On cooking

I’m not a very big fan of Mexican food. In fact, I’m not a fan of Mexican food at all, and it’s only over the past two years – out of necessity, you might say – I learned to be OK with it. I also discovered all these Cozumel home-style eateries, so it’s much more manageable for me now. Yet once in a while I feel like I’ve just had it. I look at the menu and think, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Hell no! Argh, still no…”

The problem with Cozumel is that there’s no cuisine variety on the island. Naturally, most of the restaurants are Mexican. And the only other good option that is well and deliciously represented is Italian. Which would be great, except I don’t like Italian that much either. No, wrong. It’s not that I don’t like it, I just cannot consume a lot of it – it has too much carbs for me. And it’s not about gaining weight (I’d actually appreciate that right now), but since I was a child I really never could eat a lot of pasta or bread or anything doughey. The only carb I’m in love with is potato. How cliché. What else do you expect from a Russian?

I’ve had it for the past couple of weeks and after turning my nose away from every meal on restaurant menus, I finally decided to cook at home. I’m a gadget person, so I feel like I cannot just cook in a pot or a pan – I need a device. It was a slow cooker in NYC, but since here electricity is pretty expensive (which could be totally overlooked by the way if only I found a slow cooker in any of the Cozumel stores) I bought a pressure cooker. I discovered that every American or Mexican has memories of their grandmother pressure cooking something delicious. I have no such recollections – Russian grandmothers never used anything like this, and the first mention of the healthy pressure cooked meal appeared with Zepter after the Soviet Union collapsed.

I googled some recipes. Not that many came up. I emailed my cooking advisers; they didn’t have a ton of recommendations either (but they both sighed nostalgically, “Ah, I remember my grandmother made this delicious…”). It looks like the art of pressure cooking is getting lost.

So I decided to experiment. After doing some research on cooking times for different meats and vegetables, I set out to modify some of my slow cooker recipes for my new pressure cooker. Surprisingly, it worked! And it came out as delicious as out of my slow cooker! The only sad thing is that the apartment doesn’t get permeated with delicious smells like with a slow cooker – there’s just not enough time, I guess (7 hours in a slow cooker is about 30 minutes in a pressure cooker). And the noise is spectacular. In the manual it says to start counting cooking time from the moment the pressure control starts to jiggle. Sounds pretty harmless. Sounds like the pressure control is going to do a little dance, actually. But whoa! Is this hissing, shrilling and whistling what is called “jiggle”? But now I’m used to this “jiggling” and can take it for 30 minutes without running to hide behind a couch in fear that the pressure control is going to pop out of the lid and fly straight into my head like some champagne cork. And these fast meals are really yummy. My favorite, so far, is beef stroganoff.

Beef stroganoff for pressure cooker

Serves 6-8

1 1/2 cups low-sodium beef broth
1/4 cup dried porcini mushrooms , rinsed and patted dry
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 onions , chopped fine
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1/2 cup white wine
1/3 cup soy sauce
4 pounds boneless beef chuck stew meat cut into 1 1/2-inch pieces (see note)
1 pound white mushrooms , cleaned and quartered
6 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sour cream
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill leaves
Salt and pepper

1. Combine ½ cup broth and porcini in bowl and microwave until steamy and mushrooms have softened, about 1 minute. Line fine-mesh strainer with one paper towel and strain porcini, reserving liquid. Chop porcini fine and set aside.
2. Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering. Cook onions and tomato paste, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, 7 to 10 minutes. Stir in wine, soy sauce, remaining broth, chopped porcini, and reserved porcini liquid, scraping up any browned bits with wooden spoon. Bring broth mixture to boil, then transfer to pressure cooker. Add beef and white mushrooms to pressure cooker, cover, and cook on medium flame until meat is tender, 30-40 minutes.
3. Skim fat from surface. Transfer 2 cups sauce from pressure cooker to large bowl and whisk in flour. Stir flour mixture into pressure cooker and cook, covered, until sauce thickens, about 5 minutes. Stir in sour cream and dill and season with salt and pepper. Serve.

