A Day in Mari’s Life (English)

Mari Swaruu: Hello once more, thank you for being here with me again. I hope you are all doing very well. I am Mari Swaruu.

First of all, I am writing today's subject because word has reached me that many of you would appreciate a closer look at how it is to live on a Taygetan starship orbiting Earth. Although I do find it a little uncomfortable to write about myself, and I also know that personal subjects are the ones with the fewest views on YouTube, at least when it comes to us and the crew here. Subjects that may be useful to the majority of my viewers will always have more views.

When at home, Taygetans don't use seconds, minutes, hours and days for timekeeping, and neither do they use days of the week (Monday through Sunday). Yet, here on this ship, we do, but limitedly, as we must coordinate with what is happening on Earth. With some people there even, so we use the entrance internet´s server as a time reference - the little clock at the bottom right of computer screens. And the days of the week are only observed when we need to do something related to Earth or coordinate with someone there. Because, for example, in daily life here, we all work or rest according to our personal rhythms, which means that we basically don't stop working on weekends, as you can see with the activity in my YouTube channel where I'm uploading one video in English and then another in Spanish regardless of what day of the week or date it is.

I write the texts for my videos in English first for two reasons. The first one is because I write faster in English, and the second one is because it is easier for my Taygetan team friends in CIC to translate it into Spanish. Being that translating Spanish to English for some reason is a lot more difficult, even for me. After it has been translated and corrected by several people in CIC, I always read the text and modify it before returning it to CIC to be transformed into an audio in Spanish.

As for the audio in English, I make them myself right after I finish writing the text for the day, and after I have, I proceed to make the videos with no help. And I am also the one who makes the videos in Spanish with the audio file my Taygetan team friends send me together with the cover images, which we develop together, although they make them for me. I used to do everything myself in English and in Spanish, but it turned out to be too demanding for me and time-consuming, leaving me with no time for my other chores, activities, and to simply have a life.

I have a lot on my head these days, so although I go to sleep very fast at night, I tend to wake up very early in the morning between 5 and 6 a.m. SIT time. SIT means “ship internal time”, and it is the one based on the server's location down on Earth. Although we have used internet servers in many countries, nowadays we are based in Mexico, and that's why this channel is classified as Mexican. But for official purposes only.

My bedroom has, for parts, the main room with my bed with a long hexagonal window above it and, at the port side of the ship, the side that faces Earth, looking towards the window, I have my private computer set up to my right on a long table, and I have my drawers with all my things to my left, also in a long cabinet full of those drawers. After my computer set up, I have a larger screen with my gaming consoles, and then I have a little sofa and a couch with a small table in the center. And, on the other side, I have an exercise machine.

Then, there are three steps to a small passage to my bathroom door, a passageway that is separated from the main room by a long transparent display case full of my most cherished things and ornaments. My bathroom is rather small, but it has a bathtub and a shower to the right of the door, a lavatory in front, and to the left, there is a transparent tinted sliding door to my large dresser where I keep my clothes and my makeup vanity table with a large mirror.

I am an early riser, so when I wake up, it is so early that everyone else is usually still sleeping. I dress up in sports clothes and tennis shoes, and I leave my room through a sliding pneumatic door. I walk through the dark gray corridor in the uppermost level of the main bedrooms, and I head towards the gymnasiums, which are at the lowest livable deck down and in front of this ship.

The gymnasiums are next to the pool area and they are decorated with walls that simulate being made of red brick with texturized 3D wallpaper. I work at the gym for 1 hour, doing stretching first so as not to lose my flexibility, and then I do some gymnastics, then some weightlifting, and I end my exercise time doing a cardio workout on a stationary running machine or while I listen to my favorite music through headphones.

After I am done exercising, I go back to my room while I do a little more running through the passageways of the ship and up several decks through the stairs, obviously not using the elevators. When I return to my dormitory, I take a shower and I put on the clothes I will wear during the day. And those are comfortable and human-looking or human clothes and another pair of tennis shoes. As you can see, I dress normally and not in a fancy silly-looking silver space suit as many people expect. We only wear space suits, usually black, when we are doing something that requires them or if we are expecting company or when we are going somewhere.

