It's a Monday! - 19 November

It’s 9:30 at night and I’m sitting in the faculty lounge on the 7^th deck watching the lights of Sicily go by. I can’t vouch for the beauty of the country itself but the lights sure are purty.

Today has definitely been a Monday. I usually don’t pay any attention to the day of the week here because it doesn’t matter but today there were lots of annoyances that can definitely be traced to the fact that it is Monday. The library was incredibly busy today. That, in itself, is not an annoyance but when you are constantly in motion helping students find resources, it starts to wear you down and makes your immunity to the petty complaints of the day have more of an impact.

I was also confronted by a student on the Turkey trip that I led who was just informed that she has dock time in Spain. I don’t think I’ve explained this concept before so let me enlighten you. When we are on S@S trips in the countries, the students are given deadlines that they must meet such as checking out of the hotel, getting on the bus, meeting at a certain location. When they don’t meet those deadlines, the trip/bus leaders keep track of how late they are and add all of the minutes together at the end of the trip. They submit the list to the Director of Student Life and the students get a certain amount of dock time depending on how late they were. Dock time means that when we are in port, a student forfeits a certain number of hours on land and must remain on the ship for that time. It isn’t popular, to say the least.

I submitted a list for Turkey and the student was seriously unhappy with me and came to the library to challenge the time I wrote down. It probably wouldn’t have been such an issue for her if her family wasn’t joining her in Spain but they are and she was letting me know exactly how peeved she is. It wasn’t pleasant. That is the aspect of being a trip leader that I dislike the most. I have had another student come to me after one other trip and be totally unpleasant. It leaves me with the great desire to never be trip leader again. There is a financial incentive for being a leader but there are times when I think it really isn’t worth the money saved when I am confronted by students like this. Not good, dear, not good.

As for the good news of the day - it was TACO DAY! Happy Happy Joy Joy! That makes up for much of the Monday-ness of the day. I also received Thanksgiving Cards from my sister (and her dog, Ella) and that always brightens my day. I look forward to the end of each port because I know that Terry has sent me photos and letters. I didn't realize that getting mail from home would be so important to me since I am in constant contact with my family via e-mail but it's been a true gift to get the cards from Terry and Ella (the dog is a faithful companion and correspondent - I think Ella should start a blog of her own and entertain us about the trials and tribulations of being a Lab).

Well, the lights of Sicily have disappeared now so that's my cue to finish up my margarita (I deserved it, dag nabbit). Monday is almost over and I'm confident that Tuesday is going to be much better!