When Liang and I lived in our Villa Fontana house we had a full kitchen. And we used it fully, except maybe the oven. No, the oven wasn’t used too often, maybe three times during all the six months we were there. In this apartment I don’t have an oven, just a stove. And naturally, all I want now is to cook something in the oven! Fortunately, there’s an electric oven of a decent size here, so game on! I decided to start with something simple and fast to cook (I haven’t seen the electricity bill just yet – in Cozumel you have to pay it every two months – but just in case I feel like I should be on the conservative side with all my appliances). Mustard pork roast, for example. I’ve never made it before, but it sounded pretty simple. And Cindy brought me a meat thermometer at some point, so I can be totally precise with my cooking time. Oh my god! I don’t think I know any other dish with the same deliciousness vs simplicity ratio. Well, I do now – it’s the pork roast marinated in Montreal steak seasoning. Anybody can make it (yes, Jennifer, you can make it too, just try!). And nobody will regret they tried.

Mustard pork roast

• Pre-heat the oven to 375F.

• Take the pork out of the fridge so that it reaches room temperature before you put it into the oven. Pat it dry with a paper towel.

• In a small bowl, mix grainy mustard, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and garlic.
Proportions: 2 tablespoons mustard, 1 tablespoon vinegar, 2 tablespoon olive oil, 3 garlic cloves minced for 1 pound of meat.

• Coat the roast liberally with the mixture from the small bowl, stick a meat thermometer in the center part, place the meat in a pan (preferably with a rack) and stick it in the oven.

• Cook until the meat reaches 170F. If you don’t have a meat thermometer, no worries, based on my experience 1.5lb roast is done in 1 hour and 2.5lb roast is done in an hour and a half.

• Let the roast sit for 15 minutes before cutting it.

• Send me a thank you email.

Pork roast marinated in Montreal steak seasoning

The same exact principle as above, but for marinade use 2 tablespoons Montreal steak seasoning, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of soy sauce.

I have also made A TON of homefries for the past two weeks. You see, I have always loved the homefries my mother makes. They are just so delicious, and truly nobody else can make them like she does (and I’ve tried a lot of homefries in my life). When I go to Russia, I literally ask her to make homefries for me every single morning – yes, this is what I eat for breakfast over there. When I was little I spent a lot of weekends and school holidays at my aunt’s place, and her homefries were so different! The secret of my mom’s homefries is LOTS of butter and very thinly sliced potato. My aunt used to make it regular thickness and used canola oil – way too healthy to be good. I loved my aunt and always enjoyed weekends with her: she was a lot of fun and she cooked so well. But I always dreaded her homefries.

For years, I’ve struggled with trying to make the perfect homefries myself. I even bought a mandolin for perfect slicing. But I had never had any luck with the outcome. Until now! Finally, I’ve done it – my mom’s fries on my table in Mexico while my mother is in Russia! What made it possible I’ll never know. Maybe Mexican butter is the same as Russian butter. But this is irrelevant. The important fact is that now I am enjoying my food here so much. It’s kind of pathetic, but I actually moan every time I take the first forkful of homefries into my mouth, “Mmmmm, this is simply delicious!” I just have to remember to make an appointment to check my cholesterol soon.

Ah, and I'm forgetting my obsession with charlotte apple pie (well, at least in Russian it's called sharlotka). It has been my favorite pie since childhood and it's extremely easy to make. Beat 3 eggs with 1 cup of sugar until homogeneous and white; mix with 1 cup of flour; add a bit of baking soda tamed by lemon (of course, here I have to use lime, but it's OK); slice apples; mix it all together; stick in the oven for 45 minutes or so at 375F. Deliciousness!

Never say never...

