proxy woes & ILS successes

It is 68 degrees today. I know I keep talking about how beautiful it is … wind blowing … blue blue water all around us … no humidity … but I feel the need to mention it yet again … We crossed the prime meridian (0 degrees longitude) last night, sometime around 2:30 AM. I wasn’t up for the event. We’re currently at 32 degrees, 28 minutes latitude; .05 degrees, 48 minutes longitude, moving at a speed of 18.2 knots. All according to my cabin television which provides this info. to me moment-by-moment.

The Archbishop spoke at Global Studies this morning. It was very rah-rah: yay for students who can change the world; yay for students who boycotted for company disinvestment from South Africa back in the 80s & 90s (which we did at Mount Holyoke, we boycotted Coca-Cola & the College purchased only Pepsi products), yay for the work that students are doing now for the causes of poverty and racial inequality. But, I was a little disappointed that there wasn’t more substance in his speech today -- either about his personal experiences or about the state of the country now in 2006. He talked a bit about the Truth & Reconciliation Commission and how South Africa was able to keep from having a bloodbath with the transfer of power, but he didn’t talk in any great personal detail. I wanted more … of him … somehow … (and I realize that’s awfully selfish on my part), rather than rah-rah for the students. But, of course, he was primarily talking to the students and that’s obviously what he felt they needed to hear. He spoke for an hour without notes and he’s funny and he laughs at himself and he’s very hard not to adore. Tomorrow will be a Q & A. I hope the students ask good questions.

Mixed library news today. Last night, Mark at ITC fixed my Connexion-connection problem through the proxy server. Last night, that was lovely & I was very happy. Today, we couldn’t access the proxy server at all -- from anywhere. I’m not quite sure what’s up. I reported it early this morning, but we’re 6 hours ahead of EST time and I haven’t heard anything back yet. I had some leads from Erika’s experience which I’ve also passed along in my email. Lots of frustrated students, so I’m hoping we can resolve this ASAP. The faculty, however, have all been super. It’s all about the F-word (flexibility), say the deans, and so today was a good example of this. We told the students we’d talk to the faculty and that’s probably the coolest part about being together on the ship. Word spreads pretty effortlessly (which I appreciate has its downsides too!).

But then much progress in other areas. Sherri has put together a great Powerpoint for basic research skills & proxy server help, which we're currently testing out on our workstudy students, she taught 2 classes yesterday, and she's working on collection development recommendations on race & racism. We also spent some time today talking about promotion & rank at UVA & UCSB. It's interesting how different they are. UCSB has no affiliate rank, assistant is their lowest. And they have 3-year review cycles, with steps inside each rank. Each review cycle sounds considerably more intense than our 1-year reviews, but going from rank-to-rank isn't then as dramatic (unlike our promotion process).

I loaded all the patron records into the new ILS yesterday and all the bibliographic records today. I’ve got a handful of errors to clean up manually, but all in all pretty clean. I should define "clean" as what was in Winnebago is now in Destiny and we didn’t lose any itemtypes or patron information. What says Reference in Winnebago says Reference in Destiny, etc. As mentioned in previous posts, much of the data could still stand for further massaging. We’ve set up all the policies, we’ve customized the homepage. We’re pretty much ready to go. I’m waiting on Kenny, the crew IT manager, to adjust his alias for us. He created an alias so that users can just type "library" in their browser bar & have us come up. (How cool would that be if we did that on our home campuses???) But we changed the location of the page we are using at start-up and so I need him to fix his alias. Tomorrow, we’ll run a report from Winnebago looking for all the checked-out items and have the workstudy students check them out in Destiny. And then I think we are ready to switch. There are still things we need to set up (Z39.50 for OCLC), futzing with permissions, Destiny has a “categories” feature that we think will be useful for reserves, etc. Those will come as we learn more. But, we can check books out now and check them in again and renew them, we can edit item records and bibliographic records, staff can log in for staff functions from machines other than the single computer at the front desk, users can look up materials from their own laptops, and we've given users an easier path to the UVA databases (when the proxy server is working, that is ...) and all that is all good. And, we've officially christened the system Explorer (rather than calling it Destiny). The rest will come …

… and all this without the need for one single committee … how cool is that???

a lesson in privilege

we are currently participating in an apartheid simulation. After Global Studies today, as we move closer to South Africa, they divided the shipboard community into a privileged class and an unprivileged class. Those who shaved their heads or cut their hair into mohawks for Neptune Day are in the privileged class. The unprivileged class is not allowed in the 6^th floor dining hall, which many of us much prefer to the 5^th deck, we are not allowed on the pool deck, and we are not allowed in the faculty/staff lounge, except for the faculty/staff who shaved their heads. Students with shaved heads were (for part of the day) allowed in there which they otherwise never are. The unprivileged class is not allowed to use the public restrooms and must go back to our cabins. The privileged class gets priority in line down at the field office, student life, and the purser’s desk as well as priority use of all the ship’s computer workstations. This will continue until after Global Studies tomorrow (24 hours), when Desmond Tutu will speak.

It’s been interesting. For one thing, I’m a little bit in the netherworld. Those people who I know and who knew that I cut my hair keep commenting that maybe I should be included in the privileged class. But, of course, I can’t get past any of the "hall monitors" … "police" … "enforcers" ... who are making sure everybody abides by the rules. I don’t pass, and of course people of mixed-race were also a huge part of the puzzle in apartheid and other racist regimes.

On the one hand, it seems that the privileged class was feeling the experience more than the unprivileged. People have been pretty nasty to them all day and there was one woman in the library who looked to be nearly in tears. For the unprivileged class, it’s been a little too much of a game. I snuck into a public ladies’ room at one point, we held a protest outside the 6^th desk dining hall tonight. Chanting "end apartheid now" and "freedom now". Folks held up signs and blocked the entrance so that the privileged had to climb over us to get to dinner. There were about 10 faculty/staff and several dozen students. Some shaved-headed students climbed over us. Everyone booed at them. Others turned around. Noticeably, none of them joined the protest. I was proud that the library was well represented. Sherri & I were both there and two of our workstudy students.

But, then the crew member in charge of the dining hall came out and the students starting chanting "taco-day … taco-day" (the day tacos are served for lunch is the best day on the ship!) and they starting laughing and things went quickly downhill from there. Learning to protest and learning that protesting is part of a democratic movement is all well and good, but there were no consequences here. No one was getting arrested or beaten for daring to protest (or sneaking into a public ladies room) so it’s hard to know whether the students really absorbed the point of the simulation. The privileged students who climbed over us while we heckled them definitely felt some impact. The students protesting, again, it felt more like a game without any real risk. Most of us didn’t really feel our unprivileged-ness all that deeply. We were out there about 45 minutes and then the group decided to just get up and go into the dining hall. What could "they" do to prevent us? Well, of course, on the MV Explorer, a ridiculously well-privileged environment, pretty much nothing. Under a violent, oppressive regime …

But then I talked later to Judyie, who has spent many years living in South Africa, and I was saying that I thought the exercise had just turned into a game. And she said, "but that’s what they did". They finally said: let’s just all go in … they can’t kill all of us …and they went in ... This is what civil disobedience is, Judyie said, and what the students learned by entering the dining hall.

Sherri & I had explained to our workstudy students, earlier in the day, that librarians have always believed -- living under many oppressive regimes -- that everyone should have access to information & freedom to read and that librarians often smuggled books to unprivileged people. We decided that we wouldn't post any of the "shaved heads have priority" signs around the library, if asked (we weren't), or enforce it on the computers. It occurred to me much too late in the day that we should have posted the ALA Bill of Rights.

The American Library Association affirms that all libraries are forums for information and ideas, and that the following basic policies should guide their services.

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.
…
IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas.

V. A person’s right to use a library should not be denied or abridged because of origin, age, background, or views.
…
http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/statementspols/statementsif/librarybillrights.htm

I posted it late in the day in several places in the library. Since this simulation goes through Global Studies tomorrow, hopefully a few people with catch it. Tomorrow in Global Studies, the Archbishop is lecturing and Thursday he’ll do a Q & A. On Friday, we arrive in Cape Town.

