Sorry

Report from the Battlefield

I’m officially reviving the title from my emails last summer – I think by now, you’ve probably all heard a bit about what’s going on in my corner of the world. If you haven’t, then you’ve been living under a rock or perhaps on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic.

I really haven’t posted about work yet? Wow. Well, I guess I’ll start from the beginning.

I started in mid-June with training – nearly two months worth of it. I don’t know about you, but to me that’s a hell of a lot of training, especially if I’m getting paid for it. It was good though, an easy transition from college to work – except we never had ten hours of class in a day on the same topic. Haha. I had fun meeting everyone else in my class though, and overall it was a fun and easy time (except maybe not for the kids who took the tests and homework way too seriously and stayed until 1am every night…). I will say though, if I hadn’t had a background in most of this stuff already, I don’t know if I could’ve kept up. I certainly don’t know how all the English and Poli Sci majors did it.

(Side note: I’m typing this on the Boltbus as I’m coming home this weekend, and we just passed a Mt. Tremblant shuttle. Nice.)

I was possibly more well-informed and up-to-date on current events during training than I ever have been in my life. Also, my crossword skills were honed a bit. We’ll leave it at that. =) Like I said, smooth transition from school – except for the daily 45 minute commute to Jersey part of it.

So after that we had a week’s worth of class to pass a certification exam (though now I’m sort of questioning whether it was necessary at all…I guess we can discuss that one offline). We had a teacher who reminded me of a cross between Fred Flintstone and Lewis Black – pretty funny, but in that angry and bitter sort of way. Maybe it was because he’d been teaching that same standardized test for over 20 years.

Then came a week of training for my specific department, then finally work! I’m all for learning, but I was seriously looking forward to actually doing something after being essentially a human sponge for two months. Started off pretty slow, but then shit hit the fan and you guys know the rest.

In some ways it’s the most ridiculous, irrational, messed up time to be working where I am, and in some ways it’s business as usual. I’m glad to see the feel of the place hasn’t changed – I slipped back into it pretty quickly, and my colleagues impress me every day as much as they ever did. Definitely less pressure though (I guess that’s in my head?), now that it’s a longer term thing and not a mad-cap race to land a job.

Still working hard even though I haven’t ramped up to my ultimate full work load, but part of that is because I’m taking the time to do things carefully now so that I learn them right. I don’t keep track of my hours – in fact, our timesheets are only to track the percentage of time we spend doing things – but if I had to take a stab at it, I’d guess I’m hitting maybe 75 per week right now? Something like that. My weekdays are mostly work, working out (the gym at work has a rock wall! I haven’t tried it yet though), chill out a bit at home, then sleep. I still take the time to do things for myself though – I’m learning now how important that is – and the work gets me going as much as it ever did. For all fourth year did to kill my motivation, work brought it back.

Man, okay, this post is too long already and I still haven’t really addressed the shitshow that is my industry (I just picked up that word, I think it’s really funny). I’ll save that for another time, because I don’t pretend to be an expert on everything yet.

I don’t mind working long hours at all – in fact, I’m not sure how satisfied I’d be if I weren’t right now – but it makes me realize how precious my free time is. When I don’t have my weekends planned out and I just want to plop on the couch and watch TV, I feel terrible! So, I’m trying to instill some sense of order to my free time – I was thinking about cooking classes? Learn a new language? What do you guys think?

I miss talking to you all, especially all the weird and diverse things we liked to debate about at IHOP or the College Inn. Post more often! Erik, I’m calling you out. What the hell have you been up to?

I’m settling in fairly well where I am, but damn if it doesn’t feel good to be coming home right now.

P.S. The Office season premiere last night, anyone? I won’t spoil it for anyone, but I’m just so psyched that it’s back.

Don't Look Down!

Hey Everyone!

