I Hear it's Saturday

OK, we're on ship time again, and it's B4 today.  In some places, I hear it's Saturday, but we don't have any sense of that.We did gain one more hour during the night, so I woke up early and was rewarded with a ice sunrise.

Global Studies class was devoted to discussion of student group projects. The students are dividing themselves up into groups of six, and each group will work on a sustainability curriculum project that should be directed toward high school students.  The Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia is giving a grant for the best projects, and they will make them available for schools all over the country to use in their classes.  Most of the kids are excited, but the assignment is designed to include enough ambiguity to let them go their on direction. This ambiguity is a little tough for some of them who just want to be directed, but it should be a great growth tool.  I got to speak to the two sessions about library resources and the importance of  correctly citing the information that they use.  I expect some pretty impressive results to come from most of the groups, and I would love to have had this as a project when I was a student. The groups are choosing their own possibilities.  Another challenge will be to incorporate six of the countries we visit into the project with data, pictures, interviews and anything they choose.  UVa education students back in Virginia will be their consultants on the pedagogy (a great word) through email.  Expect to see these presentations at the end of the voyage.

Here is a group of our library student assistants, and they are going to start to be busier as they help more of their fellow students with their research.  The students on the ship have access to the full complement of UVa databases and full-text journal  sources online for FREE--about 70,000 journals, magazines and newspapers.  This is important because many of them have already used up their allotment of free internet minutes on trip planning for ports.

Roaming around the ship after my work shift, I came across a music class on the Gamelan. There is a set of instruments on the ship and Prof. David Harnish is offering a course. It has a pleasing sound.

We've started posting a quiz in the library and awarded a flying disc to the first winner who could tell us the length of the Titanic (from a multiple choice quiz).
The new question is:  According to the US Dept of State, "Japan maintains an overall agricultural self-sufficiency rate of about______"
a. 15%
b. 298%
c. 40%
d. 63%

I hope this will help the students as the prepare for each port.  They are supposed to create a sheet of 25 things about the port before they get there so they can converse with people about their country.

Here is today's bird, flying about the ship and diving for flying fish--a Red-footed Booby.

The day ended on a nice note as the Captain slowed the ship and changed course slightly to miss a distant rain squall.

Amenities

This ship can spoil you in some ways. We get up in the morning and head to the workout room. It is reserved for faculty/staff early in the morning, so we do a 6:30 am half hour of something on the machines.  I have NEVER used any workout machines in my life except an exercise bike. Yesterday, I tortured myself with something called a stairmaster.  Before the voyage, my early morning workout was cleaning horse stalls and a walk with the dogs.

Then we head down to breakfast where everything is already prepared, the tables are set, and all we have to do is go through a self-serve line. Then we sit at one of the clean tables and a waiter asks what we would like to drink.  Almost as soon as we are finished eating, a waiter is there to ask if we need more coffee and to take our dirty dishes.  Those dishes get washed somewhere by someone who is not me.  NOT LIKE HOME.

Then, when we get back to our cabin, the bed has been made. This part is great, but it does require us to keep things picked up in our cabin so that the cabin steward can do his job.  A small room does train you to find a place for eveything, and keep things put away. Towels get replaced every few days and the bathroom cleaned.

Repeat the meal thing for lunch and then dinner.  When we return from dinner, our beds have been turned down. No, there is not a mint on our pillow, but the pillow is fluffed up.

Coffee is available 24 hrs a day if you bring your own cup.  The crew is constantly cleaning the ship all day long, and there are hand sanitizers everywhere. There are going to be a lot of spoiled students and faculty when this voyage is over.

On a different note, we are on day 2 of a 10 day stretch at sea.  The faculty are cracking down, and this will be one of the longest unbroken teaching periods on the trip.  Last night we turned our clocks back another hour.

Last evening was a post-port explorer seminar where anyone could tell about a port experience (good or bad), impressions made, relationships established, or anything. The dominant theme for Hawaii was how great the local people were and how welcoming they were to the students.  A lot of personal relationships were made and relationships established with fellow voyagers.