I am a perfect illustration to the proverb “Never say never”. If you ever hear me say something like, “This is so ridiculous! I will NEVER get myself [a cell phone OR iPhone OR you can pretty much insert anything here]”, you can be 99% sure that at some point in the future I’ll be an obsessed owner of and an absolute expert on this [device]. I just had a chat with Dima about Google+, and I caught myself saying, “I just don’t see myself on this platform. How will I manage to move all my stuff from FB to…“ - I stopped realizing what’s going to happen soon. Eh, who am I kidding really? I’m going to be in love with Google+ as soon as I figure out who the hell it works!

This reminded me that I’m still in love with my iPhone. The applications for this device are absolutely incredible. Browsing the iPhone App Store is like going to Duane Reade: you never know what new amazingly useful gadget you’ll find there, but you know that it’ll be there and in a matter of seconds after stepping into the store you’ll be wondering how you could ever live without duvet corner clips, for example. Of course, you could sew buttons inside, tie the corners of your comforter or use any other way that this article suggests. But why, if there are now duvet corner clips available to you for only 5 bucks? Those clips and a thousand other tiny items you can find on Duane Reade shelves can clearly make your life so much simpler. And so can the App Store.

I used to pay 10 bucks for each 50-dive log book to record my dives. And I never really recorded them properly because it’s almost impossible to not smudge the pages with the pen on a boat, a wet boat. Now, I can record as many dives as I want, absolutely free, with DNA BLU app. And I don’t have to worry about smudging anything. Well, now I have to worry about not dumping my phone in the ocean, but that’s a minor detail and hopefully such a disaster will never occur.

I used to write my shopping lists in a note on my Nokia phone, but now I have SplashShopper that saves my lists, knows my favorite groceries and even allows me to email stuff to a friend who is shopping for me (yes, I have amazing friends).

I used to depend on a computer access for checking Facebook. Now I can do it anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection.

I can customize my retweets with Tweetlogix, I can track birthdays with iDay and my period with IP, I can look up any actor who has ever played in any movie with Movie Genie and IMDb, I can video call for free with my friends in Russia with Skype, I can track stars with Star Walk and identify annoyingly familiar songs with Shazam. And that is only a very small tip of the iceberg!

Some applications are really helpful and some are useless but just cool. My personal favorite in the latter category is Sleep Cycle. This is how it works. As you sleep you go through different states that range from deep sleep to light sleep. The state you are in when your alarm clock goes off will decide how tired you feel. A fixed alarm clock is a lottery. If you are lucky it wakes you in light sleep. If you are unlucky you are in deep sleep and barely conscious. Sleep Cycle creates a 30-minute wake-up phase that ends at your desired alarm time. So it tries to wake you in your lightest sleep state – the natural way to wake up where you feel rested and relaxed. Since you move differently in bed during the different sleep states, Sleep Cycle can use the sensitive accelerometer in your iPhone to monitor your movement to determine which state you are in. I usually sleep very well and wake up easily all fresh and full of energy, so how did I get sucked into this you ask me? Aha, simple: they have statistical reports on your sleep! With graphs! Now I know that on July 17^th, for example, I slept a total of 7 hours and 27 minutes (went to bed at 10:53 and woke up at 6:21), and my average total sleep time is 7 hours 14 minutes (as determined over the past 18 days). I rest my case.

The syncopation of rain

Why did I not write about this rain when it was pouring all the time? Why do I all of a sudden feel the need to share now, on a perfectly sunny day? My take on it is that now that this rainy madness is finally over, I feel a little nostalgic for the days that I was stranded at home because it was simply impossible to step outside. This nostalgia makes me idealize the days that it rained. Of course, in reality it was quite depressing. And upsetting too, since my friends had to cancel their trip on July 4^th and now god knows when they will be coming here…

It rained for 3 weeks straight. For a greater effect, I want to say that I have never seen so much water pour from the sky all at once, but I would be lying. I saw it in Brazil last year. It was actually worse over there. On the other hand, it lasted only a week. They said it was some kind of a tropical depression. It very well may have been, but it certainly wasn’t any kind of a tropical rain – this happy 15-minute downpour when you can see half of the sky being completely cloudless and blue and think that if you run fast to that side of the sky you can probably escape the drops, and you laugh at the idea. No, this time it rained all the time. Day after day, I fell asleep to the sound of raindrops and I woke up to the sound of raindrops. I almost forgot that I had an ocean view: it completely disappeared behind the misty shroud of this continuous downpour.