Ending my day of pretend-unprivileged-ness was attendance at the Captain’s dinner. We got dressed up all fancy and there were many courses and wine was abundantly flowing. I didn’t actually sit at the Captain’s table, but with the Staff Captain, Kostos. Kostos is Greek and the evening was lovely. So much for being unpriviledged …

pretty sunset

happy monday:











Deej emailed me today to tell me that she & Ewa have put up a world map in the cataloging department and are putting push pins in as I moved around the world! Made me almost cry ...

cataloging & cleanup

we're rocking & rolling a little bit this evening, but it's another generally beautiful day in the Atlantic Ocean.

And other busy day in the library. We got our first request to go to a class (tomorrow) from Rachael, the geologist. Sherri's going to do this one and she'll be great. Sherri says so long as I agree to do all the cataloging (!), she's happy to do the class. She's been working on a Powerpoint today. We've gotten several dozen requests for proxy server accounts in just the last couple of days, so that's good too. Folks are doing work.

I've been doing a lot of data cleanup with the workstudy students. We removed all the non-UVA barcodes (those items we believe to be lost, from the fall inventory) and we made sure that all the books were LC-classed. There are still items on the video inventory list that we're not finding on the shelves and items on the video inventory list that are not in the catalog and items in the catalog that are not on the video inventory list. Ugh. It makes everyone very grumpy. And many, many, many brief records in the catalog for videos (title only, in most cases), so we're fixing that. I showed one of our workstudy students, Ericka, how to do some copy-cataloging & that all went well today. She's very smart & she's asking exactly the right questions so now I'm determined to turn her into a cataloger! If we could get to a place where we didn't need two separate video lists (one in Excel and one in the catalog), that'd be lovely. There's a bit of original video cataloging that will need to be done too, but I'm putting that off for right now! The Connexion client software is not working for me, because the oclc.org domain is behind the proxy server for Firstsearch authentication and I can't get the Connexion client to make the connection successfully through the proxy server. The Browser works fine and suffices for copy cataloging, but it seems very clunky to me for original cataloging. Especially since the Internet connection is so slow. I'm working with ITC on ideas for fixing my connection through the client.

On the to-do-list definitely includes putting together a best practices manual for cataloging. You can see looking at the items in the catalog & their corresponding creation dates that some things (like the call number formatting, handling of articles when folks didn't understand indicator values, the use (or non-use) of gmds or alternate titles, etc.) varied significantly from voyage to voyage. It would make all my catalogers squirm! And it means you can't get a shelflist, which would be very handy for a collection as small as ours, and you get some very unpredictable results when searching. And, while we're certainly hoping that we'll be taking care of most of the cataloging centrally now at UVA, there will still be items that will get added during the course of the voyage that will need best-practice guidance.

I'd like to get a few last data cleanup issues out of the way before we move to Destiny. Late in the day, I exported a file of all the patron records out of Winnebago so that we could try importing them into Destiny. Stay tuned there.

We haven't been having any trouble with stolen travel guides (or torn-out pages) or stolen staplers (just pens, which I think is innocent enough!). People seem to be using the printed check-out sheet overnight. Reserve materials are largely returned on time. This is all very good news & different from some warnings I had heard/read. We definitely have a number of hot-item reserve books and we've been restricting reserves to one-at-a-time and, when the title is in very hot demand, we've been asking the students to hang out in the library area so that everyone understands what the demand is and the books can be more fairly shared around. Everyone has been incredibly understanding. Textbooks are definitely an issue. Many many students did not buy textbooks in advance through UVA. They were very anxious to try to get library copies in the first week or so, but that's settled down. They're going out on reserve, but my hunch is that folks have also found friends to share with. A few of the Desmond Tutu books are in high demand and we probably could have stood for a few more copies of his biography, for example, but others are sitting. I imagine that'll pick up more as we near South Africa and he starts to lecture in Global Studies.

Announcement a few moments ago: the water depth currently is 2,372 meters. We are crossing over the largest underground mountain chain in the world, the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. We are at Greenwich Mean Time (UTC) or 5 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time, so about even with London. We should cross 0 degrees longitude in the next day or two. And no time-change tonight ... wahoo! ...

officially a shellback

ok, so here’s what happens to you on netpune day: First, they start a couple of nights before by cutting folks’ hair into mohawks to that it’ll be easier to shave on the big day:

Then on Neptune Day itself, they start the morning off around 0800 when the crew (and a few staff & students) run through the halls beating drums to wake everyone up. It reminded me of college. Mount Holyoke had a tradition where the juniors woke the first-years up in the middle of the night for campus-roaming, though I can’t remember what that event was called. Everyone runs around screaming "hol-y-oke, hol-y-oke ..." to a Wizard of Oz tune. This is the crew a little later in the morning:

Then everyone lines up and the crew pours freezing cold sour milk on your head:

(that's Toni, who teaches sociology, along with her daughter)

(and Rachael, who teaches geology, with her husband).

... while everyone watches

... including Archbishop Tutu:

... and then you jump in the pool (which gets milkier by the minute):

... and then you climb out and you have to kiss a fish … and avoid Mary & Michael over-sliming you … let me tell you, Mary & Michael smelled WONDERFUL by the end of this activity. Mary & Michael are already shellbacks, having sailed past the equator before, and so they get the privilege of torturing the rest of us.

And then you bow down & kiss the ring of King Neptune (played by Captain Jeremy):

And then you celebrate your transition from a pollywog to a shellback. Here’s Giles, who teaches Marxism:

And me, just to prove that I did it, with Robin & Dawn:

I was wearing jeans, which you can't tell in that photo, and which are now drip-drying in my shower.

And then (yes, there's more) ... you go get your hair shaved off …

That last one is Lindsay, one of our workstudy students. You can sort-of see her long blond hair in Sherri's photo that I put up the other day:

and even baby Ryder gets his hair shaved:

I did not get mine shaved off, but I did get it cut short. I knew when I got it cut in December for locks of love that I was in trouble with the new length. Too short to stay pulled back and too long to be off my shoulders in the hot hot hot weather we’d be experiencing on this trip. I was miserable with the heat in San Juan and Salvador and it’s only to get worse as we head to Mauritius and India. So, I cut my hair:

Anne-Claire (left) cut most of it & Mary (right, & smelling like fish) did the final bit. We’ve actually cut it even shorter as the day has gone on, still futzing with it ...

I figure you only become a shellback once …

and the readership comes through ...

with many thanks to Beth & Rhonda & Cary & Garth, we have identified the saint on the bridge as Saint Nicholas of Myra. As with many other things I have posted on this blog, you can read up on him for yourself in Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Nicholas). Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of:

• sailors
• merchants
• archers
• children
• and students in: Greece, Bulgaria, Russia, Georgia, the Republic of Macedonia, Slovakia, Serbia, and Montenegro.

He is notably not the patron saint of students in the United States, so I hope that doesn't cause us any problems along the way. Thanks to Beth, I can also share that there are other patron saints of mariners, see: http://www.catholic-forum.com/saintS/pst00620.htm

Tomorrow we are celebrating Neptune Day, which (to my distress) was not celebrated on the actual day we crossed the equator. Neptune is the god of the sea in Roman mythology (analogous to Poseidon in Greek mythology). Sea-farers honor King Neptune as they cross the equator. He's getting us a day off, which makes us very happy! Actually, we're staffing the library 1600-2300, but he gets us the morning off and that'll do. (Incidentally, we are also staffing the library from on-ship-time to 2300 on our last day in port at each location).

So, anyhow, there's some more religious edification for you from the Jewish girl on Friday night ... Shabbat shalom.

a view from the bridge

today, I went on a bridge tour.



It was very interesting. Since we are in the middle of the ocean, we were steering on autopilot the whole time we were up there. They have cool electronics:



(which I trust works speedier than the internet access we get!). They have 3 separate radar systems ...







and they also manually update the printed map with our location to be sure we'll know where we are if we lose electronic navigation systems.



The equipment is all about 2 years old. It was replaced spring 2005 when the "wave incident" occurred and the bridge was flooded.

the windows have wipers:



who woulda thunk?, though clearly it makes sense. And an amazing view. This from the very front:



We also learned about the fresh-water-creation systems and the fire suppression system. The ship is divided into segments and fire doors can be closed at anytime anywhere on the ship to keep fire from spreading. The crew has 2 minutes to respond to a fire alarm before the sprinklers start.



