Stay calm and keep drifting.

Had a blast today on a rafting trip. A group of 21 of us went to someplace about two hours away to go rafting. It absolutely poured in the morning at the meeting time and during the ride there, it was pretty bad but once we arrived, the weather was fine.

And man, it was so much fun. I’ve only been rafting twice, and this was different – we didn’t have any paddles. They called it “drifting,” too, not rafting. So we were thinking that this might not be the whitewater weekend we’d planned, but it turned out to be really intense!

The rafts only held two people; I teamed up with Joi, who’s a lightweight. She’d bought one of the giant water guns and a little scooper thing we figured we’d use to target our friends in nine other rafts and however many other tourists in the rest of the boats.

And man, to the Chinese, it was a random Monday, but it was crowded. Without any paddles, we really did wind up drifting, and pinballing off each other. Right off the bat, Joi and I got caught in this circular pattern in one tidal pool, going in circles for about 10 minutes before someone liberated us.

The rapids were pretty intense, and some of the drops were pretty steep. Most of them were, really, and Joi and I just hung on for dear life. We’d emerge from the whitewater and start bailing water out, throwing it at other rafts. Joi was shooting left and right, and we kept getting caught in others’ crossfire. It was just so much fun.

At another point, I managed to scoop up a helmet that someone had lost, which worked out well since at a previous point I’d lost our own little scooper thing. Eventually, I found someone else’s scooper thing and bailed and bailed.

Joi was a hoot. I really thought I was going to lose her. We were facing each other, and usually going down the rapids, one of us was facing the front and the other was facing the back. When it was me going down backwards I just got a kick out of Joi’s face because she was just in hysterics. I just laughed and laughed. She told me I was just so calm the whole time and she was freaking out. Yeah, who’s calming the Marine?

I swear she was going airborne at one point and I felt like I was going to accidentally kick her because my legs kept flying up. The rocks were really shallow and when we went down some we’d feel them scraping our butts as we went down, and then we’d bounce off a big rock somewhere. At one point, we just hit rapid after rapid and smashed into some rock and I felt my entire neck jolt and crack, like you get at the chiropractor’s. I figure I have a good shot at waking up tomorrow with whiplash, but what a way to go.

It topped off a wonderful holiday weekend. I’d gone to Hong Kong and visited a friend there. She’d recently gotten a bunny and we went and splurged on him. It was cool to see a pet again, and he was fun to watch hop all over the apartment (which had a great view).

We also watched another colleague in a jujitsu competition, ate at a Michelin-star restaurant (It’s a famous one that they have in Taipei, too, and I’d know the name if you said it but I can never remember.) I did not go to a movie or get a haircut, which were two possibilities for the weekend, but I did opt to get a pedicure after eating one of the best three burgers I’ve ever had in my life.

Earlier this week, I got to play “hysterical woman” in a Marine drill. Weirdly, though, even though I played the victim, I got yelled at. “Get down on the floor!” Quite honestly, I could see how innocent people sometimes get mixed up with police. Even though this was just a drill, it was kind of confusing. The “bad guy” dude in my scenario had the (big plastic) “gun” and but it was me getting my shoes taken off. I found out later that one of the other “victims” in a different scenario had grabbed a (little plastic) “gun” and started shooting marines, which contributed to my treatment, but it was a confusing thing in the moment. I was thinking, shouldn’t someone be trying to console me? My colleague just a (big plastic) “gun” pointed at me and now you’re yelling at me to show me my hands? (And worse, you called me “m’am!) I needed a hug.

We were the last ones to do it and had no idea how long it would take to get to us. Our cue was something like “When you hear the radio,” so every time we heard something we’d start arguing and he'd wave the (big plastic) “gun” at me. It was supposed to be an argument over money, but we were adlibbing about every grievance about work we could think of. “Standing desk! Get me a standing desk!”  Early on, a guy working late came running down to the office, not realizing it was a drill. That was funny.  I thanked him for coming to my rescue.