Posts - MadProf.net

Here is a poster they showed us in our fire-fighting “training”. I’m quite glad we didn’t have to actually put one of these on…

Last week has been kind of slow/busy/confused etc. One of the creative ministries people is on an away-team, we had an i-night, I went on an overnight, and am on watch this week (12 till 4), and so on. Also I learned a new mime/dance and performed it the next day. Tomorrow we sail to the next port.

The overnight went well, it was a very good experience. I’m so glad to have gone on an overnight in India. Some of it was not such fun, but very good to have experienced it. Hole-in-the-ground type toilets without toilet paper, for instance…

The book-ex has closed for this port. We were going to be open today, and pack down tomorrow, but today is election day so the local people (port authorities) told us it wasn’t a good idea to be open. So we closed today and are doing major clean/pack down. A major, major clean. This is a coal port, so there is black dust caked onto EVERYthing. Horrible. Apparently the next port is even worse…

One of the team leaders asked me yesterday if I would consider the job of lifeboat man!! More flexible hours, I’d be pretty much my own boss, as long as I got the jobs done, no gangway watch or firerounds and so on! I’d have to look after the lifeboats, clean them, make sure all ropes/equipment are correct and good, learning more about how they work, and helping to direct during drills and when using them etc. It should mean I could have more flexible hours as I’d be working on my own most of the time and so I could work around performances/practices with drama and stuff. But I’d still be a deckie, which would also be good. And, I’d get a special letter/chitty/thingy from captain and mates, which would (apparently) pretty much get me a job on any ship anywhere!

“I’m on a church team tomorrow,” said I.

“Cool. Who’s your team leader?” said he.

“I am.”

“My goodness? What is the teams co-ordinator smoking to make you team leader?”

… or so (approximately) went a conversation on Saturday.

Yeah. I was a team leader. So, what does that mean? well, basically, a church asked for a team of us to go do a short programme/presentation in their service today, and my job was to find out (a) what they actually wanted, (b) what we would do, and (c) how we would do it. Another question was also (d), who “we” are.

I was told that I was a team leader on Wednesday.

I thought it was Thursday, at the time. So I went to the board, and make a notice that my team should meet on Saturday evening, in the dining room. 6.20pm. Why this time? Well, the sheet of paper they had given me told me we would be collected from the port gate at 6.20am, the next morning. And I thought it kind of appropriate.

I phoned the pastor as well, and found out what he wanted (songs, drama, mime, a couple of testimonies, and a short presentation about the ship. nothing too challenging).

So…

SATURDAY :

18:20 - I was in the dining room. Waiting for 2 fairly experienced Douloids (both had been on the ship longer than I have), and 2 STEPpers.

18:30 - I phoned the info desk to ask if it was allowed for me to make a page for them to come. They told me no, only on the actual day itself could I page.

OK. No problem. I’ll just wait then.

6:35 - one of them turned up! Whoo! One of the experienced Douloids. We chat for a bit about what kind of things we should do. I’d been given one good idea earlier by someone else. As the STEPpers probably don’t know any dramas, and probably don’t know how to give a good (ie, short) testimony, I could ask them to sing a song in their own languages. Most westerners are horrified at the thought of being asked to sing solo in front of a church, but many Indians don’t seem to be. Also, although some don’t sing so well, most seem to sing very well indeed.

7:00 - I ask info, and apparently one of the STEPpers is actually out today, with some other team, and hasn’t returned yet!

7:30 - no one else decided to turn up. oh well. the both of us leave. I have some work to do, I need to stick some adhesive sandpaper-type tape to the steps to Hold 3, so they are safe to walk up without slipping over. The trouble is that the self adhesive isn’t strong enough to hold it in place, and the contact glue I have to use should really be left overnight to dry, that’s why I am doing it tonight.

8:00 - My K-group (fellowship/family group) “parents” are leaving, and it’s now time to say goodbye, so pretty much the whole of the people who joined the ship at the same time as us are there. Quite sad.

A new picture! OK, so now all the bloglines people will actually visit my blog. that’s cool.

So… meself in a kilt, after Scottish dancing in the international night programme last week.

I’ve been asked to consider if I want to join the drama team or not. One of the guys left, went home. He decided to leave about 3 weeks before he left, and had been discussing it with personnel for some time. Id still have to do deckie job full-time and then drama team a few evenings a week, during free time.

In deck department, apparently in a few months some of the carpenters are leaving, and if no professional carpenters join, they may be looking for normal deckies to start learning that job. The carpenter’s job does have slightly better hours… basically normal deckie, but no firerounds or gangway watch! Yes, it would be hard, giving up firerounds. It’s so fun getting my sleep pattern all messed up, feeling depressed and never knowing what time it is, waking up terrified that I’ve missed the watch, and wanting to go home, but I think I could handle the disappointment of not
experiencing it.

If I try really hard.

One of the other deckies told me he thought it would be my kind of thing, as I like doing stuff with my hands, and am quite perfectionistic, and so on. I’d love to learn more proper carpentry.

