Jeff Free IX

Semester at Sea asked us to fill out a survey about our pre-voyage experience. I told them that I found things a little overwhelming, because they asked what they could do better. One question asked if you would suggest Semester at Sea to your three or four closest friends, and I said, "I recommend it to all of my friends, and sometimes total strangers." The last question asked what three or four sentences/phrases you'd use to describe S.A.S. to someone who was asking about it, so I said:

"It's basically a floating university, you take four classes for credit while you're on the ship, and you stop in 10-12 countries depending on what specific voyage you're on and you get to explore.

Then I give them a YouTube link to I'm On a Boat."

Maybe they'll appreciate that. Maybe they're sick of it.

Peace out.

Jeff Free VII

I made a list of things to do last night at about 1am and didn't let myself go to sleep until I did a bunch of them. I wanted to stop procrastinating. I made a list of all the trips I was going on and sent it to Dad, like he asked. I made a new blog for Semester at Sea, which you can see at ShipTease.blogspot.com. I emailed my pictures from Christmas to Gabe, and told her to get a gmail account since she still uses Hotmail. I asked a question to the literary reviewer guy on SomethingAwful for my friend Jennifer, who would like to have the same job he does when she grows up. I cut some designs downstairs while my cat watched. I put my pictures on my computer and changed out my memory card. I even put some adorable photos of myself and Cocoa on Facebook, which is amazing, because I never get around to putting pictures on Facebook. I tried to schedule for PSU Fall 2010 as well, but the schedule isn't available yet. It was 3am at that point, and I decided it was better to fall asleep and update this blog in the morning than to do it at 3am.

Jeff Free VIII

This took me almost an hour to write so far.

Jeff Free VI

I wanted a green cloth belt. I could not find one anywhere. I picked up Chloe from school on Tuesday and asked her if she wanted to go to Goodwill with me to try to find one. Eric J was working there and she accosted him. I picked out a cloth belt for $1 and decided we could just try spraying it green, so we had to go get some paint, too, which cost $3.

Last night I went to Chloe's house and into her yard with the belt and the paint. It actually went on pretty well, and turned from tan to green before my eyes. I let it dry inside for a little bit. The fumes made me wonder if I was going crazy, or stupid. I'm very afraid of them; even the can is very frank that it can cause permanent nerve damage. Later I went out and put a few black stencils on it, of Mr. Peanut, a penguin with a cane and top hat, and a bomb. They came out pretty well in general, although I had to do it outside, alone, in the cold, and so they didn't always lay completely flat on the belt. There was a little bit of blurring. I wish Chloe could have held the stencils in place, but she was sick, and didn't want to come outside.

We let it dry for a while. I tried it on. It's still very sticky, and I couldn't pull it through all of my belt loops because of the friction. We decided to let it dry more. It wore well before I painted it, so it should wear well now, right? I tried it on later and looked at myself in the downstairs bathroom mirror. It does look pretty cool. I'm glad we decided to be hooligans.

Jeff Free V

I had something of a crisis with Semester at Sea yesterday. Although I suppose the crisis actually happened at about 11:55pm on December 14th, 2009.

There are some trips that you can only reserve a spot on before you go on the ship. You have to request a spot during the Pre-Sale period. We got the field practica guide sometime around Thanksgiving, and it had a bazillion trips in it, and I remember reading through a good portion of it when I went to visit Nana that break. It was still incredibly overwhelming, though. The deadline to submit a request for these trips was December 15th, which is kind of vague, so I decided to make sure it was done on December 14th at the very latest.

December 14th was during finals week at Penn State. There was free food that night in one of the study halls. Kerry O was wandering around the ground floor at 10 o'clock or something like that. She said that all she was going to do for the rest of the night was procrastinate, study, or eat food. I told her that sounded great and we should go to the study break snack in Simmons together, and she agreed. At some point I started to feel more concerned about S.A.S. stuff, and I think I may have even called their 24-hour answering service to see if this needed to be done tonight. The guy said yes, and I told Kerry that this was going to take me a little bit, and would probably be frustrating for both of us, so I understood if she wanted to go. She insisted she really didn't have anywhere more fun to be, so she hung out, which was fine.

At some point I remember going to Drew's room, and Kerry was there too at some point. I think perhaps she did leave for a little bit and then come back. I introduced her to Drew and told her that he was going on Semester at Sea with me.

