As bad as it sounds, I realize how glad I am that I will never do a Semester at Sea field practica again. I am very, very glad that I got to see Hiroshima and Nara, and I doubt I would have seen as much going by myself. Still, traveling in a huge group with a tour guide for the whole day is not something I think I will ever enjoy. I’m too much of a wanderer to listen to a guide for hours. Half the fun of traveling is getting around, getting lost, figuring out what to do. When it is all laid out for you in a compact itinerary it takes out all the adventure.

            After my two SAS sightseeing days I went with my roommate Maggie to visit her friend who is studying abroad in Osaka.  But finding her friend was an adventure in itself. Not having a cell phone to communicate with friends from the ship is one thing, and has proved to be frustrating this semester. But not having a cell phone to call an outside acquaintance that went out of her way to meet you at a specific place is a whole other thing. After searching for a phone card, a phone, and an internet café, and failing to contact Drea by phone or e-mail, Maggie and I returned to the ship defeated. We were ready for a full night of sleep so we could wake up early and try again to contact her friend. But lucky for Maggie and me, her friend Drea and Drea’s friend Ashley were very patient and waited for us once they found the port. As we walked up to the port area hours after we were supposed to meet the first time, a girl (who we now know as Ashley) asked, “Are either one of you Maggie?”

After the enormous relief we felt at actually finding them, we had to switch gears for the night. Instead of going to bed early, we were actually staying out the entire night in Osaka. This was a little bit of a shock for my body, but I don’t really concern myself with that while I’m in port anyway. I can rest in the United States.

            After all the fun things that we did those couple of days with Drea and her host family, including karaoke and an amusement park, it was time for us to go back not only “home” to the ship but really on our way home. This time I was not ready or even semi-ready to get back on the ship and get some rest before the next country, because the next country isn’t some interesting and fun place, it is the United States. There will be no more foreign ground to stand on, at least until I do more traveling on my own.

            It seemed like a lot of people felt the same way. On our way to the ship, we saw large numbers of students sitting or standing near the ship, smoking, talking, or taking pictures. It was like no one wanted to get on until it was absolutely necessary. As we swiped our card coming back through the last time, it actually felt real that this is about to end. Of course we will come back on the ship again in Hawaii, but that doesn’t really seem to count. I have never been to Hawaii, and I’m sure it’s a really nice place, but whatever it is, it is not a different country, and it is certainly at the very end of this trip. I remember my doctor who prescribed my malaria medication looked at my itinerary and said, “Oh, you are going to Hawaii, huh?” I remember thinking what an absurd thing that was to say. On that itinerary was South Africa, India, Vietnam, etc. and she picked out Hawaii? But now all that is left of our itinerary are Hawaii and San Diego, so now seems like an appropriate time to pick it out of the “list” to get excited about it.

            After we left Japan, but even a little bit before, the conversation on the ship started to change. Instead of, “What are you going to do in (insert country)?” now the top questions are “What are you doing when we get to California?” and “What are your plans for the summer?” Although these questions have been creeping up on us for the whole voyage, it is actually time to be thinking about them seriously. I find myself thinking too much about being home, both in a negative and positive way. I am so excited to see my family, my friends, and my cats. I am ready to get back into a normal routine and know what is going on in my best friend’s life. I am even ready to have time to reflect on what happened this semester. But I am not ready to leave my friends here. I am not ready to be in one country for a long period of time.

            I will have to find my own fun things to do, like go to art museums or parks. But an art museum in Knoxville, Tennessee hardly compares to seeing one of the wonders of the world. Perhaps fortunately, I’m not going to see (or smell) durian at any farmers’ markets in Maryland. Bargaining will not be allowed, and we won’t even have to do any conversions to the US dollar. All the things we have gotten used to on this voyage are coming to an end.

            It is almost time to say good bye to all of our new friends, and our home the MV Explorer. But it has to end at some point. We have to get back to our normal lives. We have to start paying back all the money that we spent this semester. And the most important thing, I think, is that we can finally do something about all the things we have learned about. We can start putting into action all the knowledge we have about globalization, over-consumption, global warming, poverty, AIDS, etc. If we don’t do anything when we get home, at least talk to someone about one issue, then I’m not sure what the point of this voyage is. So here we go. The dread and excitement of being back home are only going to get stronger from here, until they are replaced by nostalgia for the ship.