Aloha

 

Students, staff and crew lined the decks as we departed Honolulu at 2000 last night. Everyone was aboard by ship time, had dinner and proceeded to the decks for last cell phone conversations.  I sure hope everyone had plenty of minutes on their plans, because they were getting used.  The mail drop box was busy as well since postcards were getting written and mailed from Honolulu just before we departed.  Nancy and I watched the crew cast off the lines with the help of a forklift on the dock.  Then as the ship moved, the Captain gave a long blast of the horn, and we were off--watching the beauty of the city lights in the background.  It seems like it gets more real at this point. Even the little insecurities of moving about a strange city on a bus will be magnified from here on out with language differences. These challenges will provide growth opportunities for us all as we meet them.

Nancy and I had a conversation about the importance of blogs to parents, and she rightly pointed out that parents have raised the kids, taught them values and watched them develop.  Now they are going out and testing what they have learned, and the parents don't get to see this process.  We are the fortunate ones as we get to watch growth happen.  I've always thought that was one of the best parts about being a librarian at UVa.  We see kids when they come to the University and get to watch them grow right before our eyes--especially the kids who work for us.  It's a beautiful process, and it varies from kid to kid depending of such factors as independence, family values, risk-taking and associations.  I'm enjoying them all and love the "Hi Warner" as we see them in ports.

Anyway, there was a great cheer as the Captain sounded the horn, and things settled down to "shipboard normal" pretty quickly--card games everywhere,-- and everyone talked about port experiences. or posed for pictures

 

I was personally pretty pooped. I had started the day with a 6:00 am field directed practicum (fdp) to the http://www.hawaii-seafood.org/auction/United Fishing Agency Fish Auction.  This is a  place that the fishing boats come to unload their catch and market the fish to  (mostly) wholesalers.  We got to see the unloading of some of the boats. The boats are out for as long a 21 days, and all the fishing is done with long lines--up to 3 miles long.  No netting is done in the Hawaii waters, so the impact on other sea-life is practically nil.

Then each fish gets weighed and labeled with the weight and a barcode.  All the while, they are getting constantly iced down.
Then the bidding takes place.

This is a constant process until all the fish ae gone. 

We followed this up with a classroom lecture--powerpoint and all by one of the NOAA scientists who led the tours. Hawaii and the government are working hard on making fishing a sustainable practice in Hawaii, and it seems to be working. This fdp was was one of the most interesting things I have done so far, and the early hour gave us time to do some other important things. 

LIKE--a trip to Walmart.  I have to say that Walmart is savvy about the ship.  They had courtesy shuttles in both Hilo and Honolulu. I got a few things for the library--pens, pencil sharpener, some replacement copies of videos that had gotten lost and comfort food.  For me, that was ice cream bars. They only come in boxes of six, so I had steeled myself for the challenge.  Fortunately, as I waited for the shuttle, a couple of SaS staffers helped me consume them.  Parents should expect to see charges on their credit cards for personal items like Macadamia nuts.

Nancy had gone on a bus tour of some of the island and saw many the touristy sites. She was awed by the artistic gates on some of the huge mansions.  There is definitely some wealth here. One of the students on the previous day's tour got her wallet stolen, so that was a sad experience but  a teaching moment that benefited a lot of other students.

No one wanted to get back on the ship quite yet. Nancy and I took a quick trip to Starbucks  for the last cup of great coffee and where a bunch of kids were using the free wireless to upload pictures.  Then we hopped on a city bus and shot down to the local beach for the last hour of sunning.  The line for the ship was long when we got back, but we still had an hour and cleared in about 20 min.  The students had a great time in Honolulu, but I personally liked Hilo best. YMMV (Your mileage may vary).

Honolulu

I'm too old to understand why some of the students slept out on the deck last night.  And where did they get those sleeping bags?  Give me a bed any day.  They did get a nice view of Honolulu as we pulled into the port this morning.  Then the ship was cleared at 8am, and everyone was off.

Nancy and I headed to the Botanical Garden. Here she is posing in front of a Kapok tree, so you get an idea of the dimensions of this tree .  It's worth noting that we must have beaten all the students to the Garden since we didn't see any of them there.

What we did see were tons of interesting plants and gorgeous flowers.  Many of the flowers were not blooming now.

After the Garden, we went to Zippy's for lunch.  Zippy's is a local chain which could be best described as a hybrid between McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Captain D's with a local flavor.  They had milkshakes made from real milk and real ice cream--nothing you would find at the above mentioned eateries.

Some of you readers know that my students library workers at UVa gave me a Edgar Allen Poe doll to take along. Poe attended UVa, and I dress us his bust for holidays, so they sent him to remind me of them. Anyway, Mr. Poe lost his raven during our stormy seas last week when he took a tumble in the library. Zippy's is open to the outside, and a few doves roam around.  I set Mr. Poe on the floor to see if he could entice one them to join him on the rest of the voyage.