Apparently, a few windows in my house are leaking. I had to put rags under them so that I don’t step into puddles. The rain also tried to sneak in through the front door and the balcony door. So I had to put more rags to create the seal.

The rain didn’t bring any relief from the heat, and although some days were actually a bit cooler (around 72F), most of the time it was like a steam room outside. Once I peeked out the door wearing my glasses, and they immediately fogged up.

I felt hostage to the rain. I spent most of this time alone. Nobody wanted to venture out in such terrible weather, plus it was pretty dangerous: the town is not prepared for such amount of water and there are no proper drains in the streets, so flooding occurs very quickly, in a matter of minutes. I had to ride in the back of a scooter once and at some point we were up to our waist in the water, literally. Of course, I just had to do something stupid. I saw an opening in the sky and decided (based on nothing in particular, just sheer hope) that the rain would break for a couple of hours. So I set out to ride my bike. I didn’t have any specific reason to do this, just wanted to feel myself around something that is not my house. Some ten minutes later, as soon as I reached downtown, the downpour resumed. The stupidity of my riding the bike was quickly trumped by the stupidity of my wearing glasses instead of contacts! What was I thinking? It’s very difficult and dangerous to ride a bike in such rain, and it’s actually absolutely impossible to do it when you see absolutely nothing because your glasses don’t have wipers. So I walked the bike home, by feel. It took me about 30 minutes. Needless to say, I was drenched. That was my first and last attempt to get out of the house during those 3 weeks.

I watched a lot of movies and TV shows. That was good. I discovered this wonderful website – www.cuevana.tv. You can find a lot of old and new movies on it, and a lot of TV shows too, even Seinfeld! Although it’s a Mexican website and all the movie descriptions are in Spanish, don’t let it discourage you – everything is actually in English, just with Spanish subtitles which you can switch off. I don’t; it’s fun for me to watch something in English and read it in Spanish right away, some translations are very illuminating.

I was happy that I didn’t have to work. In diving that is. Because diving happens any time, rain or shine. Unless, of course, the port is closed because of a storm. Javier had to work on some days and he looked miserable when he came over after.

I did a lot of social networking and wrote a lot of articles for our website.

I read a lot.

And STILL I had a lot of time left. I never fully realized before how much time social interactions and little errands take. If you stop by a little grocery with no lines to buy, say, apples, you’ll probably spend some time selecting them, fiddling for change to pay for them, saying hello and thank you and have a nice day to the cashier. Boom – 10 minutes of your day gone (or half an hour if you are in Mexico). If you stop by your office to say hi to Sherief, you come in, put your bike against the wall, sit down with a glass of water for a little chit-chat, and all of a sudden Javier comes in and a couple of other people stop by, and you chat and you laugh and you argue. Boom – at least 40 minutes of your day gone (or sometimes a couple of hours). And how many little things like this do we have to do during our regular day? I guess they all add up and we feel like we never have time for ourselves. At least, I feel this sometimes. But now that I was forced to be home alone with all this time for myself, I honestly didn’t know what to do with it.

I wasn’t bored. I never get bored, I don’t think I can even start to understand what “boredom” means. There’s always something to occupy yourself with, there’s always something interesting around or inside you to ponder. I just felt – and it’ll probably sound weird – like I had those unusual gaps of complete and pure emptiness in between my activities. Let me try to explain. Normally, I kind of smoothly go from one activity to the next, from one thought to the next, it just happens naturally, you just live your day sort of like by free associating. This time it was different. When one activity was finished, there was a distinct pause, during which I had to ask myself “So, what’s next?” The answer would come almost immediately, but the point is that I HAD to ask it, it didn’t just flow naturally. It felt strange.

