Entries this day: AAM Before_lunch Kobe_lunch Kobe_stop-n-go Network_ideas PeeBee_history2 zzzz

AAM

6:00am JST Sunday 22 May 2005

They just opened the watertight door and it was pretty loud. I take it back; there was a high pitch clinking sound that could have seemed like a bell last night, but I think it was just the cogs of the thing turning and engaging each other in sequence.

Before lunch

transcribed 1:56pm JST Sunday 22 May 2005

11am JST Sunday 22 May 2005

I just met Nicholas; I talked to him yesterday looking over the sea; he was looking for Greek radio stations with his litte radio. Today he says he found a sports game last night. I showed him my GPS and he said he wants to get one.

Met a woman named Hana by the daily-updated map (paper with lines drawn on it) she had salty white and brown hair. She's from Nagoya. She's cute.

Met Hiruta at the GO tables.

There's a dude on the dock who was playing on the dock, with amps behind him; we yelled ARIGATO! and he waved back. Awesome. Couldn't get a picture cause he was just too far away, but his music carried beautifully.

Kobe lunch

1:29pm JST Sunday 22 May 2005

I have recorded about 15 minutes (at most) to my tape, but it looks like it will be a challenge to keep up with transcription.

In Kobe now; have had a meeting about computer stuff.

Everyone is still on the boat; we must get-off and on for visa stuff, but not go far from the boat.

We'll be helping load passengers again today I think.

I met Satoshi today, a soccer-bud with Masahito, the super genki crazed hair high school age lookin' guy.

Kobe stop n go

(transcribed 1:41am JST Monday 23 May 2005)

2pm Sunday 22 May 2005

We're in Kobe, going to show our boarding card to the staff; some kinda visa thing. I just looked up on my bed, and my stuff is folded; janette's quilt is folded; my jammie jams (that Gail sent me) are folded. I'm like, "I didn't fold them! hahahahahahaahahhaa oh man."

2:09pm

We're going to be interviewed here in the customs area of Kobe. Shawn thinks someone is angry about something, but I don't know

What are you doing?

It's my journal. ("Shhhh! Don't write on the page!")

Dammit!

HI Rob!

Maryann, stoppit; you're writing all over the journal; quit!

It'sa pretty smart idea.

Thanks! But then I have to transcribe it all and it takes a fuckin' long time.

Are you going to transcribe this part?

Yea-maybe.

What if I start talking really fast and then you can't transcribe it all and then that's going to drive you nuts and then ahhhhh.

So I'll wait for five minutes while I transcribe all that. So we're in the immigrationg area and there's some kind of confusion, but we're going to get interviewed(?) and then get back on the boat. wow. I'm glad I'm not in charge of this shit.

- - - -

Crap. I'm falling asleep as I try to transcribe. It should be easy, but it's not. I'm going to bed.

(transcribed 8:39am JST Monday 23 May 2005

2:20pm

They just took my gaijin card! I've had that card for two years, and since my visa will expire when I'm away, they asked for my card. No explanation, no warning, just bang. No more card. Good thing I've already sent my first one to janette (when I lost my wallet back in 2003).

So I'm like, "byebye gaijin card.."

When I get back, I'll be just a visitor, not a worker bee.

4:15pm

We've just loaded the passengers; there were lots more boxes this time, as if they didn't presend their luggage. I'm about to take a shower and get suited up.

4:26pm

I've just taken a shower; from now the plan is to leave Kobe at 5, and I hope to remember to check my GPS and see how close to Kobe I intered the coordinates, which will give me a clue as to if the others are correct.

So now I will be giving champagne to the passengers and say "カンパ イまで小尾待って下さいませ" which means "don't drink the shit up, dawg until we say ... cheers" (but in Japanese they say cheers)

Then after that I'm sure we'll have another two meetings to be presented to the passengers. On the way in today I met Chiomi and Shun. That's all the names I remember; not very good, but oh well.

4:45pm

Grabbing my phone to let a guy call his family.

5:15pm

My coordinates were 1.5 km from where we parked.

I let Sandy use my phone; it was cool to let him be able to do that.

I watched the tug boat pull us sideways; like it was pulling one end of the boat 90 degrees from the direction it normally goes, and it was pulling this giant rope taut out of the water, like a fucking heavy rope, probably six inches in diameter; huge. Pulled it tight out of the water. Amazing.

People are coming downstairs now.

