Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Sumptuous meal in Seadrill Rig(beef, pork chop, lamb chop, salad, ice cream, juice, coffee etc..)
artificious ' 11:17 pm
Friday, September 12, 2008
Today, we were supposed to be playing DOTA all morning but we got 'chased' out of the room when the engineers needed it for a safety meeting.
Got out of the office and strolled to the girl's work place before finding ourselves strolling towards West Taurus (Seadrill Rig).
Our main purpose was to get free coffee but at the coffee station, there were lots of people which made us uneasy about the stealing of coffee. So we went to the canteen to take a look, there weren't anyone there, I took a gamble and asked the kitchen man if we could eat, guess what... he gave me a thumbs up! I was absurdly famish, I went straight for the ice cream which the 2 other friends of mine joined me. After ice cream, we had orange juice, biscuits and another round of ice cream. Oh wait, we even had a huge bowl of delicious salad. As we were about to leave, 11am, the Norwegeans started coming in for their lunch and we found out that they were served with beef, chicken cutlets, pork etc... We were definitely drooling, decided to go back on Monday for another treat.
artificious ' 10:00 pm
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
For some reason, it got me thinking this morning while talking to Hosea in the bus, "This life of mine currently, is quite very similar to Grey's Anatomy except there isn't the SEX."
Life today seemed like a routine of yesterday except I went into the cargo oil tank today and once again, something dangerously fun happened. I was in that dark smelly 5 storey tank for half an hour watching the workers do the scaffolds until a safety officer on the deck called everyone up. Climbing up the ladders were so much harder this time, as if I was about to suffocate anytime. When I got out of the man hole, I was greeted by a British. He stared at me for awhile and said, "Morning!"
"Yea Morning!"
"How do you stand it in there? So hot and smelly with no air flow! Fucking no air!"
"I think its quite fun..."
He then walks away shaking his head.
I was having a big question mark above my head then... until I realized that they didn't turn on the ventilation system, I could've died below due to lack of oxygen... and that was so damn cool!!
THE MANHOLE TO ENTER THE CARGO OIL TANK
MEN PULLING ROPES
THE PULLEY SYSTEM
V FOR VENDETTA?
FLOODING OF PACIFIC VIRGO
PACIFIC VIRGO LEAVING DRYDOCK
artificious ' 7:37 pm
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
Today Gopi found me in the meeting room just when I was about to take my morning nap.
He got me out of the office and down to the Angola's meeting point where I had to do the morning stretching with all the Indian workers. It was quite a funny sight though, having people older than me doing weird movements.
Gopi treated the workers like little kids, asked them to sit down in rows of four and they were so obedient and quiet. After seeing the morning briefing, which really made me feel like commanding a few workers, we went up to Angola. I followed him around the forward end of the ship checking on the scaffolding equipment and materials. After which we headed to the VSCC meeting, my second time to that meeting. This time, the entire meeting room was filled and the PM in the meeting was different from the last time's. It was a half an hour meeting that felt like an hour, the ambiance was so cold and dry that even a yawn can get everyone staring at you. After the meeting, Gopi didn't leave the room, he carried on discussing a topic with the safety officers. The topic was on a pulley system and the discussion slowly turned into an argument. I was like, "SERIOUSLY??? Hello??? Grow up???" I have never seen men argue over the safety of a pulley system so very rigorously.
After the commotion ended, Gopi brought me along to inspect the worker's progress in doing the in-tank scaffolding, good thing I need not go back into the 'sewer'. While I was doing my eye work, a British beside me said this to Gopi, "This is not good at all, am I talking to my fucking self? No one is listening to me, their not even wearing glasses!" I thought, 'hey, stop being a whiny little white ass and just shut up...'
When lunch was almost up, we went back to the meeting room for some drinks and Johnston (another British) spotted me and asked, "So whose that chap sitting at the back?"
"Lee, Malcolm Lee..."
"Oh! Malcolm X!"
"Hahaha... No... its Lee..."
"Don't learn anything from us, its all crap, stick to your books!"
"Well, certainly looks good here..."
"Farkya... so where ya from?"
"Ngee Ann Poly... I'm a student."
"Oh... so how old are ya?"
"17."
"Really? A virgin? We've got a virgin in the house!"
(Seriously... I was absolutely speechless by then... -_-")
artificious ' 6:35 pm
Monday, September 08, 2008
7.30am - Reached the office just on time.
