I slept past breakfast. The cold has taken a turn for the worse. I feel like I’m coughing up one of my lungs. What a welcome back to the ship!
Global, for a change, was halfway decent today. They had a couple of the professors talking about what the Vietnam War was like as they were going through it. I thought it was well done.
Towards the end of global, they came over the announcements to say that there was a drill for the crew about to start. Then they come over the announcements and announce, in a very boring and unexcited voice, “man overboard.” I would think that if someone had actually fallen overboard, the announcement would have been a bit more excited, with a sense of urgency, but let’s hope we never have to make that a reality.
The drill for man overboard is that we have to turn the ship around in a complicated ‘S’ or ‘8’ shape, I’m not sure which one it is. I thought the drill would last a half hour at best, but an hour later, I went down to the room to look at the ship’s position on the television, and we were going in the wrong direction that we were supposed to go. The last thing that I want to do is arrive into Ho Chi Minh City late, so I was annoyed at not being told what was going on – yet again. You would think they would tell us why we were moving in the wrong direction for nearly all the day. But you would be wrong.
On top of it all, we were moving painfully slowly. I would rather be moving fast in the wrong direction, rather than moving slowly. You just feel like you’re not getting anywhere, and I’d rather be going somewhere, no matter where it is, rather than be going nowhere.
I was outside just before noon today, and it was so unbearably hot and humid that I couldn’t stay out there for more than 15 minutes in the shade. There was a breeze blowing, but it just wasn’t enough, it was that brutal outside today. I’m not exactly sure what was so bad about being outside, but you can’t concentrate on anything so it’s just tough to be out there.
At lunch I was very happy that I no longer have to take my malaria pills. Yesterday was the last day of the whole trip that I had to take them. I’ve been taking them for a long time. I took them all through Brazil and South Africa, then got a couple days off before getting back on them for India. But because I’m not going to Cambodia, I don’t have to take my malarone for the rest of the trip, and I’m very happy about that. There’s a certain amount of pressure on me to remember to take them daily, and I’m glad that I don’t have to sit and remember to take them. It’s just one more weight off of my shoulders.
However, as I’m off the malaria pills, I’m on the cold medication pills more than I care to be. I have what I have decided to call a really good intermittent sporadic semi-wet cough. That’s the best way to describe it, because at this point, the cough is taking over me. This one, so far, is worse than the one I had in South Africa. That cold sounded worse than it was. This cold doesn’t sound nearly as bad as it actually is. It’s really getting in the way now.
So, on top of it all, this evening is the first of two nights where we will be selling tickets to the Ambassadors Ball. After much deliberation, we decided upon what would be the most efficient and error-free way to have everyone sign for tickets. I believe I told you earlier, but I’ll repeat it again anyway. Try to follow it: you have to show up in Purser’s Square with your group (your entire group you’d like to sit with) and sign a sheet that allows us to charge you for the ticket price. In addition, you need to select what you want for dinner. That’s all. It’s as simple as that. Sign your name, and write 1, 2, or 3 for which entrée you want, and you can only do that if your whole group is there at the same time. You’d have to be a fool to mess this one up…
Because the process to get tickets is ‘so complicated’, we put a nice detailed announcement into the announcements. Unfortunately, through some sort of miscommunication, the announcements read were not completely what was supposed to be. In turn, people would be more confused that we would have expected, and would be sure to make for one thrilling evening.
So, after my afternoon class, I start trying to figure out what things we need to have in place for the start of the sale of tickets. We already had tables set to go in Purser’s Square, we had sample menus ready, I had the master packet that everyone was going to have to sign next to their name – twenty pages with 40 names a page in alphabetical order. That was going to be fun to flip through. In fact, I’m sure that the whole evening would be a barrel of fun.
Ticket selling began around dinnertime, which meant that I probably wouldn’t be eating, but I think I’d be able to work around that. And there was trouble at the beginning. Why this process was so confusing is beyond me. People were having such difficulty, and I say people, but the only people who showed up at the beginning of the first day of sales were the staff and faculty, and their groups were ginormous and wanted us to make all sorts of special arrangements for them. I could tell even after they left us, that that would not be the end of issues we would have with them.
We were at the tables for about three hours, and it was busy at times and dead at others. In the end, we sold tickets for about half the ship. As the President of the Ball, it’s my job to worry about hoping that most of the other ¾ of the ship shows up tomorrow. It would be a bit of a disaster if only another quarter of the ship came tomorrow.
