Entries this day: Airport_Dallas California Escort Flight_to_Narita

Airport Dallas

6:38am CST Wednesday 26 March 2003

LEVEL ORANGE SEARCH IN PROGRESS sounds pretty menacing to me as we approached the entry gates to the airport, but the search consisted of one person with a flashlight peering into the car from one side only.

What could they possibly find that way?

7:01am

Fucking Airplane Day. Stealing from me 2 hours of time that I could otherwise use to chat with Janette. She's stuck behind the glass, behind the security gates. The X-ray guy saw a knife looking thing in my bag and it got checked. Letter opener. They let me through with it. It's not a sharp letter opener. It's made of silver; hand made. By my dad I think.

I waved to Janette once I made it through. Thanks to her for staying; I could have given the opener to her to take home. I watched her turn quickly away once I appeared focused on walking. She floated down the escalator. Bye Janette for a year maybe. Unless you come visit.

So now I'm crying. I'm leaving my home for a year, to a foreign land I've never previously visited. What the fuck am I thinking???

California

12:07pm CST Wednesday 26 March 2003

Now I'm in LAX (interesting how I won't often abbreviate Los Angeles, but think nothing of using LAX).

Oh, but now I'm in PST...

10:09am PST Wednesday 26 March 2003

I've got 1 hour and 1 minute until my flight to Narita.

- - - -

Notable:

(!) I basically slept hard core sleepin' during the flight. Did not notice beverage service, not that I wanted to; I'm shifting myself to Japanese timezone.

(@) Woke up near the end of the flight and requested orange juice from any of the three flight attendants who were all chatting it up on this 1/3 full flight. 1/4 full? Since the plane was so empty when I boarded, I just cruised to the back for sleep purposes; I figured most people would be in a hurry to get off first and would crowd toward the front. (Seems I was right). They joked "oh now you want something after we've been up and down the aisles twenty times!"

"Well, yeah, I like to be original."

"Mmmm," she agreed, "that's one way to say it."

I was all, "oh, 'Pain In The Ass' is the one you were thinking of" hahahha

And I got orange juice (with no ice! and I didn't even have to request it) and little snack bag.

(#) I expressed profound thanks and initiated conversation, "I'm going to Japan to teach English!" and gave all three my adventure card. They asked about it: what city, what Japanese do you know, what did you do before, oh how excellent an adventure it will be. ... So great. I'm so much more excited and happy than all crying when I arrived at DFW.

One of the three asked why I chose Japan and asked what other countries I've visited, specifically non-English speaking. Later she mentioned that she's toyed with the idea of teaching English somewhere given layoffs on United (presumably resulting from Airplane Day and the Let's Attack Iraq program).

($) The landing was remarkably smooth! Smoother than highway driving. Seriously! It was quite amazing, and a sharp (smooth?) contrast to the FO ex-Navy pilot landing on Southwest Airlines into Austin.

I commented on this and it was suggested (by the attendant who spoke with me most) that this airplane tends to be smoother than 737s. Hmmm. This was a "AIRBUS INDUSTRIE - SPECIAL VERSION" according to the itenerary I received.

I told the captain what an amazing landing it was. "Much smoother than the Navy guy who landed my most recent flight, though that was a lot of fun, too."

"Well, sometimes that happens too," he said. I wonder if he was giving a blanket reason for possible hard landings, or if he thought maybe I was just guessing it was a ex-Navy FO.

10:29am

People are crowding around the gate for my flight. Maybe it's time to move.

Escort

10:30am PST Wednesday 26 March 2003

An official looking woman stood near the entry of the plane on the jetway.

"What are you doing?" I ask, trying to appear optimistically curious rather than WTF??? like that.

She goes, "I'm escorting somebody."

"Ah. You look very official.."

"I am very official," she assured me.

"Anyone I've heard of?" I asked, obviously referring to whom she may be escorting.

"INS," like that was the end all answer to all conversations about anything official.

"Ah," (no no who are you escoring? Nevermind, it mustn't be anyone famous.) I boarded the plane.

Seat 48K, the finest gold ever.

Flight to Narita

10:50am PST Wednesday 26 March 2003

I'll switch to Tokyo time and see how it comes up.

4:45am JST Thursday 27 March 2003

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeird. How did we lose 5 minutes? A postcard to first person who emails me a URL explaining it.

11:48am PST Wednesday 26 March 2003

Okay. This is fo sheezy jacked up. I changed back to PST and lost an hour.

4:49am JST Thursday 27 March 2003

11:51am PST Wednesday 26 March 2003

4:52am JST Thursday 27 March 2003

Well at least it's not losing an hour each time I switch back and forth.

- - - -

I've met the guy beside me; we actually have an empty seat between us. He's Japanese with good English and works in the water purification business.

When I told him he speaks English well, he denied this, saying he was ashamed of his skills. Hmmm different culture fo sheezy.

He said married like "mahleed" and I couldn't understand him at first. (furthering his shame, dammit). gotta rememeber that these cats don't have the R sound in their what's-the-word phonetic structure? set of phonomes? pheremones? hahaah

Okay enough wasting battery. OH! That reminds me, super thanks to Mac for making my power adapter work in Japan too.

5:35am JST

Woah. Looking down at the ocean, I can see our shadow, and the shadow of our con-trail behind the plane! This is the first direct evidence I've seen indicating that I'm in such an aircraft!

9:41am JST Thursday 27 March 2003

Okay. I'm awake for the day. We've got apparently 6+ more hours on the flight which seems surprising; I feel like I've slept more than 4 hours. Oh well; whatever. There; I'm done being jet lagged.

10:36am

D'oh.

I'm dumb. I never read the 3 newsletters sent to me by Nova. The second newsletter asks me to do some homework designed to help me learn how to teach super detailed forms of speech in English. The answers are given in newsletter 1. I brought number 2 only; I don't seem to have number 3 at all. I doubt they'll fire me, but this is not necessarily the 100% best way to start. Oh well.

1:01pm

Less than 3 hours until we land. Alrighh.

Just watched a basically boring movie depicting differences between monetary success and integrity of character.

But the movie did confirm my resolve not to fib about not reading the newsletters.