ANOTHER RIDICULOUSLY LONG BLOG POST (but very informative and interesting, totally worth reading- if I do say so myself.)

Location:  Deck 6 Computer lab. 
Song stuck in head: Good Girls Go Bad. (Thanks Laceyyyyyy)

Good morning truth seekers!! Just thought I would greet my fellow blog viewers the same way us SASers are every morning by our global studies professor :) He’s a pretty cool guy. That is the first sentence he tells us every day to start class. Actually a pretty awesome phrase huh? 

now it is time to GET OUT THOSE GLOBES!! AND CHECK OUT OUR CURRENT SHIP LOCATION: we're presently sailing across the Alboran Sea in the Mediterranean (the tiny little passage between Europe and North Africa!!) hip hip HOORAY!!

Anyways, yesterday we had our second SOS (Students of Service) meeting.  I am starting to get REALLY excited about that group! We talked about several different service projects we are going to be able to do throughout the remainder of the voyage, and each of them sounds cool.  There are three particular ones that I really want to get involved in.  Our first one is a change drive of sorts, only with all the different currencies.  We are going to compete by seas…. Sorry have to diverge for a sec…

**(I don’t know if I ever explained this, but basically the decks are divided into chunks for RA purposes as well as events such as the “Sea Olympics” where we compete in different events to see which sea has what it takes to be the best. RAs ere are called LLCs, which stands for Living and Learning Coordinator.  For example, my LLC is named Elizabeth and a guy named Greg is an assistant LLC for all of the deck 2 students.  Our “sea” is the Aegean sea, and our theme color is black because black is “the color of total Sea Olympic domination” haha we even have a catch phrase of “BLACKOUT” yep. It’s some fierce competition here on international waters. Haha)

So to get back to what I was saying, we are going to do a change drive and compete by seas to see who can raise the most money.  The cool thing about it will be that we will be able to accept any of the foreign (as well as US) currencies.  That being said, we are going to try and collect money after each port when everyone is pretty much done with said foreign currency, and has nothing else to do with the loose change.  Hopefully the other fun part will be that the teams will be allowed to “paper bomb” each other.  We have not worked out all the kinks yet, but it will be a system of coins being plus points and paper money taking away points.  In other words, the seas can bomb each other by placing paper bills in other sea’s jars and only coins in theirs.  Should be interesting.  People were getting all complicated with the math, so finally Kyle and I offered to head the whole thing and be in charge of counting the money and figuring out the currency exchange and such. 

We're also working on an art exchange project for the orphanages we visit.  There are actually a good amount of kids ranging in age from 1.5 years to 17 years old on the ship, and so we are going to try and get each of them to help create a piece of art to give to swap with one of the orphans.  When we visit the orphanage, we are going to ask the kids to not only draw a picture to return to the child on the ship who contacted them, but also draw a second picture to become part of a collection of artwork.  Each orphan’s piece of art will be added to a book, and the complete book will hopefully either be given to the Semester at Sea program, or used as an item in the huge Auction we have. 

Which brings me to the last and final huge project SOS is hosting: the Auction.  Like I mentioned before, every year this auction raises thousands of dollars to help fund SOS projects as well as aid future SAS students.  In our meeting we decided on the theme of “The World is Our Circus: Clowning Around in the Mediterranean.” It was only appropriate especially seeing as we have had a guest CLOWN on the ship the whole time so far!! Yep, Grandma the Clown from the Big Apple Circus is on the ship with us.  He (yes, it is a man who dresses like a grandma clown… haha) even put on a performance the other day for us!! Was pretty funny stuff. Then we got to hear all about clown school and such… but I digress…. So we picked our theme of the auction, and now we are currently brainstorming items to auction off. We have both a silent and live auction, so there will be a LOT to do!! They said they usually try to aim for about 100 items or more in the live one alone!! Will be really cool to help out with I’m sure! :]

OH! And I totally met a girl that is in Alpha Phi Omega at Ohio State yesterday night!! We talked for a few minutes, but then we both had to run so we agreed we would have to find time to meet up and have “brotherly talk” HAHA. Awesome. Today I saw her in the hallway and yelled “APHIO GO!” it was really funny. She responded saying next time we had to hold up the “secret hand signal” sounds like a pretty cool aphioer to me!! :]


Day 8 (CLASS 6) June 22, 2010

Today was pretty relaxing.  Got through all my classes sea sick free yay!! Ive come to terms with just taking it every morning… might go talk to the health people and see if they can suggest anything.  Its just my one classroom that makes me sick.  I think it is because it 1) is in the very front of the ship, so it is rocking the most and 2) has all of the chairs facing towards the back of the ship. So imagine riding in a car down the windy mountains of West Virginia… facing backwards. So if I take the meds I don’t get sick, but they just make me drowsy in ALL of my classes instead. Oh well. Rather be sleepy then sick?