It is also strange that I feel so compelled to write about this rain. But maybe it’s not that strange. After all, it was really beautiful, on many-many levels…

Working in Spanish - a leap of faith

My relationship with the Spanish language is still complicated. I understand everything (well, unless somebody starts speaking with a terrible Mayan accent that I don’t think is humanly possible to understand anyway). I freely speak Spanish when I know that the person doesn’t speak English at all. But when Liang, Sherief and Javier start speaking Spanish at our gatherings, I always participate in English. Cannot really explain why. One on one with Javier I feel free to speak Spanish sometimes, but then he always gets super excited and starts saying how “good” my pronunciation is and how cute I look and sound, that it embarrasses me, so yet again I prefer to switch. It’s funny really, because he always speaks to me in Spanish, and I almost always respond in English. I wonder what somebody who witnesses our conversations may think about this bizarre linguistic interaction.

Working in Spanish though is a totally different ball game. You have to know all the correct terminology and be 100% sure that you understand everything and respond adequately and not in a way that can potentially be misinterpreted. I don’t think my Spanish is there just yet. That is why when Sherief called me the other day and said, “Can you do an Open Water course with a couple from Mexico City? It’s no problem for you to do it in Spanish, right?” I firmly said, “NO WAY”.

With diving it’s even more tricky, especially if this is your students’ first time underwater. One of the most important tasks for a dive instructor is to make students feel SAFE. And how can you feel safe if you don’t understand what exactly your instructor is trying to convey to you, or if you see that the instructor doesn’t fully understand what you are asking or concerned about? Tough…

After I presented my arguments to both Sherief and Javier, they both considered them for a very brief moment, and then said, almost in unison, “That’s bullshit, you can totally do it! Eventually, you’ll have to do courses in Spanish, so now is as good of a time as it will ever be for you to start. Just do it!” Aha… I thought, OK, we have a business together so supposedly they care about this company being professional and having a good reputation. Maybe my Spanish is really not that bad and maybe I CAN do it then? “Fine, - I said. – But if this turns into a complete disaster, you are responsible!” They laughed.

It wasn’t a disaster. In fact, it was a very fun experience. The young couple from Mexico City was super nice and friendly, and they didn’t really speak English, so there was no way to switch between languages back and forth (I’m glad, actually, because this switching is confusing for the brain, I think, although mine seems to be very much used to it with all the Russian-English concoction we speak in NYC). I had to focus on Spanish and I did a good job. Of course, I almost had a panic attack the morning before the first class when I woke up at 5AM to review all the dive terms and idioms I’d learned the day before (yes, I had only one day to prepare) and realized that I didn’t remember anything. I just couldn’t produce anything! Luckily, it was just a temporary stupor, and it all rushed back pretty soon after I forced myself to relax.

The next two days I spent almost all the time with the guys. It is pretty difficult to squeeze a 4-day course into 2 days that they had available, and for me it’s even more difficult to do it in a totally foreign language. The Open Water course includes a lot of theory, and usually students read the manual before coming here to do their training dives, with all the theory exercises accomplished and quizzes done. But these two were completely unprepared. To speed things up I had to explain all the relevant points in a class setting. We also did all the exercises together. That was a bit challenging, but I was actually more worried about the water part – I didn’t want to linguistically fail at making them feel safe.

That went well, too. I am just really lucky - both of them feel very comfortable in the water and they are fast learners, too. So it wasn’t difficult for them to pick up all the necessary underwater techniques, making it possible to complete the course in only two days. Not even once did they show me that they were having a difficult time understanding me, although naturally I made some mistakes. The funny part is that while in “normal” life I feel super self-conscious about the mistakes I may potentially make and that is why I just shut up before even trying to say anything, this setting made a Spanish chatter-box out of me. Partly, it’s the amount of information that you have to transfer into your student’s head, but partly, I believe, I was just really enjoying hearing myself speak and didn’t want to stopJ.

