BACK!

DIASPORATIC IS NOT DEAD! Does everyone remember that scene in The Matrix where Neo gets shot by the agent and dies? Remember how Trinity brought him back to life by kissing him? That is how it is with Diasporatic. It can be revived. All it needs is a little love!
I am officially back from deployment! Most of you already know that because with a few big exceptions (Sarah! Michelle! Steven!) I have seen most of you guys already. I can hardly describe how great it was to reunite with Amar, Sam and Dean for Foxfield. I would try to explain the elation I felt, but if I did Amar would accuse me of being emo. So I will just say it was a long-awaited pleasure. I even ran into a few people I wasn't expecting. Maha and Tommy both ambled by as I was having dinner at the College Inn with Amar and Sam.
I also got to go home for a few days and see my parents, my sister and the baby. She is huge now! She has started talking in complete sentences which are hilarious for their complete candour and unjaded logic. I have always had an incredible fondness for that child - all the more now that she is interactive! On a sadder note, I finally got to hear the details of my sister's divorce. It was very hard for me to hear her describe all that she went through while I was away. I felt terrible about having been so completely absent for the whole debacle. It was one of those moments where you start to question whether or not your career choice is worth the sacrifices. I am sure you have all had similar moments.
On 27 April I had to report to Newport, RI to continue my training. The Navy is always training you for something. No matter how many things you qualify yourself to do, they are forever trying to teach you to do something else. By getting my Officer of the Deck letter, I demonstrated that I know how to operate my ship. Now the Navy wants me to learn to operate every other kind of ship! That's what this three-week school is supposed to be about. It is called Advanced Shiphandling and Tactics. The first week was spent entirely in the simulators. They have some amazing sims here which more or less exactly approximate a real ship. Every day you go in and take your virtual ship through all kinds of hellish scenarios while a guy with a clipboard watches and grades you. The idea is to give you practice doing things with the ship which you ordinarily wouldn't get to do and to give the staff up here a chance to see how proficient you are. The second week has been a succession of interminable lectures on combat systems and tactics. This stuff is not nearly as interesting as it sounds. A 3-hour power point presentation about anti-submarine tactics is brutal treatment for even the most interested mind. Several such briefs in a row is the intellectual equivalent of waterboarding - a practice I thought we were supposed to be getting away from.
Aside from all that, I am having a great time up here. I am getting a lot of much-needed time with Arlene which is the most important thing. We spend most of our evenings trying out all the great restaurants and pubs in Newport. I have always been something of a hedonist when it comes to food and alcohol. Being with Arlene and having disposable income has only amplified that behaviour. She and I have those two vices in common, which is convenient. I have been attempting to work out regularly to mitigate the damage I am doing to myself. I am trying to be healthier in general. I have realised that I can't keep up my drinking and sloth indefinitely without significantly shortening my life expectancy. I have no intention of giving up drinking so I have been trying to do something about the sloth. So far I feel good!

I encourage you all to update Diasporatic with your experiences! We are coming up on a year since graduation. Can you guys believe that? The one year anniversary of our departure from college is a good occasion to revive our efforts to stay in touch and document our experiences and thoughts in this blog.

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

Turbo

These past few weeks have been incomprehensible. I offer this as my excuse for not posting recently. I have barely been able to process all that has been happening in my life, so the idea of trying to write it all down has been daunting to say the least. However, over the last few days I have been able to feel myself beginning to hit a stride of sorts, so I have decided to make an attempt at posting.

I have been adjusting to a new city, job, schedule, budget, mindset and vocabulary. I hope to talk about all of these things in future posts. For today I will focus on one: the new vocabulary. Over the past few weeks I have learned an entirely new language. The Navy (like any large organization) has its own lexicon which is mostly gibberish to anyone outside of the organization who hears it. Up until I got here three weeks ago, I had never heard many of the terms which I use every day now. And even now I have a hard time understanding most of the things people say to me, although my ear is getting better every day.

