Day 363 – Hyperbaric Miracle

Today was my last session at the hyperbaric chamber. A year and a half ago, while in Cozumel on my medical leave, I discovered that hyperbaric O2 therapy might help with migraines. The regiment is 20 sessions, one hour of continuous breathing of 100% O2 at the pressure of 2 bar (aka depth of 33 feet). Having had experimented with pretty much every other treatment on earth and nearly dying of the exhausting non-stop unbearable pain, I went for it. And miraculously, it helped! It didn't make my migraines completely disappear, but they became much less frequent and much more tolerable. For best maintenance, you are supposed to repeat the treatment every couple of years. That's why I have just completed my second hyperbaric cycle.

Hyperbaric O2 therapy is an amazing phenomenon. It looks like it helps with a huge range of diseases and injuries, from a bad burn to stroke to autism! Stroke is a very popular diagnosis qualifying for hyperbaric treatment in Mexico. One of the patients I shared the chamber with this time had a stroke, and I during the 20 days of my treatment I actually saw the progress of her recovery with my own two eyes, and it is remarkable. When she started, she couldn't talk at all, and then, little by little, her mouth came back to function, and words started to come out: very unsteady and cautious at first, they reached the normal speed and quality pretty fast and by her 35^th session her speech completely returned!

Yes, I know, there are some threats presented by O2. The overdose may result in oxygen toxicity and cause some unpleasant CNS problems, but it's impossible to get to such a destructive amount given the usual treatments' time / pressure combination. Of course, I'm not a doctor, but I honestly believe that the hyperbaric therapy is not that popular in the US only because of the economic threat that it may pose for the medical / pharmaceutical industry. If O2 under pressure can cure pretty much everything and anything, then who would spend money on anything else?

Day 362 – Bicycle! Bicycle! Bicycle!

• Put the volume of your speakers on maximum.
• Click on this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GugsCdLHm-Q.
  

Aha, thanks, now I can actually whisper it in your ear – I don't really know how to ride a bicycle. I have no idea how that happened, because I distinctly remember myself at the age of 3-4 on a four-wheel bike in front of my house. So I must have been learning how to manage it at some point. Or was I so terrible that my parents gave up and never offered me to try again? The reason is a mystery, but the fact is really sad. I mean, I can pedal of course, it's the stopping and starting that gives me problems. I remember when I was in Holland about 5 years ago, my friend Natasha had a really hard time babysitting me while we were driving the streets of Spijkenisse. There are special bike lanes and little bike traffic lights in Holland! Every time we had to stop, my poor friend had to hold my bike with one hand to prevent me from falling down. Luckily, she succeeded. Unlike me, she is very good on the bike (thank God).

But this ridiculousness stops right here, right now! I will learn to bike properly or else!

Step 1 – a bike

We bought a bike for me for $40 on the street. Somebody told us that there was a guy on the corner of 2^nd Street and 60^th Avenue who buys parts and assembles bikes. So we went to check it out. Walked the street back and forth, asked everybody around, but didn't find the guy in question. But pretty much everybody we asked had a bike of their own (or that of their son / daughter / father) that they were willing to immediately appraise and sell to us. Liang tested several of such offerings, and we ended up getting somebody's son's bike. I would have really loved to see the son's face when he came back home and realized that his bike had been sold…

Step 2 – a lesson

Javier is the best teacher. It's all because he is truly patient. His patience is real and sincere, he is patient with himself and others, and he is teaching you (at least trying) to be patient with yourself too. I need that. I'm very impatient with myself. I am a bit better with other people. But still, my patience is like Margaret Thatcher's, "I am extraordinarily patient, provided I get my own way in the end." (Observer, April 4, 1989). Well, in the bicycle case, I'll be patient, extraordinarily so, because I am fairly certain that I'll get my own way in the end.

The neighbor with the "small talk disorder" passed by as Javier was explaining to me how to train the brain to put the correct foot on the ground while stopping, and noted, "It's never too late to learn". Ouch.

Step 3 – a ride

I thought we were just studying today, but no, Javier had a different plan for me. He actually made me ride all the way from our house to the airport, then make a loop by the ocean and come back. We did it all at my turtle speed (it took 40 minutes!), but still I was completely drenched in sweat when I returned home. It was fun though! Thank God for other people's patience with me!

