Early morning ramblings

6:40am, Saturday. But the day of the week hardly matters, since the schedule here has nothing to do with weekdays/weekends. We’ve had two days on the Explorer, and so far, so good. Zoë and the Kid have had fun. She’s been reading, when she’s not engaged in full-contact parenting, and he’s been cavorting with the cabal of children who are slowly converting the ship into their own personal playground. There have been losses. Two soccer balls have gone overboard, despite the nets designed to keep them on. More will be bought: all are doomed. Thanks to the wonders of globalization, Chinese-manufactured soccer balls will be available in Wal-Marts here in Mexico. Perhaps the currents of the Pacific will carry them back to the land of their manufacture?

In the meantime, I have been attending meetings, followed by more meetings, interspersed with meetings, and culminating in yet more meetings. Some of these meetings have been informative, while others have wasted time in magnificent fashion. My favorite was the meeting where someone talked for 30 minutes, and the only thing we learned was that there would be another meeting the next day to handle the issues that were supposed to be addressed at that meeting. A meta-meeting of sorts. A Borgesian meeting.

One thing has emerged with clear and utter clarity from these meetings. I need to redesign my syllabus for the novels course. (Erin Nicole, take note!) What in the world was I thinking?? I’ve told some of you, I believe, that every professor is really 2 professors, summer (i.e. planning) guy, and semester guy. Summer guy designs syllabi full of books he hasn’t read. He sends away abstracts to conferences he’d like to attend. He agrees to committee assignments and accepts invitations to review books. Summer guy doesn’t care about how much work is being taken on, because it will all be done by someone else, semester guy. Semester guy has to do all the things that summer guy plans, and spends most of his days cursing his name.

Now, I’m up for reading 8 novels this summer. In fact, I had designed the course with the hope of reading 8 novels, but I realize now that there will be no time! As it turns out, these students will have other obligations and interests besides doing work for me. Imagine that!! They’ll have 2 other courses, not to mention a series of lectures meant to prepare them for the ports. And I think they may want to do other things as well, which I will leave unmentioned for now on this very public venue. There’s a very competent-seeming residence staff on board to keep them from doing some of those things.

Some nitty gritty: The cabins are nice. I’m writing next to a huge window overlooking the Pacific and the coast of Mexico. We have a comfy bed, and a sofa. The ship is equally nice throughout. Food is quite adequate. Good enough to eat without complaining, but not so good that you want to have seconds. Lots of fruits and vegetables. The coffee is appalling. Zoë got some instant coffee in town, and we are now having café con leche instead of the stuff they serve.

More to come soon. Thanks to all of you who have posted! I’ll invite everyone to do so, particularly now that the blog is configured so that you don’t have to sign up to post. Post! Fame awaits!!