Bill Seney's

Semester at Sea: Rock 7

3 Oct 2005

Had a chance today to look at a photo CD loaned my by one of the instructors, Tom S. Gillis Jr. He is an older gentleman, who graduated from Texas A&M in 1942, then served in the US Army during WWII. His initial service was with the Anti-aircraft artillery guarding the Boeing aircraft factories near Seattle, but by summer of 1944 he was a Captain on General Patton’s staff in Europe. He served with Third Army until the end of the war, then with the US military government in Germany.

During this time he took a lot of pictures when film was available (over 30 rolls), though they were not developed until after the war due to censorship regulations. In 2000 he donated the prints to the Corps centre at Texas A&M. Some students there scanned the photos into digital form and produced a CD with a selection of the photos and background information.

It was this CD that he loaned me and allowed me to copy. I was glad for the opportunity as it allowed me an insight that you don’t see in standard histories of WWII.

04 Oct 2005

We had an interesting exercise in my nonverbal communication class today. We were divided into groups of 3 and given written instructions. Person C was instructed to talk to Person A and try and find a hot-button topic for that person. Person B was to observe their body language, while Person A was instructed to gradually move closer and closer to person C to see if they could get them to back up. I was Person A in our group and managed to chase person C (a small female student) about a third of the way around the table.

In this I was helped by my height (I was at least 0.3 metres – a foot) taller than she was, her instructions to seek hot-button topics was intended to make her a bit nervous tos tart with, and the gentle rolling of the ship meant we were constantly adjusting our postion, making less obvious that I was

05 Oct 2005

This was a no-class relaxation / reading day and I took the chance to review my travel plans for Vietnam. I am on the waiting list for a trip to Angor Wat in Cambodia, but if that doesn’t come through I have enough to do in Vietnam itself to keep me busy, including a city tour, a trip to Cu Chi and a trip to the Mekong Delta.

06 Oct 2005

This evening we had an Encore session of Global Studies, the course everyone takes to learn about the places we are visiting. The goal of the session was to allow interested students to ask follow-up questions, and I sat in on the session about the ethics of visiting Myanmar.

There have been calls for a boycott of Myanmar, but the Institute for Shipboard Education felt there was more to be gained by showing our students the country than would be lost by the infusion of funds to the country, given the precautions they were taking. Specifically, we will not be using government owned tour companies or hotels, and payment made to banks outside the country to minimize the amount of foreign exchange going to the junta ruling the country.

07 Oct 2005

Today in global studies our world theatre course put on a scene from DEATH AND THE KING’S HORSEMAN by Wole Soyinka, the famous Nigerian playwright. I was Dr. Cleveland’s gopher / assistant / stage manager. Other students played the various roles, while Dr. Strumpf, the musicology professor, who had taught in Nigeria with Wole Soyinka led the drummers who provided the music.

08 Oct 2005

Today was another Global Studies exam, which I again helped proctor. Again, this amounted to passing out pencils and collecting papers at the end of the exam.

In the evening we had our pre-port meeting, discussing how to behave in Mauritius and the logistics of our various trips. After this our adopt-a-family group got together to play board games for a while, then we turned in.

Tomorrow – Mauritius!

- Bill Seney