A Day in Photos, No Commentary - Saint Malo, France (August 29th)

Support Ticket Submitted Today (Lorient, France August 28th)

I love my job when users provide so much amusement. Actual support ticket submitted today:

____________________________________________________
To: Computer Help Desk
Subject: Time Sheet

(Blah blah blah program specific stuff, things are broken, crying, whining, hissy fit. Yes, I am paraphrasing, but stick with me. The support ticket concludes with...)

I also can no longer modify the past.

(Sincerely,)

Boris
____________________________________________________

And my reply, cause I could not help myself...
___________________________________________________

Dear Boris,

Since the dawn of time, there has been the desire to modify the past.

Much as I would like to believe this was once or will one day be possible, all evidence seems to be to the contrary, despite movies like Back to The Future, etc.


And if it is ever possible… our programmers will not be the people who accomplish it.

Just saying...

Sincerely, 

Your IT Department
___________________________________________________

Stupid: That something actually has to be fixed.
Cool: The hilarious way users sometimes communicate issues.

Pink Rebellion (Livorno Italy, August 4th, 2013)

I have always been a woman in a man’s world. I think my mother, in the pursuit of feminism, gave me too many Hot Wheels as a child. (Hot Wheels are an older American brand of children’s toy cars.)

I played water polo on the boy’s team in high school. (My step-mother meanwhile regularly lamenting, “I wish you would wear some nail-polish and maybe something pink.”) I was the only woman in my physics undergraduate class. I am a network administrator in a man’s information technology world. (Footnote 1)

The other day as I sat in a ship’s conference room surrounded by blinding officers’ white (Captain, Vice Captain, Chief Engineer, Chief Electrical Engineer, Senior IT Officer, etc), 12 men, probably 30 stripes between them (rank indication), myself the only woman in the room, and in my first ever pink top no less, I could not help but be reminded of my persistent existence in a man’s world.

I used to be very comfortable in this world. I still am in many ways, but as I sat in my pink top, out of uniform, I realized I have become part of Nouveau-Feminism. The "fuck the business suits, uniforms and masculinity, I can be a girl and play in this realm” attitude. (Insert mildly aggressive/feminine hair toss to emphasize this point.) (Footnote 2)

What is perhaps so odd about this role assumption, is that, honestly, I am more comfortable in the treat-me-like-one-of-the-guys role.

Strangely, the reason I have switched roles has to do with cancer. I spent six months of 2011 breast-less, hairless and estrogen-less. Everything which from an outsider’s perspective associated me with femininity was stripped from me in my fight for my life.  Suddenly, femininity, which I had spent most of my life suppressing (and compressing), along with my somewhat voluptuous female form, was taken from me.

And suddenly my need to be recognized as female was acute.

Upon return to my life, living and working almost entirely with men, I have become, “I am female, fuck you.” (I am not really sure who that fuck you is directed to, cancer, my male colleagues or just the world in general.) With that has come make-up, frilly skirts and jewelry.

I am sitting here, overlooking Livorno Italy, in high-heeled white sandals, a flowing pink top and way too tight white Italian jeans.

This new flowing pink top, the whole outfit really, part of Sorrento’s (Italy) damage to my visa, is a strange experience in a way. (By the way, Italy’s damage to my visa was extensive. As a person who would much rather hike ten miles than go to Nordstrom’s... well shopping is not one of the feminine traits I got, though maybe like pink it is starting to grow on me.) I am just not that comfortable being girly.

But the compliments on the top today have abound.

I would still say that femininity and traditionally masculine work-roles do not necessarily gel. I don't think a young woman fresh out of college could really get ahead in masculine disciplines with a feminine attire. But at this point in my career, and my life post cancer, I take a great deal of pleasure in my pink rebellion.

Stupid: The man’s world still very much exists.
Cool: Italian shopping and my personal pink rebellion.

Footnote 1: In case you are wondering, yes I love getting phone calls where the network hardware, cold-calling salesman says, “I am sorry. I was looking for your company’s network administrator. Can you please transfer me to him?”  Can you say, “CLICK!” Actually, what I should do is say, “Well you got her, but I am going to have to have a word with my secretary as HE should not be transferring calls to me from sale people.” Anyway...

