked.) when I arrived in Khao Lak. I am looking forward to being able to see it – I hope. The visibility at the Bang Sak Wreck was good today, so MAYBE it’ll be good at Thai Muang on Sunday. Fingers crossed!

I have some pictures to post, and I’ll do that before I go on my liveaboard. I apologize for the lack of posts – this Noelle is tired!

edit: I posted the picture. And here’s a picture of my birthday cake, from the lovely Sarah.

I recently wrote down all of what I’d done in the past few days, and it went like this:
26 Nov: 2 dives at the Bang Sak Wreck, where I was supposed to map the thing, but I was pretty much unable to.
27 Nov: 3 dives of under 45 minutes for part of an advanced course – Peak Performance Buoyancy, Navigation and Search & Rescue.
28 Nov: office shift
29 Nov: Snorkel Guiding in the Similans
30 Nov: DMT lecture #2
1 Dec: Scuba Review at Khao Nayak – this was dive #100 and then #101. YIPPEE!!
2 Dec: DMT lecture #3

Saturday, 3 Dec, I started assisting with an Open Water course, which is a requirement for my DMT. It’s also good to go back over everything.

I was so excited to go to the Similans, even for snorkeling. After all, that’s why I’m here. THE SIMILANS ARE RAD. Of course it would have been better to have been diving, but Snorkeling is a requirement of my course as well! Every day I get to knock something off my schedule. There was a lovely US couple on the boat, who came diving with Sea Dragon the next few days. It’s so funny to meet people from the US who are on extended trips. All of our countrypeople always are stunned when you mention you’re going away for any time longer than 2 weeks. We have it much less awesome than the rest of the world! There was also a woman who is a scuba diver, but had her daughter with her, so she was snorkeling. She was so glad her daughter enjoyed the snorkeling, due to the fact that she misses scuba diving. It was fun to be with them as the daughter learned about the fish in the water!

On my scuba review assist, my instructor, Stephan, showed us where a baby box fish lived. OMG I LOVE THEM. As you may know, I have two tattooed on my back. So, yes, I love them. It was so cute and wobbly. (p.s. I need to get an underwater camera – but someone needs to sponsor me.)

I’m still a bit frustrated – if you are friends with me on the facespace, you’ll know that I posted that I am supah buoyant. It’s true. I am. My feet and legs like to float. I did some skills with Stephan in the pool the other day, including practicing hovering and my fin pivot. Stephan tried to tie my ankles together while hovering to get me to stay in one place. And then Stephan put 1kilo weights around my ankles. And I was FINALLY able to do a proper fin pivot. But good gawd it takes a kilo of weight around my ankle to get me there?? Now to practice the hovering. I was almost crying I was so frustrated.

I think one of the things that I’m having a really hard time with is doing everything so slowly – when I, as a DMT, model something, it has to be done instruction-level-quality, and slow enough. More exaggerated than most things. It’s hard for me, apparently. Ugh. Frustrated. Anyway, as I get to practice more, I hope to get better. It’s difficult, because I have no one to practice in the pool with. Usually there are at least 2 DMT candidates on a course (you may recall that I was supposed to have a classmate), so you can go into the pool and practice. But, as a solo student, I can’t go into the pool and practice alone. So, I’m on a mission to get more practice in, with other people who are in the office.

That’s the ONLY way I’m going to get anything done! And I have to get certain points to pass. ARGH!! Maybe I don’t want to go back to school.

Anyway, today is more Open Water class, starting in the pool, so I have to go get on that.

There’s a small part of me that misses the holiday season and being with family. Mostly the being with family. But the rest of me is okay with being here and missing out on the crazy, crass commercialism. I heard a few Christmas songs a week ago – and now I want them back.

My flickr feed has some more pictures on it. And I keep forgetting my camera. So here is the link again. Noelle’s Flickr Feed. I will try to do better!

Over the past few days, I’ve had to do some tests and some review. I finished all my knowledge reviews – including Chapter 9, which is the hardest chapter out of all of them – it’s all Dive Theory. There are questions about halftimes of tissues, absolute pressures, partial pressures, etc, etc. I didn’t do badly, but man do I need to work on my Dive Planning table work! There will be a test much harder than this soon.