            “Hello, hello,” said one waiter, pointing at everything on the menu. “I do not want meat,” I tried to communicate. “I just want vegetables.” “Hello,” he said again, pointing at random things again. “Hello, hello,” he repeated again and again. He went to go get someone else, and we thought maybe this person spoke English, or maybe some English besides the word hello. This other man came to the table and started pointing at things and making gestures, and after a while of trying to get across the concept of no meat, we realized that there wasn’t a single English speaking or semi-English speaking person in the whole restaurant, and it really was time to give up. So, feeling like idiots for not being able to communicate at all, we left the restaurant and found another one with pictures on the menu.

            Later that night, we had another encounter that was funny because of the language barrier. My friend Brittany had to use the bathroom, so she asked a man working at the bar we were at if they had one. After a few minutes of trying to communicate, he seemed like he understood and showed us to the back of the bar. It seemed like we were on the right track, but then he pulled out a plastic chair and looked at Brittany triumphantly like he had finally gotten what she needed. We erupted in laughter and told him that that wasn’t what she was saying. The other person working at the bar finally understood that she needed a toilet, not a chair, so he laughed loudly and told the other man where to lead us. This time, he showed us outside and across the little road to an outside one stall hole in the ground, where he pushed us both inside. This was sort of funny since it was just a one person type place, but it was definitely better than a blue plastic chair in the middle of a bar.

            After leaving the bars that night, we had a scarier encounter dealing with language. We took a little ride with a cyclist, and since our hostel was so helpful, they had a handy little map showing the address so that we could show people where to take us back to. The guy seemed like he understood, so we hopped in and started going. He went down some creepy dark alleyways that we had never been down before, and we assumed they were shortcuts. “This must be where he is going to rape us,” we said, joking. Then he turned around to look at us, winked, smiled, and made a little clicking sound. This man had not understood one single word of English that we had said the entire time, and we say the word rape and he turns to wink at us?? This was truly terrifying, especially since we were still going down dark alleyways. Later on, he turned around and pointed to Brittany, then me, then himself, and made a motion with his hands to look like a pillow, that we took to mean “sleep.” “He wants to sleep with us? Is that what he is saying!?” We were worried. When we said anything about his motions he would turn and smile at us again in the creepiest manner possible. Then, it started raining harder than it had been and he stopped and extended a plastic covering over the cloth covering that was over us. Then he smiled at me and firmly shook my hand. This was sort of odd since it was the middle of our ride, but oh well. Once we finally got to where our hostel was, he made motions like we hadn’t paid him enough, but this was the price we had agreed on when we started. So we paid him what we said we would, and walked through the dark and creepy alley to the door of our hostel. This was still sort of scary, though, since the driver was still standing there looking angry about the money situation, and we thought he might run after us. It was a pretty terrifying ride home, but we felt safe back at the Llama Temple Youth Hostel, our home in Beijing.

            Even after we left Beijing to go back to our other home, the ship, we had some major trouble. We arrived in the Qingdao airport and showed a cab driver our yellow sheet that the ship gave to us so that they could take us to the port. They seemed to know where to go, but after a while we realized that the driver and his friend (who was in the cab) were completely lost. We had to play pictionary just to get across “ship” and “water” which made us wonder what that yellow sheet actually said. Then we pulled up to this gated, dark area where we couldn’t even see water. I even got out and checked all the doors around this building to see if we could get through to the other side, but they were all locked. “How could semester at sea do this to us? Are they serious? What are we supposed to do now?” we asked. We ended up actually calling the ship and getting better directions for the cab, and then we got out and walked through the maze of construction and steel to our home sweet home.

 All the stories that we have from the language barrier are pretty interesting to look back on, but at the time it was pretty frustrating. It wasn’t like it was just a certain area that we were in, or just one day that we couldn’t communicate, it was the whole time in China. I was glad to actually be given a culture shock after being more shocked at the other countries’ similarities to the U.S. rather than differences. Sometimes, though, it just got so tiring. At times I get tired just from talking, but when you have to make this huge production out of getting one little thing across, that is a whole other story.

            Cambodia and Vietnam both had shocking reminders of the very recent past. But what do you really say about two countries that have experienced such devastating losses so recently? Cambodia is more than just a country where Angelina Jolie adopted a child from. Vietnam is more than a war. These places are real countries with real people and real culture. They also have real problems and real histories.

            I have never in my entire education, from elementary school up to my junior year in college, learned anything about Cambodia. I had no idea that there was even war there, let alone that it was just 30 years ago. Perhaps I am just ignorant, or took the wrong classes. I had learned about the war in Vietnam, but definitely not to the extent that I should have. Our current government might do well to learn more from that specific war as well. Of course it’s impossible to learn everything about every country in the world, but it is also hard to believe how much we don’t know, when we have access to so much information.

