You talk funny

This morning started out a little hectic, we arrived at the dive shop by 8:30 knowing the shop was going to be very busy. We had been told that we would most likely be practicing our skills at cemetery (the next bay over which is very calm and sandy). Then at about 8:35 one of the instructors comes over and tells Jeff and I we are assisting on a dive. Awesome, it will be great to get out of doing the boring skills and actually do some real diving. Well our excitement was diminished about 5 minutes later as the instructor approaches again with another plan to assign 2 other DMT's (divemaster trainees) as the guides in a dive with the rest of the DMTs to follow. So we scrambled to pack away our skills cheat sheet and get our gear set up. This has now given Calvin (who is leading the first dive) about 20 minutes to get everything ready on the boat, plan a briefing for a dive site he may or may not have ever been to, and get his strategy together on how and where he will lead us. He managed to get everything ready and away we went. About half way to the dive site Rick decided to take a group picture of the interns. He was sitting on the side of the small boat that we were on and Nick the instructor joked about pushing him off. Rick thought he would be cool and show how good his balance was to prove that there was no way he would fall off. It was about half way through this balance test that Rick flipped backwards off the moving boat into the water. Surprisingly, he managed to hold onto his camera and not lose the hat or sunglasses he was wearing (good thing his hat had a safety strap). Upon arrival to the dive site we were given a dive briefing. Calvin had forgotten a few details yet the majority of the plan was explained well. Into the water we went, this time we were not given problems to simulate but instead were supposed to act like open water divers. We swam around looking at all the coral and fish for the 50 minute dive, overall I felt it went pretty well. Then it was time to head back to the dive shop for some quick lunch before our afternoon dive which would be led by Rick. Once our light bite Filipino lunch was complete, we returned to the boat with fresh gear. This time we had a bigger boat, maybe it was to ensure Rick wouldn't fall out again. On this dive we were definitely a little more spread out since our guide was not sending us in a clear direction. Rick was leading us more in a zig zag pattern which seemed to change direction rapidly. About half way through the dive Jeff found a fish trap that had at least 20 reef fish in it. He pointed this out to the instructors that were following, they cut it into pieces and released all of the fish. Some of the fish seemed a little stressed during the trap cutting but all of them eventually swam off happy and free. As the dive continued it was evident that Rick was having a hard time keeping all of us together yet it was not entirely his fault. After we ended the dive the instructors asked each of us how long our dive was. They seemed rather upset that 5 out of the 6 of us were 1-3 minutes over the planned 60 minute dive time. Back to the dive shop for our debriefing, we sat around for about 15 minutes waiting for the instructors to come and talk to us (waiting for them has become a common occurance). When they did show up they basically gave a blanket statement to all of us saying that what they saw was horrible, bad buddy skills, poor bouyancy, not paying attention, etc.. But when we asked for more details they would not give us any, this left all of us rather frustrated. They then told us that since it was very busy and we must be tired we should take the next day off. I guess if the punishment for not diving the way they want is a day off I'll take it. Then Calvin and Rick had their debriefings about their leading skills. Afterwards we asked them about it and their interpretation was that we should act like headless sheep during these DMT guided dives. Here we thought we were just on fun dives following around a divemaster. I guess in these cases following closely and watching the DMT is the main objective and we shouldn't spend so much time enjoying our dive. The plan for dinner was to eat at Ocean Vida. Jeff and I decided we would try to find a direct route from our room as we had started to become more acquainted with the villiage and dirt paths. We figured that there must be a path that would be faster then back tracking to the path by the dive shop and beach. After walking for awhile and reaching the point that we were going to give up, we found another couple trying to find the beach as well. The lady was Filipino and seemed to know where she was going. After what seemed like an inifinite maze of narrow paths and peoples yards (most of which were full of leashed roosters) we finally reached the beach yet this was no short cut as we had passed up the restaurant by about a quarter mile which seems like a further distance in the night heat. We did discover a resort on the beach with a volley ball net, refreshing large pool, and Hawaiian shaved ice stand, I had to double check that Jeff was seeing the same thing and that this was not just a mirage. Once we reached Ocean Vida, we joined the large table of about 9 interns (which was almost the whole group of 13 interns). After a brief power outage, the fans started running again and Jeff and I ordered a Hawaiian pizza and calimari. During dinner it was a good time to get to know the other interns more and we had a great time discussing numerous random topics. I found it interesting when the topics of movies came up and the group was talking about the movie Avengers, how much the movie cost, actors, and other similar comic book movie spin offs. I guess I never thought about our American movies and entertainment being the main media interests of other countries as well. With us at the table included mostly interns from England, some from Canada, and 3 of us from the States. Out of the interns that were not there includes 3 from England and 1 originally from the US yet has lived all over the world when part of a traveling circus and is currently living in China. The diversity of our group leads to intersting discussions and unique accents. I was asking one of the interns from England how does our accent sound to them. He stated it sounds like it would be a lot of work and energy to talk like us. I found this as an interesting observation. This evening we also learned many tips and tricks from the other interns on how to complete the tasks to the instructors satisfaction. We also learned logistical information on how to live on this island and complete daily tasks of laundry, garbage removal, and so on. All in all this comradery helped turn a bad day into a very pleasurable evening.