An Aside

So life on the ship... It is interesting. We do not go by days of the week there are only three types of days. A day, B day or no class day. We alternate A and B days and have one no class day sometime between each port.

Even though this is a pretty big ship, it constantly is rocking back and forth. It literally never stops. There are weird shakes and sounds that you think you would never want to hear when hundreds of miles away from any help. But we have always been safe and never really been in danger so far.

I am also never fully awake, it is really easy to go to sleep because the boat constantly lulls you to sleep. Also the food is not that great, but you kinda just put it in your mouth and chew and swallow and try not to complain too much.

So I can’t exactly explain a typical day because A, B, and class days tend to be pretty different from each other.

My typical A day

0800    Wake up and eat breakfast before the dining hall closes
        Next finish up school work due today because I have percrastinated for awhile
1000    Do 30 minutes on the elliptical
1030    Do 30 minutes on the bike or stair master
1100    Do 30 minutes of abs, pushups and stretching
1130    Take a shower
1150    Eat Lunch
1220    Go to my Sustainable Development Class (which is usually interesting, but I either am turning in a paper or doing a presentation for this class, so I am usually a little stressed when I come into it)
1350    Documentary Production Class- Everyday I come in worried because I do not have any good footage for a documentary, but I am able to get by OK
1500    I go do work. I am a Program Assistant for the Health Relations Living Learning Coordinator. Its easy and fun and my boss is cool. She’s a Stanford Grad ’01.
1700    I think about doing school work but usually don’t do anything
1800    Eat dinner
And after dinner I usually have some meeting for something or a study group or something. Usually around 2000 I go back to my room and watch a movie or go play a card game. I have gotten very good at Hearts.
I am usually asleep by 2300

My typical B day

0700    I wake up, take a shower go eat breakfast before class
0800    World Cinema class. It’s an hour and fifteen minutes of watching movies from the countries we are about to go to. Its interesting, but its getting kinda boring and the professor is always grumpy. I usually do my homework for this class during this class.
0920    The horrendous Global Studies. This is the class that everyone has to take. It is boring and our professor for some reason does not believe in powerpoint so barely anyone can follow what he is saying. I usually take this time to organize pictures on my computer and check email
1045    I go to work
1200    Eat lunch
1300    Usually fairly productive in getting some work done
1500    Non-profit Leadership – This is my best class, it is interesting and engaging and I enjoy going to it.
1620    I usually watch the kids movie that is on TV. If it is a bad one then I am S.O.L and am then fairly unproductive
1800    Eat Dinner then have various meeting/study groups
After dinner is generally the same. I am usually very unproductive and can get a little restless at this point in time

No Class Days (now called reading days)

These days consist of working out, eating, and sleeping. I then try to do some work but usually end up being unsuccessful. Also special events happen during No Class Day. Like we had Student Orientation between Canada and Spain, Morocco Day during the next stretch, OK I guess nothing between Morocco and Ghana, Neptune Day between Ghana and SA, Midterm Studying between South Africa and Mauritius and Sea Olympics between Mauritius and India.

I will talk about Neptune after my Ghana posts, as that was a pretty eventful day on the ship.

So life on the ship can get kinda old. It is extremely unproductive, but hey I think we are the only school moving between 17 and 25 miles an hour on a consistent basis.