            A couple of my friends and I went out the first night in Cambodia, when we were in Phnom Penh. We didn’t want to go out and party, since we had to wake up early for a full itinerary, but we did want to see the city. We got a rickshaw driver to take us on a little tour around town and he would just stop wherever we wanted to. At one point, I got a chance to talk with him about a couple things. “You are students, I am student too,” said Serendad (something like that). “What do you study?” I asked. “Whenever I have some time, I study English so that I can communicate better with my customers,” he replied. He even reached down in a little compartment under the seat and showed me an English dictionary and another book used to learn English. He spoke very good English, by the way. “I always stay nearby your hotel so I can take care of the customers. A lot of people, they rip off tourists. But if I rip someone off, there would be a problem between me and God.” This seems like something that a driver might say in order to get paid more money, but I really think he was being serious. After going around with us for more than an hour, and even letting Casey drive for a little bit, he didn’t set a high price and even asked us what we would like to pay. He seemed actually like a genuinely nice guy, which was good to find after some of the drivers we have encountered.

            It seems so amazing to find out how many people in every country speak English. I personally found many people working in low paying jobs that speak two or three languages. Most students traveling on this ship around the world, with the resources to learn pretty much any language we want to, only speak one. In the United States, learning another language is by no means a necessity. Sometimes it seems frustrating for us students when we go to other countries and a person might speak only very little English, or have trouble understanding us. But we are the ones in their country; it should be frustrating to them that we waltz in there knowing maybe a word of their language, and then have the nerve to get angry at them for not speaking perfect English. But instead, many of them thank us for going to their country and bringing money to it. I hope it’s not just me that finds this whole concept sort of sadly silly.

            Speaking of bringing money into countries, Semester at Sea dropped a hefty amount in Vietnam. Everyone had been talking for the whole voyage about shopping there, since it would be so cheap. Even with the low costs, some people did some serious damage. Everyone got dresses and suits made for low prices compared to what they would be in the U.S. They also bought Northface backpacks, hundreds of DVDs, and souvenirs and t-shirts galore. I was part of this craze as well, I bought a lot of stuff, but I tried not to go too crazy. I thought I was doing pretty well with being frugal before I left for this trip, but it is a real test to go to a country where everything is so inexpensive that you can buy tons of stuff. I know that people in Vietnam want us to be spending our money there, too, and that this money will help their economy.

I just feel like there is a huge problem with the idea that buying more stuff is the way to help people out. Are the American tourists who go around speaking only English and being little money droppers really doing what is good for themselves and the economies of other countries? I believe there must be a better way to help people than accumulating more and more stuff, mostly for status, just because you can. The frustrating thing is that I don’t have any answers and my personal buying habits are not really going to affect the growing global economy. I just can’t help but wonder sometimes what the world is really rushing towards.

Batu Caves. Just a couple of days later my fondness of monkeys had decreased drastically. At the botanical gardens in Penang, instead of being overwhelmed with the cuteness of the small furry creatures, I was constantly backing away in fear from them. I found out that they are in fact ferocious, scary little monsters. Ok perhaps that is a little harsh, but I had quite the encounter one day on Penang Hill.

            I stopped along my hike to take a couple quick pictures of these monkeys in a tree right off the path. They seemed harmless enough, and I wasn’t trying to feed them or interact with them. I wasn’t even stopping for long. But after I took a picture of the one closest to me, two of them at the top of a tree had a little scuffle with each other and fell down to the ground. This startled me, and I guess I made a motion or started moving. This apparently signaled to the rest of the monkeys around that I was a threat, so they all came down from the trees. About 10 or 15 of them bolted down, screeching and showing their teeth, ready to attack me. Since I didn’t have a great deal of knowledge about monkey behavior and interactions with humans, I didn’t even have to think about my plan of action. My fight or flight instinct kicked in fast and I was suddenly sprinting up the path, powered by a rush of adrenaline. I could not even look back at the monkeys that were chasing me. Eventually they stopped running and I was able to catch my breath. I was shaking for at least 10 minutes after that.

            Yes, I realize that it sounds ridiculous that I was so scared of these adorable little monkeys. But honestly, it was the scariest thing that has happened to me on this trip. I was hiking alone up the trail, which wasn’t the safest thing in the world to do anyway. During my sprint away from the monkeys, I was thinking about how I was just going to be laying in the middle of the trail getting scratched and bitten by these little silly beasts and no one would find me for hours, I wouldn’t be able to get down from the mountain, I was going to get a disease, etc. Yeah, yeah, it’s just hilarious, right? Sure it’s a funny story to look back on, but at the time there was no humor in it at all. So now I seem to have developed an absurd but understandable fear of monkeys. I guess at least it’s more exciting than being in class in
Tennessee.

