So, after three days of working twelve-hours, I marked today, which also happens to be the last day of the spring semester’s term (I finished my finals last Thursday, and yet only one prof has so far posted grades), as the start of my Great Job Hunt TM.

I started by registering on Monster.com. I’m wondering how smart an idea that was: I just got what seems to be a mass-generated e-mail requesting I come to an “interview” in Texas tomorrow morning (and not Texas, Maryland, which is conveniently located two miles away, but big belt buckle Texas, located half a fucking continent away). Except, it sounds more like an “investment opportunity”, so I’m a little suspicious about how effective a job-searching tool Monster.com might be.

Anyway, back to writing cover letters and submitting resumes.

Here’s to more spam employee e-mails.

I remember, far more years ago then I care to admit, walking across the deck of the USS Constitution. I’ve been aboard the Constellation, of course, but it was there on the deck of “Old Ironsides” that I looked to the sky, my eyes guided by the towering masts, and as I looked from port to starboard, fore and aft, I thought about what the crew of these old wooden ships risked to set out among a hostile environment for the purposes of commerce, exploration, or defense.

I don’t think I’d heard of the Cutty Sark before today, or at least not more than briefly as a sound clip somewhere. How sad and tragic that this relic of a bygone era was the victim of what is being investigated as a deliberate act of arson.

After her launch, the Cutty Sark had seven good trips to China in the 1870s. It would go out loaded with alcohol, and come back carrying more than 1,400 tons of tea. On one famous occasion, it lost its rudder going through Java’s Sunda Strait, but using an improvised replacement was still only a week behind the first ship back to London.

But on the eighth voyage, they discovered that all the tea had been loaded on to steam ships, which could make the return voyage in less time because they went through the Suez Canal, which sailing ships could not do because they needed the head winds. After the captain found out that he did not have a cargo to take home, he died, and the first mate, James Wallace, took over as captain.

Captain Wallace later threw himself overboard after his crew went on strike and the ship was becalmed in the Java Sea.

But when the Cutty Sark went into service carrying wool from Australia to the UK in the 1880s, she set a the world record by making the trip, round the Cape of Good Hope, in 72 days.

In 1895, she was sold to the Portuguese. She saw service during the First World War, when she was very badly damaged.

In 1922, she ran into a gale in the English Channel and had to dock in Falmouth. A retired shipowner, Wilfred Dowman, spotted her and decided to preserve her for the nation. He paid £3,750.

Thankfully, the Cutty Sark Trust (the group overseeing the museum ship’s refit) isn’t willing to give up on the ship: “The Cutty Sark has meant so much to so many people, that whatever it costs, and however long it takes, we will put her back together.”

I just wish I knew what motivated people (like the arsonist) to destroy these monuments to human history. Could have been worse, though — they could’ve torched the Victory.