March 19, 2019 - Sea Day - Tuesday , Day 72

March 19, 2019 - Sea Day - Tuesday , Day 72

It would be really easy to just say see yesterday, but we have some new lecturers onboard. For the in depth track on photography Ben Brain has joined us. He has a long history as a professional photographer as well as the editor of a digital camera magazine. He brings the insights of the artist and the cut throat judgement of the editor.

Ben has now presented 2 lectures in which he used his work to steer us in how to see things in a more artistic way. He also  preaches the discipline to be selective in what photos we keep. This afternoon he also did a workshop on camera settings and exposure. This was very helpful.

The entertainment last night was a mentalist. Alice abhors these guys, so I went alone. He did some amazing things that had us all wondering how could he have figured that out. He closed out his show with an invitation to attend a workshop this afternoon on how we can get rid of pain. Who would pass that up? Not us. We went, and so did about 150 others.

This was an interesting approach to pain management. He focused on alleviating long term pain. This avoids maltreatment of injuries. He focuses on the concept that if you change how you use the affected area your brain will use this new path to “forget” the pain associated with the old path. This takes some concentration and visualization techniques which he demonstrated.

He worked with 3 passengers who had various types of pain. In the matter of minutes he was able to teach them methods that eliminated their pain or very greatly reduced it. These people were not shills. Impressive.

We are getting ready for dinner now. After that we plan to attend the performance of a man dubbed the fastest violinist in the world. We will see or should I say hear? He was fast, but not accurate. He missed many fingerings. That left us feeling that he either needed to slow down or practice more.

In his announcement earlier in the day the captain had let us know that we would be passing through an area near a cyclone. He suggested that heavy items and fragile be stowed carefully. Alice had already taken care of that as she started organizing for packing to go home. We have plenty of time, but this will take the pressure off of her next week. It won’t impact me because I am banished during the final stages of packing anyhow.