My intention for this post is to introduce you all to a few of the terms you will see in any future posts where I discuss my job. I won’t get into the tedium of nautical lingo (“brow”, “quarterdeck”, “leeward”, “abaft”, “focsle”.) Nor will I attempt to acquaint you with the even more tedious engineering l33tspeak which has been the bane of my brief existence on board this ship (“transverse bulkhead”, “EOSS”, “Ultra-S”, “Gas Turbine Module”, “N2 LPAC”, “PMS” [means something different in the Navy.]) I will stick to the essential terms which describe what I do for a living. Hopefully, in the course explaining the terms which are coming to define my new life here, I’ll also be able to convey a sense of what my day-to-day life is. I won’t promise that this will not be a little bit tedious, but please bear with me. If you read this, you will understand me so much better later on.

“Duty Day:”

I am starting with this term because it explains why I am writing this post right now. Basically, there always have to be enough people on the ship to take her to sea and operate her systems. That way if the redcoats, communists or Mongolian hordes attack the naval base, there will always be enough people to get the ship moving out to sea and defend herself. Therefore, the ship has to keep a minimum compliment of people onboard 24/7. This is accomplished by dividing the officers and crew of the ship up into six “duty sections.” Each duty section is responsible for staying onboard the ship for one 24-hour “duty day” every six days. During that 24-hour period, each member of the duty section is usually required to stand one 5-hour watch. When your duty day falls on a weekend, the 19 hours in which you are not on watch are your own to spend reading, playing video games, sleeping, studying or (in my case) writing blog posts. You can do anything you want except leave the ship.

When it is not your duty day, being in the navy is very much like any other job. You come to work at 7AM and leave whenever your work is done and your boss says you can go. Sometimes you get home by noon, sometimes not till 10PM. It just depends on what going on. Unless your duty day falls on a weekend, you get weekends off. Of course, on deployment all of my days will be 18-20 hours long and there wont be any days off.

“Watch”

When the ship is underway, there are no duty sections because the whole crew is onboard and on duty 24/7. Therefore, when you are underway your life revolves around the “watch schedule,” or “watch rotation.” A “watch”, in the nautical sense of the word, is basically a shift at some particular job. For example, the sailors who stand at the helm and steer the ship do so in 5-hour watches, or shifts. The watch you are assigned to stand depends on your training. The helmsmen I mentioned have to go through hours of training and hands-on instruction before they are fully qualified to stand the “helm watch” on their own. My biggest responsibility over the course of the next year is to get myself qualified to stand a watch called “Officer of the Deck” or “OOD”. I won’t get into the responsibilities of the OOD now. I will simply say that qualification is very hard to achieve. I have been told by multiple older officers that getting qualified as an OOD is harder than getting a master’s degree. The people who told me this all had master’s degrees (yeah, I asked).

For now, the only watch I am qualified to stand is called “Conning Officer.” As conning officer, I am responsible for directing the movements of the ship. I do this by giving orders to the helmsmen. These orders have to be given in a specific, standard format. For example, if I want the ship to turn right to a course that is due south, and increase speed to ten knots I might give the order “all ahead 2/3 for 10 knots, right standard rudder, steady course 270.” Every word of that order means something specific to the helmsman. I am still getting the hang of translating my intentions (turn right, go south) into “standard orders.”

Watch schedules work very much like duty schedules. The officers and crew are divided up into “watch sections” which are responsible for standing one watch every 24 hours in a regular rotation. The schedule breaks down like this:

2AM-7AM: aka the “two-to-seven”

7AM-12PM

12PM-5PM: aka “the afternoon watch”

5PM-10PM: aka the “17 to 22”

10PM-2AM: aka “the midwatch”

There are four watch sections which stand these watches in sequence. Because there are 5 watches every day and only four sections, the watch you stand each day changes. For example, if “section one” stood the two-to-seven today it would stand the midwatch tomorrow and the 17 to 22 the day after that. As you might guess, this makes it impossible to establish any kind of regular sleep schedule when you are underway. You basically just sleep when you can. I am interested to see what 7-8 months of keeping that kind of schedule will do to my body. Apparently you get used to it.

