When disembarking after a turn, it is common practice to brief your reliever of the general situation onboard by way of a Handover Note. In the handover, you write what you consider to be important for your reliever to know in order to perform the duties of his position. My reliever's name is Pan Tao. We call him Tony. This is what I wrote in my handover to him:
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Welcome onboard Second Officer Tony Pan!
It's quite hard to flush the toilet in our cabin. I mean, you have to use both hands and push really hard. The repairman has looked at it and made some adjustments but lately it has gotten even worse. However, there is a trick, a special technique you can apply to flush the toilet. Simply follow this procedure:
A few days before you must eat proper, healthy food in order to charge your body with energy for the attempt. Do not diet or perform strenuous exercise during this time as it might deplete your energy reserves and thereby diminishing your chances of success. Strenuous activities include sexy time, my friend. Women are well known for their succubus qualities so it is best to stay away.
A few hours before you must try and center, find harmony. In order to fully flush, you must gather all your chi from within and let it converge at the very essence of your being. It also helps to pray a little to the God of your choice. Myself, I use Thor, the Norse God of Thunder. I find that he gives me the divine presence and "oomph" I need to achieve complete flushness. Now, I know you're Chinese so you'll probably go for Buddha. I'm not saying don't try it, but I doubt it will do any good. The guy is just too mellow.
At the actual time of the flushing, make sure you are alone and have a banana nearby for quick protein recharge afterwards. I also put an isotonic beverage in the shower to gulp down during the Post-Flush Scrub and Cleansing (PFSC). You'll loose copious amounts of fluids sweating of course, but you should also mentally prepare for a time of intense crying as the emotions flow over you in the hours after the event.
When you feel ready, close the toilet lid and place yourself facing the toilet. In front of you, you will see the wall mounted flush button, Take a deep breath and put your right thumb at 2 o'clock and your left at 10 o'clock on the button. Put your right foot against the shower wall behind you and face down. (Now, there is a crack in the wall there, try to avoid it if you can. It happened at the beginning of the contract when I had not yet perfected the technique. Obviously my alignments were all out of sync!) Now close your eyes. Try to empty your mind of all thought. Focus. As you collect yourself, take long deep breaths and refill your thoughts with flushing images. Try to see it with your minds eye. Let it play like movie on the insides of your eye lids. See it happen, see the bowl emptying, see it refill with water. Let tension build up inside you, all the positive energy, the love, the beauty, the laughter, the singing, all those things that makes life worth living. Let it blend with hatred, misery and death to become a massive force of concerted emotions. As your body starts to heat up, it grows closer. And you will know when the time is right. It will feel so natural, I promise you, you will have no doubts in your mind. And then. Pull the energy up all the way down from your feet, let it travel through your pelvis, up through the chest, feel it spiral out through your arms. Aaah the raw power! Enough to make a man GO MAAAADAAARRRGH! Your body is trembling now, every muscle turbo charged from this superheated mesh of beautiful light and terrible darkness traversing through you. Demonic laughter fills your belly, your tongue splits in half and your eyes turn red like the blood. Let every muscle count. Let loose the energy through your thumbs and as you push the button you scream kiiiYIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEHHAAAARRRGH!
.....and flush.Or you can call the repairman again so he can take a look at it. That's also an option, I suppose.
By the way, I changed the chart correction procedure quite radically and threw away all your stuff. But you'll figure it out, I'm sure.
Best of luck!
2/O Gunnar
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I was going to write some more about the actual work related stuff but I don't have time. How do people find time to do stuff?