Day 361 – Neighbors

Our neighbors are two guys. Well, I am actually not sure of it anymore, because a couple of weeks ago they had "guests" over, and those guests never left. Their house is exactly like ours, which means it can comfortably accommodate 2 couples, and maybe if you have an inflatable bed – another person or two. They seem to have at least 10 people going in and out of their place every day. They are all nice, but they display some very strange behavior on a daily basis.

For example, one guy exercises every day – push-ups, pull-ups, pool, you name it. Nothing wrong with that in principle, but the sound track is a bit over the top. Every push-up he makes is accompanied by an orgasmic moan, every pool lap (and the pool is barely 12 feet long) produces a long loud wail. The first time I heard his exercise audio, I was taken aback, surprised that somebody could feel so compelled to advertise their sexual activities to the entire neighborhood. When I finally realized what was actually going on, I was no less surprised though. Why would you do anything like this? Really, why?

Another guy always strikes up a conversation with you. And not really "hi-bye" type of thing, but some kind of real – even though small – talk. And I personally see him many times a day: in the courtyard, by the gate, under the palapa (our terraces face each other). And no, he is not "interested" in me. It just seems that he feels earnestly obligated to say something when he sees a person. Some kind of social disorder, really.

Yet another guy is playing the guitar. Not that it's bad in principle, but… All day long… Sometimes it's just "tram-tram-tram" for hours. Sometimes he's also singing, which – again – is not bad, but if I want to keep my sanity, I have to find a way to make him expand his repertoire, because if I hear "bye, bye, miss American pie" one more time, @(%*&$)(%&!

P.S. Speaking of strange neighborship...

Days 357-360 – I’m a complete dork

I haven't been in school for about 15 years, so I already forgot what a dork I am. Now I remember… I just cannot stop studying. I don't think I would be able to sleep well at night if I didn't at least try to figure out everything that needs to be figured out for the exam. I can hardly imagine all the stupid pistons, diaphragms and valves of the dive equipment, but stubbornly, I keep reading about them in the hope that the information will somehow retain in my memory and my brain will miraculously be able to recognize the right answer's wording pattern from the multiple choice of the coming testJ. We shall see.

Luckily for my sanity, the course includes a lot of physical activity (otherwise I'd just happily bury myself in books and that would be the end of it for sure). For example, in the past couple of days I had to learn:

How to search and recover an object underwater

It was pretty fun. I was on the team of 3 people and we had to find an object – a weight – underwater at the Villa Aldora, tie it to a lift bag using one of the three knots that we were supposed to learn beforehand and bring it to the shore. It took us 39 minutes to actually find the object, so thorough was our search patternJ. And we messed up the route a bit, because our navigator buddy decided to change the course from 360/180 to 300/120 for some reason, so instead of going perpendicular to the shore in a more "compact" pattern, we were doing it pretty much diagonally. Oh well. We did not mess up the knots though! Which was nice, because for some reason I had a really hard time getting it when testing my skills on a real rope before the dive. It was strange, because when I practiced on my robe tie the other day at home, I was super comfortable with each of the required knots. Go figure…

How to tie knots

If for whatever reason you want to learn how to tie knots professionally, here are some helpful websites that show the process step-by-step:

• Bow-line knot.
  
• Sheet bend (Becket bend) knot.
  
• Hitch knot.
  

Try it when stressed out and frustrated. It has a good therapeutic power.

How to assist in an Open Water course

I also had to assist Liang in doing an OW course for Lukas – one of the German speaking Italian friends of hers. Man, teaching how to dive is pretty damn difficult (of course, I didn't do anything, just had to be there and demonstrate some skills on Liang's demand, but judging by the looks of it – very involved). And it takes a long time. But it must feel very rewarding as well. When we finished with the class, Lukas – who is a natural, really – was "shining like a polished samovar" (I'm sure you can tell that this is a Russian idiom for "looking happy"). And then we ate freshly "caught" sea urchins. It was delicious.

I have stamina!

