rainy & rocky
it's raining tonight & quite rocky. I've been wearing sea-bands all day today. I'm pretty sure it's the combination of the motion & the time change that gets to me. We moved today into Greenwich Mean Time -3:00 or two hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. I need to learn to get used to this because it's going to happen many many more times this trip! Like 22 more times ...
It's been raining on and off all today. I was sitting on the deck with the water spraying in my face lightly from the ocean until I realized it was getting harder & it was actually rain. We're rocking a bit right now. I'm sitting in the faculty/staff lounge, which is a lovely space, except that the motion bothers me here more than in other areas.
The crew security officer today told us the cart of books behind the desk was a fire hazard. We're scrambling a little bit to rearrange the reserves. It's incredibly tight behind the deck, so it's not at all easy to do this. Sherri's working with the workstudy students tonight and I'm sure they'll come up with something.
On other SAS passenger introductions: I had dinner the other night with a woman named Ruby who has been on Semester at Sea five times. Yes, FIVE. Her first voyage was in 1992 and she has been around the world five times since then. She is a "life-long-learner" -- adult passenger, continuing ed., use your term of choice. It seems that ISE changes the name of this program regularly. Let's just say she's older than most of the rest of us. You can be a life-long learner at any age -- the predominant characteristic is that they can all afford to do this -- but most of them are older. Ruby is 85. She worked in a school cafeteria without a college degree when she decided to go back to school for business administration. One of her professors asked her to join his real estate firm and she got her license. A couple of years ago, she sold a golf course. And she's sailed around the world 5 times since 1992. She says this time she's taking it easier and not doing too much off the ship because, she says, she's already been to the Amazon, she's already been to the Taj Mahal ... Been there done that. The rest of us at dinner just sat with our jaws wide open.
There are actually many people on this voyage who have done this before. Both the academic dean (Mike) and the executive dean (Larry) have sailed repeatedly with SAS, as have a couple of the faculty. It definitely seems that people get sucked into this life. I've also learned that in order to get a room on the fancy deck -- deck 7 -- you need to be important (Desmond Tutu) or part of the Administrative Team or you have to have sailed repeatably. Hmmm ...