            Speaking of being home, I’m not sure where all this talk of
Malaysia being such a cultural shock came from. Perhaps a few years ago it was a bit different, but to me Malaysia was far from shocking and culturally different. In fact, it seemed pretty similar to the United States. Of course there are temples to see and different food to eat, and there are more Chinese, Malay, and Indian people than in the U.S. But really, it was not what I was expecting. If it really did change that much within 20 years or so, then I guess big corporations are doing their job pretty well of making every place the same. With any luck, 30 years from now the only cultural difference between Malaysia and the U.S. will be a slightly different menu in McDonalds and Starbucks.

            One thing that I noticed about
Kuala Lumpur that made it different from most other big cities was that a lot of the sidewalks were made of tile. That seems like a pretty insignificant detail, but when you are trying to run in the rain it is hard not to notice. I don’t know who thought that was a good idea. Tiles are slippery when they are wet. My friends and I had to run to the bus station to get to our tour of the worlds tallest buildings, the

Petronas Towers. Of course right when we had to go outside a huge storm hit and water was just pouring from the sky. After running, hopping, and slipping our way to the bus station, my entire body was soaked. This of course included the light colored shirt I was wearing. We were told to be modest in this mostly Muslim country, but instead I decided to start up my own wet t-shirt contest. It wasn’t the best situation in the world, but made for a funny time. I had to give in and buy a random (black) shirt in the mall.

            I noticed that there were a lot of European and Australian tourists and backpackers in both Kuala Lumpur and Penang. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting that. I guess I just hadn’t thought much about Malaysia before this trip as a place to travel to. In our hostel in KL, we made friends with some boys from the UK, a boy from Australia, and a girl from Amsterdam name Linda. Linda went around with us the whole second day we were there. She is just traveling around by herself. It seems like it would be so exciting to just go someplace and do whatever you feel like doing, while meeting people along the way. I would love to do that, and hopefully I will sometime in my life. However, with our travels in Semester at Sea I have become much more aware of what it means to be a 20 something female in other countries. I hate that it is so unsafe for women to travel around wherever they want to by themselves.

            When the monkeys made me run for my life on Penang Hill, I was by myself. Everyone I encountered on the hill seemed to think I was insane for hiking by myself. I actually didn’t even see any other women the whole time until I got to the very top. Maybe it was foolish of me to just go hiking up a trail that I don’t know much about. I had a few comments like, “Oh, that’s pretty adventurous,” and “You alone-only one woman??” Followed by surprised laughs and dialogue in a language I couldn’t understand. Adventure and “exploration” (if that even exists at all anymore) should not be reserved for men only. Of course I can’t change the safety for women in the world by going up a hill and nearly getting attacked by monkeys. It’s just so maddening that nothing is considered safe anymore and no one can be trusted. It seems like such a horrible way to go through life, scared and suspicious. Not that going through life trusting everyone is a good idea either. Oh, the frustrating things we get to think about on this voyage of discovery just don’t stop coming, do they? On the other hand, the great and exciting things we get to experience don’t stop coming either, so I suppose I can deal with a little bit of frustration along the way.

Naveena has lots of extended family in India. By lots I mean I met more people from her family than I even have in mine. We met cousins, uncles, aunts, and all those other relatives whose relationships seem too complicated to explain.

Her grandmother, or amache, was an interesting character, although we never understood a word she said. She always wanted us to eat more food, even though we were full practically the whole time there. She laughed at our attempts at Malayalam. Once she picked up my wrist that has ribbons from Brazil tied around it and had a good laugh. I think she wondered why someone would put ribbons on their wrists instead of nice jewelry. Every now and then she would say something loudly and look at Brittany or me, as if waiting for a response. Of course we didn’t know what she said, so we just sort of nodded our heads and smiled.

The first night at amache’s house Brittany fled from the bathroom and jumped onto the bed. She was so scared for a second that she didn’t even tell us what was wrong. Then she explained that there was an enormous spider that she saw right next to her. We named him Samuel the spider. We did not like Samuel. He was not the kind of guy (or girl) we wanted in the room right next to us. So Brittany and I went on a half-hearted mission to go kill him. It was half-hearted not because we didn’t want him dead, just because we were too scared to get that close to him. There were a few failed attempts and a few retreats from the bathroom. Finally the maid (I guess you would call her that) killed him, and we were able to sleep soundly that night.