“Division Officer:”

My official job description is “Division Officer” which means I am an officer in charge of a “division.” Basically, the ship is broken down into departments, and each department is broken up into divisions. My department is called Engineering, which is divided up into four divisions: Electrical, Repair, Main Propulsion and Auxiliaries. I am the Main Propulsion Division Officer. That means I am in charge of the main engines which turn the propellers and drive the ship through the water and the generators which provide her with electricity. I own two main engine rooms, an oil analysis lab, and a gas turbine electric power plant. Overall I have 22 people who work for me. I am finding the process of learning to manage such a complex group of people and equipment to be very exciting and rewarding. It’s amazingly fun to be able to see a problem and to have the authority and the resources to address and solve it however I see fit. There is more creativity to this job than I expected. That has been one of the more pleasant surprises.

***

So basically that’s what I do for a living. I stand duty, I stand watch, I study for qualifications and I run my division. Hopefully I will be able to find time in there to sleep and eat. So far I am having a blast with it.

I haven’t been able to really talk to any of you in a while, so in case you are wondering I am having a wonderful time and am very happy. Keep the posts coming! It’s the only way I can keep track of what you guys are up to!

Love,

The Airport

So I was sitting in the airport this morning and I observed a most remarkable example of human psychoses. After laughing about it to myself for a while I thought: what better forum to remark on the remarkable than diasporatic? But first, the news...

As you may have guessed from the fact that I was at the airport, I got a report date! I am reporting to USS MASON on June 20. That's wonderful news for me because it means I have just enough time to fly out to LA and drive cross-country with Arlene! As you all know, I love road trips (Arlene is pretty cool too) so this should be a great couple of weeks. I'll keep you guys posted about my adventures during our transcontinental trek if there are any.

Also, I want to take a quick moment to acknowledge Tommy Roberts. About 3 hours after I posted my last entry ("McGrady's") I got a phone call from Tommy. He had subscribed to Diasporatic and had read my post. Apparently he felt so sorry for me that he called me and invited me to come have a pint with him on the corner. Of course I accepted, bringing my drink total for the evening to a grand total of two pitchers, one pint. I don't think Tommy realized how much I appreciated his gesture and enjoyed his company. So here's to Tommy! Also, it gave me no end of satisfaction that Diasporatic had been the instrument which had brought us together at that table in The Virginian.

NOW for my airport anecdote. My flight was supposed to leave at 6:33AM (it didn't actually leave till 7:30, but that's another story), so I arrived at the airport before the sun was fully up. Needless to say, at this hour the airport was fairly empty. In fact, after I got through security I was the only person sitting in my departure area. After about ten minutes another man showed up. He was a shortish, fiftyish, well-built man with thinning brown hair and slightly pointed, terrier-like features. He looked a little like Vladimir Putin, actually.

The first thing I noticed about him was how confused he looked. He seemed to be totally overwhelmed by the decision of which seat he should take. He had his choice of every seat in the departure area (probably 60 seats) with the singular exception of mine, and this was just too much for him. Should he sit next to the window? Or near the gate? Or over next to the television? I watched as he nervously shifted his weight from foot to foot and I could almost hear his pulse quickening as the impossibility of the choice overcame him.

I noted all of this with passing interest and presently decided to get up and visit the men's room. As I got up and walked past him, I noticed that he seemed to have made a choice. He visibly calmed and the deer-in-the-headlights look which had been in his eyes was replaced by a look of triumphant purpose. I idly wondered which he had chosen, but didn't bother to look. Therefore it was a great surprise when, upon my return, I discovered that he had taken my seat: an entirely unremarkable seat in the middle of a row with nothing at all to recommend it over the others except that it had been mine. Of all the seats in the building, he had taken mine! Apparently, upon seeing me vacate my seat he had suddenly realized it was the best.

I am not sure what this indicates about human nature, but I am pretty sure it spells the end of America. Is it a lack of creativity? Are people just so uncreative that they cannot even make a choice as simple as where to sit? Or is it timidity? Is there some unconscious fear of an unblazed trail (or in this case, an unwarmed seat?) Or is it jealousy? Are people simply incapable of valuing something unless someone else values it first? Or is it something else?

