out of exile

between cape town and mauritius i went into a self imposed exile. the constant social environment for someone who needs and loves generous amounts of solitude had caught up with me. since mauritius i've been slowly coming out again, and believe me there has been plenty to do. this week there was a sea olympics (the different cabin areas for students are named after bodies of water - aegean, caribbean, etc.). the winning sea gets to disembark first in san diego. i opted out of all this, except to watch parts of the basketball tournament. i opted in for the formal (got to dress up) captain's dinner last night with a small group of others. i ate shrimp cocktail, a cream of broccoli soup with almonds, greek salad, prime rib, chocolate moose cake and ice cream. tonight there was another bbq. i had ribs, a hamburger, corn on the cob, macaroni salad, and fruit punch. another recent culinary highlight was taco day, always a hit - recognizable food. myself, and most others, have been less than enthusiastic about the menu options (perhaps i've mentioned this before), so when something different comes along it's quite the spirit booster. of course, some students are still piling it high and shoveling it in. after all every meal is an all you can eat buffet, and as one student put it, "it's better than what i can cook for myself". personally, i'm looking forward to hitting the farmers market when i get home.

between the normal dining hall food, the really really really bad internet service, and unrelable proxy service to the linking software (the equivalent to uc-elinks) to full text articles in UVA's bibliogrpahic databases, it's been a pretty frustrating few days since mauritius. i wish there was no internet service at all. learning to live without it would be easier than living with the pitifully slow (5+ minutes for a page to load, students play solitaire in between page loads) to non-existent service. i feel for students trying to write papers, blog, enroll in fall classes at their home institutions etc. oh, and here's the kicker, they're paying .40 cents a minute to be online. this is the first time i've been able to sign in to my blog in a few days, and am thinking about giving up the effort. the time comittment and anxiety is too great.

this week, i also attended a bridge tour, and saw from where the captain and his officers manage to get us from one port to another. lately the seas have been especially calm, completely different from the cape town to mauritius stretch. last night i woke up in the middle of the night thinking the ship had stopped. i didn't feel any movement at all. not long ago we were trying to keep from falling out of bed at night. more photos from the bridge, including captain jeremy, and erika, one of our library work study students:









other programs and social events, include a q&a with the captain and his officers which is going on now, and a b-day party tonight for mary weil, the spouse of michael weil, one of the faculty. the party is being set up behind me, so i'm going to need to go soon.

this next phase of the trip, we'll be in port more than on the ship. in india we'll be docked in chennai (formerly madras). i'll be doing a three day rural village, farm, and plantation visit in southern india (nagercoil and some other nearby areas). myself and five students will be traveling to the area on an overnight sleeper train and staying with a family that operates a school. i'll have two days when i get back to hang out in chennai, the city.

now that i have a way to upload my photos, when i can, i'll try and do some retrospective uploading.