“never let your studies interfere with your learning”

            -Mark Twain

Greetings from the middle of the Pacific Ocean!

… we finally arrived on the ship on Sunday, after a 2 ½ hour bus ride to Ensenada, Mexico! The ship is beautiful! It used to be a Greek cruise ship, and despite its small stature next to the gigantic Carnival ship also parked in Ensenada, it is perfect for our trip.. with a total of  about 1000 passengers, including 585 students + faculty + 200 staff, the ship is so perfect.. The rooms, don’t you worry, are not too small, and they are cleaned to perfection every single DAY! My roommate is Anne from Philly and she goes to Syracuse College she’s great and I’m so lucky I got a good roommate!... and our bathroom is bigger than I expected and the room is actually quite spacious (and I LOVE our view of the rolling ocean right outside our big window behind our beds!   Everyone was soooo exhausted on the first night (not to mention nauseous from the rough seas…  that will probably be the only night of the trip 600 college students go to bed at 10 o’ clock!  Trevor's roomie is from Norway which is very cool also. His inside cabin is not bad at all.. theres a huge mirror on one wall so it looks bigger than it is... the only real difference is the window/brightness in my room.. but trevor likes the pitch-black-i-don't-know-what-time-it-is-so-I'll-just-sleep-until-the-afternoon type room...

               Anyways, Monday was filled with orientation to the ship, etc and we continued exploring, trying to get a feel for the boat, that, despite it’s small size, still has me lost and confused at most times of the day.  The pool area and decks are beautiful! And there is a popcorn machine at the pool bar that is already teasing me (small bags are $2 each!!! Man) and the snack bar sells AMAZING smoothies (everyone had them by the pool today when we were all laying out).  These last three days have been so nice, getting warmer and warmer every day as we get closer to Hawaii. On Monday night we had our activities fair, where I signed up for yoga classes, to be on the programming committee (coming up with karaoke nights, socials on the ship, etc) as well as the Sea Olympics committee (one day every voyage toward the end they have a ship-wide Olympic games and I am so excited so I’m happy I get to be on the planning committee for it. We also signed up for these things called “extended families” which are led by faculty or lifelong learners (older adults who come on the ship with us) and they have about 8 kids per group and the families meet every week… but we don’t find out who our family is until 2 weeks from now! Last night we also had a fun (and very competitive) game of trivia.. Trevor and I recruited two friends and two older adults sitting down for our team (we figured we’d have the edge if we got some lifelong learners on our team!) We were so right--- The two people sitting down- one is the COO of the Institute for Shipboard Education and he was looking over all the operations of Semester at Sea before he goes back to Charlottesville, VA to report back after the port of Hawaii.. and the other girl was the Audio Visual head for the whole voyage (so she got ALL the movie trivia right) and of course Trevor was on top of the sports questions, the other girl on our team knew her biology, the guy knew sports as well, and I was along for the ride (Just kidding, I definitely was our key player haha) Anyways we didn’t end up winning (there were like 30 teams playing) but we were sure close!!! Next trivia night, we’re ready to dominate.  PS the C.O.O of Institute for Shipboard Education kept turning to Trevor and saying “She’s tough!” and “I’m glad I’m on her team” cause I was being a little competitive… haha

 

Classes started yesterday and today, my favorite I think is going to be marine biology… The teacher (trevor’s biology of sharks teacher as well) is from Charleston, South Carolina and went to the college of Charleston and got his post doc at Scripps Oceanography in San Diego.. He is so nice and SOOO passionate about sharks and all of marine life.. it seems like it’ll be a great class. Also my child and adolescent development teacher is awesome, she is so sweet and, like all of the faculty on board, she also is so passionate about her topic.  Our Global studies professor (global studies is a class everyone takes, every day, at either 9:30am or 2pm, and the professor is extremely outgoing and energetic which makes it very fun.  Trevor is really excited about biology of sharks and the opportunity to shark dive in cape town (YIKES), he also loves his real estate and investment class and teacher so that seems like an awesome class as well.

Last night we joined a group of about 30 people playing CatchPhrase and it was a very fun, loud game followed by Boys vs Girls charades (we made the boys act out legally blonde, beauty and the beast, and so many more funny ones). That was really fun, we got to hang out with some really cool people, one guy from so cal who was looking for people to get a Japanese Rail Pass with him and travel all over japan (which is what trev and I were planning to do all along) so our group of japan independent travelers is getting bigger and bigger! Also this guy knows all about japan as hes been there before so he knows all the best sites and tips!

Also, I've already made friends with some of the waiters and staff (they are all from the phillipines-- keith--you're so right they are the nicest! I even was singing american songs with one of the waiters during breakfast this morning.. and a bunch know my name which is awesome!

 We have only 5 more days until Hawaii!!!!  Today I got done with classes at 12:15, and like 400 other students on board, layed out in the gorgeous sun on the pool deck... you could just see it in everybody's eyes when they were confusedly wondering how this vacation could ever be considered academic and thinking "oh my god... this is our life....right here, on top of this gorgeous deep blue sea... in this resort-of-a-ship.. for the next 4 months."