I’ll tell you, while we only went through part of the ship today, when we were busy, we were busy. I can only imagine how busy it could get tomorrow. And if the level of incompetence is equal or worse, I’m going to jump overboard. We have instructions to follow, and if you can’t follow them, that’s not my fault.
In the middle of a low point in ticket selling, they came over the announcements, and, for a change, told us what was going on. We would be increasing our speed to the maximum, pushing the throttle to its stops, for the evening passage through the Straits of Malacca because they’re some of the most dangerous waters in the world. People laugh that pirates are going to come on board, but if we were a much smaller ship, moving at a much smaller speed, we would have reason for concern. But, I’m just thrilled we were told information. And while they didn’t explain it to us, we were driving around in circles because it’s better than not moving at all because the plan is to arrive in Singapore in the morning to bunker, and now we would arrive on time, instead of early. That wasn’t so tough to explain – I don’t know why they couldn’t tell us.
I was able to sneak away briefly and grab something to eat while selling tickets, so I did get a bit of ‘sustenance’ into me, but I was still a bit hungry and didn’t feel like going up to the top deck to buy more food, so I came up with a better plan. There was a Sea Social this evening. It was called the Lifelong Learner and Orphan Sea Social. Every ‘sea’ on board gets their own social up in the Faculty/Staff Lounge, and tonight it was the Lifelong Learner’s time. Way back when the activity fair began, a lot of people signed up to be family members of faculty, staff, and lifelong learners, but the demand was higher than the amount of people that could have families, and the people that were not given families were then referred to as the orphans. The Lifelong Learners decided to share their sea social with the orphans, as well as their family members. I wasn’t an orphan, and I wasn’t the family member of a lifelong learner, but I went up and crashed the party anyway.
I saw my friend LeeAnne with her ship family. Her name was Joan, and she was a Lifelong Learner, so I wandered over there, so as to not stick out like a sore thumb. With Joan was her daughter Cindy, who came on board in Malaysia and will be leaving in China. I didn’t know that they could do that, but I always knew the lifelong learners could get away with far more than the students ever could. It really makes me want to come back as a lifelong learner.
Anyway, I walked over the group and sat down like I was part of it, and Joan and Cindy could not have been more welcoming and lovely. I felt like I was always part of their family. Joan is the same one that was on my safari, and her son John flew out from Miami, via Washington DC into Johannesburg, then Cape Town to meet his mother, Joan, on the ship. After a couple days in Cape Town, John and Joan flew with me on the flying green tin can otherwise known as kulula.com into Johannesburg for our safari. After the safari, we all flew from Johannesburg back to Cape Town. John left his mother back to the ship, and he flew back to Johannesburg then back to the states. After talking with Cindy and Joan for a short time, they told me that John would be meeting the ship in Ho Chi Minh city and also staying on board through China. I feel like I’m getting to know people in the most odd ways.
What was interesting at the sea social was what was happening before I walked in, and as I was sitting down. All of the normal sea socials with just students had background music that you would talk over. There was something going on where you weren’t supposed to talk over the music, and you were supposed to listen to it. The previously aforementioned Julie Strand, the music teacher who tells locals how to play their own instruments in a demeaning manner, was getting annoyed at everybody as we were all trying to enjoy ourselves. I heard there was yelling before, but I can’t confirm that definitely.
My group didn’t see what all the fuss was about, so as we were on the opposite side of the dimly lit Faculty/Staff Lounge, we carried on our conversations in hushed voices loud enough that we could hear ourselves over the music – and everyone else’s conversations.
As if I wasn’t already having a wonderful evening with my new shipboard family, I was able to stand in line for a big sheet cake that they had out. When I got up to the table, they brought out a new sheet cake, and it was a chocolate masterpiece. The guy bringing it out had clearly not done this before, because he was looking around like he didn’t know what he was doing. So, I’m next in line and the guy with the half-gone sheet cake cuts a really small, thin slice, and the guy who doesn’t know what he’ doing cut a gigantic corner piece that had more icing on it than I have ever seen on one piece of cake. The guy with the sliver of cake was trying to give me his piece, but I said, “No, I want that one,” and pointed to the end piece, which was larger than my fist. I believe after I left, the guy was told how big the pieces should be. I was quite proud of myself. You know you’ve got a large slice when you bring it back to your group and they ogle it like it’s made of diamonds.
