So another day ends and I'm left - STILL partly feeling like I'm still bobbing up and down - to update this again :D A fair amount of wind today, and some strong gusts. We all (all two of us - I'll get onto number three in a moment) capsized lots. When you're heading upwind the boat tends to tilt, toppling over, the idea is that you act as a counterbalance and keep the boat level but that's easier said than done and yesterday resulted in my dunking. If it goes over too far then you're gone, you're down. As I think I mentioned yesterday it is possible to jump over the boat and onto the daggerboard that, when capsized, sticks out horizontally. I perfected that today, doing it again and again and again. Anyone also on facebook, which, I guess, is most of you, will have seen that I also went in once too. I'm not too sure what happened, I just ended up in the water somehow. The drysuit performed admirably again and it was extremely enjoyable to be bobbing about in the water and even got some swimming in (tugging my boat behind me once I'd got it up the right way again) before I was told to get back in my boat and get back to sailing - honestly, it's as if that's what I came here to do.
In the sailing sessions we were just perfecting techniques and trying to pull together everything to help us sail better and at the end of the day we had a short theory lesson on how a sail works (laminar for the most) which was interesting and cool. Confident now and having great fun zipping around. It's almost a shame it's the last day of dinghy sailing... for a week or so.
I said that there were only two of us today, and I wasn't lying. Last night... well, let me stop there because this has been what has been on my thoughts today. This morning me and the other person got a text from "number three" saying that he was going to take the day to get some rest; he'd gone over to some family the night before. At 9 o'clock we met with our instructor for the day, who turned out not to be Rob from yesterday, but a new one: Jake. We told him where number three was and that he wasn't going to come today, we kind of had to, but I'd forgotten the strange propensity this place has for gossip. Five minutes later the chief-instructor passes by and mentions about our friend on some wild night out... nothing of which the facts hinted at. Throughout the day various instructors knew of and had heard of it and on the way back in after the afternoon sailing session as I wondered what I'd be writing about today, and I thought about going into detail about what number three had done, I suddenly thought that, in a way, it to was gossiping. So I decided to cut that out and instead put together some thoughts on gossiping here.
From day 1 we were warned by various people we met around that gossip and reputations are very easily garnered around here. It wasn't a problem to me, I tend not to do anything that anyone can pick me up on unless it is, in fact, a good thing, such as not getting drunk although surprisingly enough that's not that interesting to that many people. But now I'm wondering whether number three is going to have to live with this for the rest of his time at the UKSA. Granted, he's only here for the kickstart week, but still...
So I reached the decision that maybe I should start to do something about it, no, I don't mean start sticking up signs saying "no gossipping" but what about by trying to anti-gossip. I'm not sure where this idea came from, I'm sure I've heard it before elsewhere. What if I start spreading nice things about people, counter the bad with the good. And of course good doesn't "spread" anywhere near so fast as bad but it does pervade. So I'll try it out and see what happens, it's harder to do than it sounds, why not try it? Pull yourself up when you start talking about someone else in a way that focuses on what they've done wrong or a mistake they've made, look at things they've done well. Is anyone fully bad?
So. Anti-Gossip. That was my overruling thought today, it seemed to be today's theme as it were. back to normal tomorrow? What is normal at the moment? Well I think I'll deal with that tomorrow maybe. Kayaking tomorrow, Martin is back :D :D looking forward to seeing him again and telling him of my exploits with footstraps and daggerboards i.e. yesterday. Looking forward to the kayaking, my favourite of the three disciplines for the moment, though we'll see what I say after tomorrow, eh?
Comment if you want: anti-gossip a good idea? Or is there something better?
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