Mail call

Yesterday we pulled into Singapore for a brief stop to off-load some people and on-load some supplies. The best part of the on-load was the 135 bags of inbound mail that we brought onboard. This was the first mail call of the deployment, and it definitely led to a boost in morale. All over the ship, people had big smiles on their faces as they opened big boxes full of goodies from home. There is now an absurd amount of junk food being passed around the ship.

Angelina and Gabby sent me a great care package with: a paperback copy of “Silence of the Lambs” (yay, I’ve never read it), a miniature cardboard Christmas tree, drawings by Gabby, an origami crane by Angelina, and a nice note. It’s like an early Christmas present, and none of it will rot my teeth, which is good. That was definitely a highlight of the month so far.

For the past five days or so, I have not been very busy. In an earlier post, I wrote about the disconnect between OPTEMPO (the pace of our operations) and ADTEMPO (the amount of paper that I am required to push). The current situation is a great example of that phenomenon. This week we are doing flight operations, landing-craft movements, and supporting various bilateral military exercises with partner countries. But my own workload has dropped from 12-18 hours of work every day to 6-8 hours of work every day. I still have to spend the same 24 hours on the ship, though. I tend to get bored, lonely, and sad when I don’t have a lot of work to do. When I’m busy I feel like there is a point to me being out here, like I’m doing something that matters. I actually feel less stressed when I spend every waking moment on a work-related task because I don’t have time to sit around missing home.

On the bright side, having that free time gives me a chance to catch up on my reading – most of it is work-related, but not all of it. Lately I’ve been on a Hemingway kick. The details of my non-work reading life are on my Goodreads.com profile, if for some reason any of you want to talk books.

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