It was a lot of work and the only time I had for myself is watching sunsets really, but it was so much fun! I’m so happy that I’m surrounded by people who push me to do things that I would never take on if it were solely up to me. It’s all about taking a leap of faith, and leaping is so much easier when you see that your friends genuinely believe in you.

After the course I even spoke with Javier for a whole 2-3 days only in Spanish, which made him very happy and proud, but then I slid back into my regular behavior.

A day from my new life

I have two alternating routines now: the dive work day and the “office” work day (“office” referring to my lounging on the couch or bed with my two computers, the ocean view and a cup of tea).

Dive day

On a dive day I wake up at 6AM, take my time having breakfast and tea (I never like to rush in the morning), drive by the office to pick up my gear, and off to Caleta or Puerto d’Abrigo to catch the boat. I already mentioned that my least favorite thing to do right now is to work as a dive guide because of my topographical insecurities, but to be fair I have to say that so far I have never been lost on a reef and also I have never been even remotely nervous about it on the day of the dive (even if I drive myself completely nuts the day before). It’s fascinating how well our whole being can readjust under pressure! We come back from diving around 3PM and I’m usually DEAD. I don’t know how some people do this every day. I am so physically exhausted that I can barely move or even think. One day I caught myself staring into the oblivion for about 40 minutes straight after I landed on my couch upon return from a dive trip… This physical exhaustion translates somehow into a complete mental void, and for the rest of my dive day all I can do is something that doesn’t require any serious mental engagement – take a nap, watch a movie, eat, chat with friends.

I think it also has something to do with all the emotions that you spend underwater. I’ve always considered diving a form of deep meditation and it’s very normal for people to feel depleted after an introspective meditation. When I was just a client diving on a daily basis, I never felt physical tiredness, only this emotional depletion, but I guess the new exhaustion combo can be easily explained by the constant lifting of tanks and carrying equipment bags and having to stay alert for divers’ behavior underwater. Every little thing just adds up…

I wonder if this is something I can get used to if I do it repeatedly and very regularly or maybe I’m just not cut out for a strenuous physical job. Yet to be discovered.

“Office” day

An office day is much more conventional for me. I still wake up early and take my time breakfasting, but then I wedge myself comfortably onto the couch, start both computers, take a long look at the blue of the ocean instinctively drawing energy and inspiration from it, take a sip of my tea and… click-click-click-click-click-click-click. iGoogle open, Gmail open, Facebook open, Twitter open – one work window ready. Now another one – a Word file with Facebook and Twitter article ideas. And another one – deepseanews.com, underwatertimes.com, The Diving Blog, Cozumel Blog, aquaviews.com, Cozumel Insider, etc. etc. etc. And Mozilla Thunderbird email, of course (we use it for work email and I’m absolutely loving it, much more than Outlook actually, because you can just install so many cool plug-ins for Thunderbird!).

Now… let the social networking begin! Those of you who worked with me before will not be mistaken assuming that I have a precise algorithm to my posts. And of course, I have created some templates, tooJ. Everything is quick and efficient. I’m usually smiling as I do this work – never before have I been so aware of my proficient competency (for the record, I have always been very aware of my distinguished modesty). My movements are well-honed, there’s no unnecessary redundancy in clicking through the windows, no pauses between navigating swiftly to the desired results, no frustrated idling over some page in search of a next button to press – I know exactly which button to press where. This whole process may sound terribly robotic, but I see it as a good thing. I smile because all those years of continuous mutual fund research for Strategic Insight made me into a mean lean research machine, and by performing this monotonous groundwork so quickly and efficiently I actually allow myself to spend a lot of quality time on thoughtful pondering of the “topic of the day”.

