October 3 at Sea

October 3 at Sea:

Gently rocked awake before 8am;  get up, organize cabin a bit, think about pulling together laundry, save that for another day.  Pull on workout clothes, pop out of cabin 5021 (starboard), walk 8 feet to Executive Dean John’s office to say good morning and fill my water bottle with fresh filtered cold water, skipping the chocolate croissants’ siren call.  Walk 20 more feet, past the purser’s desk & say hello, over to the dean’s office.  Quickly check email—because of the time difference with the states, sometimes important emails come during the night.  Respond to one sweet mother who is worried about her son from 8,000 miles away.  Head up to the fitness room for 30 minutes on one of the exercise bikes—better for me than trying to stay on the treadmill that sways and bumps with the waves.  Head back to the cabin for a quick shower and then back to the office that I share with my great Assistant Dean of Students Chris Paul. Turn on our tv in our office which gets Global Studies.  Today’s topic is Africa, using maps and information to make Africa disappear and appear, and a good piece on how African sailors and adventurers have been written out of their role in history.  Emails about cabin switches, melted hair dryers (using it to dry clothes—definitely a fire hazard), students struggling, Pride at Sea dinner reminder, Captain’s daily memo, cabin searches (no duct tape or fresh fruit or cereal from the dining commons allowed).  At 11am head over to Dean John’s office for our 1 hour Dean Team Meeting.  From there, “family” lunch in the main dining room on deck 5, starboard.  I have 6 students in my “family”;  I’ve adopted one more, hoping that this helps him connect better.  I’ve brought chocolate from Belgium and Spain for dessert for them, plus I’ve printed out a personal scavenger hunt for them to take with them (an idea borrowed from a past Dean of Students, Anna Gonzalez).  At 1pm I head up to Classroom 1 off of the Garden Room dining room for our almost-daily student life team meeting.  Two staff members lead us in some yoga-laughing.  We launch into our meeting with more chocolate and announcements about upcoming programs—hoping the presidential debate is successfully taped for showing on Oct. 4^th, international students meeting, sea Olympics meeting, 0-2 group meeting (students who are traveling without alcohol as their focus), Greek Life programs, Global Studies Study sessions.  Meet with RDs after this meeting to talk about individual students who may be struggling.  Have a moment outside on the deck to look for wild-life, and to look at the waves and the clouds.  Bump in to students every 30 feet or so for a variety of conversations, head back to cabin to work out at 4pm (Insanity!), do this for 30 minutes, come back to cabin for another quick 4 minute shower, inadvertently fall asleep til 5:30.  Head up to Dean John’s Deck 7 cabin (he has a large cabin and balcony) for a staff social.  Lots of laughter and pictures and canapés and palm reading.  6:45 head back down to the Main dining room for Pride at Sea dinner and connect with about 10 great staff members & allies and one solo great student.  Head outside for 10 more minutes of deck time/salty-rail time;  watch the sun set behind a uniform screen of haze, making it look more like the moon than the sun.  Fall in love with the curve of the earth.  Head back inside (whoosh—air conditioning hits with a cold blast, and I realize how humid it was outside), go to cabin to pick up journal and pastels and head to an 8pm Seminar at Sea—one led by a life long learner & former journalist, Milton Orris.  As Milton talks and gives journaling tips, I get to draw something that’s been in my mind’s eye since Holland—little fluffy sheep on a bright green green field with little fluffy clouds about them on a bright blue blue sky.  Journal some during the program.  At 9pm leave program and head upstairs to start beverage service—check in with the dining manager Avin and Vladamir, the chief security officer.  Only 6 beverage cards have been handed out (students need a beverage card to buy a drink), so we know it will be a light night.  Leave to drop off journal supplies in cabin, plan on heading to a 9:30 “students making meaning” meeting, but have a variety of conversations with students in the hallways along the way, popping outside occasionally to see if the moon is rising yet, and the next I know it is 10:30.  Check facebook briefly, get to email with a friend or two for ten minutes, and head up to Glazer Lounge (the faculty/staff lounge).  Decide that I want to try something new and different—I aim for brandy but they are out so I try cognac instead.  After two sips and my eyeballs feeling drunk, hand drink around for others (who don’t have the ship-cough) to try.  Jacques decides he likes cognac and so he gets to finish my drink.  Pop back outside and see the waning moon rising portside behind the same low-hanging screen of haze.  Watch as it manifests, surrounded by good people.  Slowly the others head back inside, and as we sail towards the Southern Cross I stay out with Jonathan, one of my RDs, talking about love and loss and longing and best selves and surprises and intentions and the future, the conversation interspersed with flashes of silver on the dark water and soft splashes as flying fish play in the waves or fly away from the ship for their lives, it’s hard to tell which.  It’s hard to close down the amazing conversation lit by the orange moon and waiting for flying fish to appear like shooting stars, but the night becomes later and windier and it is time for sleep.  Head back in to the faculty staff lounge where one of my RD’s, Gudrun, is still hanging out writing on her computer, so she gets to claim the right of shutting Glazer down, as I head to my cabin to drift off to sleep with the curtains open, so I can see the moon on the other side as she sets hours later.