I was dreading the day of the "stamina test", because not only you have to perform some swimming skills on the surface (which is no problem for me), but you actually have to do it under a certain time to pass! And although I am very comfortable in the water and can stay afloat / swim forever, I don't really know any proper swimming techniques and I was sure I was very slow.

To be precise, during this test, you have to:

• Swim (no snorkel or fins) 400 meters under 6.20 minutes for 5 points, under 8 minutes for 4 points… and you have to just do it for 1 point;
  
• Perform a tired diver tow for 100 meters under 2 minutes for 5 points, under 3 minutes for 4 points, under 4 minutes for 3 points (and my God, this one is unexpectedly tough, all of us felt completely dead on arrival);
  
• Swim (with snorkel and fins) 800 meters under 10 minutes for 5 points, etc. (this one is still pending for me).
  

I was going for 1 point (just for doing it) on each of the timed exercises. So imagine my surprise when I actually got 4 points for the no-fins swimming (to be fair, I was still the last one, but I did it under 7.20 minutes!) and 4 points for the tired diver tow (I actually could have gotten 5, I came at 2.01)!!! It's so funny how little things like this make you happy. The realization that I'm actually not as physically-challenged as I thought I was gave me so much energy for the rest of the day that I could have surely moved some mountains (fortunately, the need for testing that never arose).

Day 356 – The coolest exercise ever!

We did the coolest exercise as part of the Dive Master course today – equipment exchange while buddy breathing. What is means precisely is you have to swap all your gear (fins, booties, BCDs, masks) underwater while sharing the same regulator, which in turn means that you make 2 breaths through the regulator and then give it to your buddy and while they are breathing, you are just exhaling for their 2 breaths, and so on. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is one - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPNF4OsAMME&feature=related. Liang and I, of course, didn't do it wearing just bathing suits like the guys in the video; it was more like 15,000 mm of neoprene and hence 15,000 pounds of weight to make sure you don't float up when removing your BCD.

I loved it! Of course, you would never do anything like this on a real dive. So why include it in the training? Well, because this is exactly what diving is about – being in total control while multi-tasking. And if you do it well (which I did, yay!), you feel super-accomplished. It was a lot of fun, too!

The additional bonus of the day was a totally unexpected night dive. I actually got to go on the boat as a Dive Master candidate, so I had to assemble people's gear, distribute weights, etc. And to have dinner with those clients afterwards. Work, in other words. It was pretty awesome to participate in diving from "the other side". And it was equally awesome not to have to pay for this dive.

Day 355 – Physiology of diving

I never thought I would enjoy studying for the Dive Master exam that much. Of course, now I have a total mess in my head from all the three thick books we had to digest, but it's a pretty cool mess! Physiology and physics turned out to be the most interesting part. Not only I can explain the Decompression Sickness phenomenon in scientific terms based on the Henry's law and Haldanean model, but I also know the mechanism of shallow-water blackout during apnea diving and can easily distinguish ossicles from cochlea. Well, maybe some people know all of this without any studying, but since I didn't, I'm excited now. And I feel accomplished. Now we'll see how I'll do on the actual exam – hopefully, the mess in my head will turn into a somewhat organized formation in the next couple of days…

Day 354 – Finally clean and suddenly gasless

Naturally, my badmouthing of the gas truck yesterday was immediately followed by punishment. We invited Daniel and Lukas, Liang's friends from Italy, for dinner. The guys are from the Northern part of Italy that, apparently, should belong to Austria, and insist on speaking German, not Italian – very confusing. Anyway, Liang was planning to make chilaquiles, but when she turned on the stove, there was no gas… And it was already in the evening, after the gas truck's hours of operation. And our water is gas-operated, so no hot shower either. We wished that in addition to the usual million times it would pass by our house just once more today, but no such luck. That'll teach me not to blow upon municipal services!