I ate the entire cake and, because my dinner was iffy at best, I felt fine afterwards, and shamelessly felt like getting more, but I figured I shouldn’t because it wasn’t even my social, and I thought I milked it quite a bit already.
After the social was rapidly bringing itself to a close (the music stopped) we went out to the deck area in front of the lounge. Moving at almost 30 knots creates a bit more of a breeze than normal, and the lights on top of the ship blocked out most of the stars, bit it was a really nice night to be outside. A far cry from the heat that knocked everyone out earlier in the day.
Well, from a day that started out with us driving in circles, to an afternoon filled with confused people that seemed to be spinning in circles, it turned to be a lovely evening with people who in no way resembled circles.
The next morning in Global was the ol’ Tale of Two Cities situation. The topic of Asian economics was not my cup of tea. I am thrilled that in order to get my degree I do not have to take any economics classes at all. I don’t like economics because it doesn’t make sense to me, so I’m better off. The positive side to global was that Business Bob was presenting. He was the professor on my Amazon trip and he’s quite entertaining. He’s one of those people where he is the funniest person he knows.
We are scheduled to be bunkering in Singapore today, however, if the rumor mills were broken, nobody would have known. Not a single announcement was made that we would not be moving for the vast majority of the day and that there would be two or three small boats moored up to the side of the ship. What if some unsuspecting person (and trust me there’s quite a few of them on board) looked out their cabin window in the morning to see someone else looking back in? That’s not supposed to happen. But I never heard any such stories. (But that doesn’t mean that they didn’t happen…)
Back to the point – I thought we would be in the shadow of the skyscrapers of Singapore as we were filling with fuel. I looked out both sides of the ship and all I saw were small islands, a few docks, smaller boats, a few larger boats, and a hazy sky. There was no indication that we were adjacent to one of the largest and busiest southeastern-Asian cities. If we didn’t know that we were supposed to bunker in a place called Singapore, you would have thought that we were bunkering in a small meeting place somewhere in the middle of the Malacca Straits. I was disappointed. I couldn’t get to Singapore while in Malaysia. Only 30 or so people did, because that’s all Semester at Sea would let go there, because it’s a foreign country. That will be the same deal with Cambodia – if you didn’t sign up for a Semester at Sea sponsored trip to Cambodia, you are not going to Cambodia if you’d like to continue on with the voyage.
As I’ve said before, moving slow is so much worse than moving quickly. In the same vein, not moving at all when we’re less than 48 hours away from a port is physically painful. I feel like pieces of me are dying with every second of immobility.
While in Global, the faculty sits throughout the viewing areas, and the faculty member I was sitting next to was telling my group about what transpired from the last faculty meeting about Global. The short story is that they estimate attendance is down to about 20%. I think it’s a bit higher, but if I had any right mind in me, I wouldn’t be there either. People have learned that going to class does not mean that you will do better on exams, and that was the nail in coffin for a lot of people. If they’re going to get a C, they might as well not go to class and pull a C, rather than suffer through it for a C. I don’t have a C, so I’m hoping for better from the class. It’s wishful thinking.
In the morning, my cough was especially bad, and the medicine that I’m taking to help is really not doing much for me. I was hoping for good nourishment during lunch, but it was especially bad today, and I had very little to eat. I actually went up to the top deck to order a grilled cheese sandwich to hold me over to dinner. I don’t know why they can’t do grilled cheese for lunch normally, but that’s decisions made by people other than me.
In my cinema class, we’re watching another movie that I’m really not all that excited about. People have taken to bringing their laptops into class to get other work done while the movie is on. I think that’s a little too obvious for me, otherwise I would have my laptop in there as well ‘taking notes.’
Because today was a B day, and it was an odd numbered B day, it was my day to be in tutoring the dependent kids. I don’t really have a specific role there other than to help out when needed, and today my services were needed to help fold more cranes. From what I hear, we’re nearing the goal of 1000, but there’s supposedly quite a ways to go yet.
So while I, and a few of the other tutors were in the back of the class folding cranes, the interport lecturer was in the front of the room educating the children. She was really quite entertaining for no other reason that her English was not perfect, and our English was apparently not the dialect that she was taught back home. It wasn’t like anyone was laughing at anyone, we were all laughing together. Well, at least those of us that understood the hilarity of the situation. Some of the kids had blank looks on their faces.