We create our own fresh-water from the salt-water. We create 6 tons of water a day and we store 2 days worth of water at any time. We were told that we make more water than we ever use in any given day. When we go to countries where the water is contaminated, we'll stop taking in water about 24 or 48 hours before port and our water consumption aboard will be restricted. The water -- have I mentioned? -- isn't very tasty. Coffee-drinkers are grumbling too. They test it hourly for proper chlorine balance & ph balance but it's pretty awful tasting.

The MV Explorer has 4 engines. We're currently running on two, but if we had to run away from pirates or typhoons, we might use all four. At our current speed, we burn about 3 tons of fuel per hour for a cost of about $1000 per hour.

And just in case all else fails, the bridge has images of saints on the wall. I asked who the saint is (there is a saint for safe travels, isn't there?) but the crew person giving us the tour didn't know. He said he was a Greek saint, because the ship used to be operated by a Greek company, but he didn't know which one. Anybody recognize him?



The weather today was glorious. Brazil's humidity has totally dissipated as we move east. I fell asleep outside by the wake for about an hour today and it was very very pleasant. Eating outside was neither too windy nor too humid.

We lose an hour of sleep tonight. And then again tomorrow night. And then again the night after that. Just so you can be assured that life aboard ship isn't entirely idyllic ... wish me luck ...

i can be a reference librarian

Jane asks: I have a question about Orixas: how would you define the word? Are they saints? Deities...? And how many are there?

I’m not sure exactly what the proper word would be. Wikipedia refers to orixas (or orishas) as a type of spirit (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orisha):

An Orisha (also spelled Orisa and Orixá) is a spirit that reflects one of the manifestations of Olodumare (God) in the Yoruba spiritual or religious system. … Ori literally means the head, but in spiritual matters is taken to mean an inner portion of the soul which determines personal destiny and success. Ase, which also spelled “Axe,” “Ashe,” or “Ache,” is the life-force that runs though all things, living and inanimate. Ase is the power to make things happen. It is an affirmation that is used in greetings and prayers, as well as a concept about spiritual growth. Orisha devotees strive to obtain Ase through Iwa-Pele or gentle and good character, in turn they experience alignment with the Ori or what others might call inner peace or satisfaction with life.

The religion is practiced differently in different places in the Americas (including Brazil, Puerto Rico, Trinidad & Tobago, Mexico, the U.S., and Venezuela). Candomblé is one manifestation and Santería is another. That same wikipedia article has a “partial” list of the orishas that totals 14. One of our religion professors gave me a list that counts seven as the “major” orishas. There is variation among spelling as well and this all seems to be due to the diaspora of the Yoruba religion across the Americas. The Wikipedia article on Candomblé says: “Some scholars argue that the religion is African peoples uniting under similar African practices, making the religion a New World practice instead of a remnant of African practice.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candombl%C3%A9)

The Portuguese Catholics banned Candomblé (as they did capoeira) and slaves began to associate the orishas with Catholic saints as a way to hide their religious practice. They would celebrate particular saints’ days by invoking the associated orisha and would publicly honor the saints when doing the Candomblé ritual dances. Over time the two became quite intertwined in Brazil (as did some Native American traditions). It reminded me much of the Catholics in the southwest that lit candles on Friday nights & had other Jewish rituals without knowing or understanding that their ancestors had been expelled from Spain. But in Brazil, the Candomblé heritage seems to have stayed whole at a higher conscious level. Both the rituals and the underlying orisha spirituality have survived. The tour guide in Cachoeria said that the Catholic Church has come to terms with this only recently after scholarship and tourism have brought the connections out into the open. She said the Catholic Church was finally “forced to admit” what they probably already knew, that the Yorbuba pantheon was really at the heart of many of the Afro-Brazilian Catholic rituals.

Walked more around Salvador today and took some photos and spent out the rest of my reales (bought a necklace & some more orisha-related-items).

these are in the Church of Sao Francisco. Portuguese tiles:





wax-museum-like statues of saints. The statues have real hair. Nuns were not allowed to cut their hair and when they died, their hair was then cut for these statues:

And from last week, here’s the photo of our workstudy students (courtesy of Sherri): An, Lindsay, Erika, Ericka, and Roxanne. We were celebrating Erika’s birthday before we arrived in Brazil.

I'll post more about them as we go along. I just left the 7th deck watching us pull out of port in Brazil. We're now headed across the Atlantic. It's too late tonight to articulate anything profound, but I'm definitely feeling that in my soul: pulling out of port, watching the pilot jump off the ship and turn around to head back to Salvador, while we start out into the Atlantic ... Watching the lights become distant behind us ... it's beautiful ... goodnight to you all here in the Americas ...

carnaval, churrascaria, capoeira, & cachoeira

omigosh, lots to blog about & I’m behind. One of the students described Brazil as being overly visually stimulating. One of the life-long-learners said that, writing home, she told her family that she was out of adjectives to describe the experience. And it’s only port #2.

Sunday morning, Mary & I went to the Mercado Modelo, where I bought some beads, and walked around Pelourinho, the upper city. The bottom floor of the Mercado was once a holding place for slaves being sold at auction and the top stories are now a tourist market.

Pelourinho is a Unesco World Heritage Site with lots of narrow cobblestone streets. The word pelourinho means whipping post. Slaves were publicly tortured there and auctioned. Brazil was the last country in the Americas to outlaw slavery. While certain slaves were freed earlier, slavery was legal in some fashion in Brazil all the way up to 1885.

A few other items of note on Brazil: Brazil has more arable land than any other country in the world. It also has one of the leading economies in the world. Yet, its wealth distribution is abysmal. The rich are very very rich and the poor are very very poor. Brazil’s population is 46% Black, 52% White, and 2% Native American. Brazil has very poor public schools and very good public (free) universities. So, the rich get to go to the university completely for free, while the poor are not well-enough educated to be able to even compete for the available slots. Brazil is a country of clear dichotomy & contradiction everywhere you turn.

A few photos of Pelourinho:

Sunday night, I led a group of 26 students/faculty/life-long-learners on an evening “camarote” to Carnaval. A camarote is a viewing station, where things are supposed to be calmer than down on the street. It was madness on the street. 2 million people come to Salvador for Carnaval. The music was crazy loud. We saw some very famous Brazilian bands, but I don’t remember any of their names … it was a fun evening. And about all I needed to see of Carnaval. Having done the stay-up-all-night-on-the-street-thing in Cadiz when I was living in Spain, I didn’t feel the need to repeat that experience. Many students of course have been trying out the approach. The trip leadership went fine. My job is to make sure folks get on the bus, to be the SAS liaison for the guides, & to know who is not returning. I’m not responsible for making sure students actually return. The local guides were fabulous. At first, students were telling me they had decided to stay and that was fine. Many students were drinking, but largely they were all responsible. Dean Mike went also and it was good to have him there, but all in all everything went well. Of the 26 that went, 20 students returned on the bus and 6 life-long-learners took a taxi home earlier in the evening. No one was unaccounted for. I didn’t take my camera with me, so no photos of Carnaval. My apologies.

Yesterday, I took a trip to Itaparica Island, which turned out mostly to be a beach trip. First, we stopped (via boat) at an island that was given by the King of Portugal to the Jesuits. Two Jesuits were exploring the bay (Bahia de Todos os Santos) and decided not to return to Salvador and so they stayed on the island. (The Jesuits, incidentally, also built the first manual elevator in Salvador to haul goods from the port area to the upper city.) On the little island, there is a lighthouse and a church, but mostly just a beach.

The water was really warm. Boats pulled up right to the beach, so the water was lovely until it started smelling like diesel from the boat exhaust.

My back & shoulders are mildly burnt again. We then took the boat to Itaparica where we had lunch and went to the mineral spring. The spring has three taps: one for money, one for health, and one for youth. We drank from all (despite being told not to drink the water … money/health/youth seemed worth the risk!) We also watched some capoeira, which is an Afro-Brazilian dance/martial art. The story goes that the slaves turned martial arts into a dance form in order to hide their strength & fitness-practice from their slave-owners. It is beautiful to watch and the boys/men who do this are incredible athletes. It’s hard to imagine that they were hiding anything from the slaveowners. Certainly makes you wonder ...