There was a bright side to the day though. Finally, we got a cleaning lady to come to our house! We have been trying to do it for over two weeks now. I never imagined it would be so difficult to convince a cleaning lady to show up. But there was some communication issue between all the parties involved in this negotiation, so in the meantime we had to live in a pigsty (well, that's an exaggeration, of course, it wasn't that bad). But now the house is spotless. And it will stay this way at least until tomorrow, because right now there's no gas to splash any cooking oil around and dirty some dishes. Indeed, there's a silver lining to anything…

Day 353 – “Musical” Cozumel

Some things are ridiculous here. For example, right by our house there's some kind of military school. And every night (excluding the sacred Sunday), at 8.30PM the marching band starts – drums and brass and whole nine yards. And this "concert" consistently continues until 11PM! At first, I thought that they were rehearsing for a parade and was eager to know the date of the parade, because on that date my suffering would stop. But imagine my disappointment when instead of the parade date I learnt that "this is just what they do on a regular basis"… Why, oh why?

Another fine example of Cozumel's love for music is… the gas truck. The gas truck goes around the island a million times a day, which means that it can pass by your house a million times a day. Very unfortunate. I invite you to be the judge of this lovely performance. It's worse than the American ice-cream truck, really.

Day 352 – La systema...

I went to get a Mexican cell phone today. After 20 minutes of looking through different plans offered and figuring out all the details (well, it wasn't really overwhelming as there are only two options), I chose one. The store assistant went to the back of the office to grab some necessary paperwork, but when she returned, she brought back a most surprising message, "I am sorry, ma'am, we don't have any numbers at the moment… Could you please come back a bit later?" Eh? What does it even mean? Apparently, it means that there are no telephone numbers available for sale at the moment. At the Telcel (Mexican AT&T) main store! Seriously? Wow!

I asked the girl, "How is it even possible?" She smiled back, "La systema…" I love Mexico!

Day 351 – The warmest dive ever!

I have been here for two weeks already, but between all the 20 sessions I have to do for my poor head in the hyperbaric chamber during the week and sucky weather on weekends, I still haven't started the real diving. I mean, I had a couple of shore dives as part of the Dive Master course, but that is quite different from a beautiful reef drifting through the waters of Cozumel. And finally, today I went DIVING.

It was a perfect day. After the 4-day Norte, finally, sun and no wind. I was on the boat with Javier. We went to Palankar Caves and Dalila. What an amazing feeling it is to be back in the water after several months of surface breathing! All geared up, you sit on the edge of the boat, wait for the captain to say, "One, two, three, GO!" and… You hit the water, feel its refreshing coolness on your face (that is if you are me and the rest of your body is tightly wrapped in brand new 8-mil semi-dry neoprene), deflate your BCD and suddenly all you see around you is the blue of the ocean and all you hear is your own slow deep breathing. You turn to face the reef beneath you and start your descent. Slowly, very slowly you move deeper and deeper, carefully savoring every foot of this downward soar, feeling this almost pleasant pressure in your ears right before you have to equalize, tasting the salt of the ocean, gliding, gliding, gliding… Now you are there, right on top of the reef. You let your body find its perfect little nook in the current and let go, dissolving in the water. And that's it. Nothing has ever existed before that moment, and nothing will ever exist after. There's only this very slow, deep, wet, salty now...

But enough of this lyric! The most amazing thing about this dive was, in fact, that I did NOT get cold! Yes, I was wearing my brand new 8-mil semi-dry AquaLung suit. Yes, when I bought it at Leisure Pro in NYC this summer, the entire store openly laughed at me after they learnt that I was planning to use it in the Caribbean. Yes, I look like a seal when I wear it and everybody on the boat makes smart-ass comments. So what! I feel WARM in it. I want to emphasize – not just NOT COLD, actually WARM. And it is surprisingly easy to put on. And it's flexible and doesn't restrict your movement despite its thickness. So let them laugh. Let's see who's going to have the last laugh, wha-ha-ha. When we came up after the second dive, everybody asked for a parka… except for me! Here's to thick neoprene! Here's to double seal! Here's to as many millimeters as it takes to stay sane! Viva AquaLung and the inventor(s) of semi-dry suits! OK, I'm done now.

Day 350 – Physics of diving

The weather is still miserable. The rain, the wind, the whole disgusting nine yards… But, it's not like I could have taken advantage of any beautiful weather anyway, because I have A LOT of homework! All day long I have been glued to The Encyclopedia of Recreational Diving (one of the Dive Master course manuals).

Today I'm studying the physics of diving. I learn that:

• Water is able to conduct heat about 20 times faster than air.
  
