MARCH 14, 2008 – IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA

The alarm(s) rang much too early this morning but we both rolled out, had some fruit and showed up at 8:15 am for the Komen “on deck for the cure”. Again there was a respectable sized group and JJ, the cruise director, kept his word and wore his tutu outfit from the skit “If I were not upon the sea…” Ed led the pack in pledging a dollar for each lap JJ took so dressed, and that turned out to be 51. We know of at least one other participant who pledged the same.
The breeze was incredible on the upper deck and we all asked for extra credit for walking against the wind. I hasten to add, that it was not at your back on the other side of the loop. Few people were able to keep their hats on so many of us tied them somewhere on our person and ambled on.
HOLLYWOOD SONG AND DANCE MAN: The previously mentioned BBC producer talked about Gene Kelly today, whom he had met on two occasions. I knew almost nothing of his personal or professional life. He was a multi-talented, perfectionist who was also a very nice person. Like so many aging male stars, his last years were marred by marriage to a woman 50 yrs younger than him who was to have ghost written his autobiography. She never published it and refused to allow his children to see him in his final days. It’s all so sad.
Barry has a wonderful selection of video movie clips that he explains before they are seen so that you can properly enjoy them. His presentation style is pleasant and without pomposity.
INTERNET: I didn’t walk the full time. I’m still feeling lousy. But I did go to use the internet; good thing too because I had 42 emails, most of which is deleted.
Nancy sent two interesting emails: one is a listing of Useful Facts. This is the trivia corner and I took them to the trivia group and we had to study these hard because they’d be good for trivia questions.
CONGRATULATIONS are in order for Nancy. She has been accepted as a Fellow for the Effective Leadership Program 2008/2009 Fellowship Class; United States – South Africa Center for Leadership and Public Values, Duke University and th College of Business Southern University, Baton Rouge, under the leadership of Ambassador James A Joseph. I’m glad that all my kids are life long learners and especially happy for this achievement for Nancy. I look forward to learning a lot through her.
TRIVIA: Well we placed below 2nd place but not by much. Frankly, we didn’t have a clue about the answers to a few of the questions. Thank God for the Aussies who are also good on most British questions as well.
LUNCH: We shared a table which included Fr. Austin again with his unqiue Irish perspective on the world highlighted by well placed Irish sayings. We had sat with many of the other people before as well and enjoyed a nice visit about things we had seen. The USC booster and his wife were at our table too.
CDS: I showed Ed where photos and videos were on the hard drive and he made CDs for Linda and Claude who have been very generous with their photos, and John and Doris since Ed took a movie clip of John getting a massage from the baby elephant. There’s one more to be done for Lea and Bill but those files are in different places so I may wind up doing that one if I can’t con Ed into making it.
SHIPS AHOY: This was an impromptu discussion led by a fellow passenger who has been a sailor most of his life. It is risky to listen to fellow passengers and while there was some pearls buried in his remarks, he has some strong anti biases that were off putting. One of his themes was that the labor unions have ruined cruising and the industry. I had promised that I’d attend the last hour of the book club meeting so I left early and Ed stayed to pick up any details that might be useful.
BOOK CLUB: the book Secrets was in the discussion today. I had given Lisa a copy of it and so I had some familiarity with it even though I have not read it cover to cover. It is a compilation of self-help ideas from a number of sources. Always good reminders. Some of the participants shared different parts of the book and thoughts generated by that content. I enjoy listening to the views of others and it is especially interesting when we are not all Americans.
The next book for the club is the Kite Runner. It turns out that all of us in the group I was with have read it. However, we took it to review so we’ll be ready for the next book club meeting. I still have the second book they discussed Water for Elephants which almost everyone said was excellent so perhaps I’ll try it. I still have Maggie Anton’s second book of the trilogy about Miriam that I want to get into.
DISTURBING CAMBODIA: This was a get together to discuss Cambodia and Thailand reactions among the passengers. It had a good attendance and Ed shared some of his experiences in Cambodia and Thailand many years ago. It was interesting to hear people’s reactions and the lack of knowledge about the particulars of the Khymer Rouge and Pol Pot (including this writer).
END OF PHOTO CONTEST: We picked up our photos. Neither of us voted for our own photos. There were 72 photos entered and the quality is astonishing. I can’t begin to guess who will win but any photo is worthy.
It turns out that the lady who won last time had done some heavy campaigning for her photo and made promises to those who agreed to vote for her entry, such as giving you a copy of the photo. It was worth it I presume since she won a very nice camera and is not allowed to enter subsequent contests. At the end of the voyage, a representative from Olympus cameras will select the winning photo from the winners of the 4 contests. This time was Animals, landscapes; next is Architecture, villages and towns.
The winner is to be announced this evening at the entertainment.
FINAL TRIVIA (with this group anyway): The awesome crocks were in modest form this afternoon. We did well by ourselves; we are always among the top scores but no winners tonite. We weren’t too upset: the prizes were clocks.
Afterwards Eric bought us all a drink and we told bawdy jokes. We had such a good time and the goodbye hugs were sincere. We will miss them so much; it’s hard to convey how fond we are of them after this short period of time.
DINNER: Twyla and Dave were there. The dessert tonite was Baked Alaska. Not that we needed any more calories I assure you: those margaritas we had came to us in No. 9 bathtubs.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES: I have found the address of a blog posted by another woman on board. She includes a lot more photos than I do. Here’s the address: http://duaneandarleen.blogspot.com
And for more photos and info (the web master has Irish geneology as one of her passions), try taking a look at: http://community.webshots.com/user/georgeannmalowney or http://good-times.webshots.com/album/561502476RgDHBt I have permission to share these links. I’ll try to remember to put them on my blog site.
PASSPORT SITUATION: I’m really left with almost no space for stamps; the immigration people are being very clever but if we get near a US consulate or embassy and I have my passport with me, I’ll have additional pages added. I’m going to suggest (assuming I’m present when they are stamped) that they put some in the upper and lower margins of pages with instructions on them. Tomorrow we must carry our passports with us onshore. I don’t recall this being the case when we were in Singapore 4 years ago but who knows.
ENTERTAINMENT: Well it’s that gorgeous guy from Montreal again. He really is talented. (I’m told I missed a fantastic show last night!) If he weren’t so good, I’d pass tonite as I’m feeling pretty lousy. Here I thought I was done with colds when I finished my chronic bronchitis on the last bout!
The singer tonite was Claude Eric again. We just can’t get enough of this young man’s singing. And his choice of material is phenomenal. He doesn’t have any CDs with him but he said they could be ordered from claudeeric.com (play with the address until you get it right.) Listen to a few samples if he has some on there. The line to talk with him after tonite’s performance was very long; I don’t think there was one person from the audience who didn’t stop to talk with him.
PHOTO CONTEST RESULTS: There were 272 votes cast for the 72 photos. The winner got 27 and the photo was an amazing close up of a yellow and black bird atop a red flower with a hazy green background. The second place got 20 votes but they only gave the number of the photo, not the subject matter. We took ours down and will frame them at some point even though they have the number on them.
We said our final good byes to Eric and Val; they gave us some hints of things to look at in Singapore. We arrive there at 9 am and the ship leaves at 6 pm. We haven’t decided what we’ll do just yet but there is a large variety of options.