I had to run through the skill circuit that goes for teaching students how to dive. There are 24 skills (mask clearing, hovering, taking off and putting on of your buoyancy control device – both at the surface and at depth, etc.) that I have to be able to reproduce with demonstration quality moves. So, I’ll work on that. I did fairly well for the first review, but mask clearing and hovering are huge issues. I hate having my eyes open under water (I have hated it since I was a kid) so it’s difficult I can keep my eyes closed, but I have to get much better and demonstrating the removal and clearing.

After the skill checklist, I had to tread water for 15 minutes, including 2 minutes where you had to hold your hands up to the sky. I told my instructor that it wouldn’t be a problem and he said – just wait till 10 minutes have passed.

I’m still waiting. The truth of the matter is this: my butt is so buoyant, it has a hard time not popping to the surface. I have to really learn my buoyancy better and figure out the weights – and how to situate them!

I was the victim for a rescue course for two days – it’s only fair that I now be the victim as I had my very own DMT as a victim in Nicaragua. Their beach rescue stuff was SOOOOO much nicer than mine. We had clear water and no surge and no waves. It was pretty great. For them. On Friday we did the actual scenarios. I got to hang out under water for a bit and just chill with the fishes while I waited for Sylvie and Andre to come find me. It was kinda fun. I got to see an Emperor Angelfish and some shrimpies and some other fun stuff. I was almost at the end of where I was supposed to go up, but they ended up finding me (after the almost full 15 minutes). I drank a bit of water when I was being given rescue breaths at the surface, but I have lived to tell the tale. We saw a pipefish on the second dive – it mostly looked like a piece of string, but one of the other instructors showed us that it wasn’t. Fun stuff!

I met a woman who is the CEO of Planned Parenthood for WA, ID and AK yesterday – that was great. She was in Laos giving away some money in the Phonsavan area, and decided to come down here for a few days of diving. Good times. All together now: It’s a small world, after all…

Today is mapping – I get to write down some details of fin kicks, and cool things to look at, on a wreck. I’ve been there before, and I like it, so looking forward to it. I’m also going with a DM that I’ve never gone diving with before. I think learning from various DMs and instructors is a good thing to do. Each of them have little tips!

I also think my computer is a bit confused. All these short dives are making it confuzzled. Up, down, up, down. Get with the program, dive computer!

So, I came away from Sunday really doubting myself and really being annoyed with the whole thing. Wondering why I was doing this, etc, etc. And then the instructor I was with was all bratty about some stuff, but at least she did speak with me about it, and I felt better. She wanted to give me some helpful hints for the Divemaster program and overall, they were helpful. I just don’t need someone to tell me that It’s not super easy – um, I know this. If it was super easy, everyone would be a DM and would be a dive guide. But, it’s NOT, so no, not everyone is doing it.

I decided to go home, do some navigation prep and then to call it a night early – and NOT to second guess my decision.

Monday was much better – and not just because it was my mom’s birthday (HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Mom!!). I did some navigation training with one of the managers at the shop, along with a German guy who was doing some specialty dives. (Sidebar: evidence of UK vs US English can be seen in Speciality vs Specialty and Snorkeling vs Snorkelling.) Luckily the instructor (and the student) were able to let me come along and learn while they did. Because, after all, underwater it’s the same language!

For Monday, I added more weights (and clarified the info on the weights I had on – in the shop there are 1kilo weights, on the longtails they’re .8kilos) and used some of the shop’s fins. Completely different diving.

Underwater navigation is a good thing to know, but sometimes visibility screws with your ability to correctly discern where things are. We tested fin kicks and how long it took to get from point A to point B and then used a compass to find locations. I think I’m rather dyslexic with the add or subtract degrees to make myself go right or left. So, there’s that problem. But, I got all the way around to almost where we started. It’s kind of funny when you’re underwater and using a compass to find your way around, you kick much more seriously than when you are just going on a dive for pleasure. So, that tends to make you have a single focus. I did that so much so that I almost lost the instructor and the other student. Oops. And with the visibility decreasing at the minimal depth we were at, this didn’t help. I stayed in one place for a while, and it was fine. After this, we went on a fun dive and saw a fun sole – it was almost invisible, but when it swam away, it was like a ribbon over the sand. When we ascended, I came up a few seconds too fast – I don’t know why I do this. It’s something I have to correct. Obviously.

