Today we discovered the real reason to travel on the fall, westbound voyage as opposed to the spring, eastbound one. There are no less than 23 times this voyage that the ship’s clock gets retarded an hour, meaning we get an extra hour of sleep - it’s already happened twice.
Also, Earlham College, as it turns out, is not the only place that shows weird Japanese films. Interesting.
Ok, let’s start for a sec with last night - they do indeed serve alcohol - in very limited quantities, but alcohol nonetheless - up on the seventh deck at the pool bar. and let me tell you, it draws quite the crowd, attempting to recreate the party scenes on their campuses. i don’t get it. stumble up the stairs when you’re tired a couple times - i imagine that’s much like what it would be like to be drunk. but i suppose i am glad that no one is singing loud annoying songs at the top of their lungs while climbing the stairs, so, as long as it’s confined to the seventh deck, we’ll be ok - it’s actually kinda nice, cause it helps sort people out, helps you find the kind of people with whom you like to socialize.
Yesterday i also had a really lovely dinner with the Assistant Dean and his wife, who also works in the clinic and has decided to become my mom, i think...although i did sign up for the real extended family program - where you become part of a “family” with participating faculty and staff members and their families or Lifelong Learners (the “old people” who sort of just come for shits and giggles, as far as i can tell). the families here are all so fun; i spent a good portion of yesterday afternoon protecting the bank from insistent robbery in Monopoly Jr., and, better yet, i got Sarah and Jake to call Drew (remember him?) Carrot Top. it sounds mean, but he way deserved it.
Other than that, my classes all started today! i’m feeling a little guilty about wanting to drop the one with the 85 year old German prof., Doris, but a few other things are pretty tempting. Like a service learning class, ideas from which i could maybe even bring back to Earlham. and my geography professor that i “lit up” in class. siiiigh.
We had a nice LGBTQAILMNOP (sorry i think it stops at I, but i’m not sure - they’ve added so many letters since my heyday in high school GSA) dinner and talked about pretty much everything but LGBT etc. issues, and it was still really nice, except that when the ship goes a certain speed the whole aft (think of it this way: aft = ass) part vibrates (sometimes, as right now, my cabin does too) and it bothers me, for some reason. also, sometimes it’s a little too exhilarating to watch the whole sea fill up the view out a side window, and then the ship drops away and sky fills the window, and back and forth. the rest of the night i hung out with all of those people who are like “man, thank god we have each other to hang out and not drink with”, and it was really nice. and it’s especially nice that it’s guys and girls, even if the guys are a little crazy, even Jade, who’s one of those people that you feel like every word out of his mouth should be “duuuuuuude”. tonight there was a scavenger hunt, almost as crazy as a shipboard version of trichadecathalomania (sp?!), which we more normal folk felt made for a very amusing spectator sport, and we spent a lot of time making fun of them. i also met another nice girl from Boston, East Boston actually, named Kelly, and hung out with her a bit. And sometimes i walk around and am sure i see Miriam or Katie or any one of you from the back, and then i remember that you’re not on this ship with me, and i’m here missing you.
Anyway, we’re all getting ready to start thinking about field work! we get to Honolulu on Sunday, and now we’re all about planning for Japan.
But...there’s still a whole lot of ocean to cross first.
love and bedtime, em
PS - yes, i seem to have mostly gotten over the queasiness, no, i never threw up (though it could still happen, you never know), and NO, i don’t usually get motion sick! it’s a little depressing that the thing i spend 100 days living on has to be the one that makes me sick :-( i’ve decided that the motion just isn’t constant enough. i guess that’s why i like trains so much.
oh yeah, and that’s a picture of people trying to stand on one foot. It is NOT EASY. go take a lot of some substance that alters your motor skills and hop on the T and/or the nearest moving vehicle and try it - that’s about what it feels like.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Well, gosh
Hmmm. What is there to do on a boat besides get seasick?
The answer is: lots. It’s actually quite annoying to be seasick. My roommate went to go to beat up the ocean, but she said that it went badly. It would be a losing battle anyway. cause the ocean’s badass, and there’s a whole lot of it out here. you stand out on deck and it’s just OCEAN, and you kind of hope that the faint grayness on the horizon is, in fact, mountains somewhere, but they’re really not; they’re really just clouds. It’s just us and ocean, baby. The America’s are such an isolated set of continents - you have to cross a whole lot of nothing to get anywhere, even if that anywhere is Hawaii, a tiny spot in the middle of the nothing. And then there’s some more nothing, and then you hit Japan, and then, let’s hope, it’s smooth, less lonesome sailing until you get back to the Atlantic.