She was teaching the kids Vietnamese while I was folding Japanese cranes, and if that isn’t the definition of globalization, I don’t know what is. But anyway, as always, I try to pay attention to the useful words and phrases to use, but I can never remember them beyond the minute or two after which they’re said. When we’re in port, by the time that I learn some of the lingo, it’s time to leave.
But that was the calm before the storm. Almost immediately after my time with the kids and their cranes, it was time for night two of selling tickets to the Ambassadors Ball. I knew that I was on a ship of college students, or as we’re otherwise known, procrastinators, so ticket sales would definitely be up over yesterday. What I didn’t realize at the time was how correct I would be.
It started off mildly at 5, much as it did yesterday, but it changed very soon after. The line at one point was over 30 or 40 people long, and we were servicing five to ten people a minute. They came in droves and didn’t stop. Most people were very helpful and patient, but it’s the idiots that make problems for everybody.
Where the professors and staff were the problem the previous day, stupid people were the problem today. As I’ve said before, you come with your whole group, with everyone’s names written down on a piece of paper, then you sign a paper so that we can charge you, while you select which of three entrees you would like. It’s not a difficult concept.
I had the big packet that everyone had to sign and indicate what they want for dinner. And because I was furthest away from the start of the line at the end of the long table, all the idiots came over to ask whether they could do it without their whole group (they couldn’t) or what to do if they couldn’t decide what to eat (just pick something already!) or that they didn’t understand what to do (that was their own fault.)
Whereas the night before had breaks, we did not have a let up at the table for the first two and a half hours. Two and a half hours! I missed dinner because I couldn’t get away from the table, and from what I heard from those that came in line later, I didn’t miss anything anyway. It was absolute mayhem the entire time, and we did pretty good trying to move the line, while staying organized, which is key. We tossed around the idea of having them select their exact table when signing, but after seeing how long it took them to figure out what they wanted for dinner, we made a good decision, even if it will mean loads and loads of work down the road for us. It’s a wonder how some people get out of their cabins in the morning – it just seems like it would take hours for them to select their underwear…assuming they change it…
I don’t know how, but with all the talking and business I was involved in, my cold did its part and subsided for most of the ticket selling. But by the end of the night, I was quite hoarse, and feeling a bit worse for the wear. But by the end, long after we were scheduled to end, we had sold all but about 40 tickets out of just over 800. Like I said, it was a busy night.
One of the names on the short list was one of the deans. We found it odd that Dean Mike didn’t sign up, so we found him as he strolled through Purser’s Square, apparently just finishing some work. He’s supposedly a busy guy. I don’t know how it happened but there was a flurry of signing and deals and all of a sudden Dean Mike was paying for other people at a table he was now at. Like I said, the students really weren’t the problem, it’s the faculty and staff that do a great job making our job much more complicated than it ever needed to be.
By the end of the night, our packet of signatures looked like it had been through a war. We had two gigantic manila folders of papers with names on them, some with large groups stapled together. And the underlying trick with all of this is that those papers in the manila folders should not have duplicate names anywhere, because then one person will be assigned to two different tables. And on top of it all, every name in the manila folders must have signed the packet, and every signature in the packet must have a table. That’s part of all the forthcoming fun.
My Seating Lieutenant, Katie, who would be doing the lion’s share of the seating, with apparently me doing the lion cub’s share, was the only other one with me by the end of the night who was there the entire night, and we decided that we were both quite hungry, and tired for that matter. So we went up to the top deck to grab a pizza for our dinner and commiserate over the fact that the long-dreaded ticket selling adventure has brought itself to a close. It was also nice to sit and relax at the end of the night. Sometime in the middle of selling tickets we finished bunkering for fuel and had begun to move at a high speed again.
As the sun had long since set by this time, now some five hours since tickets went back on sale, I looked off the port side of the ship and saw multicolored lights that appeared to be coming from tall buildings. My heart jumped a bit at that thought. But those of us on the top deck surmised that this was Singapore that was far off in the distance. Too far for me to get anything decent on my camera, and there really was nothing to take a picture of either. It was too far away and we were moving by too quick. As soon as Singapore came, it left. And with Singapore leaving, I left for bed, too.