After I take a shower and dress up, I put on some light makeup, if any, and then I turn on my computer. I put headphones on with classical music, no lyrics, and then I start to write the YouTube subject of the day, much of which I had already prepared in my head while I exercised. Writing a subject takes me between two and three hours depending on what it is about and on how many interruptions I may receive.

When I finish writing. I revise the text and make the audio while my mom, Athena, comes into my room to comb and fix my hair while we comment on the subject, I just finished writing, mostly to see if I am not saying anything inappropriate.

When the text is ready, I send it via the internet to my Taygetan friends in CIC to be translated into Spanish. It is around this time when someone knocks at my door to tell me that lunch is ready. I usually only eat one strong meal during a day; sometimes I eat only once a day, although I may have something light for supper before bed, sometimes.

I walk off through the dark gray and black corridors to a stairway labeled “to the museum”. I go up one level and walk past the forward section of the large museum on board this ship. Then I pass through the entrance to one of the two main libraries, and then I enter the main atrium space that looks much like a small mall. And then I walk up another level through exposed stairs to where the main dining room is located.

It has many long tables, some with chairs and others with small sofas. After it, there is a large transparent long window with openings leading to the main kitchens where several crew members take turns to cook, although most of the time the cooking is done by Iror, the ship's chef, and also by Anna, who also works with Senetre, the ship surgeon, in the medical section of this ship.

After I'm done eating and talking to my friends there, I help to take everything to the kitchens to be washed. Then I help to feed the 21 cats on board, and then I walk up four decks to the forward section of the ship where the bridge, CIC and queen Alenym´s office are, where she is usually waiting for me for my daily classes, where I study space history as it is taught in the Federation, and I also study exopolitics and relationships, protocol and everything for dealing with each kind of star race and also what to do and how to best handle unknown species, which are interstellar and unknown animal species as well to know if they are dangerous or not. My subjects of study vary from day to day, and it would be impossible to enumerate them in this video because it would be too long. And much of what I'm sharing with you also comes from there.

When I'm not learning from Alenym, I also take classes from Zaikira, who is the ship's main engineer, with whom I learn how to repair critical parts and components in large and small spacecraft, as well as how to machine parts using power tools, both computer-assisted or simply using the most rudimentary tools such as a simple school ruler and a pencil to design and shape the new part. I was doing this just yesterday.

When you are in deep space and in trouble, you don't usually have advanced replicator machines at hand. You must take a hand drill, a bunch of spanners and a hammer to make things work again, or you won't survive. Other classes I take are cooking lessons with my mother Athena, Anna, and Iror. And I also take medicine and biology lessons with Senetre, the ship surgeon, and again with Anna, who is also a medical doctor.

After my classes, which can take up to 4 hours in my day, I return to my room where I turn on my computers again and I start to make the video for the next day. While I am at it and while the video is uploading to YouTube, I am also coordinating online with my Taygetan friends in the CIC deck above to see and check their translation so that it is as synchronized and similar to the original English text as much as possible. And we also see how the cover image looks best and with what images.

After it is all done and the next day's video is uploaded, I go out of my room and walk up to the CIC deck with my friends where we talk about many things, including the subjects at hand for the day. We simply chat for a while, and then we play a few video games for like 1 hour until we are all called to the dining room or mess hall again for supper time. As I said above, sometimes I eat something very light or some other times nothing at all as I sleep better that way. It is there when some videos are played on large screens that hang from the roof at the center of the mess hall while the crew is dining.

After supper time, I say goodbye to everyone and I walk back to my room where I take another shower and then I go to sleep.

When my classes are short or when, for one reason or another, I don't have any, I use that time to research things for my videos or for myself. And other times I may watch a movie with my friends here.

As you can see, the starship Toleka inside is like a little city where we experience our lives in a quite normal way, not always having to deal with strange and dangerous space incidents and dramas. This ship orbits Earth every three hours or less, which means that real daytime or nighttime lasts only about 90 minutes. This goes against our biology, so the ship internally and artificially simulates nighttime by closing windows shutters and dimming the lights inside. And in some places inside, cricket and other soft noises are played to trick our brains and circadian rhythms into thinking that it is night.

Thank you for watching my video and for liking and subscribing for more. I appreciate it a lot, and I hope to see you here next time. Take care.

With much love.

Your friend,

Mari Swaruu