ugh, not feeling good today. There is definitely stuff going ‘round this ship. My immune system has held up pretty well … until today, but ugh … I slept all morning. Had a little lunch and then Dawn asked me if I’d help proctor an exam. The classroom layout isn’t great on the ship and there are so many students aboard. Many of the rooms are very oddly-shaped and many only have little round bar-tables. With the record number of 702 students, there are 35 students in most classes and that makes the classroom space really really tight. There is no space for folks to spread out. Half of Dawn’s econ class wanted to go to the dining hall where there are big tables and more room. So, I hung out in the classroom with the other half. I was feeling better and proctoring doesn’t require a whole lot of energy, so that was fine. I brought my laptop. I did, though, have to be conscious of typing very quietly. As my staff will tell you, I type very loudly. Annette tells me that’s how she knows whether or not I’m in my office, she can hear me typing. Typing softly was a challenge!
And then I worked the rest of the afternoon. We have a ton of donated textbooks. Thanks much to Barbie at UVA, Jill at ISE, and Ron on the ship, we’ve figured out a way to ship textbooks to Better World Books who will then distribute them to various literacy organizations. In the past, they’ve mostly been incinerated with the ship’s other trash. But, we’ve got mailing labels and we’ve got a way to get them off the ship and taken to UPS. The only remaining challenge is boxes. I put a big box in the Union that overfilled immediately. There are two other boxes in the library. Books are currently stacked on the floor in the Union and tomorrow I need to figure out what to do about that. Today was the final due date for all library books. Many came in, but not anywhere close to all. We’d said we’d bill tomorrow for any unreturned books, so we’ll see how that goes. Billing for all things needs to be closed by midnight tomorrow night. All the reserves are out of the computer. Tomorrow, we’ll peel off labels and reshelve. The students who were working tonight were supposed to shelf-read their areas. Hopefully, they listened … We had volunteers shelving today, so we’re caught up there until tomorrow’s returns and reserve shelving. So, I’m feeling in pretty good shape. Sherri and I will be in the library most of the day tomorrow, likely, but we’re not opening normal hours. There are parties and other events starting at 4:00 and I feel pretty confident we can be more or less done by then. Sunday, I have a handful of things to do, like backing up the cataloging records to bring back to UVA, generating updated video lists and such, deleting patron records. Nothing that should take any real time. Just final things to cross off the to-do list.
Today was B-finals day. Everyone is ecstatic to be done. Faculty are franticly grading. Grades are due tomorrow at 5:00. As for personal packing, I have one bag packed and two boxes packed. We have to have luggage outside our doors by Sunday at 10 a.m. Things are a little confusing for me because I’m staying on the ship Monday night with the administrative team. I was given luggage tags for the faculty/staff group, but I think I need ones for the administrative group. We’re hoping that the administrative team’s luggage will be off-loaded on Monday, we’ll go through Customs with everyone else (yes, it turns out we have to go through Customs again -- the Customs officials made a mistake in Hawaii), and then our luggage will be held somewhere secure until Tuesday. But, that hasn’t been confirmed yet. I’m hoping that for 2 reasons: 1) I don’t want to have to transport my own luggage! and 2) I want to mail my boxes when UPS greets the ship on Monday. But, it may mean that I don’t get to disembark with the faculty/staff in the morning (they are the 2nd group to disembark after the sea that won the Sea Olympics). The admin team will go last after everyone else gets off. They expect the first students to get off at 11 am and the last students to get off at 4 pm. I’d like to have the afternoon in San Diego, but I’m guessing that won’t happen. Dawn invited me to bum around San Diego with her and her son Joel, which would be nice, but I don’t know whether I’ll be able to catch up with them later in the day or not. My flight home leaves 11-ish on Tuesday morning.
Tonight, we had a mandatory disembarkation meeting. And they did a logistical pre-port event in imitation of the others we have done along the way: kinds of food you should be sure to eat in America, useful phrases in “American”, things you need to know about the culture in America, how their toilets work, etc. It was cute. And then there was a segment on news. Some of the things we’ve missed in the last 3 ½ months. Something about Paris Hilton going to jail, people trying to get Al Gore to reconsider running, the Republican debate last week, and the fact that Boris Yeltsin died. Somehow, we totally missed that. For a group of students and faculty traveling around the world to learn about the world, we are woefully uninformed about current news. Frightening, frankly. And then Marvel, one of the mental health folks on board, talked about re-entry and how to talk about the enormity of this trip when everyone at home really only wants sound-bites and how to stay connected to the experience. She was really good. She has done this trip many times and so she knows wherefrom she speaks.
We lose an hour tonight and another hour tomorrow night and then we’re on California time. Today at the noontime bridge report we learned we were half-way between Hawaii and California. One of the things Marvel said tonight was, without the noontime bridge report, how will I ever know where I am? Or where I am going? Indeed.