Much of my trip was a blur of meeting family and friends of Naveena’s. We would take off our shoes, sit down on the couch, introduce ourselves, figure out the family relationship, have orange soda and some sort of snack, chat, and say goodbye. This is what we did for a good portion of our time in India. “Poy de veride,” Brittany or I, or both, would say. That is pretty much the equivalent of “see you later” but means “I’m going and I’m coming.” They would always be amused that we even tried to speak the language. Brittany was better at it than me, for sure.

On this trip I discovered that I can’t even speak English very well. Not because I somehow mastered Malayalam or any other Indian languages. I just end up saying crazy things out of order a lot, at least when I’m exhausted. “Deans Mike” instead of Dean Mike’s, “Stiral Spaircase” instead of spiral staircase, and “flina chites” rather than China flights were a few of the ridiculous things I said. It is way too hard to get a decent amount of sleep while in port. We went to the history of Kerela museum, and since it was mostly dark in the room, I dozed off at least 30 times while we were in there. It wasn’t that it wasn’t interesting; my eyes just wouldn’t stay open.

My eyes did stay open, unfortunately, during most of our death defying car rides. I have never been so sure I was going to die so many times in a row. We would speed up next to huge busses and trucks, weave in and out of lanes, and not even begin to slow down for the stopped traffic a few yards ahead. We went straight through a red light and had a bus coming toward us from the side. That was fun. We were so close to motorcycles that we could have easily just touched them and made them fall on their helmet-less heads. Every driver thought it was a really good idea for us to pass the truck in front of us without looking to see if there was oncoming traffic, so we narrowly escaped hitting someone head-on more than a few times. The scariest thing I saw was Brittany’s face on one particular outing. Her face isn’t normally scary, she’s a pretty girl, but this face told me that her life was flashing before her eyes and we were certainly going to crash this time.

Luckily, we did not crash in a car in India and we are back on our luxurious boat. Luckily covers a lot of things, not just our safety on Indian roads. Luckily we were born in America to middle class families. Luckily we have an education. Luckily we don’t have to beg for our meals every day. At Naveena’s family’s houses we didn’t see poverty. Actually, I saw a lot less poverty around town than I was expecting to see. But I still saw it. I saw kids with no clothes on at all. I saw people with deformities by the train station begging for money. I also saw disabled kids who were lucky enough to be in a school and housing system. But is lucky really the right word to describe someone who has no wrist or ankle joints? Or has no ability to get around besides dragging themselves on the ground? Or someone with a head that is half the size of a normal head? These kids seemed to think so. They were incredibly happy just to be there playing with us.

So sometimes our legs hurt from working, but at least we have legs, and have a job to do. Sometimes our feet are dirty from walking in sandals, but at least we have shoes. There are too many things that we take for granted and too many things that we could do to help out other people. The idea of having a fancy house and a high paying job and going through all the motions of the “American dream” is getting less and less appealing to me as we go on. For those who do choose to go that route, I hope they at least stop complaining about it so much.

Semester at Sea. What a strange and foreign idea that was when I was just browsing around looking for study abroad programs. “That must be awesome!” I thought, not even giving it any real consideration.

It is absolutely bizarre that I actually made it here. And I have already been to four different ports. I have made good friends, I have had crazy times, and I have taken some pictures. But is it anything like I thought it would be? No. I’m not even acting how I thought I would act.

I had in my mind that I was going to be able to let loose more than I do in regular life, but instead I found myself (sometimes) clamming up and being about as awkward as I was in middle school. All the newfound self confidence I had at home in Knoxville was suddenly stripped away and I was forced to find it again. Maybe I’m still sort of looking for it. I’m generally pretty content with life and with myself. But I realize that I need to be more willing to break out and try to get to know new people, even if I think I won’t like them. I find myself quickly putting people into boxes that I know I wouldn’t like to be put into myself. Sometimes I’m too defensive, and I assume that people will automatically not like me.

Then I remember that I need to cool down and stop worrying so much. I am on a boat traveling around the world. Just because I haven’t had some sudden life changing experience doesn’t mean I’m doing everything wrong. It just takes me some time to get to know people. I’m not too concerned with making lots of acquaintances; I would rather have just a few close friends. I know that you can learn a lot from getting to know a lot of different people, but it has just never been my thing to be friends with everyone around.