5:50pm

I'm on the back of the boat; I called Jen and Jesse and talked to them a little bit. Couldn't call Rich, but I emailed his ketai; I don't have his phone number. I'm looking at the back:

My other favorite thing about the boat is watching water boil up behind the boat; I think as the propellers are turning , they are pushing water (back and) radially, I guess in all directions, so I don't really know how to explain it, but there are definite lumps of water that roil upward in one specific spot (relative to the boat) I don't really know how to explain what would be the physics behind it; a video would be good.

We saw a container ship across the way and Greg said "hey look at that" and I looked for a while and then was like, "hey! That's my grandmothers's ship! She shouldn't be here now; she's behind schedule!" ahahah good joke. Gotta go to meeting at 6:00; bye.

7:48pm

We just had our meeting and then I copied some things for Audrey and then wrote my ideas for a network system for our little group working on computer stuff.

Network ideas

7:28pm JST Sunday 22 May 2005

My basic ideas toward our new networked computers:

* System allows GET teachers to use/develop lessons plans and
  curriculae for GET classes on PB voyages

* Allow teachers to quickly grab useable documents

* Allow teachers to make edits to documents
  - Must track version changes
    . could be Wiki
    . could be CVS
  - How do we choose which files are used as default?

* Give each teacher his/her own workspace for stuff in progress
  - will be backed up daily on the ship
  - this will be wiped clean after each voyage

* Backup system:
  - monkey friendly (a monkey could do it)
    . maybe just put in a blank CD every day
    . if it's a CD-RW that could be done weekly
  - should backup user changes daily
  - backup (ghost) entire system after each voyage (so we can)
  - maintain a copy of library on disk in case of server failure on voyage

* Should allow for computer failures (Google mentality)

PeeBee history2

10:29pm JST Sunday 22 May 2005

This is the second time I've heard a history of PB. First was Stacy's history; he told us we should listen to the story 20 times on this voyage.

These are notes on the 22 year history of PB, as spoken in Japanese by Tetsu (director of this voyage) and ____ (director of previous voyage (or few)) and realtime translated to English by Joel, and sentences type using notes written by me during the lecture.

In 1983 there was a Korean airline explosion. People thought Korea was the heart of communism.

Textbooks in Japan ignored atrocities done by Japan in wars.

People mostly wanted to see the world.

PB took 300 people to Guam and Saipan. They advertised themselves as the New Generation of people.

1st through 9th cruiss were around Asia only, looking at past wars.

In 1990 was the first world cruise. In 1983 there were lots of Peacenicks ; the feel of PB was different due to different world circumstances.

International Exchange means different things. I think it'swhen people make an effort to understand ecother; this changes perceptions.

PB wants to encourage peoples' awareness of other countries. Friendship sis easy enough, but creating something meaningful requires moe depth of knowledge; knowing more about a country helps that connection, thatfore hlpes creation.

We can't just eact the weets then leave; that's notexchange.

When the leader of PB found out that Etreria, a new country with independence from Ethiopia couldn't afford to sed its atheletes to the Olympics, he helped raise money for them.

There were big challenges to get past IOC constitution.

Winner of the Etreetrian (sp) bike race (qualifying race) ate shit at the very very end of the race after winning the race he hit his brakes and went up on front wheel like whoooo then splat attack. Holy shit I was like, "oh God" out loud when I saw the footage. Huge life change in 1 second. Nightmare. I suspect it was a shitty bike with brakes that locked up; they were all amazed later when they saw the lightweight bikes PB donated.

In the 1990s there was one world cruise per year.

Pb created a daily newspaper for peple in Kobe after the Kansai earthquake; they asked what people needed to know: where to get food; where to get water; where to get clean. It's important to ask what people need, cause we can volunteer what they don't want and it's not effective. We go to the countries to try to understand what will be helpful for people.

On this voyage, we have _______ and _______ from Iraq; they risked their lives to come and talk to us. Anything that draws attention to them risks their lives

Alan Nelson is a Vietnam war veteran who felt terrible about what he had done in the war, and spent years preaching people to people. This is his first trip back to Vietnam since the war ended.

zzzz

8:59am JST Monday 23 May 2005

Last night I didn't really go into the party; it was too crowded and smokey. I definitely feel myself attracted to Kanae. Eek. Don't need any of that business on the ship.

Talked to Mariko for a while in the GET Office. I've noticed something: the previously-voyaged GET Teachers use that office as the office, and we are in a transition to use the downstairs area as an office. Kinda; at least it's in my mind that we are better off moving everything downstairs, but there's a pretty decent library in the 6th floor GET Office and the 5th floor "new office" is still a classroom, cause there's simply no more space to move passengers off that floor.

I'm amazed to hear that Mariko isn't native English speaker. She speaks perfectly as far as I'm concerned, but when she speaks Japanese, she speaks far more quickly.