Then a lady customer sat down and inquired about his presence.  I explained the circumstances and that we were part of Semester at Sea.  Well, it turned out that she sailed with SaS while a student at Chapman College in 1969.  We had a great conversation, and then were joined by a customer at another table who thought SaS sounded perfect for her son.  Mr. Poe didn't get the bird, but he sure provided an entree into a great conversation.

Then Nancy and I walked through town and by the old Royal Palace..  It was an interesting juxtaposition of the traditional and the new.  Don Gogniat challenged us in Global Studies to take one picture in each port that sums up that place.  I think this is the one for me.. Nancy found one in Hilo, but didn't have  time to take the picture. She was at the Post Office in a small town, and they had a "take a penny/leave a penny" bowl.  It was overflowing with pennies.

Then to Starbucks for coffee.  Be advised that, unlike Charlottesville, coffee shops in downtown Honolulu are not required to provide bathrooms for their customers.

Our previous conversation at Zippy's led us to one of  the beaches that the locals use. There we found a group of SaS students sunning and playing cards.  They consented to have their picture taken for my blog.

After  some time at the beach, we headed back to the ship and passed a movie theater.  3D Avatar was playing, so we got tickets and watched the movie that all the kids said I should see.  We ran into two of the SaS faculty who were heading to the same movies. A giant popcorn and a large Coke provided dinner in situ.

For my birder friends, this guy says hello.

Ship Time

On Ship Time was 1800 today.  That meant everyone had to be on the ship by that time, or they would be penalized at the next port with their departure time. One of the previous librarians said that watching the students run for the ship at the last minute was great entertainment. The deans had made a big point of "ship time", and suggested that we be back a couple of hours early so that we wouldn't get caught in a long checkin line. One of my entertainment plans for the day was totally wrecked, because everyone student was on the ship on time.  What a great group of kids.

Day 2 in Hilo was spent with everyone going in different directions.  You can tell by pink faces that the beach was popular (no sunburns that I can see).  I know that one FDP ended up whale watching and getting to listen to whale sounds.  Another group went snorkeling.

Our trip was the "Ecosystem Services in Hawai'i" and was led Mark White.  We left at 7am, and everyone was there for the two vans in spite of the early hour.  Our van driver, Al, is a native Hawai'ian, and kept us entertained and impressed us with his vast knowledge of everything from spam to volcanoes. I asked Al about the lack of presence of police in Hilo, and he explained that most of them drove their private cars--like Cadillac Escalades.  Hmmmmm. He drove us to the Ka'u Preserve, a native forest managed by the Nature Conservancy where we were led through the deep rain forest by several of their guides. The vegetation was quite lush, and we were peppered with plant names and whether they were indigenous or introduced. They are doing good work to let the original species take over.

This requires trapping pests like the wild pigs who do more damage than I expected. It seems to be really working, and the watershed will be much improved as a result of the work.

 Tahlor spotted one growth on a tree that looked like a face, so I have to include it.

Next we went to the Punalu'u beach made of black sand for a box lunch and a chance to see  sea turtles basking.  This guy had a shell that was about 30 in long.  Two women who are part of the "Hawksbilll Turtle Recovery Project" gave us a nice presentation of the Hawksbill turtles.  These turtles lay eggs on the black beaches, and the volunteers chart the egg laying and hatching of the babies.  This requires that they camp on the beaches for 6 days and monitor the nests where the eggs are buried.  They tag the females and report that more mothers laid eggs this year than any year since they started keeping records.  This is truly a labor of love.  As an aside, while we were there, we saw a bird that looked like a yellow canary, and that was exactly what it was.  They live in the wild.  The other plentiful bird is the beautiful Mynah Bird.

Back on the vans for a trip to the Jagger Museum to learn about volcanoes.  Unfortunately,the museum was closed because of high levels of sulphur dioxide in the atmosphere from one of the volcanoes.  We did get to go to the visitor center and see  the Kilauea Iki Crater that was spewing steam. This crater can hold a football field.  Back on the buses for our return to the ship with a quick stop by the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory.  I'm already addicted to the dark chocolate covered macadamia nuts.  We didn't get the tour, but Al the driver says it reminds him of the "I Love Lucy" episode in the candy factory.