On the second dive, we descended to try to find “the dive site” we marked with visual clues we made as we ascended. We came close, but not close enough to find it. We started with creating a hexagon underwater with markers – first Damian had to do it, and then I had to do it again. I didn’t find the same markers. D’OH! When we were done with that exercise, we got to do a fun dive. We found a kindergarten rock which was super – filled with baby fishies! We saw baby Moorish Idols, a baby pufferfish, and some other baby fishes. They were so tiny and adorable (yes, I’m a dork. But remember – I have fish tattooed on my back.) that I almost didn’t want to leave them.

This time I didn’t have any issues with my head down or anything, so I was pleased. Having proper neutral buoyancy is key. My weight belt stayed in one place – also good. We saw a tiny nudibranch – smaller than my fingernail! After the fun dive, we went back and found our “dive site” (aka the piece of rope in the ground) and then the instructor went to go see if we could find the markers from the hexagon. We found 3 of the 5. Maybe I’ll have to go map / find the others when I do my real Navigation test.

Overall, I feel very happy with the results of the dives on Monday. I did well, and the buoyancy issue was resolved. In addition, I met a girl named Kelli who may know my cousin from Antarctica. And, she lived a few blocks from my house in Hermosa. The world is small, yes it is.

Now it’s time to finish quite a few knowledge reviews. YAY for Studying!

And I have updated my pictures. Including a pic of the twin I met last weekend, whose twin in Orange County I’ve met before. Small world comes to mind…

I learned about refilling tanks with the compressor in the shop, loaning equipment to other dive shops, how to check out equipment to customers… all things that you need to know to work in the front office of the dive center.

So it was all very exciting. And I learned that my feet are very displeased with me – walking around on a cement floor all day, barefoot, is really quite awesome. Or not.

On Day 4, I get to do a Peak Performance Buoyancy PADI Specialty dive, one I’ve done already, but it will be a great one. It’s always good to do, especially since I now have a new wetsuit!

Even though I am paying someone to “let” me work in the office, it was still good.

Am I crazy? I think yes.

I got oriented to the DiveMaster Training schedule and also to the shop – all the detailed places in the shop were pointed out and then I worked on my self-inflating BCD with several people. Then, there were more knowledge reviews to do and reading to get done.

Day 1 was nothing too exciting, but it was fine. And then I was also able to stay out of the sun, so this was a bonus.

Day 2 was more classroom stuff – and knowledge reviews. I also was turned over from Axl to Stefan for the DM course. Stefan is more land-based, while Axl goes out on boats. I was to be Axl’s first DM student, but no longer!

In addition to classroom excitement, I had to complete a rescue assessment. Axl thought it would be an easy journey to the sea, but the surge was hellacious. I had to drag a non-responsive diver 25 meters to the shore and drag him out, all the while doing rescue breaths.

We were easily in waves of 1.5 meters high, so that posed problems. I never gave up, though – even though I wanted to walk my way home via Phuket to LA, but I didn’t. It was good to not have given up. The shore seemed to get further and further away as I attempted to get closer. It was very frustrating. Upon arriving at the sand, I fell over.

I came back to the Dive Center and wow – I think I took home half the sea shells on the shore in my gear.
I passed the scenario, and I know that I almost choked Stefan – but by the same token, the shore never got any closer.

All of these things makes for a very tired Noelle. And, it makes me say: WTF WAS I THINKING?? After the fact, though, I do feel pleased that I did it.

And, apparently the two instructors I was with have been saying what horrible conditions they were, and how I never gave up. I had several people come up to me today and mention it. So, I feel proud of that.

On to bigger and better things! Like guiding tours under the water.