Trip Report: Solomon Islands
Friday, December 04, 2009 (EST)
I walk my daughter to school this morning. She shows me her classroom and I meet her teacher. The school looks nice and bright, class size is small and her teacher is very friendly. She tells me that yes, Renee’s interpretation is correct, she is not handed out all the papers that are being handed out, nor is she being given the entirety of the homework that her classmates are given - she’s given what her teacher believes she might be able to handle (and she seems to be getting it right). She’s also working almost daily with the resident English-as-a-second-language specialist, her confidence is growing daily and she’s got friends in school already. Enough that being told that she might want to invite someone over on Sunday posed the problem of which one to ask first. I am so happy.
My wife presents me with a good luck charm for the trip and brings me to the airport. I check in and, upon advice of my colleagues at the Bank, ask whether my frequent-flyer card (of which I only have a number so far, not an actual plastic card) has been recognized for this flight and whether the upgrade to “Premier Executive” status is through yet. Apparently this is an automatic upgrade in the frequent-flyer status offered to World Bank employees. Or more like a semi-automatic upgrade, as you apparently have to ask for it. I’m not particularly sure of the exact parameters of any of these things - I’ve travelled in the baggage compartments of trains before, and generally managed to find the experience enjoyable, so am not all that concerned with creature comforts.
But I note that roughing it, while still as adventurous as in my late teens (heck, even more so - these days I get to rough it in Japan, the Near East and Southern Africa, when my travels used to be confined to Southern Europe and the Northwestern tip of Africa), it takes more of a toll on me than it used to. Part of this is surely the result of age - I’m not twenty anymore. Another part of it, however, is that I’m no longer travelling for the sheer hell of it. Arriving completely wrecked and sleeping it out semi-comfortably in a crowded youth hostel for a day (heck, make that two if I don’t sleep well) is no longer an option, as I have to work wherever it is that I go. And jet lag didn’t use to factor into the equation, either, because the distances involved were much shorter. So making the transitions as painless as possible is smart. Also, I disliked the attitude my old employer had regarding frequent-flyer programs.
… In Defense of Frequent-Flyer Miles …
We were forbidden from making use of them. This appears to be a peculiarly German way of dealing with it - some BaFin employees would get the benefits the airlines lay out for those who travel (with them) a lot, others would not. These are benefits that would predominantly go to employees in the internationally active units, while those in, say, Human Resources would never have a stab at them. Which, to a German, at first glance appears to be unfair. But of course, this is a reward which goes to those people who, in stark contrast to the stay-at-homes, have to travel a lot. Now I had the impression that for many at BaFin (and outside of it) who don’t get to (or have to) travel much, getting to travel around the world (for the Bank, sometimes literally) is its own reward. And it is, if you get to do it once or twice a year. Beijing in 2006 was awesome, and going without sleep for a while in order to see more of the city was entirely doable. Syria in 2007 - a most excellent experience. In 2008 I went to New York, Tallinn, Tokyo (and thereabouts), Paris, London, Rio de Janeiro and Strasbourg (twice). Oh, and to Frankfurt, Hamburg and Hannover. ;-) At which point travel becomes … not yet a nuisance. But still a stressful necessity. Interesting in its own right, enjoyable sometimes - but something that needs to be accomplished with minimal impact on my ability to function where I am going. Which makes potential free upgrades regarding the class in which I travel less of a reward than a chance to make this whole transitional process work more smoothly. And it’s a bonus (to stay away from the “reward” terminology) which only goes to those who regularly have to expose themselves to the risks and rigours inherent in such travel, which seems eminently fair. And what makes the whole interdiction of personal use of frequent flyer miles by BaFin employees perverse, is that nobody is gaining from it (except maybe the airlines who don’t have to deal out the bonuses, but their incremental costs of a class upgrade is, while not actually known to me, almost certainly very nearly indistinguishable from zero).
So I ask and am told to ask again at the gate. I head to the lounge, wondering whether an upgrade even makes sense - I want to be close to our Task Team Leader (TTL) on this trip, so we can talk business. Having just written up the report on my last mutual evaluation over the Thanksgiving weekend, I’m (again) not as well prepared as I’d like to be. Though at least I’ve started, and have a *lot* of time on our way there. But if only one of us gets an upgrade, that can easily be waived and they’ll just upgrade someone further down the waitlist.
