Fake Smiling

Met another med-aide. Yeah, kill me now cause there's nothing more exciting to talk about.

This one goes by Clara. She's nice but doesn't talk. She just smiles at you when you accidentally catch her eye and freezes you in your tracks like a deer in the headlights. It's like she's afraid that you'll kill her if she doesn't do it fast enough. Maybe it's a new rule: smile or they'll kick you off the ship.

But gotta be honest, it's freaky. You don't mean it, I don't mean it, let's end it. Thanks. 

I've Got a Feeling

That the internet sucks. The only wireless internet cafe on Planet Colonial Jemba didn't have internet, wireless or otherwise. PC Jemba, the future "Coruscant" of the galaxy. They're planning to pave it over and give the Tested Regulating Environment Enhancers (trees, ha) a run for their money in generating oxygen for a whole planet. It'll be some Star Wars geek's dream come true when they're done, but they won't be finished for another fifty years, thank God. A planet without grass would be the worst.

So yeah, the techie planet's technology failed on me and I had this whole post written up about purple jumpsuits and it's gone now, eaten by the computers in PC Jemba's internet cafe.

They only have one cafe because it's a new Planet Colonial. They started up two years ago, and the city was focusing on, you know, staying alive. Not that that's more important than the internet or anything (ha, what is?), but there it is. PC Jemba's lone internet cafe was built last month, when they finally got their priorities straight.

Tried to get a coffee there, failed. They fed me tea. Anyone remember that cafe across from the ice rink downtown that closed? Had many a good coffee there. This cafe wasn't like that, if you know what I mean.

Life right now is the worst. Hauling things around the ship really gets to you after awhile. Captain Awesome gives me fun stuff to do like jettisoning dissected cats out of the airlock when the med aides are done with them. Basically the best job ever.

I'll rewrite the jumpsuit post as soon as I can. See you around, ladies.

-Terry S.

Rosie

Hey Rosie. I'm writing a letter on here because you wouldn't believe how much it costs to send letters back home to you. I saved some postage money, but it's not enough. Sweet irony. I hope you actually see this. It'd be pretty lame if you didn't.

I started to recognize constellations last week. There are more out here than you can see at home. They're pretty cool. A girl on board programmed one of our windows so that we could connect the dots between the stars and see why they're named the Hunter and the Dragon and Cassiopoeia.

How do you feel, being all major now since your birthday? (since you're not a minor, haha) Eighteen's a pretty big year. Smoke a cigar and buy lottery tickets. They've still got those, right? People say that cigars pollute the air, but they're made from plants, and people burn leaves and it's okay, right?

I saw a cool flower shop at the satellite on your birthday full of all these weird flowers that grow in different gravities. If sending a letter isn't cheap, sending flowers won't work either, but you could could fix them to grow in your backyard if you had some.

Interspace telephone conversations don't happen yet. It sucks. I haven't talked to you or the guys for six months. Remember me? I left to explore the galaxy.

When you never see your friends, do relationships just crumble, or do they stay half-alive and just never grow? Either way, it sucks.

-Terry

Getting paid

Hey ladies, haven't seen you in a while...

The plan for going to space was to get a job and get paid. You thought I was doing this for free? Hahaha.

The way all of us kids on board the Gallantine usually get paid is with cashsticks. Yeah, they still use those; funny, I thought we were in the world of future technology. Not so much. I've got to go to a bank and plug it in and download the funds to my account, and it's the best because I can't use the money until it's in my account. Cashsticks are awesome, right?

Thanks to Our Glorious Captain, they changed the rules a couple weeks back so that anyone's pay can get put straight into our accounts. The captain and Tricia used to get this anyways (duh) but now all of the lower crew can do it too, unless they're in love with cashsticks and their bank and can't wait for an excuse to visit.

Even though it was really rough to break up with my best friends the cashsticks, I switched over. Sounds easy, right? Ha, not on this ship.

Lena, the CFO (chief financial officer), gave me what was supposed to be my last cashstick (sad, right?) after I finished a mountain of paperwork to finish the cashstick breakup because they take forever to process it. Then I logged onto planetside wireless that night and checked out my bank records and saw that pay for two weeks was going through into my account from ship control.

Here's the problem: I think their awesome communication system failed and weren't supposed to give me the newest cashstick, cause I'm only supposed to be getting two weeks pay right now. Lena's planetside, so I can't talk to her, but I've gotta or else they're gonna sue me for stealing. Yeah, great, give me 150 extra dollars and then freak out. Smart idea, ship control.

-Terry S.

Why?

I ask myself every day why I didn't just put up with the job shortage back home. Yeah. Seeing the universe is great. We've been to ten colonial planets and two already-been-colonized for awhile planets and I still get pushed around. Basically, the only change is that the people who beat me up know my name.

Most people back home know that I'm not automatically comfortable with people I don't know. Weird, huh? Obviously, I should go up to strangers and automatically be best friends with them. Not that I know anything about what they like, or who they are. Who cares about that? Ha ha, right.

