It's A Ship, Not A Boat; It's A Voyage, Not A Cruise...

This title was the first phrase they said to us at orientation.
January 17th, Embarkation day, day 1 of my around the world journey. I was able to hop on the 9:30 shuttle instead of the 10 o’clock one, so I arrived a little bit earlier than I originally thought I would. We all got on or shuttle, which was basically a regular passenger bus, and listened as the lovely announcer man made his announcements. He said it would take about 2.5 hours to get to Ensenada; it took about 2. I spent the majority of my time talking with a girl named Clara, who (ironically) goes to USD and knows about half of my younger sorority sisters. We had a good time talking about the various trips we were taking and how excited we were to finally be doing this trip. Eventually, all of us on the bus were going crazy with anticipation, and a bit of excitement ensued when the ship was finally seen from the windows. It was rather funny, as there was a massive Carnival cruise ship in the port next to us that totally dwarfed us. We pulled into the docking area, got off the bus, did a few minor check in items, got our ID cards (the coloring is off a bit, so I look like I have a bad spray tan), and were able to go to our rooms. When I got to my room, my roommate was nowhere to be seen, but there was a backpack on the bed and some books. There were various random little packets of stuff on our beds with orientation stuff and whatnot, so (me being me) I sat down to read through some of it. About 20 minutes later, my roommate came back! For some reason, her key wouldn’t work in the door, so we both had to go up and get our keys reset. Her name is Simone, and she is from South Carolina! I am really excited to have a roommate from out of state, and I adore her cute accent. We sat in our room for a little bit until all of our luggage finally arrived, and then we had our lifeboat drill at 4. Everyone looked rather funny with their lifejackets on inside the dining hall, but it took about 45 minutes and we were off again. Originally we were supposed to set sail at 5, but due to some “immigration issues” (not sure what they were), we ended up taking off at about 6:15ish. Dinner started at 5:30, and we had a pretty good meal. Pork chops and onion gravy, pasta primavera, grilled snapper (it was very good), salad, potatoes (which I didn’t touch), and other yummy stuff. The food was pretty good, but I heard it tends to get worse and very monotonous as time goes on. I should be ok, as long as there is salad, pasta of some kind, and a meat.
In other news, we had our “sea” meetings tonight. For those of you who don’t know what the seas are, each hall is divided into a sea based on room numbers, and each sea has a living learning coordinator, which is basically an RA. The seas are also our teams for the Sea Olympics, which happen later in the voyage. We had an orientation meeting as well, and they introduced all the teachers, which was pretty interesting. People have already gotten seasick; luckily my roommate and I have both been ok so far. Maybe all those years of reading in the car when I was younger will pay off and I won’t get motion sickness at all. Tomorrow is a full day of orientations and other mandatory (but not so fun) things, then we start classes on Tuesday. I have come to the conclusion that sleep will not be a priority of mine at all this semester, as I will have 8 am class every day, and sleeping in while traveling around usually doesn’t happen. Great. I’m the girl who likes 10 am classes because I get to sleep in a bit. Not this semester. But that’s ok…I can sleep later. Speaking of sleep, I constantly feel relaxed and sleepy while on the ship. If the rocking isn’t too bad, it has a very calming effect that basically just makes me want to nap all day. On the other side, I’m having no problems falling asleep at night; the staying asleep is a bit of a challenge. I think I’m constantly nervous about not waking up for classes, since mine are at 8 am, and breakfast starts at 7. Yes, I the girl who loves her sleep will probably be up around 6:30 every morning, if not earlier. Eep. But enough about sleep, it’s making me tired just thinking about it.
After only a few hours of being on the ship, I am already absolutely in love. I love my little itty bitty cabin with its magnetic walls, the awkward bathroom light switch that is on the outside of the bathroom that you flip up to turn off and down to turn on, and the general coziness of it. Yes, it is tiny…but that is totally fine with me. Everyone I met on the voyage so far has been really nice, and everyone in general is just really excited to be going on this journey. The crew members are all absolutely amazing and basically are there for everything…serving us juice and refilling our water at dinner, helping us find our way around, cleaning our rooms, and everything else. Most of them are from foreign countries, so it’s really neat to hear all of their accents and stories.
Day 2: Nothing to report. Very boring day aboard the Explorer. Orientation for 6 hours, followed by the involvement symposium later at night to sign up for fun stuff. I think I hear the salsa class calling my name. Maybe Qi Dong too. And the meditation class (this one is for Perry). And the extended family program. And the Greek Council. No volleyball, as that could be a problem on a moving ship and because the fact of the matter is that relatively decent depth perception is required.
