mochisuki

Having grown up it sounds like constantly on the ocean and away from society much of the time, what occupied your time and thoughts at sea as a young person?

That could be protectiveness as you call it, but in every land I have visited, the locals switch to English if they realize you are foreign simply because after you make an effort to speak their language, they are more than happy to try to make it easy for you to understand what they say, since they actually are fluent in English so it is easier for everyone.

They made a paralyzed man walk again. Might be worth waiting to see what they can do next, for you.

As for horrible smells, you could volunteer teaching English in a poor country that smells nice. not a joke. my friend is in the Amazon right now in a tiny village teaching tribes people so they can control their tourist industry. fresh green nature all around.

A year ago during a basic medical check the nurse listening to my heart said "hmm, seems fine but I might have heard something off, you might want to check with a specialist". So I went and had a specialist do an EKG, and they said mmm everything looks fine, but I suppose some of these waves look a tiny bit like Brugada, which he said he had written several research papers about. So I had a 24 hour continuous monitoring device attached, and they read the results and said, no you seem fine. I was pretty freaked out, saying I could feel unpleasant fluttering when I was lying on my left side, and so they monitored me like that until I said I had felt the unpleasantness a few times. And they said nah, you're fine.

Unfortunately, having gone through all that, I was so freaked out that any little flutter or hop in my heart for months afterward terrified me. Over time I accepted that it was just fear, and that I am fine. I hope. Still, no explanation for why, when I try to sleep on my left side, 80% of the time I feel tightness and unpleasantness in my chest.

Seriously, you will enjoy this movie so much. Bill Murray, goes and does what you did, more or less. Come on already.