It is I, author of this blog, and spokesperson of the incredibly inconsideratly inactive bloggers foundation of Doulos, and I have returned! Yea, verily, verily, etc.
So. It’s been 5 weeks since I last posted, roughly. And it has been quite a busy, time, yes, of course, that’s the way it is around here. And is that an excuse for not blogging? Well, probably not. But I’ll use it as an excuse anyway.
We’re currently sailing between Kuching, Malaysia, where we spent Christmas and New Year, to Cebu, Philippines, where we were 2 years ago.
Every 6 months or so we get a new batch of recruits, who go for 2 weeks of safety training, and that group of people is usually fairly “clannish”, and are known as the “Preship” group of whichever port they did their training. So I’m from the “Sharjah Preship”. Other famous past examples would be the Manila Preship, Banjul Preship, Istanbul Preship, etc, etc.
Anyway, 2 years ago we had the Cebu Preship join us, and they’ll mostly be leaving in the next month or so, and the next group of recruits will also be doing their training in Cebu… This is NOT normal. It’s the first time we’ve had this, ever, to popular knowledge. Normally it’s at least 7 or 8 years between being back in the same place at the same rough time to be able to do this, so every Preship is a different city.
This might seem like a very minor thing, and from a completely outside viewpoint, it is. However, Doulos isn’t just a ship full of people from different places, we also have a very strong Doulos Culture, which has devleopped over the decades as result of our rules, regulations, work habits, and the bizarre lifestyle which we have on board.
“Preship” groups are almost like your family, or clan. Whenever someone gets up to say something in a community meeting, for instance at the end of a port when we get together to share stories of what we (and God) have been up to, most people will introduce themselves with something like “Hi, My name is Daniel, and I’m from Cyprus, and the Sharjah Preship!” or whatever. At this point, everyone else from Sharjah will shout and scream or chant, or whatever.
OK, so the people from Sharjah probably won’t, since there’s only about 5 of us left, and we never managed to get a chant to work properly, but everyone from all the other active preships on board will for their people. So, to have two groups of people from different Preships, with the same name, is a bit weird. It’s like having two football teams with the same name. If they played each other, who would you cheer for?
So. There’s a random piece of Doulos culture for you. Now for some thoughts about it.
We are incredibly clannish, and seem, as humans, as christians, and as Douloi, to have an innate capacity to draw lines between each other, and to divide on the slightest pretext. And partly I object to the amount that the training department push Preship identity during the training. I can also see the side whereby this “Preship " concept can be used positively to establish a home base and place for people to live and identify themselves in the community.
The sweat drips from my nose, and splashes, sizzling, onto the soldering iron.
It’s roasting hot, and the cables are all around me, as squashed into a small space behind the audio rack I put the finishing touches to the new audio lines I just ran across from the desk opposite.
It’s dry-dock again.My third, now, and this time, I’m just not enjoying it.
I have quite a lot on my plate at the moment, what with trying to sort out many technical issues in the A/V equipment, and also get as much as possible done to allow us to expand and use what we have better throughout this coming year.
Also, the other members of the A/V team are busy with other projects, and I’m helping out a bit again with the deck ladder-repair and making crew.
Bink!
That’s the sound that the lights make when blackouts happen.
That’s the sound that the fanrooms make when the power comes back on again.
The power just came back on again, by the way.
So, anyway. Right.
Yeah, there’s another fairly huge but unofficial project on which has pretty much sucked all the free time out of one of my team for the last 10 months - even from well before he joined AV - and also has been increasingly impinging upon the time of the rest of us.
They created an(other) unrealistic deadline to finish it before the end of this drydock, and I knew he would push all his time and energy into it.
So I pretty much gave him his work time to get this thing finished.
Which is good, I guess.
I mean, he’s not dead, which if we’d pushed hard at the AV jobs as well, I think he would be.
He just wouldn’t have slept at all.
We barely did anyway.
I was up until 3 one night working on an animation for the project.
Anyway.
Many of the AV tasks I had (I wrote down 58 jobs I’d have liked to either do, or investigate the feasibility of) have not been done, and most of them I didn’t even get a chance to investigate how possible they were.
So.. somewhat frustrating.
The first version is done now, which is good.
Anyway.
Still plenty of logistics and miscommunication issues to sort out.
So.
What else…
I’ve been making sure I keep time for myself, not burning out, and part of that includes focussing more on painting and artwork.. we’ve begun “creative communities” on board - basically an internal art/photography/creative writing club, with picking a theme per month.
The theme last month was “Freedom”.
This month it’s “Love”.
Here’s a painting of mine - “Searching for Love”
I helped out a bit with the ladderwork again this drydock.