Well, as I sit in the lounge and read the brand-new Economist I grabbed on the way there (7 bucks for a single issue - I guess I’ll have to get a subscription), my cell phone rings and my TTL tells me she can’t make the flight. So she’ll only arrive during the first day of our mission in progress, and I’m in charge of the beginning of it. I kid you not.
Well, alright, then. Good thing I have a lot of time to read up. I head over to the gate and just as I approach it, someone there grabs a handset and, over the loudspeaker, calls for “Andre Corterier, please…” to which I nod and point at myself. “Ah,” he says, “here’s your First Class ticket”.
So I find myself very near the nose of the aircraft in a rather large seat (a footstool across from me telling me that it’ll fold completely flat) which angles in along with the curve of the aircraft hull, allowing me a view to diagonally forward. So seated, my attention is wandering between the Economist, the trip file on the Solomon Islands I prepared, the rather excellent movie collection this flight offers and the lunch they promise to serve soon. Well, between take-off and lunch, really diving into new subject material is pretty much pointless what with all the interruptions, so I settle down to watch “The Cove”, a most excellent (though disturbing) documentary about the wholesale slaughter of dolphins and the role of the captive-dolphin industry (SeaWorld et al.) in the process. And to write these notes. All the time I’m wondering whether I should change my plan regarding diurnal-cycle-management (I may have to come up with a spiffier term for that). It’s three in the afternoon of Friday now in DC, where I took off. That makes it five in the morning - on Saturday (!) - local time in Narita (Tokyo airport), where we’ll be landing in, oh, eleven and a half hours from now. But not only do I cross fourteen time zones, I also cross the date line. So it’ll be 4:30 in the afternoon of Saturday there when we do get there, and 2:30 in the morning (of the same day) on my body’s internal clock (still poorly understood by chronobiologists). An existent, though clearly not well-known area of study, as WinWord’s spellchecker proves by underlining the word as I type it. I then have five hours of layover in Narita. That wouldn’t be so bad - five hours during the afternoon, I even know what temple in Narita town it might make sense to visit during that time - if only it wasn’t the middle of the night for me personally. Which means that I’ll be up to not very much at all. I’m not sure sleep will be easy to come by during that time, either. I then fly to Papua New Guinea, a six and a half hour flight roughly South by Southwest, moving me one more time zone forward, to arrive in Port Moresby at 4:30 of Sunday morning local time. Another five hours of layover to the two hour flight to Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands on the island of Guadalcanal (ill-famed for its role in the naval campaign of the Pacific theatre of the second World War). This flight moves “back” in time and space, as it’s pretty much due East and takes me closer to home (as the private jet flies) though the time zones are just weird around the date line so it’s forward by one more time zone. To arrive at noon local time - we have a work meeting that afternoon (which it now appears it’ll be my task to prepare and run), so I won’t be able to sleep until local evening. Which is probably best anyway, as I’ve found this to be one way of easing integration into the local day-and-night cycle.
But right here on the plane I have no idea how to handle that properly. Flying West for a distance usually just makes the day longer. That means you have a long, tiring day, at the end of which you go to bed early (by local time) and actually get a lot of sleep and get up in the local morning. No problem. Going East compresses days, and that doesn’t work. I can make my days longer or nights shorter by staying up voluntarily or getting up early, but I can’t make them shorter by sleeping voluntarily. Absent medication, I’ll just wake up when my body’s had enough rest and be awake during whatever time of the day or night it happens to be. Going *way* West and crossing the dateline exacerbates this problem. I don’t know yet how to deal with it. I’ll just play it by ear and try to get a bit of rest either way.
So I’ll stop typing this for now, I’ve probably spent too much time on this already. I’ll watch the rest of “The Cove” as I settle down for an extended afternoon nap, then get myself some coffee and start preparing in earnest. We have ludicrous amounts of work to do in Honiara and actually have to finish the report while we’re there, so I’m not sure I’ll get to report much of what we do. I just hope the hotel isn’t as bad as internet reviews lead me to believe, or else switching the hotel for the whole group and rounding them all up for the new one might also be my responsibility. I guess I’ll see when I get there.