Anyway, I very very clearly remember picking my trips. I remember logging in to MyVoyage and clicking on MyTrips. I remember how the page looked - the same theme as the rest of the S.A.S. website. I remember picking a primary option at each port, then picking an alternative, and then holding Ctrl while clicking any additional alternatives. I remember the bill coming out to some ridiculous amount. [[Understand that these trips were things like Great Wall, Taj Mahal, Safari, etc.]] I remember calling my dad with Kerry still sitting near me, near the doorway, and him getting upset that I was "springing this on him." I remember telling him that it was going to be "sprung" on him anyway, so he couldn't get mad at me. I remember he called me back a little later, with Kerry still there, and told me to just use his credit card, and he seemed a lot calmer about it, like he wasn't mad at me anymore. I remember he told me to write it down, so I did write it down, on the back of my orange field manual. I wrote the four sets of four numbers in a box. I was afraid someone would think it was a credit card number, so I put a + sign in front of the numbers and started adding them. It was security through obscurity. I told Kerry what I was doing. I was proud. I remember putting the credit card number and information in, and I remember hitting submit.

I swear that the transaction had gone through.

We went to get food. I apologized for the wait. She was a good sport and I was glad I hadn't frustrated her or put her in a bad mood.

Yesterday I saw something that said the bus we were slated to take from San Diego to Ensenada was posted on our MyTrips page, along with all the other trips that had been assigned to us. None had been assigned to me. I had actually been a little bit worried about this for a while, but figured it was just taking a while. I then checked the Facebook group, and saw that some kids (but not a whole ton) had posted what trips they were going on. I figured maybe kids who requested fewer trips had them assigned earlier since they were easier to figure out; maybe mine was just taking a while. But I called just in case, and they told me that everything had been assigned. There was nothing on record for me.

I talked to my dad. He called the credit card company. Apparently the charge had never even been presented. It wasn't even that it was denied, or bounced, or rejected, or over the balance - it had just never shown up in the first place. I had no idea how that had happened, but I knew that damage control needed to happen as quickly as possible.

I called S.A.S's office probably 100 times in the next hour and a half. That might be a slightexaggeration, but I'm not totally positive. Eventually I got through enough to find out that there was a woman named Alison D who might be able to help me. I had talked to her once, and she asked me if I had the list of trips I wanted in front of me. I said no, but that I could get it together before 5pm. This was at about 4:15pm, and she was supposed to leave at 5pm. She gave me her direct number and told me to call her back. I found the list of trips and alternatives I had wanted, and called her back. Busy. Called back. Busy. Called back. Busy. This is where the 100 calls comes into play.

My dad realized I wasn't getting through and told me to call the main number. So I did, and they said she was free and would take my call next. Busy again. I kept trying. I left two messages and my dad left one. I even marked one as urgent!

5pm came and went. No calls back. I guessed I could just call her tomorrow and sleep with my phone on in case she called me before I woke up.

Leroy, Gabe and Kelly were visiting, and I was in a terrible mood because I thought my semester was about to be ruined/had already been ruined by a credit card malfunction of some sort.

She called me back at about 5:30. I thanked her profusely and apologized for pestering her. She was actually incredibly nice and understanding, and she apologized, as if the fault may lie on their end. Truth be told I have absolutely no idea what went wrong, so I suppose it's possible that someone went wrong on their end, but I suspect that I did something wrong. But whatever. We went through what trips were still open, and I took what I could. I think she had done a Semester at Sea before, so she even counseled me on a few decisions, which was really nice. I got most of the big trips that I wanted. The only downsides were that all the overnight house visits were full. I was pretty upset about that. I also didn't really feel like scheduling one of the super-expensive safaris, so I just took a one-day one instead. She said that was an improvement, considering all there is to do and see in South Africa. I also missed out on the overnight trips in Brazil, but she said I'd have a boat-full of friends at that point, and I'd find something to do.

Jeff Free IV

I'd been going back and forth with a woman named Joann at AXA Equitable in New York for a long time - like almost a month now - about scheduling an interview in New York. I would have to take a train up and train back in the same day for the interview; I was viewing this as reading time for Things Fall Apart. I looked around New York on Google maps the other day and found out that if I lived in the right part of Hoboken, I would two blocks away from an outdoor roller rink and two blocks away from a huge trainyard, which would be cool. Plus the drive to work would be like 35 minutes, with traffic, which is good NPR-listenin' time.

Anyway, I talked to her on the phone yesterday and she said that they provide housing at Columbia University, which I wasn't really feeling. And they only pay $22/hour, which isn't really worth it to drag me to New York when I'm getting $21 in Philadelphia. I asked her if I could talk to Dad, so we hung up and I talked it over with him. I called her back and said that I was really sorry, but I just didn't think it was going to be worth it for me to take the job even if I had the offer, so I declined the interview. I felt kind of bad about it. We both spent a good amount of time trying to make sure it could work out. Oh well, it's okay. Just business, or something.

Jeff Free III

I went to play hockey yesterday for the first time since the Sunday before Thanksgiving. I drove to the rink in Delaware right near the Delcastle golf course. It's only supposed to be a 25-30 minute drive or so, but I missed my turn onto Rt 34 in Delaware. There was tons of construction, and I swear there were no signs on 141 South to tell you that 34 was coming up. So I had to turn around after taking an exit when 141 turned into a legit highway. The ride there ended up taking me like 50 minutes. Tell Me More was on NPR, which I hate more than any other show on NPR, even more than Fresh Air and maybe even more than You Bet Your Garden or Car Talk, which all suck.