I shaved my head and I went skydiving with people I had never met before. I realize these are things that not everyone would do. I guess I’ve got the independence thing down. I suppose I’m pretty comfortable looking in the mirror and seeing no hair and usually no makeup. I have come a long way since my silly high school days, but Semester at Sea really has had nothing to do with that. I just wonder what kind of adjustments I will make when I go back home because of what I learn and experience here.

There are so many statistics, movies, lectures, etc. to make us “open our eyes” to things in the world. This is good, don’t get me wrong. But I already think about these kinds of things way too much on a normal basis. I don’t need to keep piling up all the wrongdoings in the world; I’m already overwhelmed with what I knew before I came here. I feel a little bit like we are being taken around and being exposed to so many things, but its like we are looking through a glass case, and we can’t really do much, at least from the ship. I have had a couple of days of being a little weighed down with how much is wrong with the world, but then again I can do that to myself just from home. I guess I’m just cynical, I don’t know. One thing I’m sure of is that I do not want to become so cynical that I feel hopeless. I have experienced many positive things, too. Although it would be hard to tell from this paper, my experience here is mostly positive. There is just kind of a delicate line between being able to have a great time and forgetting that there are still things to change.

*again, wrote this for writing about travel. ive seriously got a ton of stories to share, for instance, a woman squirted us with her breast milk. i will tell you more when i see you in real life, or in emails. but this blog is not the best way to relay all information, I dont think. ill probably just continue with the things i write in writing about travel.

miss you love you

If conversation goes beyond that, it’s often to complain about the amount of reading that everyone has, or to talk about how rocky the ship is at that particular moment.

After so many of these same silly conversations, I wonder, when is this going to end? When will I get to stop meeting all these people that I’ve got nothing in common with other than our being here? I feel like it might be useful to have a button that just says it all for me, and press it when I meet someone new.

“Hi, my name is Jessica. I live in Tennessee. I go to the University of Tennessee. My family now lives on the Eastern shore of Maryland. I’m majoring in journalism. I’m taking Writing About Travel, Perspectives on Peace, and Gender, Class, Race/Ethnicity and Social Change. Again, my name is Jessica. Oh, you are from Colorado, huh? Yeah, it’s Jessica.” I think such a button would be pretty useful. It would save some time.

Don’t get me wrong, here. I’m having a great time. And I have met people that I actually like a lot. But for me to really make friends, it always takes some time. In this more intense version of real life, I feel like I’m not being granted the time it takes for me to make truly good friends. Everyone has already formed their cliques, even me, but I just wonder how separated these groups will end up being, and if they will change throughout this voyage.

This more intense version of real life also forces me to be around the kind of people that I have been able to steer clear of at my own campus. Like girls that brought more clothes on the ship than all of the clothes I own. Sometimes I feel like I have suddenly been thrown back to middle or high school, where I wasn’t so comfortable with myself, and felt like the ridiculous judgments of other people really mattered. Then I have to remind myself that in the last few years, the entire population didn’t change and stop being judgmental. I just mostly stopped caring. So why should I start that up again now?

On another note, it’s overwhelming to think about the amount of privilege we all have in order to be here right now. Street children in Brazil don’t get to think about the enormity of the world, as I did looking out from the deck yesterday. People dying of AIDS in Africa don’t have the time to sit around talking about the struggles of their class and race and gender. Child prostitutes in Cambodia don’t get the opportunity to get an elementary education, let alone a college education on an enormous ship sailing around the world.

It just makes me feel that much more pressure to do something about anything, but all this reality just makes the job look so much harder than I already knew it was. And we aren’t even to our second port yet.

Then I get taken back to the “reality” on the ship although that’s probably a silly term to use, because I’m not entirely sure what it means. Especially here.

“Oh my god, is that going to be, like, drama?” said some girl laying on the 7^th deck.
“It already is, because John likes Ashley not Sara,” said the girl’s friend.
“I like need to meet this Ashley character,” she replied.

Hmm. This will be an interesting semester.

*i wrote this for writing about travel, so it’s definitey a different format than the first one. but im sorry its just so exhausting to do an account of every single thing, and i think this gives you a good enough look at life on the ship. by the way, i take back the thing about the food that i said in the puerto rico post. i mean its still good most of the time but the vegetarian options are often “vegetable delight” or “vegetables in cream sauce” which just means vegetables in various types of watery sauces. but its alright most of the time, haha.

of course, i miss you guys. peace out

            The rain forest hike was beautiful, but not exactly what I was expecting for some reason. Once we got back I got ready and went to the Welcome Reception at the Catholic college. They greeted us with high energy dancing and singing. It was so much more fun than I thought it would be, and it was interesting to see how students are in different places. After that we piled 12 people in a minivan taxi and went to Senor Frogs with the rest of Semester at Sea. I don’t know how I ended up there exactly, but I guess I had fun for what it was. I think I have had enough of that place for the next 10 years of my life though. At least.

