Ugliest Tattoos

What really made me laugh yesterday was a website of ugly tattoos that Erik posted! It’s a website of such ugly tattoos, you’ll be amazed. I really can’t see what people were thinking when doing them. Most of them are amazingly big and last forever.

It made me remember two people that I saw on the street with tattoos that where never meant to be made. The first one was a huge tattoo of Johnny Depp dressed like ‘Mad Hatter’ from ‘Alice in Wonderland’. That guy had Johnny’s face tattoo to cover his whole arm. It was very big and very ugly. Unfortunately, this particular tattoo is popular since I saw it in the ugly tattoos website as well!

The second one was from a guy I saw in the tube. He had a Greek word made on his leg. Unfortunately he misspelled it! He wanted to write the word ‘love’ in Greek but instead of writing it as ‘αγάπη’ he had it done as ‘άγαπη’. It might not seem such a big difference but that word does not mean anything and is read quite differently. The thing is that it’s a tattoo. You have to double check that you’ve spelled it right before doing it. It will be there for a long time. From his accent I thought he sounded American. I was thinking of going there and speaking to him but I decided not to. Most likely he already knows. If not, it’s better never to learn…

I leave you for now with some nice pictures of hideous tattoos:

Wolverine on 'My little Pony'! I have no words...

On your face...

The big crack

No words...

Oh, why?

music taste...

Speechless yet again

I think the unicorn is high....

Last but not least... Simple Class

Insecurities…

OK, it’s not news to me that relationships sometimes need hard work. That it is not all the time journeys, celebrations and parties. Sometimes you need to make compromises; you need to put yourself in the other person’s shoes and try to see the problem from every possible angle. Sometimes however that can be very hard and exhausting…

As you can see from the beginning of my post, I’m going to complain a bit today. I have some stuff to take out of my chest. The problem with ‘JJ’ is not something major and it has almost been sorted, but for the time being I still have a slight bitter taste in my mouth…

It all started two days ago. I had a friend visiting and we suggested going to the theatre to see the ‘Habit of Art’ in the National Theatre. I asked ‘JJ’ if he wanted to join us. He mentioned that he is a bit tired and that the play which starts at 19:30 in the evening lasts for 2.5 hours when he has to get very early the next to go to work. Of course I didn’t insist about it and wished him a nice quiet night, to get some rest.

However, the plans changed and my guest suggested meeting in a very nice wine bar by the ‘Embankment’ station. We would be joined by another South African friend of my guest. I mentioned that we might not go to the theatre to ‘JJ’ but I didn’t talk about it much, since he had mentioned that he was tired. We did indeed stay in the wine bar for the evening enjoying some bottles of wine and nice food.

The following morning ‘JJ’ texted me asking me how the play was. I told him that we didn’t go but had some nice wine next door. I didn’t think more of it and let the subject drop. However, when I talked to ‘JJ’ some hours later, he told me that he was feeling depressed, had a very bad day at work and he was outside of his work smoking! He used to smoke some years ago but I thought that he can’t stand the smell anymore, so I figured that the situation is bad.

I forced him to talk about what happened and also made him meet me. He said that the main reason he was feeling so bad was the fact that he thought that I didn’t want him to come with us the day before! He wasn’t having the best day at work and he started thinking over and over in his head what happened, making this small issue (which wasn’t supposed to be an issue) huge!


I tried to calm his insecurities, although I did find them unfounded. There was a major issue created from nothing. I spent some part of the evening trying to reassure him that it a simple misunderstanding and nothing more to worry about. Of course I wanted him with us that evening. I believe that the issue became worse because JJ has been working non stop for the last days and he really needs some rest to think clear.

After a while, he understood that he was overreacting which brought a second wave of apologies from his part about creating this issue. He apologised about his working long hours, feeling tired most of the time, being grumpy because of that and all this kind of nonsense which I don’t believe. It’s so normal to have some bad days. My motto is ‘Go to bed early, to make them these days fly away. After a good night sleep most things look so much nicer.’ However, he refused to go to bed early, like a five year old, telling me that he’s a bad boyfriend for falling asleep early when we spend the night together!

URGH!!!!!

I forced him to go to bed and made sure he stayed there. Fortunately, he was asleep in seconds. I think that he’s better today. We managed to laugh about it a bit… However, that display of insecurity made me uncomfortable. I feel I have a responsibility about our relationship now. I fear that if something does really go wrong in the future how he will react! That thought alone puts a pressure on me…

Yesterday really left me psychologically drained and exhausted… I really do need a break…

Diving referrals.

I spent the better part of my weekend being under water, completing my 4 confined water dives that are needed to take the exams for my diving certificate. I have to admit that it was a long weekend. It included watching some sections of the PADI DVD (5 for each chapter of the knowledge book), taking 4 small exams for each one of them and also taking a final exam based on everything, apart from completing the dives. It was a bit challenging since it was a bit tiring, but a really nice experience altogether.

I don’t think I’m explaining the procedure well since it encloses during the first day some theory (a section of the DVD), a test, jumping in the pool completing some challenges (for more than a couple of hours), then some more theory (out of the water), a test and finishing early in the evening. The second day we had to first jump in the water to do some slightly more difficult challenges and finishing the day with some theory, a test and the final exam!


The challenges included some easy tasks like being able to assemble and disassemble the gear, being able to swim for 200m, staying on the surface for 10 minutes, being able to check the equipment of your diving buddy (you always need one) or being able to empty your mask of water while being underwater and stuff like that. The more complicated challenges (always underwater) include things like swimming for a few meters after you’ve taken off your mask and then putting it back on, having your air supply cut (by your instructor turning the valve off) and having to breath by your buddy’s extra regulator before ascending to the surface or staying neutrally buoyant and controlling your position with just the air in your lungs for a minute. The key to completing all these challenges is by staying calm. Panicking underwater, trying to reach the surface quickly or holding your breath is what you should NEVER do.

Fortunately, we had a very nice instructor that made the whole experience less boring (the theoretical part), was willing to share her experiences (even the embarrassing ones) and tried to explain the challenges efficiently. The rest of the group was quite nice as well. We were 7 altogether, 3 guys and 4 girls. We didn’t have any trouble makers or people that couldn’t understand what we were doing and why. That made the whole course run smoothly and I believe that we were finishing each day, earlier than expected! I have to admit though and I felt knackered at the end of each day. I had a slight headache and I had to have a nap to feel functional again.


All of us did pass the final exam. YAY! That means that with 4 more dives, now in open water, I will be qualified as an open water diver by PADI. I will be able to dive down to 16 meters of depth until I gain some more experience! These 4 dives, we will do them next weekend. They will take us somewhere outside London to a lake, they will throw us in and we will have to do some of the same challenges again accompanied by an instructor. I will let you know how that will go next week!

I’ve already checked and I found a 5 PADI centre in Rhodes. They provide a variety of diving sites according to the experience level of the diver. They even have a shipwreck that you can visit, but it is deeper than I can go. The next best thing is diving in 12m visiting an area of abundant Mediterranean Sea life. It’s in near a place called ‘Pefkos’ and you can do two dives (same day) with rented equipment (I don’t have my own gear yet) for about €72 which I find quite reasonable. I will talk with JJ about it, since I have to check if it is OK for him to be left somewhere on his own until I finish the dives. I will also check with JS, my best friend from university who is a permanent resident of the island and might know more for the centre or the area.

I really can’t wait…