The rink was dry, which was good. But it was very very cold. My skates were messed up, sort of - the lace had come out of the highest eyelet that I used, and the tip of it was frayed and had lost its aglet, so I couldn't get it through. I tried licking it a few times to condense it, but it was no help. I needed to look at it earlier, before I came. I ended up just wrapping the lace all the way around my skate and trying my best to get a knot from that. It felt loose and it was hanging off the left side of my skate, but it was okay for now.

I didn't have a good puck to play with; just one of those crappy "speed pucks" that we'd yell at the ref for using if we were playing in a league. I had called Sports Authority earlier, and they said they only carried pucks made by Franklin, which are awful, so that was no help. Then I called Dick's and asked if they sold pucks by IDS or Rocket, and they asked me to please hold on. Ten minutes later they still hadn't gotten back to the line, so I called back, and asked again. Five minutes later they still hadn't gotten back to the line, so I called back, and asked again. I was slightly forceful with my question this time, and told them I'd been on hold for fifteen minutes already. I'd been talking to Nick online though, about actuary stuff. Then they picked up and told me they didn't sell any pucks at all.

After playing for a little bit, two kids showed up, about my age. They took half the rink, I took half. It was very cold, my eyes were dripping, my nose was running, and I was afraid I was going to get a headache if I stayed much longer. At one point I shot the puck out, and decided I'd had enough. I had other things to do at home anyway. So I untied the knot hanging off the left side of my boot and got in the car. I made a wrong turn again, and it took me 50 minutes again.

Jeff Free II

Two things predominantly come to mind when I think of last summer. The first is how awesome it was to have an outdoor rink that I could go to after work for hours every day and play for free. The second is how much I hated my job.

I got offered a job with ACE INA in Philadelphia for the summer. They pay $21/hour for someone in my position, which is good, especially since my parents wouldn't have to pay $600/month for housing and extra food and stuff. Apparently the guy named Jim who interviewed me really liked me (he was young, went to UPenn, was more of a computer science guy, and I could tell he liked me in the "I'd like to hire you" way) and asked me to work in his part of the company, which is predictive modeling. It does sound kind of cool, so I will definitely think about it.

However, I looked for outdoor roller rinks recently in Philadelphia, and I've been unable to find any. Beyond that, even if I did take the job, my dad would probably often drive me to and from, and I doubt he'd be down for stopping at a rink for an hour or two a few days a week. Marple is nearby and they have great leagues, but they play late at night. Speaking of which, I don't know if I want a curfew of 11pm as a 21 year old with a full-time job. I know that last year I wasusually in by 11pm in the summer, but it's different when you're friends with people who don't live in your house.

Jeff Free I

I went to Sonali's house on Wednesday night. We hadn't seen in each since July of 2008, when she left Walgreens to go visit India with her family. She was supposed to teach me how to draw a little bit, since I suck and she's going to art school, but somehow we got distracted by the idea of baking brownies, and never turned back.

We were looking over the back of the mix box to see what ingredients we needed, and it called for two eggs. She wasn't sure if she had any, so she looked through her refrigerator and told me, "Oh! We have exactly two eggs!" So she put them on the counter, and we continued preparing. At one point a few minutes later we were talking, I was at the end of the island and she was on the other side of the corner, and I could see where she had placed the eggs over her shoulder. Suddenly, too late for me to do anything useful, I realized that one of them was moving (pretty quickly) toward the edge of the counter. And then half a second later it was on the floor. Oh nooo!! Then we only had one egg, and we were sad.

Sonalia suggested we could go to the grocery store and get some more, since they were all out anyway. I, having recently listened to Hey Ya by Outkast/Obadiah Parker, suggested we ask our neighbor to lend us some sugar. We ended up walking across the street to a neighbor's house after she had called them to check. They had two young cats who were very compactly built and very adorable, and one of them played fetch. The man's name was Steve and he shook my hand. The woman was allergic to chocolate. Steve asked if we could bring him some when we were done since he could never have chocolate in his own house, and we said yes.

I learned a lot about Sonali. I learned why she kept going to different schools. We talked about our love lives for a good while, probably about an hour. I continue to feel very afraid that I am boring people when I'm talking, yet feel insanely interested in almost everything that everyone else has to say. I always give people the benefit of the doubt; she always searches for people's flaws so they feel more real. My flaw is that I lack follow-through and that I procrastinate, she said. I also suggested that being a total asshole and bad with people was a flaw of mine, but I guess she didn't think only taking two years to actually see her was asshole-worthy enough to agree with me. We both hate talking on the phone; she likes movies and I don't. Someone once told her that she "fires" her friends when she doesn't like them anymore. She told me that I could keep my job.