Anyway. There’s more to life than that. Here’s how life goes:
The train ride was just magnificent; my dad and i even won a book on the Santa Fe Trail in a US National Park Service trivia quiz! i could pretty much live on a train forever, actually. Much preferable to a boat. But for now, a boat will have to do.
LA with the cousins and Papa Jake was cool - we never get to see them, and i had forgotten what a fantastic fellow my great uncle is. The biggest downfall was walking about a mile with all our stuff to pick up the rental car - Dad said i could wait at Union Station with the stuff, but what that really means is: i’ll be back sometime in the next century, so you wait with the stuff, you die with the stuff.
On Sunday we took the scenic route down the coast to San Diego, through lots of posh beachy towns and then to the beach where my dad’s navy ship practiced landing the boat on the beach - what does a drunk person driving down 5 in the middle of the night think upon rounding a bend to see a giant amphibious naval ship on a deserted beach, he wondered? On Sunday afternoon i got to hang out with ANDREW! we spent a lot of time being indecisive and then drove out to Point Loma and learned about the lighthouses of old and looked at the expanse of city below us, and then we went to Old Town. And then we found my dad, and went back to Alpine for a delicious dinner with wonderful company, and life was good.
And then - Monday came. Early departure on the first set of buses to Ensenada, which left all of us first shift people to wander and wander and wander around the boat, because we no luggage or roommates. What we did have was a whole ship to be confused by (ok for example, you have to decide which part of the seventh deck you’re going to somewhere around deck four so that you end up on the right stairs) and a giant Mexican flag to stare at.
The ship really is quite spectacular - i can’t do it justice in description so i’ll leave that up to your imagination until there are pictures. it’s a little fancy for me, as is the amount of service provided by the crew, but i suppose there’s no reason to complain about a bit of fanciness and employed people who are happy to have the jobs and who are sending the money to their appreciative families in the Phillipines. i also really have met all kinds of people, and i’ve already found friends - there’s one girl, Bobbi, who’s from NC, and she’s real bubbly and just talks to EVERYBODY, so you hang with her, or start emulating her, if you’re real brave, and you find someone eventually. It’s two to one girls to guys, and we sure have plenty of the sorority types (a new friend named Brian just pondered the amount of makeup that must be on this ship...my roommate Ariel is one of them - and she has WAY more stuff than i do, too. but she seems nice. so far, she lies around and watches Meet Joe Black. she’s done it about four times so far) but there are many others too. But i’ve found guy friends - i’ve eaten the last couple of meals with a few groups of people - Jake and Jade (male Jade - and Jake looks a little like Lauren’s Steve, and i keep wanting to call him that) and Kristin (who’s also real glad to get away from the fraternity/sorority types) and Brian and Tyler, even though i think Brian looks more like a Tyler and Tyler looks more like a Brian. And Jade’s roommate Andrew is from Memphis and really nice, and was also really excited that we took the train, so props for him! The faculty seem FANTASTIC (this morning the Resident Directors sand us the SAS alma mater that they wrote. maybe people around me thought it was dumb, but i thought it was AWESOME) and i love that they all live right here with us with their families (children! you forget about them in college sometimes); although i’d be more excited to start classes if this freakin ship would stop moving! it distracts my brain, and has threatened to make me very seasick a number of times...and i’ve never been too motion sick before! BAH!!!! It really is rocky - i mean, i guess relatively speaking it could be a lot worse, but you can definitely feel it, and it’s not gonna stop. at least not for awhile. i’m living it great faith that we’ll get used to it, and it helps that the sick part is fading, but it’s still weird, and it’s like walking around drunk till we get sealegs (at least that’s what they say - i wouldn’t know. about the drunk part, i mean). (yesterday when they were searching bags, on the dock, i was watching from the top deck, watching and watching until they FINALLY searched what i thought was my bag, and the first thing they pulled out was a hair straightener. hmm. not my bag, so much.) despite being exhausted and almost being lulled to sleep by Jade’s piano playing (then the boys got some stuff at the food counter from a friendly Jamaican who introduced himself as Chuck Norris. he no longer responds to Chuck Norris, i’ve discovered) i couldn’t sleep. it was terrible. hopefully tonight the waves will become more soothing and less distracting for my poor brain.