Day 3: First day of school! First day of school! Started off my morning with Global Mental Health. It counts as an upper division psychology elective class at my school, and I am really excited to take it. Not to mention I absolutely adore my teacher. He’s a cute little psychiatrist, probably in his mid 70’s, as next year will be his 50th year out of medical school. He has taught and worked at UCSF for a while now, and he has an absolute ton of knowledge in his field. I have a feeling I may be spending quite a bit of time in his presence, and more likely than not we will be eating breakfast together at least once on the voyage, as we arrived in the dining hall at the same time this morning. The class sounds really interesting, and I am really excited for my FDP (faculty directed practica) to the Hawaii Psychiatric Hospital in Honolulu. It is mainly a forensic psychology treatment center where they work with people who have been convicted of criminal offenses. If any of you really know me, you know that these are the type of people I want to work with, so this experience should be really fun. I am really excited for this class, as it also sounds like an extension of my abnormal psychology course, so (hopefully) it will be relatively easy for me since I already have a background in abnormal psych. On to global studies. This is a course required by SAS for everyone to take, and we take it every single day we are on the ship, both A days and B days (this is how our classes are divided and it switches off every other day). Originally I wasn’t very excited about this class at all, as “mandatory” classes tend to be the most tedious and boring. After going to the class this morning at 9:30, I think I have changed my mind about this class. The teacher is incredibly funny and enthusiastic, and in turn it makes the students more ready to learn. He uses great teaching techniques that enable his students to remember the information he gives us, which is always nice. I can already name the top ten most populated countries in the world off the top of my head, but I will not bore you with that information here. We will mostly be learning about the countries we are going to be visiting, and I am so excited for the interport lecturers to come on board. Interport lecturers are people from the ports we are going to next who teach us a bit about their country (or state in Hawaii’s case) and their culture. A few years ago they had Desmond Tutu as an interport lecturer, and I must say that I am rather jealous. The class doesn’t seem like it will be too difficult as long as I go (which I will, as I am going to be awake for my 8 am global mental health class anyways) and pay attention to what he says. Paying attention is easy to do in classes when you sit right in front, which is my new favorite thing to do as it helps me see the presentations much better, especially because some of the stuff can be a bit shaky at times. Next on A days is Theology, Spirituality, and the Ethics of Sustainability. It starts at 2, and thank goodness it is after lunch because I am usually wide awake and content because of my full belly. This is the first time in my college career I can truly say I’m excited about a “theology” course. My teacher is great and has a fair amount of random knowledge to disperse among his students. In 20 years of teaching, we are his first class to contain girls. He has taught at an all male campus since he began teaching, so he said that he will have to tone down the “locker room attitude” that usually pervades his classroom. His wife is also teaching classes here on the ship, and their three kids (2 boys, 1 girl) are also on the voyage with them. This class seems interesting in that we get to look at basic theology, which is a bunch of the simple stuff I learned in high school. Then we move to spirituality, which is a broader concept than theology and is often thought of to be outside of organized religion for many people. Last but not least, we move on to ethics, which involves ethics of certain religious practices. One of the main questions raised here involves eating meat and the care of animals. I am quite excited for this class overall, as it seems like the teacher will be engaging and there will be a lot of classroom discussion. My final class on A days is Gamelan, a 1 unit music course. A gamelan is a musical ensemble of percussion instruments like gongs and metalliphones. They are most often found in Bali and Java, and there are competitions and prizes awarded. Our teacher gave us a bit of an introduction, and then he told us to take off our shoes and sit at an instrument. He taught is the basic rhythm for one song and there are many interlocking parts and sounds that all fit together to make one beautiful harmony. My teacher is great and really knows what he is talking about, and I think it will be a really fun course that will be great to get 1 unit for this semester. I realized that out of 6 classes, only one of my teachers is female, which is unusual, since the breakdown on the ship is something like 66% female, 33% male. I’m not sure exactly what the other 1% is, but those were the numbers they gave us. Tomorrow I have Introduction to Socio-Cultural Anthropology (a pre-requisite for Surf Culture and history, which I am hopefully taking this summer) and Global Studies again, and I am also trying to add another course so I can take a full 16 units and still graduate a semester early. I am really looking forward to classes this semester, as my teachers are all very go with the flow and see where the sea takes us. Many of them are not afraid to have to cut out some material if discussions run long or if something happens in a port that we should talk about, which is so much better than trying to cram a ton of information into not nearly enough time because they want to get it all done. I can already tell that I will be getting to know my teachers very well, as I see them everywhere on the ship; not only in classes, but dining halls, hallways, lounge areas, everywhere. The lifelong learners are also so much fun. I have some sitting in on my global mental health course, global studies, and gamelan so far. Most of them are of the older generation, probably in their 60’s or 70’s. We have a few younger ones; the youngest I have seen is probably in his early 30’s and he is a concert jazz pianist. I love the fact that our lifelong learners are so much less particular about who they sit with than people my age. People my age tend to be so picky about who they sit next to for meals, but the lifelong learners have no shame and just walk right up and ask to sit with you. I joined the extended family program last night, so within the next two weeks a few other students and I will be assigned to either a lifelong learner or a faculty member and our little group will be able to get together for dinner. I am really excited about this, as some of my friends who have already done it said that it was really fun and rewarding.

While these last few days have been rather tiring (I have been in bed before 10 and up at 6:30 every morning) they have also been very exciting. I have already made some new friends on board, met an absolute ton of sorority sisters from everywhere, and I love all of my teachers. I know this semester is going to be great, and I can’t wait to see what adventures await!