I walk my daughter to school this morning. She shows me her classroom and I meet her teacher. The school looks nice and bright, class size is small and her teacher is very friendly. She tells me that yes, Renee’s interpretation is correct, she is not handed out all the papers that are being handed out, nor is she being given the entirety of the homework that her classmates are given - she’s given what her teacher believes she might be able to handle (and she seems to be getting it right). She’s also working almost daily with the resident English-as-a-second-language specialist, her confidence is growing daily and she’s got friends in school already. Enough that being told that she might want to invite someone over on Sunday posed the problem of which one to ask first. I am so happy.
My wife presents me with a good luck charm for the trip and brings me to the airport. I check in and, upon advice of my colleagues at the Bank, ask whether my frequent-flyer card (of which I only have a number so far, not an actual plastic card) has been recognized for this flight and whether the upgrade to “Premier Executive” status is through yet. Apparently this is an automatic upgrade in the frequent-flyer status offered to World Bank employees. Or more like a semi-automatic upgrade, as you apparently have to ask for it. I’m not particularly sure of the exact parameters of any of these things - I’ve travelled in the baggage compartments of trains before, and generally managed to find the experience enjoyable, so am not all that concerned with creature comforts.
But I note that roughing it, while still as adventurous as in my late teens (heck, even more so - these days I get to rough it in Japan, the Near East and Southern Africa, when my travels used to be confined to Southern Europe and the Northwestern tip of Africa), it takes more of a toll on me than it used to. Part of this is surely the result of age - I’m not twenty anymore. Another part of it, however, is that I’m no longer travelling for the sheer hell of it. Arriving completely wrecked and sleeping it out semi-comfortably in a crowded youth hostel for a day (heck, make that two if I don’t sleep well) is no longer an option, as I have to work wherever it is that I go. And jet lag didn’t use to factor into the equation, either, because the distances involved were much shorter. So making the transitions as painless as possible is smart. Also, I disliked the attitude my old employer had regarding frequent-flyer programs.
… In Defense of Frequent-Flyer Miles …
We were forbidden from making use of them. This appears to be a peculiarly German way of dealing with it - some BaFin employees would get the benefits the airlines lay out for those who travel (with them) a lot, others would not. These are benefits that would predominantly go to employees in the internationally active units, while those in, say, Human Resources would never have a stab at them. Which, to a German, at first glance appears to be unfair. But of course, this is a reward which goes to those people who, in stark contrast to the stay-at-homes, have to travel a lot. Now I had the impression that for many at BaFin (and outside of it) who don’t get to (or have to) travel much, getting to travel around the world (for the Bank, sometimes literally) is its own reward. And it is, if you get to do it once or twice a year. Beijing in 2006 was awesome, and going without sleep for a while in order to see more of the city was entirely doable. Syria in 2007 - a most excellent experience. In 2008 I went to New York, Tallinn, Tokyo (and thereabouts), Paris, London, Rio de Janeiro and Strasbourg (twice). Oh, and to Frankfurt, Hamburg and Hannover. ;-) At which point travel becomes … not yet a nuisance. But still a stressful necessity. Interesting in its own right, enjoyable sometimes - but something that needs to be accomplished with minimal impact on my ability to function where I am going. Which makes potential free upgrades regarding the class in which I travel less of a reward than a chance to make this whole transitional process work more smoothly. And it’s a bonus (to stay away from the “reward” terminology) which only goes to those who regularly have to expose themselves to the risks and rigours inherent in such travel, which seems eminently fair. And what makes the whole interdiction of personal use of frequent flyer miles by BaFin employees perverse, is that nobody is gaining from it (except maybe the airlines who don’t have to deal out the bonuses, but their incremental costs of a class upgrade is, while not actually known to me, almost certainly very nearly indistinguishable from zero).
So I ask and am told to ask again at the gate. I head to the lounge, wondering whether an upgrade even makes sense - I want to be close to our Task Team Leader (TTL) on this trip, so we can talk business. Having just written up the report on my last mutual evaluation over the Thanksgiving weekend, I’m (again) not as well prepared as I’d like to be. Though at least I’ve started, and have a *lot* of time on our way there. But if only one of us gets an upgrade, that can easily be waived and they’ll just upgrade someone further down the waitlist.