Other than that, lots of meetings. and a lifeboat drill. we saw a sea lion! what else? lying around, mostly, standing outside, almost getting blown off the bow, trying to get adjusted, eating saltines...that’s pretty much it for now. i think i’m going to go check outside for the beautiful, reflective moon before our next meeting. internet’s expensive and slow and we don’t get a lot of free minutes, so i don’t think i’m gonna put up pictures till i get home. but i’ll blog as much as i can.
and mostly just i miss you all terribly. terribly.
And Lauren, today someone was wearing your sweatshirt. with your beer soulmate on it. oh my.
so....what’s new on land?
The answer is: lots. It’s actually quite annoying to be seasick. My roommate went to go to beat up the ocean, but she said that it went badly. It would be a losing battle anyway. cause the ocean’s badass, and there’s a whole lot of it out here. you stand out on deck and it’s just OCEAN, and you kind of hope that the faint grayness on the horizon is, in fact, mountains somewhere, but they’re really not; they’re really just clouds. It’s just us and ocean, baby. The America’s are such an isolated set of continents - you have to cross a whole lot of nothing to get anywhere, even if that anywhere is Hawaii, a tiny spot in the middle of the nothing. And then there’s some more nothing, and then you hit Japan, and then, let’s hope, it’s smooth, less lonesome sailing until you get back to the Atlantic.
Anyway. There’s more to life than that. Here’s how life goes:
The train ride was just magnificent; my dad and i even won a book on the Santa Fe Trail in a US National Park Service trivia quiz! i could pretty much live on a train forever, actually. Much preferable to a boat. But for now, a boat will have to do.
LA with the cousins and Papa Jake was cool - we never get to see them, and i had forgotten what a fantastic fellow my great uncle is. The biggest downfall was walking about a mile with all our stuff to pick up the rental car - Dad said i could wait at Union Station with the stuff, but what that really means is: i’ll be back sometime in the next century, so you wait with the stuff, you die with the stuff.
On Sunday we took the scenic route down the coast to San Diego, through lots of posh beachy towns and then to the beach where my dad’s navy ship practiced landing the boat on the beach - what does a drunk person driving down 5 in the middle of the night think upon rounding a bend to see a giant amphibious naval ship on a deserted beach, he wondered? On Sunday afternoon i got to hang out with ANDREW! we spent a lot of time being indecisive and then drove out to Point Loma and learned about the lighthouses of old and looked at the expanse of city below us, and then we went to Old Town. And then we found my dad, and went back to Alpine for a delicious dinner with wonderful company, and life was good.
And then - Monday came. Early departure on the first set of buses to Ensenada, which left all of us first shift people to wander and wander and wander around the boat, because we no luggage or roommates. What we did have was a whole ship to be confused by (ok for example, you have to decide which part of the seventh deck you’re going to somewhere around deck four so that you end up on the right stairs) and a giant Mexican flag to stare at.
The ship really is quite spectacular - i can’t do it justice in description so i’ll leave that up to your imagination until there are pictures. it’s a little fancy for me, as is the amount of service provided by the crew, but i suppose there’s no reason to complain about a bit of fanciness and employed people who are happy to have the jobs and who are sending the money to their appreciative families in the Phillipines. i also really have met all kinds of people, and i’ve already found friends - there’s one girl, Bobbi, who’s from NC, and she’s real bubbly and just talks to EVERYBODY, so you hang with her, or start emulating her, if you’re real brave, and you find someone eventually. It’s two to one girls to guys, and we sure have plenty of the sorority types (a new friend named Brian just pondered the amount of makeup that must be on this ship...my roommate Ariel is one of them - and she has WAY more stuff than i do, too. but she seems nice. so far, she lies around and watches Meet Joe Black. she’s done it about four times so far) but there are many others too. But i’ve found guy friends - i’ve eaten the last couple of meals with a few groups of people - Jake and Jade (male Jade - and Jake looks a little like Lauren’s Steve, and i keep wanting to call him that) and Kristin (who’s also real glad to get away from the fraternity/sorority types) and Brian and Tyler, even though i think Brian looks more like a Tyler and Tyler looks more like a Brian. And Jade’s roommate Andrew is from Memphis and really nice, and was also really excited that we took the train, so props for him! The faculty seem FANTASTIC (this morning the Resident Directors sand us the SAS alma mater that they wrote. maybe people around me thought it was dumb, but i thought it was AWESOME) and i love that they all live right here with us with their families (children! you forget about them in college sometimes); although i’d be more excited to start classes if this freakin ship would stop moving! it distracts my brain, and has threatened to make me very seasick a number of times...and i’ve never been too motion sick before! BAH!!!! It really is rocky - i mean, i guess relatively speaking it could be a lot worse, but you can definitely feel it, and it’s not gonna stop. at least not for awhile. i’m living it great faith that we’ll get used to it, and it helps that the sick part is fading, but it’s still weird, and it’s like walking around drunk till we get sealegs (at least that’s what they say - i wouldn’t know. about the drunk part, i mean). (yesterday when they were searching bags, on the dock, i was watching from the top deck, watching and watching until they FINALLY searched what i thought was my bag, and the first thing they pulled out was a hair straightener. hmm. not my bag, so much.) despite being exhausted and almost being lulled to sleep by Jade’s piano playing (then the boys got some stuff at the food counter from a friendly Jamaican who introduced himself as Chuck Norris. he no longer responds to Chuck Norris, i’ve discovered) i couldn’t sleep. it was terrible. hopefully tonight the waves will become more soothing and less distracting for my poor brain.