Last night, a group of us then went to a churrascaria, which is described simply as a “steakhouse”. Vegetarians might just well stop reading now. It’s like dim sum, but with meat instead of Chinese food. First, there were the most incredible french-fries ever eaten (as an appetizer on the table with bread) -- cooked with dende oil -- which almost everything is fried with here. Hugely high in saturated fat, but omigod, good. Then there was a buffet that had shimp so large as you’ve ever seen, and caviar, and a million different cheeses, and salad, and a peppers & pickels & salmon & on and on and on. After that course, the waiters start running around with giant skewers full of all sorts of different kinds of meat and they slice it right there in front of you. We all had tweezer-like-things (tongs) that we would use to grab the meat off the skewer. They come and stand to the left of each person at the table and slice for you personally. I have no idea what I ate, but everything was incredibly delicious. We were advised to go slowly, but it was impossible. Waiters were running around amongst all the tables and feeding us meat like crazy. There were tables of 16 running all throughout the center of the restaurant with smaller tables to the sides. It was loud and busy and bustling and just nuts. There was a table of SAS students who sent us (faculty & staff) over a bottle of champagne. Dessert was amazing flan. It was totally nuts. I didn’t have a camera with me, but others did. I was going to get their photos for the blog, but better to just go to the restaurant’s website & see for yourself: http://www.grupoboipreto.com.br/index1.htm First click on “carnes” (meat) and imagine giant skewers of all those things appearing at your plate faster than you can think, then click on “buffet” and check out our first course, and then of course dessert (sobremesas). Then (unless you are vegetarian), immediately go book a flight to Salvador.

And then today … I went to Cachoeira, a colonial town about two hours outside of Salvador. Our tour guide was fabulous and went into a ton of detail about the Brazilian economy (and wealth distribution) and politics and land reform. On our way there, we stopped first at a rural market and then at farm that is part of the MST movement (http://www.mstbrazil.org/). In Brazil, they have squatter’s rights. People can come stake out a piece of unused private land. Landowners can contest and can sue but, if they don’t, after a certain period of time it becomes legal for the squatters to own the land. From the MST website:

Since 1985, the MST has peacefully occupied unused land where they have established cooperative farms, constructed houses, schools for children and adults and clinics, promoted indigenous cultures and a healthy and sustainable environment and gender equality. The MST has won land titles for more than 350,000 families in 2,000 settlements as a result of MST actions, and 180,000 encamped families currently await government recognition. Land occupations are rooted in the Brazilian Constitution, which says land that remains unproductive should be used for a "larger social function."

As you might imagine, not all in Brazil agree with the MST position. The woman we met there makes chocolate on her land from her coco plants. We tasted the raw coco fruit (which tastes nothing like chocolate) and learned a bit about how she makes chocolate without any technological assistance. And, of course, we bought some.

Then, we continued on to Cachoeira, which is a beautiful, colorful, riverbank town. Cachoeira established itself by ousting the Portuguese and helping to establish an independent Brazil. We had a lovely lunch inside a converted convent (Pousada do Convento do Carmo) and then wandered around the town. I’ve uploaded a ton of pictures to the map above, here are just a few:

Cachoeira is home to one of Candomblé's strongest religious centers. I bought a painting of the 0rixás, which is the first official purchase that may be difficult to transport home. I’m sure there will be others …

Tomorrow is our last day in Salvador. I am off to finish the evening with ice cream on the pool deck. What a crazy life I lead ...

boa vinda a salvador

i woke up bright & early this morning to watch us pull into Salvador. It was pretty hazy so my pictures didn't come out so great, but I got a nice series of photos of the ship being tied up:









and the gangway being lowered:



I took an urban architecture tour which took us out to places in the city I would have never seen on foot. Government buildings (cold war architecture, there's a bunker underneath):







a very cool church:



favelas (slums):





the city of Salvador is built as a lower city (where the ship came in) and an upper city. I took the elevator to the upper city with some professor-folks and we watched Carnaval start to gear up for the evening. I'll be at Carnaval tomorrow night and it was starting to rain hard, so we didn't stay terribly long. The elevator was fun. It's literally an elevator that prevents you from having to scale the wall ... or take the stairs ... to the upper city. There's also a funicular which I'll need to try out. We've been given strict instructions about not taking the stairs. We've also been given strict instructions to stay in groups and to go nowhere alone. I didn't feel unsafe today. There were definitely a lot of people around -- 2 million for Carnaval -- but it just feels big-city-like. I can't tell how serious they are about this. I definitely want to roam around the upper city tomorrow and I'll see if I can find other folks going in that direction, but I don't want lack-of-group to keep me from exploring. A few city & Carnaval photos (I've added more to the map):

20 mph

Dean Mike has a line about how we're going around the world ... on a ship ... at 20 miles per hour ... tomorrow we reach Brazil. It's been a VERY long intense week. The students are fried, the faculty are fried, the staff are fried, everybody is very happy to be getting off the ship for a few days. Our first Global Studies exam was this morning and students had many other papers due, the faculty were asked to give an early assignment. Everyone was overjoyed as the day moved on and classes finished up. It was like the last day of classes before a holiday break. We had a birthday party for one of our workstudy students. Sherri had her camera and I'll post some pictures of our merry band after I get them from her. The workstudy students are all great, we're enjoying them a lot. Sherri went to great lengths to get a birthday cake delivered to the library & it was a very lovely party.

Last night, we had a cultural pre-port to talk about Brazil, especially Carnaval. The pre-port was good (I hear it isn't always), the ethnomusicologist talked about Carnaval music & the Carnaval circuits and Robin talked about church architecture and Candomblé, an African religion practiced in Brazil. Candomblé came from Africa to Brazil by slaves and it mixes with Catholicism in very interesting ways. Mary, who is a religion professor, talked about the Yoruba pantheon and the Orixás that figure in Candomblé. In Brazil, we'll be able to buy beads and ribbons (fitas) that carry particular Orixá representation by their color. The ribbons are tied around your wrist with three knots and you make three wishes. You have to wear the ribbon until it wears out. You can't cut it off or it'll be bad luck. Robin says she thinks the ribbons will fall off about the time we reach San Diego. These are the Orixás that I am particularly intrigued with:

• Yemanja—the mother of creation, she resides in the ocean, her colors are blue and white. She possesses treasures from the depths of the sea. Wise and daring, she is both gentle and fierce.
• Oshala—the orixá of the wisdom of two worlds: Heaven and earth. He is the divine artist and teacher, teaching creativity in solving problems. He teaches the importance of persistence and inventiveness in achieving goals. He embodies patience and coolness in the face of all obstacles. He is associated with the color white, the symbol of peace.
• Osuh (also spelled Oxum)—the Goddess of honey. Oshun is one of the powerful female orixás. She lives in sweet water (fresh water). Gold, copper, fertility, beauty and love are all her domain. She is associated with the color yellow.
• Yansan—the queen of joy. She is the orixá of partnership, loyalty, passion and adventure. She is a warrior, sensual and clever. She is the goddess of winds and storms. She takes the dead from Earth to heaven so that they are reborn into another life. She hates injustice, prejudice and mediocrity. She is a female warrior who manifests herself in the whirlwind. She is associated with the colors red and black.
  (source: definitions and interpretations are taken primarily from “The Alter of My Soul” by Mart Moreno Vega, via Global Nomads & Mary Keller)
  

Joyce, who teaches mysticism and religion and history and grew up in Brazil, talked about traditional Carnaval. There was music & info. on food & Portuguese lessons. They all put together a great presentation.

Tonight was the logistical pre-port where they talk about safety & alcohol & medical info. and other such details. Last night, Mike made the comment that this was a good cop/bad cop routine. Culture the first night, safety lecture the second night. The folks tonight took exception to that statement and the doctor composed a song that they all sang (with guitar accompaniment) addressing malaria & deet & lettuce & ice cubes (don't drink the water!) & diarrhea & alcohol & STDs & condoms. It was pretty funny. They got a standing ovation.

The pilot will come on board at 0600 tomorrow and we should be at port by 0700. I plan to get up this time to watch us come in.

it's rainy in the rainforest

it's been raining, raining, raining today again. Which of course is easily explained by the fact that we are in the tropics & if we could see land (we can't), we'd see rainforests. Since I'm surrounded by academics, including scientists, I asked them my question of the week: at the Jersey shore, when you drive into any of the shore towns you can immediately smell and taste the salt air. How come, when we're in the middle of the Atlantic ocean down here too, you don't have that same smell? There's definitely salt on my skin after I sit outside for a while and there is definitely salt on the handrails outside, but you can't smell that Jersey shore smell. They said it's because it's not the ocean that we were ever smelling. It's the chemical reaction between the ocean and the marsh and the salt deposits on land. The tell-tale smell is actually land decomposition, not the ocean itself. Since there is no land currently anywhere in sight and no marsh, the wind isn't carrying any scent.

