How I spent the extra hour

Yesterday, the Purser's Desk had a surprise for us.  Everyone on ship had to pick up a package of immigration papers for all the countries we are visiting and fill them out, using a powerpoint presentation they had loaded to our public drive.

That's 1000 people accessing the same file, due in two days.  Entry and exit papers for Japan, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Burma, India, Mauritius, Ghana.  Apparently not required for South Africa, Morocco and Spain (or in my fog, I missed them).

1000 people accessing our iffy, spotty, slow network to use a powerpoint that does not have a back button and controls the speed at which you can move forward.

I took a picture, but if you really, really want to, you can see my passport number and other ID info on the forms, so you'll just have to imagine eleven forms full of my best printing, no erasures, no deviations from strict protocol.

However, as we say, "No complaints!  We're on a trip around the world!"

I turned them in at 1 or 2 AM. Can't remember whether it was new time or old.  Cheryl, the lady at the purser's desk, said, "Miss Lynn, what are you doing still up?"  (Cheryl, what are you doing still on duty??)  These folks work awfully hard.

Yesterday, the ship had a safety drill of some kind.  It did not involve passengers, but everyone on the crew not involved with actually guiding the ship through the waters was called to station.  For at least half an hour, crew members in life jackets stood pretty much at attention, many of them in the public area outside my office.  I could see people from dining and housekeeping staff.  Then they were all moved to the lifeboat stations for a while.

This is a very disciplined group.  In many respects, it is the first foreign community we encounter, since the culture is so different from our own.  We are honored guests, but we must toe the line as well.  Very polite people encourage us to wash our hands before meals and random cabin searches keep us from taking even an empty cup for tea from the dining room.

However, there was a small mutiny in the administrative office yesterday.  I changed the letterhead of our daily publication from Deans Memo to Deans' Memo.  The grammar police do not answer to the ship's officers.