Life at the end of the journey!
7:34 AM
What finals?!
As our trip sadly is coming to a close, we are luckily not letting it get us down! We decided to dedicate a blog to shiplife at this part of the voyage because we have just been having so much fun. In the days before Brazil, when finals were a little too far in the distance to worry about them and projects were a little unimportant in comparison to our tans that we needed for the beaches of Rio, I spent almost every day out in the sun with Cara, Toree and Sally.. we all can proudly say we are way tanner than gisele bundchen and are so ready for Brasiliaaaa! We also decided that, with the end of this amazing experience coming way too fast, we needed to go to special occasion dining not once, not twice, but three times. Special Occasion Dining is this amazing thing on board where, for an extra cost (That is totally worth it) you get seated in this private room with white tablecloths and waiters waiting on you hand and foot in a restaurant-like setting.. they also serve you champagne and a five course DELICIOUS meal. Also it’s really fun cause you get really dressed up and take pictures and the dinner lasts about two hours! So, at first we were just signed up for one night with Melinda and Jose as a double date but then our friend Eric (who is the student comedian who always hosts things) decided he definitely wanted to be invited—only one problem—he didn’t have a date.. he wasn’t about to fifth wheel it, so, of course, he decided he would find a way to get a date. He was in charge of hosting the shipboard auction the night before our fancy dinner, which was really fun, we all got to bid on weekend getaways at professors’ houses, (these went for around 500$!) a photo with the captain, dinner with the captain, a voyage map charting our course (This one went for 675$!! YIKES) signed desperate housewives paraphernalia (one of the students’ dads is a writer on the show), taking a bath in the academic deans office (yes theres a bath tub in his office haha), etc etc… it was a very fun night (Trevor and I won a salt lake city getaway at one of the lifelong learners homes for a weekend—apparently the house is 20 mins from park city and right near a bunch of ski resorts and we nabbed it in the silent auction for only 85$!) also we won (along with a group of about 6 other people) a weekend at the riedengers’ house in Knoxville, Tennesee! The Riedengers are my extended family “mom and dad” but they have officially adopted Trevor into our family. Lee and Tina decided that we should all come visit them in Knoxville this summer, so we are going for a weekend of country dancing at cotton eyed joes, hiking in the smokey mountains, and waterskiing at their lakehouse.. we can’t wait! But back to Eric! So as he was announcing all of the items he throws in a surprise--- “For a generous donation to Semester at Sea, the handsome, the manly, the great Eric Burgoyne will take YOU to an extra special occasion dinner TOMORROW NIGHT!” the audience almost fainted haha as the bidding began for the spot at our dinner table… Our friend Graham (yes a boy) ended up outbidding everyone for a 90$ winning bid because he really wanted to come to dinner.. luckily for Eric, though, Graham ended up giving his spot to the next highest bidder Toree, because graham had an intramural basketball game that he couldn’t miss… So the dinner was Toree and Eric, Jose and Melinda and me and Trevor. It was so much fun, the food was delicious, and we had a great photoshoot after (see pictures)
Special Occasion Dining! 
What the girls do all day...
Toree and I laying out in the sun :)
Toree and I (above)... and our amazing photoshoot (below!)
Toree and Eric!
But how could we stop there? Graham and his girlfriend Shauna (they met on the ship and are so cute!) wanted to have an awesome fancy dinner double date with us, so we snagged one of the last nights available (these things go fast! Especially at the end of the voyage when everyone wants to do it!) It turns out thought that that one night that was available is exactly the night before the OTHER night we were planning on doing special occasion with graham, shauna, alli, toree, sally, cara, becca, Brittany, Victoria, renae, etc etc (we’re taking over the whole room)… but who can complain about 2 special occasion dinings in a row! Were so excited!
We also have had plenty of game nights in our alcove which is this area right outside of Shauna and Alli’s room which is like this huge porch in the hallway and we all circle in there and play awesome games until way late at night.. our favorite is the stickie game where you put a character or a person or something like that on someone’s forehead and they try to guess who they are while you give them funny and clever (but hard!) hints.. it gets really funny and the things people come up with to put on the stickies are sooo hilarious.
From the left: Cara, Toree, Me, Alli, Victoria, Becca, Sally!