Normally when announcements are made for clock movements, it strikes with painful thoughts about what is to come. However, for only the second, of what I’m sure will only be two instances in total, we get to retard an hour, or gain an hour of sleep. An hour that we will only have to lose again later, but I’m going to enjoy it while I have it.
I woke up with my cough as rough as ever, but no longer knowing what to do about it. I thought that getting up earlier may have a different effect, but I would be incorrect. And there was a real reason why I was getting up early anyway. It’s Easter Sunday. A fact that a lot of people, myself included, were confused by, because we have no sense of date when we’re on board, so if you told me that it was Friday the 13th this morning, I’d believe you as well.
Anyway, what was billed as a sunrise Easter service that was supposed to be off the back of the ship, with the sun actually rising and Archbishop Tutu presiding turned into a sunrise service inside the Union, where you really couldn’t see the sunrise at all. I guess we would have to take their word for it.
When you’re on board a ship like this, you really only have a few resources to allocate, and therefore an Easter service can only look and feel so much like an Easter service. It was uneventful, and honestly the Archbishop’s sermon was disappointing. There’s a priest back home that gives long sermons, but they’re fantastic. I was surprisingly unimpressed. It was a non-denominational Anglican service, which also confused me. A lot confused me because it seemed and looked like I was at mass a 6am in the middle of the South China Sea. And sure enough, I was at mass at 6am in the middle of the South China Sea.
Church services usually are traditional. This service had a PowerPoint running in the background indicating what part of mass we were in. It also had the lyrics to the wacky songs we were singing, except I was sitting towards the back, and could only see less than half of the screen. All in all, it was an okay service. It was under an hour, so I really can’t complain.
At the end, they had us hold a red carnation and throw it over the back of the ship. The first thing I thought was, ‘how in the world did they get flowers on board?’ That surely would break some kind of rule or regulation. But as easily as the flowers came on the ship, we threw them off the back, and by that time, breakfast had opened, and was subsequently mobbed. Breakfast as always, was ehhh.
It was a B day, so I would have a couple more hours before Global, so I went back to bed. The cold is not doing anything for my energy. I didn’t bother setting the alarm because I wouldn’t be bothered if I were a bit late to Global. I woke up right around the time class was starting, and by the time I got upstairs, most of the places I sit were full, so I sat on the floor, and it wasn’t all that bad. Sitting, I mean. Class was painful. It was odd seeing class where I had been to Easter service just a few hours prior. It would have felt even more odd if we had any concept that we were in class on a Sunday, but because we have no idea, that really didn’t bother us at all.
At lunch, the seating began, or rather, went on to continue. Katie started seating people last night and we met at lunch to do some more. The goal is to sit everybody and double-check for duplicate names and missed people as soon as possible. This isn’t exactly taking precedence over class, but we’ll be spending more time on it than class work until it’s done.
After our few hours of ball seating, I went to cinema, then afterwards met for our Hanoi/Ha Long Bay trip meeting. It looks like about half of us on the trip have parents coming, and the other half are going to be on what might be an awkward trip, but I’m going to have a great time. Our trip leaders, the Whitneys, told us all the details, and then said if your parents are coming, those details are probably all different. So in other words, as usual, nobody has any idea what’s going on, but at this point in the trip, I’ve learned to wing it. Anyone who hasn’t by this point is just not trying.
Shortly thereafter it was time for preport, and it’s become apparent that they’re running out of ideas for stuff to do during preport. So they had students present most of it, something that seems as though it might become a bit of trend, as students are on the ship who are familiar with the remaining ports on the itinerary. It could prove hit or miss tonight, and while I wouldn’t call tonight’s preport a hit, it certainly wasn’t a miss. We’ll call it above average for the time being.
Afterwards, Katie and I found a quiet spot to finish seating, which we did. But let me clarify finish seating: we believe everyone who wants to go to the ball has one seat apiece. We still have to double-check that fact. This means that Katie reads off a name from the seating chart, I find it in the master shipboard manifest, and hope it all matches up. But that’s for after Vietnam. Until then, it’s time for bed.
In the morning, it’s always an adventure to find the time to get up for the entrance to port, but Ho Chi Minh city will be different. If you’ve ever looked on a map, Ho Chi Minh City is not a coastal city – it’s on the banks of the Saigon River. We’ve been told it’s quite a spectacle to see the ship go up the river, and it’s certainly something that I don’t want to miss.
After three more days at sea, it’s time to head for Vietnam and Mom.
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