Days 2-4.
Day 3: A Classy Guy
This the third (but actually the 6th) day of SAS I made some friends. It was the first day of classes as well. My first class, Sociology of Religion, was somewhat disappointing. I decided that I would drop it as my classmates were of three types: 1) Roman Catholic, 2) raised Christian/Jewish but questioning these things, 3) an Atheist (this was a lifelong learner, I wished to speak more to him at some point). Then there was me. Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. My professor spent the beginning of class telling us all about famous ships which traveled the world and made an attempt at connecting this to his class. I wasn’t quite impressed, unfortunately. Towards the end of class, we split into 5 groups. Each member of each group was to tell the entire class what the person to his/her left “believed in” or our religious affiliations and such. I commented on this above. Many said that they were “very spiritual”. I dunno. Some how, I don’t always buy this. The girl to my right told the class that I believed that the universe was a single thing and that people can divide it into an infinite number of smaller parts, but it’s really just one. My second class was Knowledge and Responsibility, a philosophy course. (Classes alternate days: A1 B1 A2 B2 A3 B3, … An, Bn, so that there are n days for each class, and each class either falls on an A or B day.) I was not signed into this class, but I might. We heard a video of man speaking of Cruelty/Evil and its morality. The question posed was what would be better: To use pacifism/love to stop some of an evil or violence/hate to stop a greater portion of that same evil? It was good.
New Friends:
During every event and at around every corner, you meet people. I’ve met so many people. At a mandatory meeting, I chose once again to sit in the union. Next to me sat three girls. Or I sat next to them. I might have been leaning against a pole until they sat. Either way, we sat four in a row. Let it be stated that the ratio of males to females on this journey is 3:7. A total of 700-800 students. Now, my meeting them was nothing new and nothing special. As is the flutter of a butterfly’s wings. Now, this may have occurred the second day, in fact, just after my last post. I recall meeting an Abigail here. I do not know the identities of the other two girls, but I will find out for sure. As is my usual style, I was wandering around the dining halls. I ran into Abigail and met two of her friends, one being a fellow named Kyle. The other I cannot recall, and will not find out for sure. Oh, I must mention Israel. He told me of the existence of a new place. The only place I hadn’t been. There are 7 ~decks~ on this ~ship~. The first is inaccessible. The second holds the gangway, mental and physical health rooms, 6 ~cabins~ for students, and crew/staff ~cabins~. The third, fourth, and fifth contain mostly cabins. A dining hall exists on the fifth. The sixth contains the computer center, library, a large dining hall, the union, and many classrooms. There are more things, but the seventh deck is the top deck. It’s primarily outside save for the Jade Spa and the Staff Lounge, and Cabins/Offices for a few of the higher ups. Israel, a tall pale fellow with a good accent says to me with bags under his eyes, that he watched the sunrise from the front of the ship. I thought, “Impossible, unless from the Staff Lounge!” It turns out that there is an outside deck that surrounds the lounge. One can see where we are going from here. Well, Abigail and I were walking around and she asked if I wanted to go to the 7th deck to get outside. (There are outside areas on the 4th - 7th decks.) I said, “Sure! Have you been to the front?” She hadn’t either. I had, but only earlier. I showed her the way, which is only via the front staircase. We talked and lay down to watch the stars for some time. My first real connection with a person on this trip. We both were afraid that we might not meet anyone with whom we could connect, but after this moment, I began to connect many times with many people.
More of Day 2: Zoo!
Zoo is a crazy-ass game. Period. 20 people.
Day 4: Sun, Ho!
Rumour has it that the sunrise over the first port is the thing to see. (Or is it every port?) Well, many many students awoke early (Rusty and Jesse, as well.) I woke up early, after Rusty, but before Jesse, and made sure to wake up Abigail and her room mate, Kirby (awesome name, right?). It was wonderous, the boat had arrived in San Juan overnight, and just watching the people all waiting with cameras and jimmies and the like. I watch people constantly in this new and strange environment. Naturally, there will be pictures of these events. I thought to yell “Land, ho!” when we arrived at San Juan, but we were already stopped. So I thought to wait until I saw the Sun. At 7:02AM, I hollered from the 7th Deck of the MV Explorer, “Sun, Ho!”