Other than that, lots of meetings. and a lifeboat drill. we saw a sea lion! what else? lying around, mostly, standing outside, almost getting blown off the bow, trying to get adjusted, eating saltines...that’s pretty much it for now. i think i’m going to go check outside for the beautiful, reflective moon before our next meeting. internet’s expensive and slow and we don’t get a lot of free minutes, so i don’t think i’m gonna put up pictures till i get home. but i’ll blog as much as i can.
and mostly just i miss you all terribly. terribly.
And Lauren, today someone was wearing your sweatshirt. with your beer soulmate on it. oh my.
so....what’s new on land?
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
The Beginning of the Beginning
If you’re actually reading this, it’s a miracle. because it means that, not only did i figure out how to get this site online, but you found it. It is probably January 2017 by now, but that’s ok.
SO. This trip has officially begun.
This morning was all the excitement and more predicted by my roommate when I told her yesterday that i hadn’t packed yet, and she said: “Oh boy. I sense another half-hour Emily packing special coming on” (um, those may or may not have been her exact words). Anyway, we did it, and the only major crisis (besides the amount that I spent on toiletries, which I’m not going to talk about, because it could feed me for a year) was the disappearance of a hairbrush that has become quite significant to me over the years. I miss it already. Well, there’s a lot of other stuff/people that i miss more...but we won’t talk about that now :-P
Anyway, we did make it to the train...and then to the other train...right on time. And we made it to Albany/Renssalaer EARLY (and escaped the crazy man mumbling about ice cream and record temperatures). Yaaaay Amtrak.
Now, it sometimes happens in Albany/Renssalaer that one’s father sends one out alone into the streets of Renssalaer, and one is not really sure of what to make of it. Renssalaer is a sad kind of place, not a past-its-heyday Richmond kind of sad, but a lonesome, never quite loved enough kind of sad, sitting there in Albany’s shadow. I walked up and down a few streets, remotely hoping to find some sort of central area but not really succeeded. There’s a big Amtrak yard by the station that you could pretty much walk right into if you wanted to. Lots of activity and trains being shuffled around, very exciting, even some of the 700-series engines that run of diesel and electric. Oh, trains - how i love thee.
Walking down the street after i crossed over the tracks, i found one of those signs with the binocular symbols pointing to this area under the highway bridge into Albany, and i was like, dude, there can’t possibly be anything exciting under an overpass, but, as it turned out, there was. A lovely riverfront park with a lively bandstand full of musicians and a lawn full of old people to match, and all of the overpass pillars painted in all kinds of murals - an old map, horses, a fighter plane - my favorite was of three standard poodles sitting by a hearth - and all right along the river, looking across at Albany and the riverboats. There are two morals to this story, i think - a) beauty is often where you least expect it, and b) those little binocular signs know what they’re talking about.
