I'm all at sea...

The last three weeks on the ship have been mentally exhausting. The voyage was nearly over, but we still had half our class days left, which meant lots of work to catch up on. By the time I was finished writing FDPs and essays I was not up for writing blogs. Add to that hours and hours to lose and most of my free time was spent in bed. But now I am officially DONE with finals and schoolwork until January 5! I’ll try to recap some of the big moments that happened while I have been MIA from the blog world.

The first nine days at sea had a notable occurrence – two November 22nds. We crossed the International Date Line and got to repeat a day. Now, losing an hour every other night takes a toll on us. This didn’t have any sleep loss affect, but it left us all in a real state of confusion trying to wrap our minds around the logic behind it. The easiest way I found to explain it was that if we just kept gaining hours, we’d come home a day ahead of everyone else. So when we lost a day we ended up being behind in hours the difference that we were ahead. Or, as Mom said, it’s like we snuck up on you guys from around the world! The second November 22nd was the Students of Service charity auction. If I remember the number correctly, $16,000 were raised by auctioning off everything from first of in Miami to pie-ing the Deans in the face to trips to people’s vacation homes. Now, don’t get me wrong, I think that amount of money going to charity is absolutely fabulous, but it still kind of disgusts me that people my age, after having just spent thousands of dollars traveling around the world, have that kind of money to throw around.

On Thanksgiving we got a brief respite and chance to stretch our legs in American soil in Hawaii! It was not the typical Thanksgiving that I’m used to, based largely on the fact that the temperature was mid-80s, but it was a wonderful day and made even better by the fact that cell phones worked without outrageous fees. My friends and I spent the day with my Great Uncle Peter and his son Andy, daughter Paris, and grandson Vincent. They met us at the dock with leis (which unfortunately molded in my efforts to press them for my scrapbook) and then took us out to lunch where we stuffed ourselves after a week of shipboard food. The occasional french fry or taco day does not help that much when every other day is a predictable, unappetizing menu of potatoes, iceberg lettuce, pasta, fish, and pork selections. Even our back-up food, PB&J sandwiches, was ruined – the Chinese do not know how to make peanut butter, apparently. After lunch we drove over to Andy’s neighbor to swim in their pool. It was pretty much the coolest pool I’ve ever seen: right on the ocean, to the point where the waves crashed over the edge of the pool. A couple of crabs had found their way into the pool too, and we saw an octopus! After a little while we walked down to the beach and spent some time laying in the sun, swimming, and a couple attempts at surfing. I played around on the board a little but didn’t have enough time to actually attempt to ride any waves. And of course we got the typical Thanksgiving dinner at the Pacific Club. As always on Thanksgiving, I had difficulty moving after all the food I ate, it was all so delicious! It was a very relaxing day, a nice break from the stress of schoolwork. And it was nice to be with family on Thanksgiving, even if it was our first time meeting.

Now I’m almost done with the last leg of nine days. In this stretch I’ve had plenty of final papers to write and a couple of finals as well. But I am now officially done, two days ahead of most of my other shipmates! My Global Studies exam was a piece of cake thanks to the curriculum overlapping with the first half of my Zen class. As for my Zen final, my teacher pulled a total cop-out: our exam was for us to write three exam questions and then answer two. I think someone was just as lazy as all of us! It feels so good to be done with work, although now I feel like I have too much free time on my hands, especially since all my friends are still studying! Tomorrow everyone will be officially done, and the next day we land in Costa Rica! I have no real plans except for a canopy adventure the last day; I’m glad I’m ending this trip with a carefree, take-things-as-they-come country. After Costa Rica we’re basically home, I can’t believe it. Out last four days at sea will be spent packing, transiting the Panama Canal, and figuring out how to sum up and say goodbye to this incredible experience. I still haven’t wrapped my mind around that yet; I’m too preoccupied with how I’m going to pack all my things safely and worrying about my customs declaration. Unfortunately my sea was incredibly unlucky with the drawing for order of disembarkation in Miami – second to last. Word is that the first group will start disembarking at 11 and if all goes smoothly the last people will be getting off around 4, so I don’t expect to be touching land until at least 3, meaning one last lunch on the ship! It’s all a strange tornado of emotions right now: I don’t want to stop travelling, but I’d really like to be off this ship and out of my tiny cabin; I don’t want to leave my friends, but I don’t want to spend any more time away from home. I imagine my mind will be grappling with processing this experience for awhile after I get back, so I’m not going to attempt to tackle it now. I’ve got my countdown on my wall and I can’t wait to get home and see all of you! I miss you terribly.