6/28/12
Hi everyone! I hope you're all having a great weekend. It looks like we're
having our first Sunday at Sea BBQ this weekend. I hope you're enjoying the tastes
of summer where you are, too!
To quote a
popular line from Will Ferrell’s character in the movie, Old School, “Well,
we’ve got a nice little Saturday planned…,” the weekend hit the EMPIRE STATE
with just as little gusto. Since a ship never sleeps, we seem to be
living each day by watch hours rather than calendar days. This “weekend”
thing that we used to get excited for just doesn’t have the same pizzazz
anymore. Sunrises and sunsets are more important for sighting celestial
navigation problems/finding location, rather than marking the end of one day
and the beginning of the next. It was surprising to at least one cadet I ran
into on the way to the library that today was, indeed, Saturday.
“Good
morning, and happy Saturday,” I said.
“Good morning… it’s Saturday?,” said
Cadet Artie Seaman in disbelief, before returning to his maintenance station
cleaning the soles on Cabin Deck.
Sorry, no Saturday morning cartoons on
this watch!
6/29/12
So, many of you may be wondering, with all
this studying going on in the library, what exams are the cadets actually
studying for? I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.
I found out
from 1/C Cadet Scott Wilson that many of these frequent visitors are, like
himself, engineering students preparing for another round of seminar which
qualifies engineering students to sit for their US Coast Guard 3rd
engineer’s license. Unlike the deck students, he says that the engineers
must take seminar while aboard the TSES and pass all six tests to
qualify to sit for licensing when they get back in the fall. These tests
are related to the use of lifeboats, firefighting, electricity, boilers,
turbines, motors, diesel work, and theory - not to mention about 80% of their
free time spent studying!
Studying alone or in groups can be tedious
work, especially when they are required to score a 75% or higher on these tests
for seminar. Reviewing over 230 pages of questions (to give you an idea,
there are about 15 questions on each page) can be exhausting. Cadets Michael
Elsasser, Eric Peccia, and Louis Pou have been working together on the same sets
of questions for at least four days now. (Peccia says “Hi mom.”)
After a
few more days, we’ll all be able to relax in Gibraltar.
Another shout out
tonight is from 3/C Cadet Sara Ballard, who likes getting emails from her mom
and enjoys the library for its selection of adventure books.
As for the library, I have been lucky in that I've escaped the notorious heat. The library is above the fuel tanks, so when they start heating the fuel oil (which the engineers are threatening to do -- lucky me) the temperature sky rockets. Still, it is getting and cooler -- the A/C is pumping and everybody who comes in here is grateful.
To give you an idea of how news disseminates on the ship. I receive news updates from our shoreside library (headline news, sport scores, etc), and I make them available to our community. Sports scores and
sports news are by far the item of interest du jour! Officers are really into
the stock market updates too.
A smooth cruise so far, but looking forward to Gibraltar.
--Liz--
2 comments:
Hi Liz - Thank you! I want you to know how much I look forward to reading your updates. I was away without access to the internet. Coming home to a few days worth of your writing was wonderful.
Thank you,
P. Lovell
Your updates are terrific!!!! Keep 'em coming and thanks for including info on our Engine Cadets too! Love the shout outs!
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