Puerto Rico:
We all decided to meet at La Casaita (sp?), “The Little House”, which is where the tourist information is. We (all the cool kids, you’ll see them/hear about them from time to time) couldn’t find it. We traveled through “Old San Juan” in order to find it, and stopped at a few places along the way. I bought an awesome $3.00 hat and Clear possibly Glass Pyramid. Courtney, often called lovingly “The Rainbow Child”, had purchased a similar hat in pink, leading me purchase mine. We stopped at a local eatery, where Kirby, Brandon, myself, Caitlin and Brittany (two non-chalantly crazy crazy funny girls that are usually in a pair), Abigail, and Courtney all ate and had our first toasts (of drinks). I was signed up for the Welcome Reception at San Juan later in the day, but I was convinced to join in the Bioluminescent Bay trip with Abigail and McKenzie (her name is really Lauren or something?). I cannot describe what an amazing experience this was. There are several places on this earth, and only several, where a type of micro-organism exists which when touches emits an amount of light 100 times its own size. Imagine if you can, because there are no pictures here, of
Light:
We arrive at this small body of water in Puerto Rico. In pairs we Kayak through the dark dark night to a small channel, maybe 15-25 feet across, and 20 minutes long. Each Kayak is equipped with a small circle glow stick on the front and back, and see-through plastic floors. We travel through the channel of Mangroves, which are trees that grow with their large roots above and out of the water. The Coqui (Tree Frogs) sound like crickets, surrounding us Everywhere, but nowhere to be seen. It’s so dark that you can barely who is in each boat, us all attempting to stay in our single file formation. All of sudden, we hear “Stay to the right!!!” from our guide. A motor boats comes towards us in the narrow channel and all these kayaks in a row full people who 1) cannot really steer a kayak, and 2) cannot see where the channel ends and the mangrove roots begin. And there are oncoming kayaks. Again and again, kayaks come at as we travel down the channel. The stars are so clear in the sky. It was beautiful and the absurdity of what was happening (kayaks crashing into each other, getting turned around, caught in the Mangroves, oars hitting people and boats and roots)! Further down the channel we hear: “Put your hand the water!” from a student behind us. All of sudden we realize that touching the water makes it light up. Imagine pepper in water that’s alive and swimming around. Now shrink that pepper to micro-size. Put it in the water of the Mangrove channel. Now anytime you touch this micro-living pepper, it zooms away, emitting a small speck of light for half-a-second. Now multiply this so that putting your hand in the water creates 100’s of lights! We realized that our oars also caused this surreal phenomenon. We realized that the kayak itself, across the water made the lights go. We watched through the floor. We traveled through the channel for some time until out of no where a huge lagoon was before us. In the distance the Moon rose over the mountains and Puerto Rican trees were silhouetted in black. The bay was only 2-4 feet deep in places, but must have had the diameter of at least 1-2 football fields. Our guide explained the organisms and their properties. And that when fish and manta and people swim in the water, all leave trails of light behind them. F a s c i n a t i n g . . . brilliant, breathtaking… just… so beautiful~
This the third (but actually the 6th) day of SAS I made some friends. It was the first day of classes as well. My first class, Sociology of Religion, was somewhat disappointing. I decided that I would drop it as my classmates were of three types: 1) Roman Catholic, 2) raised Christian/Jewish but questioning these things, 3) an Atheist (this was a lifelong learner, I wished to speak more to him at some point). Then there was me. Well, I’m getting ahead of myself. My professor spent the beginning of class telling us all about famous ships which traveled the world and made an attempt at connecting this to his class. I wasn’t quite impressed, unfortunately. Towards the end of class, we split into 5 groups. Each member of each group was to tell the entire class what the person to his/her left “believed in” or our religious affiliations and such. I commented on this above. Many said that they were “very spiritual”. I dunno. Some how, I don’t always buy this. The girl to my right told the class that I believed that the universe was a single thing and that people can divide it into an infinite number of smaller parts, but it’s really just one. My second class was Knowledge and Responsibility, a philosophy course. (Classes alternate days: A1 B1 A2 B2 A3 B3, … An, Bn, so that there are n days for each class, and each class either falls on an A or B day.) I was not signed into this class, but I might. We heard a video of man speaking of Cruelty/Evil and its morality. The question posed was what would be better: To use pacifism/love to stop some of an evil or violence/hate to stop a greater portion of that same evil? It was good.
New Friends:
During every event and at around every corner, you meet people. I’ve met so many people. At a mandatory meeting, I chose once again to sit in the union. Next to me sat three girls. Or I sat next to them. I might have been leaning against a pole until they sat. Either way, we sat four in a row. Let it be stated that the ratio of males to females on this journey is 3:7. A total of 700-800 students. Now, my meeting them was nothing new and nothing special. As is the flutter of a butterfly’s wings. Now, this may have occurred the second day, in fact, just after my last post. I recall meeting an Abigail here. I do not know the identities of the other two girls, but I will find out for sure. As is my usual style, I was wandering around the dining halls. I ran into Abigail and met two of her friends, one being a fellow named Kyle. The other I cannot recall, and will not find out for sure. Oh, I must mention Israel. He told me of the existence of a new place. The only place I hadn’t been. There are 7 ~decks~ on this ~ship~. The first is inaccessible. The second holds the gangway, mental and physical health rooms, 6 ~cabins~ for students, and crew/staff ~cabins~. The third, fourth, and fifth contain mostly cabins. A dining hall exists on the fifth. The sixth contains the computer center, library, a large dining hall, the union, and many classrooms. There are more things, but the seventh deck is the top deck. It’s primarily outside save for the Jade Spa and the Staff Lounge, and Cabins/Offices for a few of the higher ups. Israel, a tall pale fellow with a good accent says to me with bags under his eyes, that he watched the sunrise from the front of the ship. I thought, “Impossible, unless from the Staff Lounge!” It turns out that there is an outside deck that surrounds the lounge. One can see where we are going from here. Well, Abigail and I were walking around and she asked if I wanted to go to the 7th deck to get outside. (There are outside areas on the 4th - 7th decks.) I said, “Sure! Have you been to the front?” She hadn’t either. I had, but only earlier. I showed her the way, which is only via the front staircase. We talked and lay down to watch the stars for some time. My first real connection with a person on this trip. We both were afraid that we might not meet anyone with whom we could connect, but after this moment, I began to connect many times with many people.