• Underwater objects appear closer by a ratio of about 4:3 and tend to be magnified by 33%.
  
• Sound travels approximately 4 times faster in water than it does in air, because the denser and more elastic the medium, the better sound is transmitted.
  
• You have difficulty determining the direction of sound underwater because there's an insufficient delay between the sound striking one ear before the other.
  
• Following Boyle's law formula P1 x V1 = P2 x V2, we can calculate that if a balloon containing 10 cubic feet of air at 25 feet of seawater is taken to a depth of 85 feet, its exact volume upon reaching 85 feet will be 4.91 cubic feet.
  
• The pressure changes approximately 5 psig (pounds per square inch) with every 1 degree Farenheit.
  
• And finally, a 12 liter scuba cylinder that is filled to 200 bar at an ambient temperature of 26C will have the cylinder pressure of 187 bar in water temperature of 7C, because according to Charle's law, P1 x V1 / T1 = P2 x V2 / T2. First, we need to bring everything to the absolute zero though, which entails converting a Celsius into a Kelvin reading (simple – by adding 273C).
  

ARGH! Shoot me!

At 6PM I decide that I've had enough of this greatness and cook dinner - chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. Like a real chef I modify the recipe… and use only 35 cloves of garlicJ.

Day 349 – The colors of Cozumel

Day 348 – The Old New Year

Remember how the Julian calendar affected the Orthodox Christmas timing? Well, it did the same thing with the New Year's, and the Orthodox New Year falls on January 14^th, making January 13^th the Old New Year's Eve. It has become customary in the Slavic tradition to celebrate both New Years. Of course, Slavic governments couldn't care less about the Julian calendar, and only January 1^st is a public holiday and a day off, but all Russians homes host a mini celebration with the traditional New Year's table: Olivier salad, herring under a furcoat, a ton of cold cuts, red caviar, fish in aspic, and of course, vodka.

This holiday is both beautiful and sad. Its beauty is a very cozy, homey, warm celebration – none of this real New Year's noisy rush. And its sadness is the conclusion of the winter holiday cycle – New Year, Christmas, Old New Year. If during the 2 weeks between January 1^st and January 13^th there's still some magic in the air, some indescribable hopeful agitation (hopeful of what? doesn't really matter, just hopeful!), on January 14^th the new year has really begun, the magic is over, and you should start the work on your resolutions to make sure you have something good to discuss at the next year's celebration.

Days 347 – El Norte

Burr, it is so cold now in Cozumel! El Norte (the strong Northern wind) has brought rain and chill to the island. The port is closed, and the weather is so bad, that Aldora couldn't even dive on the other side of the island, as it usually happens during El Norte. This time, the weather on the East side is as bad – if not worse – than on the West side. It is strange to see everybody wearing a jacket here, but hey, this is what you do when it's 60F.

I'm glad I'll be here here for a long time and don't have to force myself to dive in this cold just because I have to take advantage of every day. And watching the rain through the bay windows of our house with a cup of hot tea and a piece of banana bread is actually pretty enjoyable.

Day 346 – What is humility

Humility is the quality of being modest, reverential, even politely submissive, and never being arrogant, contemptuous or rude. Humility, in various interpretations, is considered a virtue in many religious and philosophical traditions, being connected with notions of transcendent unity with the universe, and of egolessness.

I have always been an "A-student". High-school, University, subsequent jobs – all have been pretty easy for me. I guess, I'm fairly smart, so my brain grasps and applies new concepts very quickly. I'm used to it.

My body though is a totally different story altogether. Thanks to my mother's awesome genes I look pretty athletic, but I'm not at all. And I mean, AT ALL. During high-school I was exempt from PE due to my poor vision and absence of contact lenses, humanitarian faculties in Russia don't offer sports, and in general I had never been drawn to engaging myself into any sportive activity. I'm also very clumsy. As a result, all my sports attempts have always been lamentable at best.