All day today, we've been watching masked boobies dive into the ocean to eat the flying fish that are jumping out of our wake (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masked_booby). Our amphibian-professor says that they all eventually go blind hitting the water with such force over and over.

Here are a few ship photos. This is one of the longest hallways. It's Deck 4. My deck has more "jags" along the way, this is a student hall (a "sea", as they call it, Arabian Sea, Yellow Sea, etc.). This one is on the way to my favorite outside deck hangout, back by the wake:



Outside, by the wake:



sun & clouds & raininess all at once:



my toes, as I sit by the wake:



Purser's Square, where folks hang out to read email & people-watch:



This photo is of some folks at the library. We're getting an interesting & different clientele at the library than usual. It's not at all quiet. It's a big open space with lots of traffic moving back and forth. People who are looking for quiet spaces to study on the ship (other than their rooms) are a little grumbly. The folks who are hanging out in the library are all people-watcher types. They like being in the hubbub:



This photo is one set of the reserve shelves:



Take note of the metal blinds that are at the top of the photo. They come down over the shelves at night with a not-very-fun-to-use hand crank. They broke today and we couldn't get them up this morning. 4 crew spent nearly all day trying to fix the blinds. Success, finally, around 3:30. Those shelves hold books for professors whose names begin with A-L. Interestingly, we got not a single request for a book from those shelves today. Everyone doing reserve reading had a professor whose name started with M-Z. Odd.

This is Sherri:



computer lab:



faculty/staff lounge:



there's is a Dean's party tonight. Karaoke & everything.

Some folks work in the faculty/staff lounge (Julie) and some folks hang and chat (Mary):



And, finally, here's Dean Mike preparing for the cultural pre-port lecture tonight on Carnival in Brazil:



Mike is the Academic Dean. In his real life, he teaches political & environmental science at Allegheny College in Pennsylvania.

Tonight we are "retarding" our clocks an hour. There was much joy amongst the shipboard masses at this announcement.

poetry on deck 6

David organized a poetry reading event tonight for Valentine's Day ("poetry, beauty, and love"). David is an English professor and he started the evening off by reading a sonnet he wrote to his wife Phoebe. David & Phoebe got married after only knowing each other 2 months -- 43 years ago! David teaches one of the travel writing classes that I wish I could take. He is recently retired from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. David's sonnet was very sweet and was followed by others reading poems they wrote -- some good, some less good, but we all yelled and clapped for everyone. Not a bad way to spend Valentine's day ... on deck 6 of the MV explorer crossing the equator ...

Even though we crossed the equator today and so it's officially Neptune Day, we're not actually celebrating for awhile yet. We'll celebrate it as a day off to break up the days at sea between Salvador and Cape Town. According to wikipedia:

Sailors who have already crossed the equator are nicknamed (Trusty) Shellbacks, often referred to as Sons of Neptune; those who have not are nicknamed (Slimy) Pollywogs. "King Neptune and his court" (usually including his first assistant Davy Jones and her Highness Amphitrite and often various dignitaries, who are all represented by the highest ranking seamen) officiate at the ceremony, during which the Pollywogs undergo a number of increasingly disgusting ordeals (wearing clothing inside out and backwards; crawling on hands and knees on nonskid-coated decks; being swatted with short lengths of firehose; being locked in stocks and pillories and pelted with mushy fruit; crawling through chutes and large tubs of rotting garbage; kissing the Royal Baby's belly coated with axle grease, hair chopping, etc), largely for the entertainment of the Shellbacks. Once the ceremony is complete, a Pollywog receives a certificate declaring his new status. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-crossing_ceremony

I'll let you know what they do to us Pollwogs when the time comes ...

I realized today that my blog is still on eastern standard time. I had intended to change it as we moved around the world, but I have neglected to do so. Currently we are 3 hours ahead, or GMT-2.

Happy Valentine's-Neptune Day.

journey into the southern hemisphere

we just crossed the equator! We are just past 0 degrees & 0 minutes latitude. Happy Neptune Day ...

and yet another time change

A few updates on yesterday's post:

Garth emailed me to say the metal piece I mentioned tripping over is called a "coming". Thanks, Garth!

Here's a picture of Dean Larry. Larry is our executive dean and he helped out yesterday when the crew told us our reserve cart was a fire hazard. As mentioned previously, the library was once the bar and you must crawl under the bar to get behind the circulation desk. Dean Larry acknowledges this is not so fun:



(photo courtesy of Sherri)

Today, Robin helped me create a curtain in my cabin that allows in the light but prevents you from seeing inside the window. I have a lovely window, which I very much enjoy, except that it goes out to the deck and people can walk along the deck. The cabins have darkening shades that make the room nearly pitch black, but it's a bit of a problem during the day if you want to be in your cabin and still have light coming in. I don't spend as many daytime hours in my cabin as some of the faculty who use theirs for workspace also, since I'm mostly in the library during the day, but I have also experienced this problem. Robin teaches Art History and Art & Religion. She lives in Carlisle. Pa. Her Ph.D. is from UVA and she once worked in the Provost's office. Robin knows much! Robin's artsiness reminds me a lot of Ann. Ann's trying to make friends with catalogers up at MIT, I'm trying to make friends with artsy people ... Robin bought sheer fabric in San Juan and magnetic tape in the SAS bookstore (everything here is magnetic) and she made a perfect curtain that lets in the light but is not see-through from the outside. I was very impressed!

We had sale 1 yesterday for the trips. I got the trip to Beijing that I wanted. The same one that Barbie did last summer: the Great Wall and Xi'an, for the Terra Cotta Warriors. I signed up for a few other day things as well and I also have overnight trips in Vietnam & India, but the Safari and the Great Wall are definitely the big ones.

The Archbishop was walking around today with a UVA baseball cap. The one with the orange V and the swords underneath. He told me Dr. Leigh gave it to him and he smiled broadly and seemed very pleased.

I hear there is snow and ice in both Virginia and Pennsylvania tonight. Be warm & safe.

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 ...

shipboard life

Just for the record on yesterday’s "no commute" comment, I left work last night at 11:02 and was in bed by 11:17. Works for me. Now, of course in bed is different than asleep, because one of the challenges of not-commuting is that I have no detox time for my brain to quiet down after work. I don’t know what time I actually fell asleep, but it was much after 11:17. Still, it’s kinda fun to think that I could be in bed 15 minutes after leaving work. Of course, no dog to walk either ... I miss my animals … Ashley reports that all is going well though Elsa is itchy, as always.

We sailed past St. Lucia, St. Vincent, and Barbados today. Fun to see island land as we go by.

I thought while we were at sea I’d take the opportunity to fill you in on ship-board routines:

They take security very seriously. In Puerto Rico, we had 2 separate ID checks even before we got to the ship and had to swipe our cards. They went through our bags with some interest and I imagine that will get more serious as we move on. They make us dump out all half-full liquids to make sure students aren’t bringing back alcohol in less descript beverage containers. Packaged food/drink can come aboard, but nothing opened. They wouldn’t let Sherri bring back a dinner doggie-bag when we were in Nassau. I’ve had to trash several not-fully-empty water bottles. When you swipe in & out, your picture appears on the screen next to the photo that was taken at the beginning of the voyage and that is pictured on our ID. You all know how much I love that.

Many people (including Barbie) had said the ship was cold, cold, cold. It’s definitely over-air conditioned. I’m hardly ever cold so I wasn’t sure what to believe. I’m wearing fall-ish/spring-ish clothes, like for the mid-60s. Long sleeves, but not heavy. And a lot of my Chicos stretchy clothes of the long sleeve variety. I’m not wearing sweaters/sweatshirts around the ship, but others definitely are. The bookstore is doing a brisk business in SAS sweatshirts. Annette & Janis would both be freezing. On deck, it’s windy but not cold, even in the shade. I’ve been wearing jeans nearly everyday, which I have to say I have totally gotten used to. First with my sore toes the last weeks at UVA and now on the ship. I fear I might not want to get dressed up for work ever again!