More of Day 2: Zoo!
Zoo is a crazy-ass game. Period. 20 people.
Day 4: Sun, Ho!
Rumour has it that the sunrise over the first port is the thing to see. (Or is it every port?) Well, many many students awoke early (Rusty and Jesse, as well.) I woke up early, after Rusty, but before Jesse, and made sure to wake up Abigail and her room mate, Kirby (awesome name, right?). It was wonderous, the boat had arrived in San Juan overnight, and just watching the people all waiting with cameras and jimmies and the like. I watch people constantly in this new and strange environment. Naturally, there will be pictures of these events. I thought to yell “Land, ho!” when we arrived at San Juan, but we were already stopped. So I thought to wait until I saw the Sun. At 7:02AM, I hollered from the 7th Deck of the MV Explorer, “Sun, Ho!”
Puerto Rico:
We all decided to meet at La Casaita (sp?), “The Little House”, which is where the tourist information is. We (all the cool kids, you’ll see them/hear about them from time to time) couldn’t find it. We traveled through “Old San Juan” in order to find it, and stopped at a few places along the way. I bought an awesome $3.00 hat and Clear possibly Glass Pyramid. Courtney, often called lovingly “The Rainbow Child”, had purchased a similar hat in pink, leading me purchase mine. We stopped at a local eatery, where Kirby, Brandon, myself, Caitlin and Brittany (two non-chalantly crazy crazy funny girls that are usually in a pair), Abigail, and Courtney all ate and had our first toasts (of drinks). I was signed up for the Welcome Reception at San Juan later in the day, but I was convinced to join in the Bioluminescent Bay trip with Abigail and McKenzie (her name is really Lauren or something?). I cannot describe what an amazing experience this was. There are several places on this earth, and only several, where a type of micro-organism exists which when touches emits an amount of light 100 times its own size. Imagine if you can, because there are no pictures here, of
Light:
We arrive at this small body of water in Puerto Rico. In pairs we Kayak through the dark dark night to a small channel, maybe 15-25 feet across, and 20 minutes long. Each Kayak is equipped with a small circle glow stick on the front and back, and see-through plastic floors. We travel through the channel of Mangroves, which are trees that grow with their large roots above and out of the water. The Coqui (Tree Frogs) sound like crickets, surrounding us Everywhere, but nowhere to be seen. It’s so dark that you can barely who is in each boat, us all attempting to stay in our single file formation. All of sudden, we hear “Stay to the right!!!” from our guide. A motor boats comes towards us in the narrow channel and all these kayaks in a row full people who 1) cannot really steer a kayak, and 2) cannot see where the channel ends and the mangrove roots begin. And there are oncoming kayaks. Again and again, kayaks come at as we travel down the channel. The stars are so clear in the sky. It was beautiful and the absurdity of what was happening (kayaks crashing into each other, getting turned around, caught in the Mangroves, oars hitting people and boats and roots)! Further down the channel we hear: “Put your hand the water!” from a student behind us. All of sudden we realize that touching the water makes it light up. Imagine pepper in water that’s alive and swimming around. Now shrink that pepper to micro-size. Put it in the water of the Mangrove channel. Now anytime you touch this micro-living pepper, it zooms away, emitting a small speck of light for half-a-second. Now multiply this so that putting your hand in the water creates 100’s of lights! We realized that our oars also caused this surreal phenomenon. We realized that the kayak itself, across the water made the lights go. We watched through the floor. We traveled through the channel for some time until out of no where a huge lagoon was before us. In the distance the Moon rose over the mountains and Puerto Rican trees were silhouetted in black. The bay was only 2-4 feet deep in places, but must have had the diameter of at least 1-2 football fields. Our guide explained the organisms and their properties. And that when fish and manta and people swim in the water, all leave trails of light behind them. F a s c i n a t i n g . . . brilliant, breathtaking… just… so beautiful~