Pretty much the same as last year.. this time we stretched the rope slightly more thoroughly.. Check out before and after stretching:
We’ve left Australia, and are sailing currently to East Timor. The programme team have a new manager, who is bent on reforming them and is changing many ways of working, becoming more team based:
brainstorming rather than ivory tower development of programmes,
Flexi-time working, everyone chipping in rather than fixed hours, and so on.
The AV team isn’t really part of the programmes team (go figure), but we work a lot with them, and so I’ve been trying to push my team into being at as much of this voyage’s programme team time as possible. Attending devotions with them, being at the creativity sessions, and so on.
This morning we had a fairly good session, which I led, I was trying to get them to think outside of the box in reguards to how we use our venue. The on board “Main Lounge” is most frequently set up with all the programme happening in one “stage” section at the front, and then rows of chairs at the back, or tables in a cafe setting. Often the most transformation the room gets is having curtains put up, perhaps fairy lights and lots of flags (you know, the whole international thing).
Anyway. We can do so much more. Once we started imagining things, ideas like turning the whole room into a Japanese Garden, with an island in the middle and a moat and bridges and stuff came up. Building a slum from Manilla out of the whole room, hanging the curtains to turn it into a ginormous beduin-style tent, and so on. One group even thought of having a “Indiana Jones” type set up, with different areas of the lounge being different places around the world, tying up some of the audience with a knife suspended above their head and then dropping it on them if their team-mates didn’t answer the questions of a quiz correctly…
Some of the ideas may take a little modifying. Health and Safety, you know.
Still, it was a good session, and then we looked through a lot of our video clips collection, to talk about what we can use, how we can use videos we have more effectively, and so on.
This evening was the weekly prayer-night, which this week was being run by the on board School. It was somewhat chaotic, as these kinds of things are wont to be.
Anyway, the guy who was leading the musicy part of it didn’t bring me a song list at all (which is mentioned on the pre-event A/V form, which he otherwise did fill in), and then half an hour before we began, during his sound check time, he brought up two new songs which needed to be entered into the database while I was trying to sound check them… He know’s it’s supposed to be 24 hours before an event that they give in any new songs.
Still, I told him off, but put the songs in anyway. So, quite hectic. It all went really well in the end, and sounded pretty good, all the songs worked, and so on. Apparently I made an impression on him though, as after the evening was finished, he showed up at the sound desk with a large bar of chocolate to say sorry for being so late all the time!! Amazing!
I’m working on another short film/video project. Here’s a few frames from it for your enjoyment.
I’m still quite tired and frustrated and so on, but a bit better. I’ve had a day off since my last post, which was good, and another few days off in the next few weeks too, so that’s good too. I’ll be writing a longer text blogpost soon.
I’m pissed off at the system, thoroughly fed up of how things currently are - in my work, my life, and in many things around me.
Yet, still, most things are going fairly well…
I’m now the “AV manager”, and discovering more and more how disorganised and messed up it is.
We have small forms in the drawer under the computer which are used during the sunday service on board, we give out the little forms, then people can fill them in if they want to, so that they can give to the weekly offering (usually to help a local ministry, or work in India, or similar) direct from their on board account, rather than having to use cash.
Anyway, this morning, the guy running the service came up and asked for them.. We had 10. Not good enough! So, I told him a few ideas of who he could ask for more, but this was at half an hour before the service, on a Sunday Morning. Not the best time to go looking for people to do random work like that.
We need to have once a week or so someone to check how many we have, say on a Friday, and then to get at least 200 before the Sunday morning.
Not a big deal, right?
Well, no, not a problem at all. Just the problem is that there are *hundreds* of little issues like this. Every day. And *NONE* of them are written down. When I started, there were no current weekly checklists or anything.
I don’t want to become a lists and rules based dictator, but how on earth else do you manage to get everything done that needs to be?
When I took over this job, there was maybe 1 hour of discussion between me and the predecessor about stuff, but none of these little details were noted. Each day day I find mord
And it was the same thing when I became waterman, 2 years ago. There’s no consistancy! As soon as people leave, things get dropped.
It’s why ships tend to have such strict and over the top and detailed procedures - everything gets written down.
Anyway. It’s just intensely frustrating. I’m so bad at admin, so weak at organisation, so forgetful about details, so easily overwhelmed by situations, so inexperienced at leadership, so unknowledgeable about everything technical I should know about, so young!
I guess in one way it’s kind of exciting. I mean, whoopee! So much stuff to learn! So much I can improve!
Yet it’s kind of hard to say that and not at least have some irony and sarcasm in it too.
Yes, it’s good to be stretched and have all this improvement to do, but at the same time, it’s “live”. We’re not playing with blank bullets. Every round is for real.
Every time I start a video playing in a programme, it’s not school, not training. People are in the programme, watching, and notice if things don’t work.