Time-traveling in England

One of the themes of England was this feeling of time-traveling—visiting the berth where my father set sail to immigrate to the US at the age of 3, over to meet up with college friends who I hadn’t seen for 20+ years, meeting new cousins and seeing other cousins after 25 years, and stopping by my first school in Kensington Park.  Totally time jumping, also in the land of the music of my youth (Culture Club, Duran Duran, the Eurythmics).  I’ll be time-jumping a bit as I write these blogs, as I’m having trouble keeping up linearly, ergo Ireland will come soon even though it was before London and as I write this I am in Cadiz (after Belgium/Holland and Portugal, let alone writing about time on the ship).

First day in Southampton was a bit of a tummy recovery day—you know, the wild spicy food of Ireland.  Not sure what it was, but taking 3 naps worked.  Out to wander & had dinner in Southampton; most of my dinners out so far have been Indian food.  The following day I was on duty and got to walk around the town with the Executive Dean John Tymitz, which included visiting the Titanic museum.  We also got as close as security allowed to the berth that both the Titanic and the Queen Mary set sail from (the ship that my dad immigrated on about 60 years ago).  I also picked up a cell phone for Europe with a sim card for about $25.  It’s hard getting used to tap texting on the 9 keys again, but has been valuable to connect with friends—in England I used it to connect with my cousin Nicole, and my two friends from Smith Jennifer Johnson and Louisa Keating.  Since then my phone has mainly been used to connect with Kate, the only other person who has my number and an international phone as well, so now instead of the Bat-phone, it’s the Kate phone.

After chilling in Southampton I popped on a train to the Victoria Waterloo station in London, where I was met at the gate by Louisa and JJ (Jennifer), two dear friends and awesome people from my days at Smith College.  I hadn’t seen them since graduation in 1990—twenty-two years, and we picked up as though it was a weekend in the city in college.  Ticking off what we did:  headed immediately to the Eye of London where I got a brief whirlwind tour of London from the air and a bird’s eye view of their lives the past years.  From there we bounced down the Thames headed for dim sum, sidetracked by an amazing multi-cultural farmer’s market (holy cannoli, Malaysian pancakes were awesome), which also included a pitcher of Pimm’s & fresh fruit (also awesome, always wondered what Pimm’s was—I still don’t know what it is exactly, but it was delicious).  Out to dim sum, wandering over the Thames and over to tea at a cool funky place for more catching up and delicious food (scones, jam, and clotted cream—which is divine, and should probably be called “divine cream”, because, you know, well the clotted thing just doesn’t do it justice.  And yes, there was an unabashed food theme to the day—it fit—the joy of it, of savoring life, of being in a timeless moment with good people.  Catching up with Louisa and JJ was nothing short of fabulous and wonderful—a mix of intelligence (Smithies), honesty, reflection, laughter, and a bit of wondering too—wondering where the next 10-20 years take us. 