Footnote 2: In the sentence, "The 'fuck the business suits, uniforms and masculinity, I can be a girl and play in this realm' attitude," the choice of the word "girl" instead of "woman" was an interesting one. Somehow I feel a woman would wear a business suit and adhere to the expectations, but a girl can fly in the face of that expectation. Somehow a woman is not allowed to have that attitude.

Finding Religion (Barcelona, August 11)

Exterior of La Sagrada Familia

I am not a religious person. A physicist by training, my religion can roughly be summarized by: Gravity is the only universal force that has no opposing force; isn't that nifty.


Given that substantial religious bent (facetious), the following post is all the more indication of the beauty beheld, the spirit endowed, the grace bestowed.



Strangely, when I go to see sites, I try to go with very little information, contrary to most people’s method. I find that with no expectation and influence, my experience is more my own, untainted by general information or other’s commentary.

Staircase looking up within one of the towers

I went to see La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, mostly because that is what you do in Barcelona. I knew roughly that it was a cathedral of sorts. It has been in the building process for over a hundred years. The architect had fanciful ideas and much of his design aspirations were lost, though how his plans were lost I don’t recall.

Beyond that, I went with little information.

And was OVERCOME.

The Familia is a celebration of light and color and form.

Be sure to notice the spiral staircase on the right.

I entered the basilica, somewhat bent out of shape by the previous day which was a 15 hour work day, and also annoyed by a mishap on the metro just twenty minutes before. I was wound a little tight. Sure the outside of the basilica was interesting, but I was just vibrating on a negative frequency if you will.

The light is just glorious.

At first, the interior structure seemed solid, light colored, simple, a tremendous contrast to the dark, ornate, delicate fine embellishment of traditional cathedrals.

Then my eyes were drawn to the morning sun pouring through the east facing stained-glass rainbow mosaic, and with the morning light came also the dawn of my enlightenment of the vision.

A celebration of god’s light and color, painting across man’s attempts to shape beauty and worship from the stone provided.

The interior’s airy simplicity is a deferential acknowledgement of god’s ethereal complexity.

The vast color spectrum is painted daily, no moment by moment, across the plain, gray surfaces, by the true, one and only creator, making colorful, bright, organic and extraordinary what had merely been basic, cold and functional.

There was a spot, I will call The Spot of Awe. People would meander around a corner, and drift

The Spot of Awe, with an awe d admirer. Also notice how organic and warm the
cold beam behind her appears.

from shadow into the warm light cast through a particular set of stained glass windows.  Taken from the relative darkness into the light, their gaze drawn mysteriously upward, they would look up, their jaw would slacken, mouth fall ever so slightly agape,  awakened to the grace, anointed by the spirit.

The picture I did not take was the herds of people, awash in warm light, faces calm, at peace, chins pointed upward toward heavenly illumination.

Gaudi’s fanciful external architecture is interesting and nontraditional  But I must say, I don’t think his whimsical architecture is not the essence of this house of god.

The poorly captured inspiration for
The Spot of Awe.

The somewhat plain, humble, functional, structure within, illuminated by heavenly light, cast through a nearly infinite glass pallet… to me, that was the truest embodiment worship I have ever seen structurally embodied. It is an acknowledgement of god’s light, giving, warmth, complexity, and a deferential celebration of god’s creativity.

(All this has me wondering if my aversion to traditional western religion is partially just a strong distaste for its dark architecture and cluttered décor.)

If you ever have the opportunity to see La Sagrada Familia, go in the early morning so you can truly appreciate the light cascading through the windows.

I walked in, “vibrating on a negative frequency,” annoyed, irritated, stressed, tired and distracted.

And though it took the basilica some time, the warm light drew me in, reminded me that beauty abounds, and erased the day’s taints from my essence.

Stupid: That my pictures do not do anywhere near justice to the beauty. (And the way blogspot handles photo arrangement.)

Cool: Um, everything?

More seriously and perhaps strangely, I have a better understanding of religious because of this basilica’s architecture.  I would say Gaudi was a prophet, but unlike those before him, he did not speak the word of god and worship, he conveyed it through structure.