Good morning, blog. Although, actually, it’s more like evening, seeing as how it’s 7pm and everything.
It’s probably morning somewhere in the world.
I have a friend on this ship who has a fetish for “Awkward moments”. I’m sure he wouldn’t like it to be called a fetish, but whatever, he really loves them. He savours them, as a connesour, specially saving them up and preparing them, finely planning moments of Awkwardness in the same way that a conductor of an orchestra prepares the finale of a grand opera.
He’ll often say stuff intentionally to make people uncomfortable.
So I asked about a week or two ago, why?
And his response was something like,
(a) it’s fun,
(b) I enjoy seeing how people really are.
And the second one is the bit that I took issue with.
He said watching how people react when they don’t know how to respond gives a great insight into them, and let’s you see them without the pretence and acting that accompanies so much of human interaction.
What’s there to take issue with?
Well, seeing people when they don’t know how to react, is that really how they “really are”?
It seems to me to smell slightly of the whole humans-are-nought-but-animals thing.
And also, the “You know the real person by seeing how they behave under pressure”. - Likewise, the same.
There is some truth to it, of course. It’s much easier to act nice and give a good image when you are relaxed and can concentrate on impressing others, or on behaving well, than when things are stressful and you’re under pressure and don’t have time to think about what to do next.
Others have also said that you know how someone is by what they do in their spare time, or when no one else is looking, and so on.
Some people seem to do well under pressure, and be able to think quickly and clearly. Others don’t. Some people find it easy to find jobs to do and to use their spare time productively and pro-actively.
So… it’s often very useful to know how someone behaves under pressure, but I don’t think it really shows who they “really” are.
This would have been all nice and theoretical, and all that, except for this week.
I got sick.
And, it turns out, I don’t act very nice when I’m sick.
Usually, when I’m healthy and fine and everything, I tend to use a lot of hyperbole, sarcasm, and irony in my general day to day language. It tends to be (I hope!) fairly good natured, and over-the-top enough that others realise it’s not intended seriously.
“Could you play this CD for me?”
“Nope. It’s completely impossible - the computer can only play CDs on Thursdays.”
and so on.
Well, the thing is, recently I’ve started to tend to mix double meanings and more biting sarcasm into what I say, and, usually, it doesn’t mean anything - to me.
Ie, “hey, the programme schedule says you’re doing a song later, but you haven’t put a form in saying you want any microphones or instruments or anything, so it’s just a Capella, right?”
Wind tore across the darkened misty moors of the Lake District, pounding along the side of the tent like a tidal wave breaking upon the highcliffed shoreline of a forgotten arctic land. Outside of the tent, tiny rabbits huddled together in their burrows shivering due to the icy drafts, while inside and close by rain-drenched men struggled through the mud to complete their epic task.
Less then 3 hours previously 6000 people had been standing while the melodious hymn of Amazing Grace washed around them, many, even 200 of them touched to the heart made their way forward to pray and be prayed for, to receive the greatest gift in the history of the world.
3 hours later, the knowledge of this gift was the warmth that glowed inside the men labouring to bring their flight cases, amplifiers and speakers into a truck and depart from the now empty canvas cathedral.
Finally the dismissal was given, and as the last few items were loaded in the the crew slowly dispersed. The 4 OMNIvision men removed their mud covered shoes, and climbed into their small car, and drove out through the dark unlit pathway to the main road, and off into the night.
Soaking wet, muddy and weary in mind and body, their spirits were none the less high as they left the town and none of them were expecting the sudden sliding skid towards the roundabout and the ominous crunch into the other car which told them the journey home would be longer than they had anticipated.
The driver – a Scot – immediately turned their car towards the side of the road and drove up onto the curve to inspect the damage. They climbed from the vehicle shocked but glad that none had been injured. The other car was significantly dented, but the driver was unhurt. After the routine exchange of sarcasm, licence and telephone numbers and insurance policy contact details, the other driver perked up and laughed. Quoth he “At least it wasn’t my car, it’s a company one, I’d have been really pissed off if it were mine!”, whereupon he grinned, hopped in to his, or rather his company’s car and drove away.
The four traveling companions were not so fortunate in their predicament. The bumper was only attached by one nut and dragging along the ground. Inside, the plastic wheel frame was twisted into the wheel, and the headlights were no longer attached and pointing in various directions. With still more than 100 miles of motorway to cover before reaching their destination, it was decided that to attempt to complete it in that mangled condition would be folly.
A phone call for help from the Automobile Association was made, and they settled back to wait for the assistance to arrive.
It was not long until it arrived, and their disfigured ride was lifted on to the tow. The driver, a friendly Newcastle man was quick and efficient, and as he climbed into the cab a few minutes later, he turned and said “No hado sinye fine sell bacun ahl droye temsix unwil mitwethe rileh tuhye hom. Shubetheh intwenni mints.”