Besides that everything is great!!!!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE all the people I have met on the ship so far.  Our group adds and subtracts each day depending on the location and time, but has basically become 6 of us constantly in the group.  Kyle, me, Lacey, Daniel (yep. Hes cool cause were name siblings alone… haha), Heather, and Clark.  Lacey, Daniel, and Clark actually all go to the same school in California.  Lacey and Daniel are EXACTLY like Kyle and I. It’s really scary how similar the two sets of us act… we keep pointing out new similarities every day haha its pretty entertaining looking yourselves in the mirror, not going to lie. Heather also is from California, but goes to a different school then the other three. She is a tiny thing. Weighs all of 108 pounds but man is she feisty and spunky when she gets going hahaha (and she is not afraid to eat 6 dinner rolls in one sitting either HAHA yes, she has done this multiple days in a row now even lol). I think that is the best part of the whole group: we all just crack each other up.  We all have the same goals and expectations of this trip, and we are all really down to earth people.  I am REALLY glad we all stumbled into each other. :D 

Lacey, Heather and I have been going to the gym everyday. It’s pretty entertaining attempting to use gym equipment on a ship, not going to lie.  The treadmills are the hardest for sure.  Ellipticals just feel weird, and Stairmasters alternate between some easier steps and some REALLY hard steps when the waves rock the ship. Haha.  So after our cardio time, we go onto the outside deck and do stretching, weights, abs, and a few gymnastics… yes, we do random gymnastics stuff. Heather was a gymnast, and is going to be a cheerleader at California Baptist University, and Lacey was a Cheerleader in high school. Add my dance and color guard skills and it’s a pretty entertaining scene.  Even MORE entertaining is when Daniel joins us and we try to make him to participate, which surprisingly doesn’t take much effort usually...  Two days ago it was bridges (which he failed at quite epically) and today we tried to get him to do cartwheels (now THAT was hysterical). 

And after that really long 2-paragraph sidetrack, I am back to today… I feel like this entire blog is the epitome of A.D.D. blog writing…. Anyways, so today after class and lunch, it was such a beautiful day that all of the 6 of us minus clark (who was lame and went to actually study like a good SASer…) threw on our swim suits and hit the top deck! Some of us tanned, and others like Kyle just “off-whited” (his phrase for the inability to tan). 

At 3:30ish we finally saw land!!!!! We passed through the Straight of Gibraltar and at that time were squeezed in the middle between Spain on our left and Morocco on our right with only a total of 8 miles between them! So cool. Unfortunately it was really foggy, so while we could make out the land, our cameras failed miserably at getting any pictures of either side. WE DID SEE DOLPHINS AND WHALES THOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D

After that, the group finally split for a few hours, and I got a nice shower before I headed to dinner to meet my new Extended Family! ((Special shout out to GRAMMA!!!! GUESS WHO IS IN MY EXTENDED FAMILY!?!?!! The woman that you and mom talked to in line with me before I got on the ship!!)) for those of you who don’t know who that is, her name is Mrs. Campbell.  Before I got on the ship, she as well as other faculty and staff members were walking through the line saying hi to everyone.  She and my grandmother hit it off, and next thing I knew they were talking and the line was moving.  I don’t even know how long Mrs. Campbell talked with us, but it had to have been at least 20 minutes!! So when I went to find out who my extended parents were, I was shocked to see her come up to meet us! We recognized each other and she gave me a huge hug hahaha she also said that my gramma and mom were “such sweethearts” and to “tell them I say hi” so a big “hi” from her to you guys!!  She is the studio art teacher on the ship, and she and her husband (Mr. Lewis I think? I will have to check on their names and spellings.. you guys know I can’t spell to save my life!) “adopted” me as well as 2 other SASers into their extended shipboard family.  This was another program I signed up for through the LLCs meeting where I learned about SOS and such.  Emma, Justin, and I will get to meet up with them throughout the voyage and share stories, life advice, and in general just get to learn more about each other.  it’s a pretty cool program.  It made you feel a little special getting an invitation to dinner with the family on the cabin door :] 

After a long, but very fun dinner with them, I met back up with “the group” (as I have dubbed them) and we went to another Explorer Seminar.  This time the guest speaker was a fellow SASer who was actually from Spain.  He gave us advice and travel tips for Barcelona, which we will put to good use when we get there bright and early THURSDAY MORNING!!!

Now it is officially bedtime.  We lose our last hour before Italy tonight, so that puts us at a total of 6 hours ahead of Charlotte time.  It’s officially 2 am here and only 8 pm there!  Annnnnd I have to be up to breakfast at 7:30am! (though I did think of mom and gram this morning as I snagged 2 extra raspberry yogurts from the breakfast buffet for later!! Hahaha! They will make good snacks/ meals for when I get sick of peanut butter sandwiches, which will be soon I’m sure haha)

So GOODNIGHT from across the globe!

:] :]