I try to allocate only a couple of hours for social networking, but sometimes it takes up the entire day – depending on the information I encounter. Sometimes it’s so fascinating and interesting, that it’s worth doing additional research and write an article on the subject for our website. I really enjoy this part. I learn so much! And I get to write or edit stories, and this really brings me pleasure. I guess, that’s why I’ve been slacking on my own blog – because I constantly write for Dive Cooperative’s bLog. It all started with the story about female crabs having sex only once in a lifetime, which made me sift through so many articles to do proper research and learn so many curious and amazing facts, that now I cannot stop – I just want to know more and more and more about the marine biology aspect of diving. Strange, because before this article I could care less about all the fish out there. Yes, they are cute, but I’d never been a big fan – coral structures are my underwater attraction. Now that I know so much more about certain species, I look at them completely differently and I’ve actually developed some affection towards them. Take parrot fish, for example. I used to really dislike it – they are so big and kind of kitch looking that other divers’ excitement over them made me shrug every time we passed one. Now, however, I know that overfishing them presents a threat to the entire coral system because they are the only seaweed grazers in the Caribbean, and that they use a bubble “pajamas” to ensure a good night sleep, and that they are also called the “cows of the sea”. And all of a sudden, I find its mouth, always partly open as if in surprised puzzlement, quite endearing. Go figureJ.

But anyway, my “office” day is research, research and more research. And I love it! I guess, I’m a natural born researcher and you just cannot change this… And it’s absolutely irrelevant whether it’s mutual funds or sea cucumbers – I tackle either with equal vigor and dedication.

Being generous with myself

I moved to a gorgeous new place on the ocean. I had debated the move for some time – you pay so much more for the ocean view. But finally I decided that the whole point of my leaving my job in NYC and starting the travels was to improve the quality of my life, and the ocean view is definitely yet another improvement. I admire my ability to talk myself into taking luxurious decisions! I remember buying a Valentino skirt once – I didn’t feel bad even for a split second. I really appreciate this quality, because it protects me from feeling any monetary guilt. In fact, I don’t think I ever feel any guilt at all. Is that good though? I mean, of course I feel bad sometimes for what I do or how I handle certain situations, but I never dwell on this and I certainly don’t take any guilt-based actions. But maybe it’s not healthy… Maybe we are supposed to feel guilty from time to time, creating an effective driving force for important life decisions.

Anyway, back to my new gorgeous apartment. It is interesting how things you surround yourself with – consciously or subconsciously – influence your mood and well-being in general. I was definitely happy in our house in town with Liang, but the little grievances like the constant traffic noise and the strange bi-polar behaving landlord and the disturbing ants infestation in Liang’s room certainly took a toll on me. Waking up to the beautiful ocean, falling asleep to the sound of waves, not having to hear the gas truck annoying announcements and chilling in the hammock under the palapa after sunset feels exhilarating now. And I’ve been here for a month already, so it’s not just the first euphoric impression. It seems that I really struck a great deal. And as if to drive this point home, I have had 0 headaches in the past month! Knock on wood.

Again and again, I get proof that taking generous decisions for your precious self (and I don’t refer only to monetary generosity) pays off big time.

Wearing new hats without trying them on first

I wonder why I cannot get back into the habit of writing my blog. Every day I think about doing it, and I actually do have stories to share, and I miss writing in general. So why don’t I just do it? Ohhh, the mysteries of human behavior… Hopefully, today will finally be the day!

I had never wanted to be a business owner. In fact, I’d been always saying, “Me, starting a business? No way! Never! It’s just too much! I want to be an employee for the rest of my life.” And it’s true that having your own business is too much. As an employee, you just focus on what you like and know best (hopefully) and – unless you are an accountant – you don’t worry about the hidden workings of the business system, all these social security taxes, balance sheets, articles of incorporation, and the list goes on and on and on. As a business owner you are expected to take care of everything from A to Z, and most annoyingly you have to take care of things you have no clue about. But wait, why is it annoying? Don’t I love learning new things? I thought I did. So why not take advantage of the situation I’ve put myself into and try all those new hats on.