Fascinating.

Email Sent To My Boss At Midnight on a Saturday Night (Barcelona August 10th)

The below email is nearly verbatim what I just sent to my boss, at midnight, Saturday August 10^th.

{Italicized bracketed text inserts are additions/explanations/commentary for non-ship people. Names were changed to protect the innocent.}

---

Take Away: We may need MTN {satellite communications provider} service soon.

Now the story:  

So, I am in bed {in my cabin on the ship}, lights out. It is midnight. My phone rings.

I answer, naturally, “Good Evening.” (Yes, really.)

“Hello? Isabel?” It is Jerrard, fire patrol. {Think shipboard fireman.} “Your equipment? In the safety office?” {Only now is the irony of my equipment being in the “safety” office occurring to me….}

“Yeah?”

“It’s burning.”

Yeah… what exactly do you say at this point?

Seriously, what is the right response?

Um, “Excuse me?”

The phone is wrestled out of his hand and the Adam comes on, “Isabel? Can you come up here? To the bridge?”

Really? The bridge? I am thinking maybe abandoning ship might be a good idea, but, um, “Yeah, OK. I will be up in a minute?”

Phone is disconnected.

---

Needless to say, the equipment was not on fire and thankfully the rest of the story is frightfully mundane.

I won’t miss being called at midnight to report to the bridge, but I will certainly miss the stories that comes from calls like this.

Stupid: Lack of sleep from this life.

Cool: The stories from this life.

Adding Countries (Valletta, July 30th, 2013)

On July 30th, I was in Valletta, Malta. What was remarkable, to me, about this was, despite having been to 29 countries this year, this was only the third country I have been to this year which I have not been to before.

I am in the small realm of super travelers.

View in Valletta

People who work on cruise ships for more than three years often have at least fifty countries under their belt. I am sure I have at least 70 countries, but I am not entirely sure beyond that. I hate to admit this, but after nearly fifteen years of business travel, I cannot remember every country I have been to any more than you can remember every coffee shop you have been to.

Nonetheless, country count is a competitive event for super travelers. We compare airport horror stories, frequent flyer miles, weird food adventures, road stories.  This is our world.

So on July 30th, when I got to bump my number (or my vague notion of what my number is), it was exciting.

My country count, which includes countries on all continents except Antarctica, only has one landlocked country (Switzerland), and does not include countries where I have not set foot though I have cleared immigration. (I have been aboard the ship in Kenya, Belgium and Kuwait, but since I did not go ashore in any of the three, though technically having cleared immigration, I do not include these in my number.)

My friends, many of whom have higher numbers than mine, come from every corner of the globe.

St. John's Co-Cathedral in Valletta

Perhaps the most indelible mark this travel has made on me is the true belief that people in general seek a better life for themselves as their primary goal and not the eradication or elimination of others’ cultures or beliefs as a primary objective, though both might experience collateral damage.  A recent professor of mine produced a documentary which I would call all out fear mongering, implying Chinese economic imperialism is a calculated assault against America. I have spent a little time in China, and a lot of time not in America. I think there are very few people in this world who are outright against America. If America suffers collateral damage in people’s personal pursuit of a better life, well, few will subvert their personal goals for America’s prosperity, Americans included. OK, divergence into global cultural and economic imperial assessment being cast aside, stupid cool continuing…

Though American, I have spent around 15-20% of my adult life outside the US. My passport is thick with extra pages. This year I have slept in country about 60 days and out of country about 150. The place where I currently pay rent, I have slept at about 50 nights, thought I have paid rent for a whopping 260.

I live out of a suitcase, a carry-on and a “personal item,” as the airlines would call it. My living quarters are less than 100 square feet and to be honest, are more than I need. And nothing pleases me more than to add a country to my list or embark on a 16 hour flight somewhere (well, depending on seat assignment).

So July 30th, 2013, was Malta, a new country and that was cool.

Another view in Valletta.

Stupid: That not everyone can see so much of the world and appreciate the humanity, beauty and experiences available.

Cool: That I have seen so much.

Amazing: That I have not even been to half the countries of the world.

Roughly my map. There are a lot of places left off, but you get the idea.