Back at the station, we met a very nice, beautiful 11-year old service dog, and then got on the train. With the rest of the world, apparently. Including, but not limited to, the dude with the garbage bags and the ancient cammo backpack (although i think i’d call it a rucksack), a large contingent of Young People With Funny Accents (they’re from lots of different places. I don’t even know where) and Todd from Chicago, the crazy ice cream man. Yes. As it turns out, the crazy ice cream man works with autistic children on the south side of Chicago. Hmm. Eventually, another fascinating fellow with gold teeth from Iowa who’s been talking a lot about tractors distracted Todd from Chicago, and we were spared to hang out with our new best friend, Chuck the Lounge Guy (he’s AWESOME). He even illicitly gave us ice to keep my live typhoid cold. Chuck is so awesome, in fact, that, even though everyone else has been kicked out of the lounge car, he let us stay because we were all set up. So now it’s just us and the conductors, and we’re spying on top-secret (not really) radio information that reports things like our speed, as calculated by somehow using the number of axles on this train, which, it turns out, is 48. And listening to the train people talk about how much they hate Bush. (He’s bad for trains.) (Chuck really doesn’t like Bush. He’s voting for Hillary just to see Bill back around.) Also, they’re looking for someone named Donna Smith. Has anyone seen her?
I could pretty much live on a train for the rest of my life. I guess a boat will have to do.
Although, as Elmo says, I’ll miss all the places and people i love. Oh Elmo, i already do.
SO. This trip has officially begun.
This morning was all the excitement and more predicted by my roommate when I told her yesterday that i hadn’t packed yet, and she said: “Oh boy. I sense another half-hour Emily packing special coming on” (um, those may or may not have been her exact words). Anyway, we did it, and the only major crisis (besides the amount that I spent on toiletries, which I’m not going to talk about, because it could feed me for a year) was the disappearance of a hairbrush that has become quite significant to me over the years. I miss it already. Well, there’s a lot of other stuff/people that i miss more...but we won’t talk about that now :-P
Anyway, we did make it to the train...and then to the other train...right on time. And we made it to Albany/Renssalaer EARLY (and escaped the crazy man mumbling about ice cream and record temperatures). Yaaaay Amtrak.
Now, it sometimes happens in Albany/Renssalaer that one’s father sends one out alone into the streets of Renssalaer, and one is not really sure of what to make of it. Renssalaer is a sad kind of place, not a past-its-heyday Richmond kind of sad, but a lonesome, never quite loved enough kind of sad, sitting there in Albany’s shadow. I walked up and down a few streets, remotely hoping to find some sort of central area but not really succeeded. There’s a big Amtrak yard by the station that you could pretty much walk right into if you wanted to. Lots of activity and trains being shuffled around, very exciting, even some of the 700-series engines that run of diesel and electric. Oh, trains - how i love thee.
Walking down the street after i crossed over the tracks, i found one of those signs with the binocular symbols pointing to this area under the highway bridge into Albany, and i was like, dude, there can’t possibly be anything exciting under an overpass, but, as it turned out, there was. A lovely riverfront park with a lively bandstand full of musicians and a lawn full of old people to match, and all of the overpass pillars painted in all kinds of murals - an old map, horses, a fighter plane - my favorite was of three standard poodles sitting by a hearth - and all right along the river, looking across at Albany and the riverboats. There are two morals to this story, i think - a) beauty is often where you least expect it, and b) those little binocular signs know what they’re talking about.
Back at the station, we met a very nice, beautiful 11-year old service dog, and then got on the train. With the rest of the world, apparently. Including, but not limited to, the dude with the garbage bags and the ancient cammo backpack (although i think i’d call it a rucksack), a large contingent of Young People With Funny Accents (they’re from lots of different places. I don’t even know where) and Todd from Chicago, the crazy ice cream man. Yes. As it turns out, the crazy ice cream man works with autistic children on the south side of Chicago. Hmm. Eventually, another fascinating fellow with gold teeth from Iowa who’s been talking a lot about tractors distracted Todd from Chicago, and we were spared to hang out with our new best friend, Chuck the Lounge Guy (he’s AWESOME). He even illicitly gave us ice to keep my live typhoid cold. Chuck is so awesome, in fact, that, even though everyone else has been kicked out of the lounge car, he let us stay because we were all set up. So now it’s just us and the conductors, and we’re spying on top-secret (not really) radio information that reports things like our speed, as calculated by somehow using the number of axles on this train, which, it turns out, is 48. And listening to the train people talk about how much they hate Bush. (He’s bad for trains.) (Chuck really doesn’t like Bush. He’s voting for Hillary just to see Bill back around.) Also, they’re looking for someone named Donna Smith. Has anyone seen her?
I could pretty much live on a train for the rest of my life. I guess a boat will have to do.
Although, as Elmo says, I’ll miss all the places and people i love. Oh Elmo, i already do.
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