Or am I wrong in assuming that this means anything general at all?

Thoughts?

McGrady's

Some of y'all might be wondering why I haven't posted to the blog yet. After all, it was me who sorta got this whole thing started and has been talking about it for months. You might be asking yourself if I will neglect this brain child of mine the way I neglect my fish. I am writing to assure you all that I will not. (Go ahead and breathe your collective sigh of relief now.)

The explanation for my failure to post so far is simple: I have nothing to report. As Michelle articulated so nicely in the lucid half of our introductory post, this blog's purpose is to record our experiences as we venture forth into the world from Charlottesville. The problem I am having is that I have neither ventured forth nor left Charlottesville as of yet.

My current status, professionally speaking, is this: I am stuck in Charlottesville until my ship calls me and tells me when to show up. Until that call I am to stay in Charlottesville and show up to "work" every morning at Maury hall where I am given menial tasks to keep me busy in order, I suppose, to justify my paycheck.

The Navy calls this being "stashed." I think a better term might be "purgatory." I am stuck between the heaven of being a 4th year at The University and the hell (I describe it thus only for the purpose of extending my metaphor) of being a professional naval officer. The worst part about being stuck in this limbo is the loneliness. I can tell you all from experience that the greater part of this town's charm is lost when your friends are absent. It remains comfortable and familiar, but it loses the quality which makes it home.

A short story from my experience will illustrate this loneliness nicely. It is the story of how I came to be sitting alone at the bar at McGrady's with a pitcher of beer in front of me looking for all the world like a young man well on his way to becoming an old alcoholic.

It’s actually a very short story. See what had happened was I thought there was a soccer game at 4:00. The USA national team was supposed to be playing Spain in an international friendly. As pretty much the only soccer fan left in the USA since Amar left I naturally wanted to watch. So I went down to McGrady’s, ordered a pitcher of Killian’s and got them to tune in to ESPN 2. Turns out the game wasn't at 4:00 like the ESPN website had said (it musta had morphed.) Turns out the game didn't start till 5:30. Apparently someone at the ESPN website had some trouble with the time zone conversion from Spain.

So there I was at the bar alone with my pitcher with no game to watch. I realized that there is a huge difference between being alone at a bar watching a game and just being alone at a bar. There is a certain amount of respect due to a guy who goes to a bar alone to watch his team play. He is viewed as a die hard fan - someone who is willing to brave public loneliness in order to support his team. On the other hand, the guy who is just at the bar drinking with no game on can only be viewed as pathetic. I was that guy for an hour and a half. I felt completely alone. In order to occupy myself during that time, I wrote this blog post on my blackberry. I also overheard some older women on the other side of the bar commenting on how much I look like "shitbreak" from American pie. Anyhow, it’s time to stop writing now. The game is finally starting and I am about to order a second pitcher.

So hi from McGrady's, guys! I miss you all!

Hello, world!

Welcome, authors, to Diasporatic: the blog of our lives. We are about to embark on a journey which will change us all and the world for the bester. This blog is being founded upon the classical belief that true virtue can only be achieved if one accurately remembers and reflectively considers one’s past. We hope that this blog will be an instrument to that end for all of us collectively.

Ask yourself: what does the bestest of all possible worlds look like? Ask yourself: how am I working to bring that bester world about? Ask yourself these questions, and when you find the answers, write them in this blog. That is our vision. Will you join us?

~ Jed

In all seriousness, we started this blog for two simple reasons. First, we love you all and want us to stay involved in each others’ lives! Even now, it’s clear that college has marked a turning point in our lives; the friendships we’ve developed are far too important to let slide. Please write freely and often – sometimes, just sharing bits of your everyday lives brings people closer. Secondly, we’re all embarking on wildly diverse career paths – thus, we’ve been presented a unique opportunity. We’re fully confident that everyone will rise to the top of their chosen fields; can you imagine how exciting it will be to continue to trade ideas years in the future? We’ve all contributed to each others’ successes thus far; let’s keep it up!

~ Michelle

P.S. We are drunk. But that doesn’t mean that this shit isn’t important!

Love,
Jed and Michelle