SAS entry
Hmmm…so, I thought I’d write a little bit about life at sea…. I’m at sea right now and have been for about 4 days. I finally saw my first whale today-I was in class looking out the window and started jumping up and down…quite the commotion…at least everyone else, most importantly the professor, got into it.
I haven’t yet talked about the people I’ve been meeting on this trip. Well, there are 650 of us students and I still see new faces on the ship daily (that also gives you an idea of how large the ship is). Beck and I are together with our new friends the majority of the time. Almost everyone here is ‘really good looking’. Beck’s theory is that the better looking you are, the more confidence you have….and confidence goes hand in hand with taking a risk and going on a voyage like this. My roommate is adorable- her name is Shana and is here with 2 other girls from her sorority (surprisingly there are numbers of people here from fraternities and sororities)- we get along really well. She has an olive complexion, but unfortunately got one of the worst sunburns I’ve seen the other day- her face didn’t really turn red, but it swelled up and had blisters. She cried all day and I spent the time holding cool compresses on her face and running down to the physician with her (where her ‘sisters’ were, I don’t know…haha). I have a group of guy friends (the Life Aquatic fellas I mentioned earlier…and yes, they bought me a red beanie in Puerto Rico..…dorks) that I spend about…hmm….60-70% of my time with. On the ship we play a lot of ping pong (the rocking of the ship makes it that much more intense-we’re pretty fierce) and sharing music. They are mostly swimmers and lacrosse players from New York and Philly(2 from Vermont). Another group of friends I spend a lot of time with are a bunch of girls Beck and I met our first day aboard- they are from all over the US and are incredibly sarcastic- we have a good time as you can imagine. Yesturday it was one of my friends birthday’s and they brought a certain number of us their (most of the staff here are Jamaican and or from the Phillipines) rendition of what an ‘American’ birthday cake should look and taste like. Apparently a couple of voyages ago, they were shown a photo of what is should look like and made it entirely out of Crisco. I still meet new people I dig daily and love it. As the number of things you can do while at sea are limited (time on the internet is charged, no tv, they pick 1 movie they repeat each night, and eventually studying is finished), at night all of students pick up a couple of beers and play board games. Yes, board games. All over the ship and deck there are groups of us playing Risk, Scattergories, Monopoly, Poker, Egyptian rat screw, and so on. Yes, life is good.
Tomorrow is Neptune Day-which means we will be sailing over the equator and will become ‘shellbacks’. This is a relatively large deal for sailors and there are several celebrations and initiations for first-timers. We are part of a comparatively limited group of people who have sailed over it and this event is time honored with much ritual. It is such a holiday that our classes are cancelled tomorrow. The most frequent initiation on our ship is to shave your head and in all honesty, I’m considering it. I will only sail over the equator for my first time once and why not do it right.
I haven’t yet talked about the people I’ve been meeting on this trip. Well, there are 650 of us students and I still see new faces on the ship daily (that also gives you an idea of how large the ship is). Beck and I are together with our new friends the majority of the time. Almost everyone here is ‘really good looking’. Beck’s theory is that the better looking you are, the more confidence you have….and confidence goes hand in hand with taking a risk and going on a voyage like this. My roommate is adorable- her name is Shana and is here with 2 other girls from her sorority (surprisingly there are numbers of people here from fraternities and sororities)- we get along really well. She has an olive complexion, but unfortunately got one of the worst sunburns I’ve seen the other day- her face didn’t really turn red, but it swelled up and had blisters. She cried all day and I spent the time holding cool compresses on her face and running down to the physician with her (where her ‘sisters’ were, I don’t know…haha). I have a group of guy friends (the Life Aquatic fellas I mentioned earlier…and yes, they bought me a red beanie in Puerto Rico..…dorks) that I spend about…hmm….60-70% of my time with. On the ship we play a lot of ping pong (the rocking of the ship makes it that much more intense-we’re pretty fierce) and sharing music. They are mostly swimmers and lacrosse players from New York and Philly(2 from Vermont). Another group of friends I spend a lot of time with are a bunch of girls Beck and I met our first day aboard- they are from all over the US and are incredibly sarcastic- we have a good time as you can imagine. Yesturday it was one of my friends birthday’s and they brought a certain number of us their (most of the staff here are Jamaican and or from the Phillipines) rendition of what an ‘American’ birthday cake should look and taste like. Apparently a couple of voyages ago, they were shown a photo of what is should look like and made it entirely out of Crisco. I still meet new people I dig daily and love it. As the number of things you can do while at sea are limited (time on the internet is charged, no tv, they pick 1 movie they repeat each night, and eventually studying is finished), at night all of students pick up a couple of beers and play board games. Yes, board games. All over the ship and deck there are groups of us playing Risk, Scattergories, Monopoly, Poker, Egyptian rat screw, and so on. Yes, life is good.
Tomorrow is Neptune Day-which means we will be sailing over the equator and will become ‘shellbacks’. This is a relatively large deal for sailors and there are several celebrations and initiations for first-timers. We are part of a comparatively limited group of people who have sailed over it and this event is time honored with much ritual. It is such a holiday that our classes are cancelled tomorrow. The most frequent initiation on our ship is to shave your head and in all honesty, I’m considering it. I will only sail over the equator for my first time once and why not do it right.