Graham and I
Cara, Trev and Christina at lunchtime
Cara, Trev and Christina at lunchtime Hanging out in the alcove
Trevor, me and Sally!
We're playing the fun sticky game (we don't just all have sticky notes on our foreheads for no reason!)
Shauna!
Cara, Brittany and I out after watching the sunset
The boys having cuddle time
Sally Toree and Becca decided it would be a good idea to order an ice cream cake for no reason--- it was a great idea and we finished the whole thing
Dinner time on deck five!
So that’s whats been goin on on the fun front, now I’ll let Trevor take it away for the equally important academic stuff!!!
Finals means crunch time, nothing like coming back from a port and having a smash of 5 days for teachers to give you everything that they haven’t had time to give you during the semester. The biggest and most important project was that of the mandatory global studies seminar, where groups were made at the beginning of the year in order to do extensive research in ports for the final presentation. Since the theme of the voyage is sustainability our topic could be anything about this and we chose the sustainability of the future, specifically the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal of universal education and better education standards for all countries of the world. Our group consisted of Christina and I, a girl Amy who goes to Western Kentucky University, two guys named Jimmy and Jeff who were a year ahead of us at Campolindo (Jimmy was the kicker for the football team when he kicked an extra point to beat us 21-20 my junior year) and lastly Sam, Jeff’s cousin who goes to Chico State. We split up the countries and made sure everyone was taking pictures, videos, and notes about childhood and education in the respective ports. Christina was the ringleader making the powerpoint and a great introduction that appealed to the emotion of the audience, while I helped with the structure and everyone inputted their various experiences and information.
Christina came up with the idea to title it “Universal Ambition” and we had an introduction video from Jimmy in Ghana asking a bunch of little students what they want to be when they grow up and them answering, “I wanna be a doctor” or “lawyer, movie star, accountant”, and finally, “just like you.” After that heartfelt intro, we broke down into each country we visited with facts and pictures, with Christina making a photo and video slideshow of China and Cambodia with music and a voice-over that added great professionalism to our project. We presented early in the morning, with our business professional clothes on (gotta look good to play good) and Christina had enthusiasm and pep that our Global Studies teacher immediately liked, while I backed her up with logical facts about the project. He was excited about our project and after teetering since he has to watch over 100 projects (as every student on the ship had to participate and present their projects) he decided that not only would we receive an A on our project, but that we were one of the select few projects chosen to be a part of the University of Virginia’s research grant! This grant is a $5000 project put on by Virginia’s Curry School of Education graduate students who will take our project from the Millenium Development sustainability goals and present them as curriculum to various high schools throughout the United States. Our powerpoint, and the lesson plan that we provided, will be used in high school classrooms as a new outlook for sustainability of the future-not too shabby I would say!!
We were so excited about this needless to say, and had some motivation to continue our studies for our finals. Christina prepared for her International Management final, with Professor Guenther, a professor from Germany who, with his thick accent yells out statistics and puts up crazy graphs that explain to geniuses how BMW and Siemens corp do well, while everyone’s head hurts. That class has got to be killer from what I’ve heard from Christina and the talks I’ve heard him give in Global Studies… as she studied hard for that one, I prepared for my favorite Biology of Sharks class --memorizing 25 shark latin names and common names, memorizing their osmoregulation patterns, how their ampullae of lorenzini orient them to the magnetic poles of the globe, and how endangered many of the species are. In addition, Christina has Child Development and Marine Bio exams tomorrow, as well as I have my World Music and Real Estate Principles. So everyone is in a state of panic of finals time and the realization that there if just too few time left on this trip as we longingly look out our windows from our study groups at the Caribbean islands we are currently passing! 
IT'S DODGEBALL TIME!
Melinda and I outside our lovely home!
Cheers to an amazing semester and a life changing experience together :)
Melinda and I outside our lovely home!Cheers to an amazing semester and a life changing experience together :)
Special Occasion Dining with Graham and Shauna!
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Life is good - everyone looks great and studying hard :)
Dinners sounded special along with the shipboard auction. The weekend in Knoxville will be such fun reminiscing -
The USA is awaiting your return - Love Grandma Vidal