From their sweet presence I was gently deposited into the network of the London Tube and sent on my way to Nottingham, where my cousin Nicole lives on Portobello Road.

Backing up a bit, my paternal grandparents were from Scotland.  My grandmother had 9 brothers and sisters, which results in a lot of cousins—I have met many of my father’s generation, but less of the cousins of my generation.  My dad had met Nicole several years ago and basically and correctly said she was cool peeps (although in his lingo), and Nicole was generous enough to not only let me stay in her flat in Portobello road for the evening, but actually to pull together an amazing group of family and friends over an amazing multi-course Sabbath meal.  Which was also awesome and delicious and time-less traveling in the sense of reminding me of my grandparents and tasting the food of my people and culture for many generations (matzo ball soup, roasted chicken and potatoes, chopped liver).  Nicole was a gracious host and we connected with sharing pieces of our lives, our family histories, and with reflecting on differences between England and the US.  To find a piece of home away from day-to-day home was a blessing, and I’m really grateful to have met new cousins & partners and gotten to connect with cousins who knew me when I was 3 and knew and loved my grandparents.  Speaking of being 3, the following morning I swung around the corner to the apartment we used to live in on Kensington Road (Princes House).  Across the street was the private park I used to hang out in with my mother and a nanny—I remember collecting bits of broken blue & white pottery from who knows how many centuries ago.  Also across the street was my Montessori school.  I still have somewhere a booklet from that school where we got to draw and clip and post things that we liked.  I remember I liked to draw lions.  There was a father & young girl there & I asked the father to take my picture, that I had gone to school there 40 years ago.  The little girl looked at me with huge eyes, because she had gone to school there about  4 years ago.  Again, time-traveling.  The biggest impression overall was how close everything was, as compared to when I was younger—it seemed a bit further/bigger, maybe simply because of relative human scale/smaller legs.

Back to Southampton with a full heart and full tummy, oy.

In the middle of the Atlantic, depth 17,000 feet

Wed August 29^th

As usual with a Semester at Sea voyage, time is flying by so far!  The community is off to a good start, I’m really enjoying the students, faculty, staff, crew, and officers, and I love the student life staff—they are a great, brilliant, hard-working bunch of good folks.

As I am writing this, we’ve been having some really big swells.  I am sitting in my office in a roll-y chair, and I pretty much just crashed into Chris, my assistant dean of students, and knocked her off her chair— “I’m coming your way!” is now the quote of the morning.  The past couple of days have been really swell-y.  I slept last night in what I like to call my Michael Jordan pose—legs wide to brace against side to side and with one arm above my head sort of bracing against the wall.  I have also taken full advantage of the hold bars in the shower.  What I’ve taken the most pictures of so far is the ocean—as much as I’ve been spending time with fantastic people, I feel like it’s been my constant companion, and I continue to be in awe of its moods, its power, and its poetry. 

In no particular order, some other highlights—shopping for art supplies in Halifax with Darlene (one of the professors) and Randy (the Assistant Executive Dean), seeing a whale swim by at dinner, stopping to watch the moon peek out from behind the clouds and paying respect to Neil Armstrong next to Kathy Thornton, next fall’s academic dean and an astronaut herself, and getting a gift of yummy snacks for the first Atlantic crossing from my friend Debbie.

In Galway, I will be travelling overland to Dublin with several friends.  We will be stopping in the lovely town of Dingle.  Will post again soon!   

chin-rest services $2/hour will accept mice in lieu of $

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. "Pooh," he whispered.

"Yes, Piglet?"

"Nothing," said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw, "I just wanted to be sure of you."

Little tykes

zola & brie