I don't get anyone who does this with me. It's being a jerk. Relationships have to be built from the ground up. They're not automatic. People are just asking for me to be sarcastic when they do it with me. Oh, they don't like that? Tough luck, ladies.

That's why I don't have any friends on this ship. Everyone here has decided to speed up the relationship process or not have it at all. I'm totally cool with the ignoring someone thing, but the other one stinks. Where's the medium between both? They say they want to know who I am, but it's not like they've really tried.

That just leaves me frustrated, orbitting above the Gerver Satellite and using their wi-fi. So, want some advice? Don't go touring the universe unless you're ready to get buddy-buddy really fast with everyone on your ship. If you are, you'll have two hundred best friends, but if you're not, you won't have any.

-Terry S.

Romantic Girls

Apparently I missed the boat. I don't like romantic stuff like talking about crushes or flirting. My mom always told me that I flirt all the time, but I don't I'm doing it. I call it talking. Weird, huh? I just open my mouth and I'm automatically Mr. Romance. Right...

There's a girl on board ship that makes me want to rip my hair out because of her talk about boys. Alicia, if you ever read this, I'm just talking about how you talk, not about you. But the way you talk is the worst. Sorry.

She talks about Travis, she talks about the Captain! She acts like the world is filled with unicorns and ponies and pink sparkles. I don't think I've ever heard a single normal word out of her, and she's a med aid!

The reason for this post, ladies, is that I had to help her with loading samples a couple hours ago, and my mind is completely full of her gushy talk. I could probably tell it from memory, not even joking:

"Alicia, are we supposed to put this in sideways or up and down?"

"Ummmm....up and down. But did you see the new page boy? At the other end of the ship?"

"What, there's enough work in the page job for two people?" (Sarcasm in my voice, haha, duh.)

"Yes! I'm so glad! He's like, totally cute! I heard he's like a gentleman and he's really sweet to all the med aids! Not, like, all snobby."

"Oh. Not like me."

"Well, not exactly. You're just playing hard to get."

I blink. WHAT? "You actually think that?"

Alicia shrugs. "Why else would you be so sarcastic?"

"Did you ever think that might be just who I am?"

Alicia shakes her head. "Nope. Come on, these go in the stock room."

I was ready to go on arguing all day, but it's fricken obvious that she didn't ever think. She doesn't ever. Romantic girls suck.

-Terry S.

P.S. Just figured out it's valentines day today. Maybe the pink ponies'll disappear tomorrow.

Cheating Pizza

Hey. Managed to get one last time in at the internet cafe on Planet Colonial Marteth before we ship out tomorrow. The captain's the best, always on time and all that. Greatest boss ever.

The point of this post is that the creators of all that is awesome on PC Marteth cheated me on a pizza. It was basically the best pizza of my life; you know, cheese, sauce, and three meats.

What are the three meats you usually think of when they say "Three Meat Pizza"? My classic three meat pizza has sausage, pepperoni, and ham.

Ham. That's the important one here. So, guess what Marteth gives you instead of ham? Ground beef. Yeah, they should advertise like, "A burger and a piece of pizza combined! Buy today!"

The problem is that they didn't say what kind of toppings our classic three-meater had one it at our wonderful little cafe on Marteth. At least, not in big letters. I'm expected to have magnavision like the rest of the world of colonists and be able to read fine print from five feet away.

Pizza rocks, and its way better than the freeze dried gunk and tube stuff on the ship, but seriously, my hopes were up and then this dude broke them. I know that they have pigs and stuff here. Just slaughter one and make some ham! Stupid colonials.

Katrina gave me her crap today and told me that ground beef was healthier than ham. Ha, right, how does she know? "Med Aide Knows All!" I can just see her little advice booth onboard ship. She's full of advice. She thinks I should wear different clothes than my jumpsuit when I'm off ship so I won't embarrass her, and that I should gel my hair and wear contacts more. Yeah, like I care so much about that. Seriously, I don't pay that much attention to what I look like, but I'm cool as it is right now.

'Sides, mom always liked my hair messy. Haha-- I can just imagine Katrina's expression if I told her that. She'd probably say some biting remark about how I should make my own decisions. Sucks to be her, then.

I've been reading over the last two posts I wrote yesterday and the day before yesterday and I guess I sound like a moody sarcastic jerk. I guess I am sometimes. I'm pretty cynical; it's my biggest failing, gotta admit. Life isn't a fairytale for me, like it is for another med-aide (who I'll write about later, along with purple jumpsuit pajamas and Our Glorious Captain).

Then and again, when you've got to follow around a girl ALL DAY LONG that hates you, your guts, and your hair and clothes, you kind of start to dislike her too. I basically give what I get. She rubs me way the wrong way.

If we're ever in port again, I'll post my life again and make your day.

-Terry S.