7.45am - Had Khai Hung on my left and Wei Jun on my right playing DOTA while I slept in the middle for about 2 hours before I woke up to be entertained by Khai Hung's anime. Seriously, it is very entertaining, especially when certain body parts of females are dramatically enlarged.
11.00am - Went for lunch and I met Gopi while going out of the office.
Gopi: "Why never follow me in the morning?"
Malcolm: "Er... erm... ah I was very tired so I slept there..."
(what a perfect excuse for your superior eh?)
Gopi: "... oh... ok then later after your lunch come fine me..."
Then he stares at me, and smiles smugly. I knew he was up to something.
01.30pm - Gopi comes and find me, and as usual, I was sleeping.
"Want to come along?"
"Alright!"
He was already dressed in his harness, mask, gloves, safety glasses and
had two torch lights. I simply took everything except the harness which he
said wasn't necessary.
02.00pm - He brought me back to Angola, the massive oil tanker which was 5 storey high. Then he said, "I'll bring you inside the tank today, its very dark, take this torch light and... be careful." We put on our masks, and he went into the manhole first, then it was my turn. I looked into that huge manhole, there was a ladder leading down to a little platform below and beyond that, total darkness. As I crept down the rusty ladder, the stench of crude oil began to fill my nostrils but it was bearable. After landing on the little platform, I couldn't see anything but the distance of my shoes. At that point, I was certainly feeling lost and very lonely till seconds later, Gopi shone his torch at me before I found the next ladder down and realized that I was just another step to falling 5 storeys down into absolute darkness. With no harness, I didn't dare lift my hands off the rails to turn my torch on, one step at a time, I made my way down the gruelling steps.
03.00pm - Gopi brought along his workers to survey the tank on the construction of scaffolds. It has certainly passed half an hour and I wasn't feeling very good in that oil stenched tank filled with dust and probably harmful gases. The place was huge but extremely hot, I was perspiring like I had just gone for a sauna.
03.30pm - Finally Gopi brought me out and the way up wasn't any easier either. The first few ladders were chicken feet but after awhile my breathing somehow got tough, it was the same feeling when I was up at Mount Kinabalu, right at the peak. After I climbed out, I was feeling so very gay, so very high and so very dizzy. I must say, I was overjoyed to even see the sun. The sensation was very similar to a hang over except it didn't last as long. Oh, I witnessed a white man (not sure of his country of origin) saying this to a malay guy, "Today Fuck Fuck day mhm? Fuck Fuck day..."
Seriously... no kidding... I didn't know if I should laugh or cry...
03.50pm - Got back to office to change and went to the bus stop to wait for the girls.
05.15pm - 3 girls and 3 guys working at the shipyard reach the sports complex to play badminton. What does this say about the working life there?
Soon after an hour of playing, it became 4 girls and 4 guys which was quite very fun. The 8 of us played in one court, really made us a big attraction as no one in that place did that.
08.15pm - Changed and head down to Mcdonald's for dinner before heading home.
artificious ' 10:49 pm
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Just finished watching Gossip Girl 201 and One Tree Hill 601.
I really missed these two shows, especially at this period of time.
Might try on two new tv shows, "Samantha Who?" and "90210".
Went for a presentation this morning at 10am, was pretty good. The fact that this university student could spot that particular mess and thought of a way to solve it was quite impressive but I didn't think that the necessity was there. I skipped lunch today, due to the abundance of free cake and puffs from polar in that training room. After which we returned to office for more dota and I tried watching Gossip Girl but almost half way through, Gopi came in! Well certainly it was a surprise, for the very first time he asked if I would like to join him to go on board. I did hesitate a little then as the show was certainly more tempting than an Indian man.
He brought me onbaord a newly arrived ship called "Pacific Virgo", another massive oil tanker brought in for repairs and a repaint job.
After the on board tour, we strolled, really slowly to the main scaffolding office, to slack. One of the chinese engineer was surfing the net there, at first I thought he was researching something till I looked at his screen which stated, "SPEED DATING". He was having video chat with 4 girls!!! How awesome was that!! What a life... He started sharing stories of his life to me, particularly stories of him and his babes. Then after awhile, Gopi's colleague ordered 5 curry puffs for all of the people in that small office, the puffs were huge, three times the size of normal ones! After slacking for more than an hour with a room filled with full time working engineers, Gopi and I hoped onto a lorry and went back to the main office where it was also about time to pack and go home. (what a nice job eh?)
RANDOM PICS
artificious ' 8:39 pm
