got another real-life-card today from UVA. I was confused a bit because it all seemed like they were writing at the beginning of the voyage. And then I looked at the address. It was mailed to Mauritius, but somehow just caught up with us in China! Thanks to everyone who signed -- I enjoy getting real mail!
Today was a crazy crazy day in the library. The good news is the catalog is back up online and I’ve met the new IT crew-guy and all seems good there. There was some software conflict. And they’ve documented what they did, so in case it happens again … But, we’re having some problems connecting to the databases again and we’re having troubles diagnosing it. It’s not a proxy server problem. The proxy server is working fine. It seems to be something wrong with the ship’s free-site-server. Sometimes the UVA link passes through as free, sometimes it gives you a 404 File-Not-Found error. If you are logged into the pay-Internet, it works fine always. We don’t know why or what’s wrong but folks are looking into it. It’s another issue of each person only understanding one part of the picture and it’s hard to put the puzzle pieces together. Our stapler ran out of staples around lunch time. You can’t imagine what a crisis it is when our stapler runs out of staples! And many offices around here (except for the library, of course) close for lunch so we had many lines of grumpy students while we waited to get refills for the stapler. Sounds dumb I know, but here are the joys of working in a tiny library. And the stapler is the primary reason that most folks come to the library anyway … Someone stole our scissors and someone stole our calendar from behind the desk while we were at port and that makes me grumpy. Lots of students (way more than normal) responded to this morning’s swath of overdue notices telling us they dropped them in the book drop while we were at port. Except they weren’t there. Note to Jean: I think you need to talk to the Purser’s Desk about being the overnight/port drop-off since materials are secure there. And it’s been busy, busy, busy. There are only 2 days between China and Japan and much paper-writing is underway. The Internet has been sporadic the last two days too which adds to the fun. People underestimate the quality of the print collection. There are some decent materials there, but it does make things difficult when technology misbehaves. A lot of students were doing a lot of work in the library today. And there is so little physical space that it gets very overwhelming very quickly when lots of people are in line needing attention.
Everyone is starting to think about the end. How to process all the places we’ve been to when there is no time to do so between ports, how to prepare for Japan when we have only 2 days and are still flummoxed by China, how to best use the time between Japan and Hawaii (8 days) to bring things together -- both educationally and experientially. How to get all the work done that needs to get done before the end. How not to panic and how not to be exhausted. How not to be focused so much on the end that we forget we still have 21 days left. I feel like I’m on an emotional roller-coaster and I’ve gotta say, despite the fabulous experiences, I’m a little bit looking forward to getting off … the roller coaster that is … the ship, I’m not so sure … it’s definitely an odd space to be in.
Tonight we all had to get our temperature taken because Japan has stringent health requirements for entry into the country. All 850 of us. It’s really amazing how efficient they can be on this ship, processing us all through the bureaucracy quickly.
I didn’t get China photos up today, other than the few in yesterday’s blog. I’m not sure I’ll be able to get them up before Japan, so both will have to be projects as we cross the ocean.
Tonight was open mike night after China. They do this after every port, though I often have one conflict or another. Tonight, it was both China debriefing and debriefing about Virginia Tech. It was hard and sad and lovely at the same time. There were poems and songs and a student from Virginia Tech spoke and also a student who was a high-school friend of one of the students who was killed. Lots of people talked about their experiences in China and many talked about how both events intersected in their minds. I talked a little bit also about some of the things I put in yesterday’s blog. Everybody here has a lot of "stuff" in their heads right now.
We lose another night of sleep tonight, so I’m headed to bed early …