Well, as I sit in the lounge and read the brand-new Economist I grabbed on the way there (7 bucks for a single issue - I guess I’ll have to get a subscription), my cell phone rings and my TTL tells me she can’t make the flight. So she’ll only arrive during the first day of our mission in progress, and I’m in charge of the beginning of it. I kid you not.
Well, alright, then. Good thing I have a lot of time to read up. I head over to the gate and just as I approach it, someone there grabs a handset and, over the loudspeaker, calls for “Andre Corterier, please…” to which I nod and point at myself. “Ah,” he says, “here’s your First Class ticket”.
So I find myself very near the nose of the aircraft in a rather large seat (a footstool across from me telling me that it’ll fold completely flat) which angles in along with the curve of the aircraft hull, allowing me a view to diagonally forward. So seated, my attention is wandering between the Economist, the trip file on the Solomon Islands I prepared, the rather excellent movie collection this flight offers and the lunch they promise to serve soon. Well, between take-off and lunch, really diving into new subject material is pretty much pointless what with all the interruptions, so I settle down to watch “The Cove”, a most excellent (though disturbing) documentary about the wholesale slaughter of dolphins and the role of the captive-dolphin industry (SeaWorld et al.) in the process. And to write these notes. All the time I’m wondering whether I should change my plan regarding diurnal-cycle-management (I may have to come up with a spiffier term for that). It’s three in the afternoon of Friday now in DC, where I took off. That makes it five in the morning - on Saturday (!) - local time in Narita (Tokyo airport), where we’ll be landing in, oh, eleven and a half hours from now. But not only do I cross fourteen time zones, I also cross the date line. So it’ll be 4:30 in the afternoon of Saturday there when we do get there, and 2:30 in the morning (of the same day) on my body’s internal clock (still poorly understood by chronobiologists). An existent, though clearly not well-known area of study, as WinWord’s spellchecker proves by underlining the word as I type it. I then have five hours of layover in Narita. That wouldn’t be so bad - five hours during the afternoon, I even know what temple in Narita town it might make sense to visit during that time - if only it wasn’t the middle of the night for me personally. Which means that I’ll be up to not very much at all. I’m not sure sleep will be easy to come by during that time, either. I then fly to Papua New Guinea, a six and a half hour flight roughly South by Southwest, moving me one more time zone forward, to arrive in Port Moresby at 4:30 of Sunday morning local time. Another five hours of layover to the two hour flight to Honiara, the capital of the Solomon Islands on the island of Guadalcanal (ill-famed for its role in the naval campaign of the Pacific theatre of the second World War). This flight moves “back” in time and space, as it’s pretty much due East and takes me closer to home (as the private jet flies) though the time zones are just weird around the date line so it’s forward by one more time zone. To arrive at noon local time - we have a work meeting that afternoon (which it now appears it’ll be my task to prepare and run), so I won’t be able to sleep until local evening. Which is probably best anyway, as I’ve found this to be one way of easing integration into the local day-and-night cycle.
But right here on the plane I have no idea how to handle that properly. Flying West for a distance usually just makes the day longer. That means you have a long, tiring day, at the end of which you go to bed early (by local time) and actually get a lot of sleep and get up in the local morning. No problem. Going East compresses days, and that doesn’t work. I can make my days longer or nights shorter by staying up voluntarily or getting up early, but I can’t make them shorter by sleeping voluntarily. Absent medication, I’ll just wake up when my body’s had enough rest and be awake during whatever time of the day or night it happens to be. Going *way* West and crossing the dateline exacerbates this problem. I don’t know yet how to deal with it. I’ll just play it by ear and try to get a bit of rest either way.
So I’ll stop typing this for now, I’ve probably spent too much time on this already. I’ll watch the rest of “The Cove” as I settle down for an extended afternoon nap, then get myself some coffee and start preparing in earnest. We have ludicrous amounts of work to do in Honiara and actually have to finish the report while we’re there, so I’m not sure I’ll get to report much of what we do. I just hope the hotel isn’t as bad as internet reviews lead me to believe, or else switching the hotel for the whole group and rounding them all up for the new one might also be my responsibility. I guess I’ll see when I get there.