Hat #1 – Dive Instructor

As a brand new dive instructor I’m, of course, scared. To be fair, I’m always scared of everything I do for the first time. But I’m brave, so I just do what I’m scared of. And I’m also stupid, so I constantly put myself in situations which test both my fear and my courage. In other words, I am used to it.

However frightening, this hat is probably my favorite so far! I’ve realized that I really enjoy teaching. Maybe it’s the challenge of finding the right approach. Or the thrill of both physical and moral responsibility of passing the knowledge on – enough knowledge, correct knowledge, useful knowledge. Or the immediate gratification – your student is a bit dubious about putting their head underwater in the morning, and suddenly they are already breathing and clearing their mask and struggling with buoyancy in the afternoon. Or maybe it’s this wonderful look of awe and ecstasy in your student’s eyes after the very first immersion… It’s a miracle, really!

Hat #2 – Dive Guide

Believe it or not, this is my least favorite at the moment. Of course, I love diving, otherwise nothing I’m doing at the moment would make any sense. But I’m still very suspicious of my knowledge of the reefs in Cozumel and I’m still afraid of losing my way and spoiling the entire dive for somebody. The funny part is that so far I have never gotten lost, and also if you are dropped in the right spot, it’s almost impossible to get lost. But on the other hand, I hear all those horror stories lately from Javier (who quit Aldora, so he is free-lancing for random shops now and relaying all sorts of “experiences” to us), how they went to Devil’s Throat and he had to jump off the boat 5 times before he finally steered the captain to the right starting point of the dive. I don’t think I can do that! I wouldn’t know where this starting point is and would just trust the captain to bring me to the right spot… In other words, I’m still very nervous about my weak spot – topography. So for now I prefer to only take out novices (or friends). Just to be on a safe side…

Hat #3 – Social Networking Coordinator

In our day and age, having a website is nearly not enough. Every more or less respectable company creates Facebook and Twitter accounts immediately at launch. And so did we, of course. Facebook is no brainer, since I’ve been actively using it in my personal life for quite a while now. It was just a matter of reading up a bit on what type of presence is best suited for Dive Cooperative on FB (turns out a FB Page makes more sense for us that a FB Group, who knew) and start posting photos and updates. But Twitter is a whole different beast. I had never wanted to get on Twitter. To me it equals volunteering to completely eradicate the little attention span we have saved from being swallowed by the ruthless whirlpool of information we are being sucked into on a daily basis. But it had to be done, so now we have Dive Cooperative on Twitter, too.

My God, Twitter is awesome though! I have never learnt so much in so little time. The wealth of information you expose yourself to if you are smart in choosing who you follow is absolutely unparalleled. No wonder it’s so popular and continues gaining more and more weight on the social media arena. I’m totally hooked.

But of course I was right about the attention span! I can physically feel it dwindle with each passing day. I need to figure out some system that will help me effectively counteract this mighty flow of data input and preserve my sanity and focus. It’s urgent! Any recommendations?

Hat #4 – Accountant

Of course, we have an official accountant for the firm, but we also want to understand what the hell is going on with our finances, so I took it upon myself to learn accounting. Man! I had no idea it is so complicated! I really thought it would be more intuitive. Why all those credits and debits? Why can’t things be just straight-forward and logical? But of course, I’m enjoying it, because all those systems and spreadsheets and calculations are the closest thing to what I’m used to be doing as a job. It’s familiar and new at the same time, therefore easy and fun.

Am I forgetting something? Ah, of course! A part-time cleaning lady for the office, IT technician on-site (with Michael’s virtual guidance), chofer, secretary, client relationship manager, website content writer… All of a sudden, I have a desire to draw all those hatsJ. Now that would be a fun project! But can’t be done – I have no idea where my drawing hat is at the moment. Let me go try to find it now.