Just a quick note to let you guys knows what is up out here. We finished crossing the ocean today, and have started making our way into the Med. If you recall, I went to Spain for my 3rd class cruise, so up until today we have been sailing in familiar waters. Today marks the point at which the seas we sail will be all new to me. Things should also get a lot more interesting from this point on. Crossing the Atlantic is dreadfully boring most of the time. There is nothing to look at out there except the stars, which are magnificent, but constant. From here on out, at least for the next month or so, every new watch will bring new sights and new places.

As for myself, I am doing well. I am starting to get settled into the rhythm of life at sea, such as it is. My schedule follows a pattern of sorts, but it isn't the kind of pattern which lends itself to developing any sort of comfortable routine. Sometimes bedtime is 2200, sometimes its 0815. I often find myself sleeping at lunch time or working well past midnight. The good news about keeping that kind of schedule is that it almost completely obscures the passage of time. There is no regular pattern of waking up in the morning and going to sleep at night. There is no established work day or quitting time. Additionally, we change time zones about every two days. All of this combines to make it almost impossible to establish any real sense of how quickly or slowly time is passing. I have decided to embrace this fact and use it to my advantage. I call it my "don’t look down" approach. My plan is to try my very hardest to ignore the existence of time. If I were to allow myself to think about how long this deployment will be, I would surely find myself frustrated and unhappy with the amount of time left to go and the sluggishness with which it passes. Given that I don’t really need time out here (and given that I find it hard to keep track of anyway), I have decided to tune it out entirely. It is much the same as a rock climber or sky-scraper iron worker who refuses to look down. Looking down and seeing the distance he has to fall will do nothing to lessen the distance, but will increase his anxiety and therefore his risk of falling. Therefore, I will look only as far ahead as I need to, which typically is about 15 hours. My hope is that this deployment, like childhood, will fly by in a blur of unawareness while I run blindly along, blissfully oblivious to the existence of anything beyond my next meal.

As for professional progress, things are moving along on pace. I am working pretty hard on my qualifications every day. I am boldly pointing the firehose of information directly at my face and opening my mouth. I don’t know if I will be able to keep this pace up for the whole deployment, but for now I am making good time. I am becoming more and more comfortable with all things nautical. I can understand the language, and am working on learning to speak it. "I am becoming tolerably amphibious", to quote Dr. Maturin in the Patrick O'Brian novel "Post Captain."

I am extremely excited about our upcoming port visits. I can't really say where they are, but if you read the Odyssey you will get a pretty good idea of where I will be for the next few weeks. For a classical buff like me, there are no more exciting waters to sail than those. After that, looks like I might get to hunt some pirates. All of you know me well enough to know how happy I am about that!

I hope you are all doing well. I miss everyone already. Let me know how everything is going with you all back home.

Love, Jed

Quick request

I'm trying to decide which of these nine pictures I should make into 8x10 prints. I just bought two picture frames to decorate the apartment with, so I was hoping you could help me whittle it down to the best. Leave your suggestions in the comments, or send me an email/IM back. Thanks.

Public Service Announcement

Guys, a motherly word of caution: watch out for your credit cards! I got a call today from the credit card fraud department saying that there were two $100 transactions made on my card down in Florida.

Care to guess where the perpetrator chose to go on his/her spending spree?

Circle K. And a BP gas station.

Now, I don't know about you, but if I were the type to steal credit card information, I would go all out. Not that those aren't quality institutions.

P.S. I love how this small event prompted me to post, and still I haven't said a word about work! Training JUST finished, so an update is forthcoming.

Interjections, with excitement, and emotion...

I am exhausted and need to go to bed but had to post this.

Yesterday in class, we were going over parts of speech. In an effort to make my class more engaging, I decided to try mad libs with them. I let them pick their own words and then fill in the story, and without first checking them (dumb first-year teacher move) allowed the students to read their stories aloud to the class.

As you can probably guess from the title of my blog post, one of the parts of speech they were to generate was an interjection. So one of my students read aloud to the class her interpretation of an interjection: "'OMG!' cried the student." Naturally, we all lost it at that moment.

Maybe School House Rock needs to remake their videos for the text messaging generation?