In the physical part of the Dive Master course there are a lot of skills you have to master. Rescuing an unconscious diver is probably the most difficult for me (well, so far). You have to tow the diver to the shore (sometimes against current), while performing rescue breathing and at the same time removing their gear and your own. Oh my! My uncoordinated self suffers the most from this exercise. I already when through this nightmare once last summer in my Rescue Diver training, but now we have to display "demonstrational quality" (since we are becoming Dive Masters which implies assisting in teaching). That means you have to do everything super slow, point out and talk through every important step in the sequence AND make it seem very easy. Well, it is not easy. Not for me. Not at this point anyway. Logically, with my brain, I understand everything and I can visualize myself doing it perfectly well. But alas, it takes my body a long time to "get" new concepts, it's just not as smart as my brain, and there's nothing I can do about it.

I know that I will definitely master all that needs to be mastered in the course, just give it time. But I have to admit, it is very strange not to be an "A-student" that I usually am. I'm totally not used to that. I'm kind of liking it though. Unexpectedly, this course has become a psychological exercise for me as well. It is my lesson in humility. Here's to the virtues!

Day 345 – Dive #200

On January 10^th, 2009 I went to a Bulgarian bar-club Mehanata in New York to enjoy a Japanese Gypsy Rock music by Kagero. Finally, after a 5-month head-banging agony of my non-stop migraine, I felt pain-free and hence very-very happy. It is interesting how we learn to appreciate all the little things in life – absence of constant pain, for example, - only after we have been deprived of them for a while. Now I know better and live every headache-free day as if it were my lastJ. Anyway, the day started very nicely and I was loving every moment of it. Little did I know that I would also remember that day forever, because this was the day that changed my life.

At Mehanata, I drank lots of bourbon (it tasted so delicious after 5 months of abstinence!), chatted with everybody at once, and danced like crazy to the Gypsy music (I rarely do that, unfortunately – I so wish I didn't need a ton of alcohol to be able to dance freely). In the middle of this insanity, I was suddenly tapped on the shoulder. I turned my head. Here were Alex and Ellen standing in front of me clearly wanting to talk. Having an intelligible conversation at a loud place like this is next to impossible, but somehow – using the full capacity of our lungs – we managed to communicate the main thought. Which was… Alex and Ellen are going to Cozumel in the beginning of February for a week. Ellen is an avid scuba diver and she will be diving every day while there. Alex, on the other hand, is not a scuba diver at all. In fact, he tried it once in Florida, pretty much hated it and wants nothing to do with it ever again. "So… Why don't you, Masha, join us for our trip? - Alex says. – That way Ellen can enjoy diving without feeling guilty for leaving me behind, while you and I can spend our day drinking tequila and cervezas while waiting for Ellen to come home and join the festivities. Come on, Masha, come with us, be my non-dive buddy!" I had already been infected with the travel bug and normally took every opportunity to go somewhere new, work permitting. And the bourbon made the "work permitting" part seem so easy to handle that I immediately said, "Yes. Of course, I'll go with you guys. With pleasure!"

I woke up early the next day. I always wake up very early when I drink the night before. I kind of forgot about our conversation with Ellen and Alex, so I was a bit shocked when the first email in my Inbox read, "Masha, thank you so much for agreeing to go with us. Here is our flight and lodging information. Please get your tickets asap before the prices go up." It seemed very strange to me that I had agreed to go to the tropics when I hate the heat, to the ocean when I hate the sand, to a diving place when I am scared to death by as much as snorkeling. But oh well, I'm a woman of my word, and so I decided to follow through…

The first day in Cozumel, Alex and I were true to our tequila/cerveza plan, but the next day we were talked into taking a Discover Scuba course with Javier. And we met Sallye. And even though I didn't immediately realize it, this was the end of my life as I knew it. Alex and I ended up loving scuba and dove every day for the rest of that week.

On January 10^th, 2011 I completed my Dive #200 which was part of my Dive Master course. I don't have the "work permitting" constraint anymore. I still don't like the heat, but I tolerate it very well. I still don't like the sand on the surface, but I enjoy it tremendously underwater, I still don't like snorkeling (the "Luke, I'm your father" sound of breathing is creepy), but it turned out that the regulator is a much better device than the stupid snorkel, so breathing underwater is not scary at all. In fact, it's wonderful. Simply wonderful.

Day 344 - A Sunday in Cozumel

Day 343 – A lebanese kafta under a Mexican palapa

Today we had our first official dinner with friends at the new house. I will consider this the housewarming. Now that I've tested the oven on my favorite easy dish, Lebanese kafta, I conclude that a lot of cooking will be done in this house. I'm excited!