We’ve been doing fire-fighting training this week. Went to the Chennai technical college of maritime, for 3 full days of lectures, plus one practical day, and one other day when the time was kind of confused. We’ve been hearing loads on board about the training course the previous preship went to in Sri Lanka, I think, and how it was fantastic, real loads of training, having to crawl through cargo containers set on fire, put out loads of types of fires, and so on.

We didn’t learn ANYTHING in the lectures, nothing we didn’t have in preship. We didn’t even touch a fire extinguisher, or see a match get struck. But we get a certificate, just the same as the other people!

About the malaria tablets… they seem to perhaps be causing restlessness and sleeplessness, in varying degrees and forms. But many many people on board are finding it hard to sleep at night, just lying awake wanting to walk around or get up and type, or work out, or whatever. Particularly on Sundays, when we have to take the weekly extra pills. But we’re not really tired in the day. Everyone is so hot and sweating so much anyway. We take 2 tablets daily, and another 2 extra on Sundays. so many and we must all take salt tablets as well, as we sweat so much.

We’re going out this evening to eat (our k-group) as the k-group parents are leaving this week, for good. They only joined the ship for 3 months. K-group is sort of family or fellowship group, all from our preship. There is one set of “parents”, one of the married couples on the ship, so each kgroup has one married couple as parents. Ours are from our preship (which is the ideal), but many are not, but ours leave this week.

One of the older couples on the ship are on furlough right now, but come back in a week or so, and they will be the new parents for our group. They were also at the preship training. Each week we have a time together, for an hour or so, and generally it’s in the parents’ cabin, so they host it, generally provide drinks and buscuits, and so on. Also they make sure we’re all ok, and not hating our jobs too much, or whatever.

Food here is very cheap. Like a whole meal for one person can be 4 dollars. For good meal, that is.
Fast food can be a dollar, or less. Mostly veggie. Many places have “veg”, and “non-veg” on the back page.

I was so tired this week. My last off-day was right after watch, and we went out for the whole day,
so I’m just having a quiet day today. I read in the morning, had long lunch, chatting, and some music practice, perhaps clean up my cabin a bit, maybe start scripting a new film project or something this afternoon.

Just got back from the town. So many contrasts, so much poverty, so much deception, so much weird stuff. Several million people, bigger than London, and this is nothing like the capital. Huge numbers of beggers, homeless, etc. and the other people just shoving them out of the way, not caring, or worse. And so strange seeing thousands of idols everywhere.

Traffic is insane here, there are so many auto rickshaws. Imagine a 2 wheel hand cart, attached to a motorbike, and its slightly less posh than that. All metal.

Weather is pretty hot. Not too bad, for me. But if outside a long time in sun, for the Finnish, or whatever, it’s bad.

We’re in India! Whoo!! etc.

We arrived yesterday, on the 11th April.

I’m kind of tired, in a general way, but also kind of excited and awake too. Jumping to the firerounds schedule (11pm to 7am work time!) really messed up my body clock, and so I got very little sleep the first few days. And I know I need sleep soon. But I’m going to stay up til lunch, and then sleep from lunchtime until 8 this evening, as one of our k-group is going on a team away from the ship for 2 weeks, and we are going to have a goodbye lunch for her.

So I was filling up time until then.

I’ve been part of a group learning a jazz/modern dance since pre-ship, and had wanted to make a “training” dvd for the dance, with each section (verse, chorus, rap-section, finale, etc) able to be played, and explained on the dvd, so that if people miss learning sessions, they can catch up faster, but also so that we can review on our own parts, and also to allow the dance to be kept going if key people leave the ship.

So I went just now to the photography/graphics office, and looked through their video collection to see if they had any tapes which had the dance on, with the right kind of tape that I can play on my camera, so I could start working on making the dvd (or at least a demo of the dvd,
which I could then use to persuade the dance leader to schedule a few sessions to properly record it).

While I was talking to the photographer about this, she (first of all she wanted to talk about my toaster video – apparently her machine didn’t play it right, so she watched it about 4 times trying to get to the ending, but it didn’t work, and she was getting angry because she wanted to see how it ended! rather cool!)

.. anyway, she told me maybe I should apply for job of videographer, which is a post they have been looking for someone for for quite a while. I knew they wanted someone for the job, but thought they wanted a professional videographer, someone like dad. But she said no, in fact she had never even seen Adobe Photoshop until 2 weeks before they came to the ship, and had basically to learn on the job!

It’s kind of weird… Like, all during firerounds this morning I was thinking about my job as a deckie.

I love the job, doing all the physical work and all, all the painting, scrubbing, chipping rust, and so on, but a lot of the attitude of some of the other deckies really annoys me, and I find hard to work with.

For instance, on the fire-rounds, there are these little red strips on the walls in different sections. What you are supposed to do is go to each section, make sure there are no irons plugged in, or whatever, check the bilges, and so on. Then scan the strip, and go on. There are some strips which are outside a hold, or other room, and you are supposed to open the door, check inside the space, and then close it and go on.