            The next day I went to the beach with some girls and then headed around to some shops in Old San Juan. I had never even been in a Coach store before then, and I don’t really plan to go back. What a silly waste of money just for status. It just makes me mad. When it was even suggested I wondered how I got into this particular group, but they were nice girls, so overall it was a good day. We also had the most interesting cab driver EVER. He had goldfish in his cab because he was taking them back to his house, he sang, he knew all about Canada’s political system and said he wanted to move up there, and he had this book he asked us all to sign. He carries this book, or journal I guess you could say, around in his cab and has all the people that ride with him sign it and leave messages, so he has a log of all the interesting people he meets. I think that’s such a great idea for a cab driver to do. He also gave us his address and told us to send him postcards from all of our hometowns when we got back.

We got a drink at a little restaurant and then I went back to go to the bioluminescent bay. I am pretty much the world’s worst kayaker, but this made for a very funny time and Steph and I made friends with the tour guide in the back, Cesar. He even led us around for parts of it. The bay was so amazing. It is so weird to see water just glow like that. I wish I could have just swum around in there for hours. If you lift up your arm from the water you can still see the little dinoflagellates(sp?) glowing on there for a second. Its nuts.

We got back from there and then I went out to Old San Juan with this couple who are so extremely nice that I didn’t even feel like the 3^rd wheel that I was being. We found out that Paul Travis (the boy of the couple) and I have the same birthday. Then we talked about how Emily was a Pisces and apparently Pisces and Capricorns get along well together. Ann is also a Pisces, so even though I think that stuff is kind of weird, it seems to be at least a little correct. We went to a couple bars, and I had a really good time just talking with them.

When I got back, I ran into a guy that I met earlier in the day and he said that he and some people were about to watch a movie, so I ended up going with them to watch it.

The next day I went with my friend and a new couple of people that we met to walk around the town again. Then we went back to the beach. After that I walked by myself a different way back from the beach, just thinking about how crazy it was that I was actually on this trip and in Puerto Rico. My last thing I did there was to eat dinner with the beach girls from the previous day. That was my Puerto Rico experience. I wish I could say that I really got a feeling for the culture of Puerto Rico, but I was really still trying to get the feeling for Semester at Sea. While I did do most of what I wanted to do, and I did talk to some interesting people, it was also a learning experience for how things work for us while when we are at port.

It’s pretty interesting to travel around with different groups of people. I went with about 6 different groups of people during this trip, mostly by just bumping into people that I had already met and talked to, and I had good but different experiences with them all. I am very much enjoying my Semester at Sea experience so far.

Life back on the ship is kind of interesting. There’s a lot of reading to be done, and a lot of laying out on the decks. I have also been working out every day. It’s pretty weird to be waking up at like 7:30 am (earlier actually, since we keep losing hours) and then later in the day working out. What a change from my normal routine. My 8am classes are NOT getting easier to get used to, instead they are sucking worse and worse every day. It’s weird here that we don’t have weekends, since every time we are at port, we don’t have class so they couldn’t afford to lose that much time. But I mean that’s 7 days in a row of waking up that early. AND losing hours. I mean are you kidding me?

Tomorrow we cross the equator. Crazy, right?? We don’t have our “neptune day” thing that is the ritual thing to do when crossing the equator until the 24^th, so it’s kind of like celebrating Thanksgiving in December. But oh well, I guess they couldn’t really work it into the schedule or something. So that’s when I’m going to shave my head. I don’t know how many other girls will do it, I’m sure at least a couple will (it’s part of the ritual, but of course not many girls do it) 11 more days with hair!ah!

The other day we had a “student activities fair” where I signed up for way too much stuff. I don’t know who I thought I was signing up for like 5 things. I will probably stick with the Social and Environmental Awareness Society and the chorus at least. And I signed up for an “extended family” where you can get to know some of the “lifelong learners” (who aren’t students but are on the ship). I also signed up for the diversity committee and the Students of Service. I’m not sure about the Students of Service thing though, it’s mostly about raising money through auctions and dances and stuff so I might leave that to the sorority girls who are used to stuff like that.