We had Juan (Liang's friend, also a dive instructor) and Javier over. Our menu consisted of the aforementioned kafta and a very simple salad with the honey-mustard dressing I learnt from a friend in Russia (although I had to improvise a bit in the absence of honey, and replace it with sugarJ), and we ate it all on our beautiful terrace under the palapa. For 4 hours we just ate, drank tea, and talked about everything and nothing: traffic in Mexico City vs other capitals, memory exercises, diving issues, languages, rent. Our silly discussion – more of a story exchange really – made me think of the mechanism of conversation development. Conversational pleasure never comes from the subject chosen. It's just that when you like people, when you click with them, you can take any seemingly ridiculous topic and happily go on forever, and I mean, literally, forever. With others, however, it's impossible to get any remote satisfaction from a most "intellectual" theme. Thankfully, our conversation fell under the former category. Oh, and I forgot to mention that it was all in Spanish! Not that I was the most talkative person at the table, but I am proud to report that I was able to share a few little stories of my own. I'm getting there. Definitely getting there.

When Juan was leaving, he paid a Mexican compliment to my cooking: "Ya te puedes casar" – "Now you can get married". Little did he know…

Days 337-342 – Settling down in Paradise

And I'm back to Cozumel again. My energy place, my power spot, my personal paradise. I stopped trying to understand what it is that makes me feel so good here. I decided it's enough to just feel good, why ask questions. This time I'm planning to be here quite a while: 3-6 months. I'm excited about "settling down" here.

Here are the objectives of my long stay here:

• Complete the Dive Master course.
  
• Dive a lot.
  
• Explore new diving spots with my friends.
  
• Travel around Mexico (at least, around Yucatan).
  
• Do another round of hyperbaric treatments for my headache.
  
• Feel good.
  
• Figure out what's next.
  

Liang and I rented a 2-bedroom Villa Fontana together (Calle 12^th and Avenida 15^th). Yep, it's in town, so no ocean view for me this time, but the price is so worth taking a short stroll to the sea! The villa is awesome. Part of a very well maintained little residential complex with a pool and a beautiful garden, our town villa is a two-storey spacious construction with a full kitchen, dining room, living room, 2 bedrooms with full baths, guest bathroom, and a palapa covered terrace with a grill. It doesn't get better than that. Well, if it were on the ocean, it would be better of course. Although… I do feel more like a local being in town. So maybe it truly doesn't get better than that, after allJ.

Liang has her own place till January 21^st, so I moved in by myself for now. Efficiency being the motto I seem to have been born with, it took me only a couple of days worth of shopping at La Mega to make this house look like I have been living here for years. And I feel like I have been living here for years.

All in Spanish (very proud of myself, naturallyJ), I paid visits to the Cablemas (cable company office) and Elektra (electronics store) to get contracts for wi-fi at the house and a Mexican cell phone. Here you have to do everything in person. You cannot just call Cablemas and schedule a technician to come and install internet. No, you have to go to their office, spend 5,000 hours talking to a clerk about the weather and their family situation, and then you may be granted a privilege to be a happy owner of an internet contract. Things like this still make me feel uncomfortable and a bit awkward. Although I'm a very social person, I actually don't like small talk and I certainly don't like small talk to people who I don't know and chances are will never see ever again. But a mandatory discussion of weather and family seems to be a rule here on the island (probably the same as in any small town), so I must get used to it. When in Cozumel…

For the sake of full disclosure, let me add that both visits were only partially successful. The internet will be installed only next week. First, they told me January 20^th! Seriously? There are so many people on Cozumel who need internet installed right now, in the next two weeks? I cannot believe that! So I asked to escalate the issue to the manager. It sort of worked, and now – fingers crossed – I will have everything working on Monday-Tuesday. As to the cell phone, the service that seemed a reasonable option to me – Movistar – turned out to be the one that nobody uses, so it's very expensive to call other cell phones back and forth, and now I need to exchange it for the more common service – TelCel. Oh wellJ.