The hot water on the ship is not very hot and the cold water is not very cold. I definitely prefer my liquids in extreme. I want the shower to be very hot & I want the sink to give me cold cold tap water. No luck there, but the cabin steward does bring me ice twice a day for which I’m grateful. One can easily get used to having a cabin steward!

The food schedule is 0700-0900 for breakfast, 1130-1300 for lunch, and 1730-1930 for dinner. The lines are crazy long at the beginning of each meal (except for breakfast), so I try to aim for the later side. I’m having a hard time with the food schedule & my blood sugar is definitely jumpy, but I’m sure that will settle out. Food is good and there are lovely desserts for every meal. Today was ice cream which made us all very excited! There is also a snack bar on the pool desk and alcohol is served in the faculty/staff lounge from 1700-1800 and 2100-2300 every night. Tonight, there are drinks on the dean for a discussion of Global Studies. Free drinks obviously make many people happy, but meetings that start at 2100 don’t so much please me.

The entrances to the outside all have metal pieces that you have to step over. I’m sure they have a name but I don’t know what they are called. The idea is to keep water out, if comes over the deck. The first week, I was tripping every time I went outside, but I’m getting used to it now and I remember to step up and over. The tripping was not helping the healing of my toes, but they are definitely better now. A little sore on occasion, but I walked all over Old San Juan without much pain. Which is a very very good thing.

What else do you all want to know? I'll take some more ship photos in the coming days.

We lose another hour of sleep tonight. yikes.

late night in the library

Today was a very busy & productive day in the library. Our workstudy students are getting trained & they worked their asses off today! As did Sherri & I, off course ... Sherry worked the early shift & I’m here until 11:00. We had an exciting start to our morning when Sherri restarted the circulation desk computer for the first time and then we had no idea what the password was to log it back on. Thanks much to Matt, the IT-guy, we got past that. All the reserves are processed and shelved. Most of the rest of the cataloging is done (minus some original cataloging, which I’ll get to eventually). We have an actual schedule for the workstudy students finally. We have a film schedule for the closed-circuit TVs, working with Dia the Registrar, and have located all the films she needs (or declared them lost). All the scanning is finished that we are doing on the ship. The ILS software problem finally has a solution. Not a long-term solution, exactly, but it’s working for now. We’re probably going to wait to do the migration until after Brazil. There was the huge hurry a couple of weeks ago to get the new software up and running before the students boarded, but now that we’re delayed, Sherri & I thought it best to just wait until things level out a bit before more technology-tumult. Kenny, the crew IT-guy (as opposed to Matt, the voyage IT-guy), also made a lovely alias for the catalog. Users just have to type "library" into the URL bar in any Internet browser and the new library catalog will come up.

One of the faculty asked me today if this job was harder than my real job. I said this job feels more like manual labor. I work 24 hours a day at my real job too, but that work is more mind-games … This is heavy lifting …

Students are checking out reserve materials like crazy. They are definitely reading. I sat outside for a little while this morning and there were students on the chaise lounges in bathing suits reading the Global Studies books. There are 9 people sitting in the library reading right now. That may not sound like a lot, but it actually accounts for nearly every seat we have. We’re doing big business in travel guides also.

Global Studies was really good this morning. We learned about the tectonic plates and geology & vegetation of Latin America. Having never really enjoyed science all that much, having that pretty high-level overview was very interesting and useful. Our group also had a really good discussion reflecting on experiences in Puerto Rico. Especially surrounding the issue of statehood. Students asked everyone they met whether they thought Puerto Rico should become a state. They had really interesting conversations with really interesting people and learned effectively that there isn’t a whole lot of consensus around that question.

A good full day all in all. 22 minutes and I get to go “home”. Here’s another thing I like about living on a ship: no commute.

playas y cavernas

Here are a few photos of yesterday’s beach. No matter how many other beaches I go to, having grown up at the Jersey shore I am always amazed to see both blue water and green vegetation all in the same landscape. Not just sand, but plants & grass.

This is the fort in the background:

Today, I went on a trip to Rio Camuy Caves. We stood in line for a very long time but once we got in there, the caves were pretty amazing. The took us down in a tram & they have 5 trams total. 3 are currently being repaired. One more broke this morning, it needed new breaks. As soon as we started down, it became clear why breaks were important! We went down a very steep windy road to the bottom of a 400 feet sinkhole. Inside the caves were stalactites & stalagmites in all their glory. The Rio Camuy is the 3^rd longest underground river behind one in Yugoslavia and another in New Guinea. We took a bus about an hour and a half out of San Juan so it was nice to get to see other parts of the island. There are two sinkholes and the caves were discovered in 1958. A traffic-y road runs above. They originally thought the sinkholes went straight down when they built the road, but that turns out not to be true. They balloon out to the sides. So, the cars above are driving on land that is actually hollow underneath. The scenery was quite spectacular. Very lush & green, it’s part of the rainforest.

There are also thousands of bats in the cave, but we didn’t see any. We did see some lizards & some Puerto Rican tree frogs called coquis.

Tonight we have a faculty meeting at 9:00 (yes, that would be 9:00 pm on a Friday night) where, amongst other things, we’re going to try talk about scanning requests. Wish me luck! Mitch asks me to thank all the UVA scanning folks by name: June Trainum and Betty Mickens, as well as Donna Barbour who did the material retrieval for us. thank you all!

And then off to Brazil … Tomorrow I work the night shift (til 11:00).

so much for museums

I wandered around Old San Juan again this morning taking photos and strolling along el Paseo de la Princesa, along the outer wall of the city.

And then I went to the beach in the afternoon. The sand was pretty course and darker than it is at the Jersey shore, but the water was as warm in February as it is there in August. It was beautiful just hanging out in the ocean listening to the waves crash along the shoreline. From the beach, you can see the forts where I was yesterday and the capitol building.

I’m a bit sunburnt despite having slathered in sunscreen so I have to figure out what to do about that. It’s going to be very hot & very sunny everywhere we’ll be.

I was going to go back into town tonight, but two of us are now thinking about trying to crash a field trip. We’ll see if it works. A group is going kayaking at Bioluminescent Bay (http://www.biobay.com) and they just added another bus. We won’t be able to go kayaking, but we’re going to try to get on the bus and wander around ourselves. Tomorrow, I’ve got a trip to Rio Camuy Caves (http://welcome.topuertorico.org/city/camuy.shtml) & then we leave for Brazil.

A view from a fort

forts might not have offered the best living conditions, but they do have very awesome views.

Today, we docked in Puerto Rico. I missed the pulling into port because (as mentioned yesterday) I wasn’t feeling so hot and thought it best to get a little sleep. I woke up feeling much better. We got off the ship about 9:45 this morning after clearing immigration & hearing the Governor of Puerto Rico speak. I took a walking tour of Old San Juan which took us to two different forts (San Cristobal & El Morro) and a very cool cemetery with -- as already mentioned -- amazingly awesome views.

Everyone who has ever been on Semester at Sea says that their current port is their favorite port. Of course, we haven’t even technically left the United States yet, but let me tell you I could totally live in Puerto Rico. Except for the part where it’s a million degrees in February. I heard it snowed in C-Ville today, Deej emailed me snowy library photos:

I love the mountains in Virginia, but I do confess to very much missing water. Puerto Rico has a lot of water. Walking along many streets you can see water both to your right & to your left, the Atlantic Ocean and the San Juan Bay. The streets are made of blue cobblestone:

Therre’s both Spanish influence:

& French influence, in many ways Old San Juan looks very much like New Orleans:

Then Peter & I had lunch & went to Casa Blanca, the home of Ponce de Leon. Peter is a life-long learner from Colorado. He’s taking classes & traveling around the world. They asked us if we wanted the tour in English or in Spanish and we opted for Spanish for the challenge. I got about 90% of it which I figured to be pretty good since it’s been awhile. The house was nice (though much of it was added on to much later) and the gardens were beautiful, although they also were later add-ons.

And then we walked a million miles back to the ship. I’ve added more photos to the map above. I was thinking of taking a shower & going back out, but I’m fried and we’re pretty far. Tomorrow, I have an entirely free day to wander around more. I hope to hit a few museums. The relationship to the U.S. is definitely interesting. You see the U.S. Post Office and the Fuertes (forts) are U.S. National Historic Sites with familiar signage. Road signs are all U.S.-style except they are in Spanish. And gas is sold in liters rather than gallons.