Speaking of that, you would all be so surprised about how many girls there are on here that get all dressed up and stuff. I would say there’s a good portion of them who brought more clothes onto the ship than I even own. But oh well what can you do?

I’m very excited about Brazil, and yes I will be careful. That’s all anyone has been saying at all lately.

My new roommate is awesome. Her name is Maggie, she’s very very nice, shes a vegetarian, a human resources(or something like that) major, she lives in Easton, Maryland, which for those of you who don’t know, is on the eastern shore and I’ve had to drive through there a countless number of times. We just seem to have a lot in common so it works out pretty well. Our room number is 4154 by the way, not that anyone besides my parents really cares probably.

I’m very very excited about my Anthropology class (gender, class, race/ethnicity, and social change). We have already had some really interesting discussions and readings, and we have only had the class twice. Some  people think it’s too intense, and some people think it’s too common sense. But my friend Naveena and I are very excited about it. I think I’ll have a lot of interesting stuff to talk with PSA about when I get back. My Perspectives on Peace class is also very interesting and (hopefully) useful. But for both of these, there is kind of a lot of reading that I actually should be getting to. I will learn a lot for sure. The readings we have done for Global Studies have been very depressing. Lately we have been talking about how we pretty much forced the 3^rd world into debt and how the effects of that are very much still in place. It’s good to see the bad things in the world rather than just pretend that everything is great, but so much at once seems a little daunting. For my writing about Travel class we are reading “The Old Patagonian Express” and it’s pretty good so far. Ok that’s enough about classes.

I think that’s enough period. This is the longest thing ever. I miss you guys so much and I love you!

Making friends isn’t as hard as I thought it might be at first. Everyone is trying to meet everyone and I have been hanging out with my neighbors a lot so I think I’ll be just fine. Sometimes it’s a little too much to just be meeting people at all times, though, especially when I’m so tired. I am definitely going to need some alone time on this trip. Don’t get me wrong I’m trying to live it up as much as possible but I’m going to have to be a little recluse SOMETIMES. I mean come on who do you think I am…

The ship is so so nice and the staff are as well. They do so much more for us than I thought they would. They make our beds each day, clean our rooms, even take our trays in the dining halls. Speaking of dining halls, the food has been actually really good so far. I mean of course it’s a buffet style line for hundreds of people so it’s not like gourmet food or something, but its definitely good. I’m probably eating healthier than I usually do, I have actually had vegetables and fruit at almost every meal. That’s pretty good for me I would say.

The faculty seems really cool as well. They have some interesting backgrounds and traveling experience. There are also “life long learners” who are just people who aren’t students (mostly older folks) that are attending the trip.

There is a schedule for working out and you have to sign up the day before. My friend Sierra has been really on the ball about working out so she has inspired Neveena and me to join her tonight. Unfortunately, we have our “pre-port” at the time we signed up for, so I guess I’ll have to wait until some other time. I have a feeling the gym will always be crowded, especially since the boat is 2/3 girls. AND they are mostly girls who will be wearing bathing suits half the time. You know how that goes.

My cabin number is currently 2030, but since my roommate and her friend wanted to be there and there is an opportunity now to switch it for them, I might be moving. It seems kind of like a hassle but I don’t really mind that much so I guess I’ll tell you about my new roommate if I do end up moving up to the 4th deck.

I saw Desmond Tutu in line for food again today. It is just so unreal that he just stands there and gets the same food that I’m getting. I do realize he’s just a person, too. But he just happens to be a person that has accomplished a LOT of stuff. The other day when someone made an announcement about him, he went ahead and introduced him as ARCHBISHOP BENJAMIN TUTU. Yeahhh right! That was the first time we have even heard anything about it in any speeches or talks or whatever, and the guy doesn’t even know his name. I wonder what Archbishop DESMOND Tutu has been doing on the boat the whole time. I guess talking to faculty and stuff I don’t know…I want to (and I probably will) really talk to him sometime, I just don’t know what setting it’s going to be in. I’m sure he will be giving some kind of lectures or something but none of us know about it yet.

Speaking of that, tomorrow morning when we port in Puerto Rico, the Secretary of State is going to meet us on the boat. So that should be interesting I suppose. I’m pretty excited about the things that I will be doing in Puerto Rico. I’ll tell you about how it went later on.

I had my first class other than Global Studies today, it was “writing about travel” it seems like it will be cool and I already started the book we are reading first, but it’s always hard to tell about classes from the first day.

So that’s about it for now, folks. I’ll have another one of these when I get back from Puerto Rico so I can tell you about my (hopefully) fun times there!
Miss you!!!