I have been here almost a week, and I still haven't dived once. This time I'm doing my hyperbaric treatments at the public hospital. It is 3 times cheaper than the private chamber I used before. But of course, there's no such thing as a free lunch. And you "pay" for the low price by having to adhere to their schedule and sharing the chamber with 2-3 other people (that is no big deal at all). So instead of real diving, for the next 2 weeks I'll be enjoying only the hyperbaric diving in the chamber. It's exactly the same time though – 7.30AMJ.

I won't let this bother me. After all, I'll be here for a while and will have plenty of time to catch up on real diving. Plus, my DM course that starts on Monday will naturally have some diving included (and conveniently for my chamber schedule the course takes place in the afternoon). Of course, constant working on pretty difficult skills is not the same as relaxing sight-seeing dives, but what the heck, it's still underwater.

Every morning I leave my house at 7AM to go to the chamber. The first breath I take in is always a breath of unconditional happiness that this place fills me with. Strolling the still silent morning streets of Cozumel, I think of nothing. And life is beautiful.

P.S. We had the Russian Christmas celebration (it takes place on January 7th) at La Cocay, a fancy and delicious restaurant on the island. The owner is from NYC, and it shows in the awesome steaks they serve. Spectacular!

Day 336 – The best day of the year

I love January 1^st! This is the best day of the year! Our tradition is to stay in pj's all day, do nothing, eat delicious leftovers and watch the same New Year movie – "Irony of Fate" ("Ironiya Sudby, ili S legkim parom" to be precise). Watch it, even if you are not Russian! I have never seen anybody who wouldn't love it.

Day 335 – Happy New Year!

I used to love New Year's celebrations. Now I don't care. It's sad not to be excited about such a festive holiday. Of course, I love good food and good company, and all of this is present and very enjoyable at our traditional New Year's celebrations, but now it's just another great gathering, another dinner, nothing extraordinary. That magical excitement, that skip in your heartbeat is missing, and that is what provokes my New Year's melancholy. I guess you need to be a child to experience the mysterious spirit of New Year's. Or maybe you need to have a child, so that you can see this overwhelming mystery reflected in their eyes and hope that a drop of it spills over to end up in your heart.

Lately, I've been thinking that I am finally ready and willing to have a child (of course, now that I'm 36, the good question is whether I'm able to or not, but that doesn't really concern me too much – I am up for adoption). Ironically, this became clear to me several months after I had decided that I didn't want to have any children at all. I remember this moment very well.

Almost same time last year, I was enjoying a starry Cozumel night in a hammock, not thinking about anything in particular. I've learnt that it is very easy to dissolve your hectic thoughts in the roaring sea. It has this repellent effect on all your little annoying thought flies: they simply disappear giving way to that one real thought that lives at the bottom of your heart but which you can't usually hear behind this constant buzz. So suddenly it came to me. I don't want to have children. When I was growing up, I was always embarrassed by my mom's age. She was old. And that was uncool. At that time in Russia women normally started having children at the age of 19-20, and my mom was 34 (!) when she had me. Do the math. I remember promising myself to be a cool "young mom", and specifically, to give birth at 19. When I was 18, I raised the bar a bit and said to myself, "Well, I should really graduate first. 24 sounds like a good age". At 23, I thought, "30! 30 is the perfect age. You get a bit wiser (hopefully), you are still healthy and energetic, and you have already 'had enough fun' to dedicate your life to new responsibilities". That's it, 30 it is!" At 30, however, something came up. And then something else. And something else. And here I was a year ago, childless at the age of 35, finally realizing that I had never before actually asked myself if I really wanted to have a child. I was stunned. All my life I took it for granted that I should have one. But if I really wanted a child, I would have made it happen by now. I had plenty of opportunities (as well as heated discussions on the subject with my exes). Wow. Unexpected, but very, very clear. Up to that moment of hammock truth I actually had never wanted to have children. If I had only ever asked the right question! The answer had always been there, it's just that I had never been around the roaring sea that would make all the hectic insect thoughts crowding my mind shut up.

This realization made me feel so liberated back then! And look at me now, watching the Christmas tree lights blink, imagining myself in a house full of happy noise of wrapping paper being ripped by little hands in a hurry to get to the bottom of all the boxes at once... Go figure.