OK. So, due to popular demand, this service will resume shortly.
It’s now then.
I’m back on Doulos, I took the train down to Manchester, from where I flew to Dubai, from Dubai to Bangkok, from Bangkok to Sydney, from Sydney to Auckland, and from Auckland to Wellington where I joined up with Doulos again.
That was an epic adventure, in itself. There was a bombthreat in Dubai, with some English nutcase got himself drunk, and just as we landed got into a fight with a steward, and declared he had a “device” that he would use to blow up the plane. Of course, the crew had to take it seriously, and so we were sitting out on the tarmac for about an hour or so surrounded by police and firetrucks and SWAT teams and so on, before they managed to sort him out and let us off the plane.
Oh well, another day in the life of the brummie-not-yet-at-sea. Well, the trouble then came when about half of us from that flight were now late for our connecting flights, and so had to stay 24 hours in Dubai airport for the next plane.
If you’re going to get stuck in an airport for 24 hours, it might as well be Dubai. I know it quite well, of course, and they did very nicely give me a hotel room overnight, and 3 meal vouchers. It was a bit complex trying to figure out sensible times to eat them, as I needed to leave the next morning at 6am, and was about to fly to Australia, so was trying to get my bodyclock as sorted as I could. So anyway, I slept the whole day, worked the night, and ate my mealtickets-worth at random times when I was awake.
So, right. I eventually got to Wellington, where some of my great friends were there with a ginormous paper origami crane bird thingy they’d made, attached onto a crown of old toilet-roll-cardboard, with dangly bits and all which I had to wear. It was so good to see them again. (In case you wondered). I’ll see if I can find a photo of the amazing crown. It wasn’t really my style, as such, but one does try to fit in, after all.
so. That was like a month ago now, and I’m settling in quite well. AV has been undergoing a few changes, some good, some… well, I have a differing opinion about them to the people who instigated them.
We’re now in Brisbane, Australia. It’s cool. I like it here. It’s good to be back on the ship again. Many people are about to leave, and there are 60 odd new people… But, new in that they joined 6 months ago, just as I left, so they’re already “old hands”, yet I don’t know them!
Anyway. It’s traditional for me to start new paragraphs with “Anyway” for no apparent reason. Here I am, I’ve started writing again, and so new posts will be forthcoming, fear not. I have a few more stories from Carlisle which I’ll be posting soon, but I figured it’s best to get the blog going again up to date, before launching into the past.
Before I begin today’s tale, there are a few things I must first explain. The first is that the UK has these things called “Bank Holiday Mondays”, which basically means most people with office-type jobs don’t work on random mondays throughout the year. Nobody whom I’ve asked seems to know what these Bank Holiday Mondays are in aid of, nevertheless, they seem quite keen on them, generally as they happen to be some of the people who don’t work on these aforementioned Bank Holiday Mondays.
The second thing I’d like to mention is that I’m kind of used to the Doulos work week, which means that also, most people don’t work on Mondays, however, we do work every other day, including Saturday and Sunday.
So being here in Carlisle, where the team has 2 days off per week (Saturday and Sunday) is quite a rare and interesting experience. Then these Bank Holiday Mondays on top of that, wow! It’s surprising they get any work done at all! We had one of these Mondays about 2 weeks ago.
The third thing, is that you should now promptly remove all of the above from your current thoughts, but allow it to drift uninhibited and unwatched into the depths of your subconcious general knowledge. This will put you in a better frame of mind for listening to the rest of the tale, but also put you in roughly the same state as I was 4 days ago.
I got up as usual, showered, dressed, and made myself a rather tasty cappuccino with my breakfast. I headed early to the Shed to start getting some audio files ready for posting later on this week. So I got to the shed about 10 past 7, my housemate was still asleep when I left, and while I was walking to the Shed, I thought
“Once I’ve got these files going, I’ll try walking to the Office (which is on the opposite end of town) for 9am devotions” (that we have together with the Office staff 3 times a week).
So once my audio files were happily working, I set out from the Shed at about 8:15 and started walking at a reasonable pace towards the office. I kind of hoped to see the bus at the bus stop as I went past, and maybe see my housemate on it.
No sign of the bus.
“Hm,” I thought, checking my watch.
“8:23.. that bus must be a bit later than I thought.”
I picked up the pace a bit, thinking, “I wonder if I can get to the office before the bus and my housemate do!” and briskly hopped down the steps to the underpass, and headed through the park.
One cool thing about Carlisle is the rabbits. There are wild rabbits all over the place! I’m sure the local farmers hate them and so on, but I quite enjoy seeing them all over the place as I walk about early in the morning, and while along the footpath I saw a rabbit jumping out of my way.