On a few other notes:

Be sure to check out Sherri's blog for other perspectives of shipboard life: http://sojournerlibrarian.blogspot.com

I've added another blog to the links section. Mary Keller teaches world religions and spirit possession traditions and she is blogging for her kid's class. She has a 5 year old and a 7 year old who are following along from home. Find Mary's blog at: http://kellersas.blogspot.com/

The book for the Archbishop arrived today. Thanks much to Jean & to Acquisitions & to Cataloging for being so incredibly speedy. I brought it up to the faculty/staff lounge this evening in search of the Archbishop (the shipboard equivalent of LEO), but he doesn't seem to be around. I'll catch him tomorrow.

Finally, I had dinner this evening with Leigh Grossman & her son, who flew up from Granada for a visit. She flies back tomorrow to Charlottesville. I have really enjoyed getting to know her & will be sad to see her leave. Leigh has definitely been added to my list of very-cool-women-to-admire.

whales in motion

I sat down at lunch today with Bianca and Sue and they asked me if I had seen the flying fish. Bianca teaches psychology and she also has a clinical practice. Sue is her partner. They live in Provincetown on the Cape and Bianca just got through saying that Sue had grown up on the water and could see things in the water that she could never see, when Sue spotted a whale. It was moving the opposite direction from the ship, but we saw it come up several times before it went out of view. At first we weren’t sure if it was a dolphin or a whale, but then it blew and all was clear. We started screaming and then all the folks on all the decks above and below were watching the whale.

I am feeling the motion much more today than previously. It was a perfectly beautiful day so I’m not sure if the seas are actually more rough or what. But, not feeling so good today. I think it’s a combination of the motion and the exhaustion and the time change. I realized today that I’ve been working since last Monday without a day off. Even when I work during the weekend at my normal job, I know it’s the weekend and I’m sitting on my sofa as I’m working away. This is really hard. I left at some point in the afternoon because I had to go sit outside and just watch the horizon. And I couldn’t really eat dinner. But, I’ve found a spot that I like that feels "away". There’s a lower deck in the back (the aft) which generally has fewer people around where I can sit and watch the whirlpool of water behind the ship. It’s quieter than other outdoor spaces and quite lovely.

I bought a stuffed ship today. I had been coveting the stuffed ships in the bookstore since last Monday when I boarded. Today was the first day the store was open.



Tomorrow, Puerto Rico.

demagnetization

I keep demagnetizing my room card. It’s a real hassle. I have it on a lanyard around my neck (as does nearly everyone else) because my clothes don’t ever have pockets & I guess my laptop battery demagnetizes it. This is the 4^th time. I also left it in my room yesterday, which I knew was inevitable. They charge a dollar to let you back in. I’m hoping I don’t do that too many times.

ILS came through (as they do) with a ton of scanning for us today. Thanks to Mitch & crew!

We got lots of reserves processed & we were incredibly busy in the library. Sherri got the video list updated. People had actual reference questions. I took stacks of cataloging up to the faculty/staff lounge & that was very successful, much quieter up there, until my laptop battery died. There are a limited number of outlets & they are in high demand. I didn’t get mine plugged in in time.

We also had our first Global Studies class. Everybody goes to Global Studies (all 850 of us). The library & computer lab close and all the offices. We don’t all fit in the Union where the big event is held so faculty/student/staff are scattered around the ship in satellite locations where they watch it on a screen. Usually everyone gets to choose where they go. This voyage, they have assigned faculty to particular locations to lead small group discussion. They are still not assigning students to particular locations so we may not get the same crop everyday, but the small group discussion in our room went well. Judyie facilitated the group I was in, she’s a theatre professor and she was excellent. Judyie has worked at both Hampshire & Amherst Colleges, so we’ve shared Pioneer Valley conversation, but she’s been teaching in Cape Town, South Africa, for the last five years at the University there and organizing theatre groups. Her daughter is also here on the voyage as a student.

Mike, the Academic Dean this voyage, also addressed the students this morning. He was great and got everyone all excited about the academics of this trip. Talked about challenging assumptions & taking risks with our beliefs & our experiences. There were even the requisite Thomas Jefferson references.

We lose an hour of sleep tonight for our first time-zone-crossing. Classes start tomorrow. The weather is beautiful & there is no land in sight. Just blue blue water …

fort charlotte

the students arrived today and the faculty ran ran far far from the ship! Sherri & I worked in the library for a few hours and then called it a day. I did a faculty developed practicum (FDP) to Fort Charlotte. The fort was built in 1787 but never saw any conflict. It was built by Lord Dunmore who was the former Governor of Virginia (and New York) and so he named his fort after the Queen that also bequeathed her name to Charlottesville.

Then we had a fried-sea-food-filled lunch at a place on the water. Some photos as we walked back:

Our ship, the MV Explorer!



That is Robin & Dawn. I’ll write about both of them in a future post. I'm trying hard to keep these posts to a manageable reading length.

Lovely day all in all. All the faculty/staff had this feeling this afternoon of "who are all these people on OUR ship!?!" when we came back & saw all the students running around. I've been saying that I actually think library-life will calm down for us now that the students have boarded. The students aren’t going to be as interested in the library their first week of school nearly as much as the faculty are. We’re getting a better handle on reserves now and the faculty are going to be otherwise occupied. Most of the faculty laptops are now all set up & those wanting access to the UVA databases are all (most all) successfully connected. The faculty are amazed & delighted by the UVA Library service. It’s fun to watch & it makes me proud of the work we do at UVA. I also got a book request from the Archbishop this morning as soon I introduced myself to him. I’ve emailed UVA so that we can amaze & delight him as well.

I actually spent quality-time today with the Archbishop while we were at the endlessly-long life boat drill. It was very very hot. We had to wear warm clothes for the drill – hats, long sleeves, long pants, closed toed shoes. I wasn’t sure if my crocs qualified as closed toed, so I put on sneakers. There were two missing students & so we stood there a very long time. After they checked our names off (I’m at the same muster station with the Archbishop & most of the faculty) and it was clear we weren't getting dismissed anytime soon, I sat down on a stairwell. The Archbishop came and joined me and the two of us sat there for a good 10 minutes until they came through for inspections and told us we needed to stand. He’s warm & funny & crazily accessible. They made us stand women & children first, but frankly it seems to me that Nobel Prize winners deserve to be first. Not to jinx anything, but I figure if I've got to get on a lifeboat, Desmond Tutu is the guy to be with.

And then we sailed away. Parents & ISE staff waved us off. It was really quite overwhelming. I’m going away for 100 days ... Here are a few photos as we left Nassau. I’ve also added some more to the map above.

and away we go ...

the archbishop & gloria

Sitting at breakfast this morning, there was the Archbishop. Just standing there walking through the cafeteria line. I'd comment that one of the crew took his tray and walked him to the table, but they do that for us as well. For a little while, he was sitting there alone until people started to notice and came up to introduce themselves and join him. He has an amazing laugh, you can hear him from afar on the ship. The library/computer lab area is a mezzanine above the area called "Purser's Square" where the reception desk is and the administrative offices. (It’s a circle, not a square, but nevermind that little detail.) It's a little echo-y, so you can hear what's said above from below (if your voice carries, like mine definitely does!) or vice versa. The Archbishop's laugh definitely carries. It’s raw & joyful. Leah Tutu will also be here for part of the voyage, but she won’t be boarding until Cape Town, as she is recovering from knee replacement surgery. We didn't see him in the library today, but I imagine we will. The fancy reception/dinner was tonight. I'm sitting in the computer lab and watching the fancy-dressed people tour the ship as I write ....

today we were anchored, as opposed to puttering. We just sort of hung out in the middle of the blue, blue water.

Our workstudy students started and that was fun, if chaotic. We taught them to configure their laptops so that they could help others. Then, Sherri took 3 of them and showed them basic library operations and I took the other two and we scanned course reserves in the multimedia lab for faculty who didn't submit requests up-front through UVA. The multimedia lab is very swanky -- there will be a professionally-done voyage video and the yearbook, etc., created in the lab. High-end computers with rolling chairs. I comment on the rolling chairs because Erika told me that the reason we don't have rolling chairs in the library was that this is a moving vessel ... But, the swanky multimedia lab does have rolling chairs. They also have carpet, which I imagine helps. The scanning is slow going, but progress is being made from the stack of books we have been given. We've also been sending article requests back to UVA for scanning & will continue to do that as well. The reading for these classes is quite impressive. Both quality & quantity. The class list is available here. There are a whole bunch of classes I wish I could take. There are a good number of classes with a gender studies/women's studies emphasis, there are two travel writing classes I would love to take -- especially with all the blogging -- Writing about Travel and Expository Writing: Culture and Ideology of the Physical and Mental Traveler, and some really interesting religion classes, including Spirit Possession and Ethnography and Mysticism and Religious Experience.

I thought I’d start telling you about some of the people aboard. First off, there’s Gloria who is an anthropology professor. She worked in Vermont for many many years, but now she is living in Pittsburgh where her son & daughter-in-law will have a second baby while Gloria is at sea. She is from southwest Philadelphia, where her father pushed a fruit cart, but she left when she was 19. Gloria does research consulting & teaches as an adjunct at Pitt. She has done much of her research in Panama and for SAS, she is teaching Field Research Methods, Gender, Class, Race-Ethnicity, and Social Change, and Development: Local to Global Perspectives. Gloria lost a box that was shipped to us in Fort Lauderdale and arrived at the warehouse but not to the ship. She lost several precious books – both personally & those needed for class – so we’re trying very hard to help her reassemble materials. She also lost a towel (blanket?) that she took to the field for every project she’s ever gone on. She’s obviously very sad about that, but says she’ll get over it. We know that boxes that miss one port sometimes make the next, so there may also still be hope. Gloria journals when she’s in the field and she has about 70 people on her email list. A few of them have been published. Although she is not one of the travel-writing professors, I’m taking tips from her as well. I also want to be added to her email list!

about the ship

According to the Voyager's Handbook (spring, 2007):

The MV Explorer was built in Germany as the world's fastest cruise ship and completed in 2001. She has a gross tonnage of 24,318, a length of 590 feet, breadth of 84 feet, draft of 24 feet, and a cruising speed of up to 32 knots. There are 418 cabins (256 outside and 122 inside) and six participant decks for a total of 918 berths.

The earliest incarnation of Semester at Sea started in 1963 with the creation of the University of the Seven Seas. Under the administration of Chapman College, it was renamed World Campus Afloat. The Institute for Shipboard Education was incorporated in 1976 and the program was renamed Semester at Sea. The University of Colorado-Boulder was then the academic sponser and the University of Pittsburgh took it on in 1981 for 25 years before its new home at UVA. In 1979, SAS students met Anwar Sadat, in 1981 students met Indira Ghandi, in 1988 Mikhail Gorbechev and Corazon Aquino, in 1982 Desmond Tutu sailed for the first time, in 1994 they met Nelson Mandela and in 2000, Fidel Castro. In 1994, SAS was the first ship of U.S. passengers to visit Vietnam after the U.S. embargo was lifted. This spring (yes, my voyage), Desmond Tutu will be sailing with us all 100 days.

Archbishop Tutu was here for the reunion voyage (last week), flew to India to accept the Ghandi Peace Prize, and will return to Nassau tomorrow for a fundraising dinner for ISE. He will then sail with our voyage for all 100 days. We confirmed today that the proper form of address is "Archbishop."

Another full day in libraryland. The Computer Lab Coordinator and I did an IT presentation for the faculty which was immediately followed up by much configuring of laptops for the course reserve folders & for the UVA proxy server. The good news is that all the configuration went incredibly well. All of the faculty who came to us are now connecting to the UVA databases. The computer lab set up walk-in hours for configurations and Sherri & I wondered if maybe the library should have done that too, but the faculty are clearly feeling comfortable walking up whenever. It's been pretty chaotic in both locations, so I'm not sure the formality of the walk-in hours serves much better purpose! I was a little concerned about stepping on Matt's toes (the computer lab guy, who is great!), but he seems very grateful for the help. The library & the computer lab are on opposites sides of a central area so there's a lot of collaboration which is working really well.

As always, there is much password confusion ... one, two, three passwords ... one for the Internet, one for the course reserves folders, one for the UVA proxy server. You'd really think there'd be a better way ... faculty are having a very hard time understanding what's what & why the passwords have to be different.

I was hoping to get out this afternoon/early evening, but too much laptop configuration. And Sherri & I had a 7:30 meeting tonight to meet our workstudy students. We have 5 students who all seem very nice & friendly & excited to be aboard. They are working a full day (9-5) tomorrow. Sherri & I are a little panicked about finding something for 5 workstudy students to do for 8 hours each when we still don't have a good handle on any kind of routine for ourselves. Some shelf-reading, some reserve processing, some scanning for course reserves for materials that faculty have brought with them, we'll show them how to help configure laptops. It's not that there is not enough to do, it's that we haven't had time to breathe to come up with a coherent plan for getting things done. Or training. I gotta say that I am SOOO glad I boarded with the Admin Team. If I had boarded with faculty/staff, I would have been sunk.

We "puttered around" in the ocean today. We had to pull out of port to let some cruise ships come in (they seem to be more important than we are) and I have a few photos but I'm too fried to go down to my cabin to get my camera. I'll put them up tomorrow. Just middle of sea photos. We're puttering again tomorrow. Puttering seems to be an official nautical term. I thought we were "anchoring" but we never did, we were moving the whole time. The weather was windy but pretty humid. So far, the motion doesn't bother me at all. I honestly didn't notice we were back in port until well after it turned out we had arrived.

I'm tired & working hard & sleeping hard. The excitement level here is insane. I can't imagine what it's going to be like when 700 students arrive on Sunday!

meetings, meetings, meetings

it's not just UVA. There are meetings at sea too. Crazy. Back-to-back-to-back today. You'd think I hadn't left Grounds. We had a morning meeting to introduce all of the support services and so Sherri & I did a library song and dance, which was well-received. Faculty seem very impressed with all of the UVA services & support. I've had a number of faculty that don't seem to believe that we really would have done scanning for them from just a citation list. We have to figure out how to get that across better. I had thought we made that clear, but I don't think the faculty really trusted it. I'll definitely leave David Gies & Jean with that one to ponder for the summer voyage. I'm having a great time working directly with the faculty. It's been a long time since I've done that kind of front-line support and I'm really enjoying it.

Then, we had a number of faculty meetings & a field trip meeting about the trips & roles & responsibilities of the trip leader. Including how to navigate the first aid kit. I seemed to be assigned as trip leader for two trips that I definitely don't recall volunteering to be trip leader for. I'm still pondering this one. One is the safari, which is deeply discounted (50%) if I lead it (definitely attractive), but not sure I really want to be in charge of a 20-some undergrads for a 4-day safari trip ...

We learned a bit about the community today: we have 702 students, 27 faculty, 35 staff, 17 life-long learners, and a good handful of spouses/children. We even have a 7-month old baby. We are officially a full ship. The average GPA for the students is 3.25. University of Colorado-Boulder is sending the most students (70), with a few other institutions ranking high (none of which currently includes UVA). A number of staff have UVA connections, undergrad degrees, graduate degrees, etc., but I am the only staff. I have met several folks who are from the Philadelphia area, including a couple from Belmont Hills who was quite amused to learn that I went to elementary school there.

We had a textbook meeting where we learned how we interface with the bookstore folks and we got ISE to agree to allow us to ship the textbooks that the library has for reserve back with the store's buy-backs at the end of the semester. That seemed like happy news. Also, after a meeting earlier in the week, ISE is now considering selling travel guides through the UVA Bookstore with the pre-ordered textbooks, where students could order them in advance and have them delivered magically to their cabins. No packing in their luggage. This would help the library as well.

The new library catalog system is still a no-go. Lots of people are banging their heads against walls on my behalf -- Kenny, the crew's IT system manager, Sal, from ISE, Jim Jokl from UVA -- but it's definitely worrisome.

That's all the news fit to print in libraryland. Sherri & I went into Nassau for dinner with an anthropology professor named Gloria & ate at a lovely Thai restaurant. The restaurant we originally wanted to go to was closed because Prince Edward was arriving for a 50th anniversary celebration of a Nassau bank. We saw him get out of the car but I didn't get any good photos. We walked around a bit and then came back to the ship. Tomorrow, we anchor out a ways so that another ship can come into port, but we're back at port around 3:00, so I'm hoping to get away for a little while and walk around some more. Seems I should find a beach. We have a bunch more orientation meetings in the morning and our workstudy students arrive in the evening.

I've added some photos to the map above. 'Night.