And back to the ship on time and an 8pm departure from the port to Honolulu.  I have to say that we saw lots of stuff today, but equally as valuable was the great conversations that we had with the guides, drivers and among ourselves. I could have easily stayed a week on the Big Island.

What a day

We awoke before daylight to watch the ship dock in Hilo.  Only a few of the students were awake. Alisha, Caitlyn and Rachel were all huddled on the deck watching the captain guide the ship in.  Then we grabbed a quick breakfast before we were called for custom inspection.  One breakfast treat was viewing of whale spouts off the stern.  I grabbed my binoculars and got to see the back of one whale several times.  Students reported seeing more at the beach during the day.  The customs inspection went mercifully quickly.

Nancy and I wandered around a park on our way downtown.  It was beautiful, and the banyan trees were quick remarkable.  The trees are all named after someone who has visited the island and we found the one named after Cecil B. Demille.  One of the things that we were encouraged to do was talk to people throughout our visit, so we spoke to a man walking his dog in the park (with the added benefit of getting to pet a dog as a surrogate for Walden, our dog). This guy was a retired chemical engineer from Boston who had 60 patents recorded and had moved to Hilo for retirement  He was also a native of Bangladesh, so we had a great conversation.  I'm pretty sure we sold him on a voyage on Semester at Sea. Part of our conversation challenge was to ask people about their country(island) and its issues.  Interestingly,he seemed to think there were few issues in Hilo.  He did express a concern about a trend for couples to live together out of wedlock and have children.  The children then entitled them to welfare. He cited a 30 percent unemployment reate as a consequence.  Interesting conversation and interesting gentleman.

Then we found a Starbucks for the first real coffee in over a week.  What a cup of coffee.

Don Gogniat had challenged us all in Global Studies class to notice the little things about a country.  I decided to notice bumper stickers.  Well, they don't do bumper stickers very much in Hilo.  This gave me an entre to several other conversations with people to find out about this phenomenon.  One young store clerk said that there was concern that bumper stickers would offend people, so people didn't do them.  I looked at cars for blocks, and found only 4 bumper stickers.  This one seemed to make up for all the rest.

Nancy and I walked for miles and visited the market downtown.  I bought a local made necklace--interestingly made by a native Parisian.  I also bought some local bananas.  I asked the woman if she grew them, and she said they came from her grandmother's tree.  As you can see from my hand, these were small, but tree ripened.  They had a kind of spicy taste.  I shared them with some of the students walking by.  Then we had the best lunch I've had in several years at a local restaurant--Pesto something, I believe. The Ahi fish was great as was the frittered palm hearts.  Yum.  I didn't share that with any of the students.  Next we found me a Hawaiian shirt to wear to the night's Luau.  It was a deal at the Salvation Army Store, and was one of my contributions to sustainability

We found some curious things in this town.  One was a cat with a harness, tethered to a parking meter next to a street vendor.  The other was the grey parrot sharing lunch with his owner at a sidewalk cafe--totally untethered.  Strange leash laws they have here.

 We headed back to the ship after a stop a Ben Franklin Store.  I hadn't seen one of these stores in at least 20 years.  It now seems to be an art supply store.  Nancy is taking a drawing class on the ship, so she needed some drawing supplies. Then we speed walked back to the ship to get ready for the night's Luau. Nancy and I walked about 5 miles today, and this last part was walking on a mission because we did not want to miss our bus.  When we got back to the ship, we had to wait at customs again to board, drop our stuff and change into my newly acquired shirt.  This gave us a good idea about "ship time" and the problems with cutting your time too close.

We did make our bus and headed for the Luau.  But first, we took a walking  tour of the University of Hawaii at Hilo.  Frankly, there is not much to see there, and the students and we were anxious to get to the Luau. Once we got to the Luau, we were in a covered picnic area. As an educational feature, we first learned about twisting big leaves to make a rope.  Hilo is the word for twisting big leaves to make ropes, and it came from a time when some sailors used initiative to tie up some canoes. (abbreviated version).  We were all restless, and then we finally go to eat. The pork was delicious, and some of the other foods were strange We had Poi as well. Poi is made from roots of the taro plant.  We had seen the roots in the farmer's market, and Scott Fisher had talked about Poi in some of his lectures,so naturally, I was curious to try it.  I can almost guarantee you that no one ate more than one bite. It might be a staple of the diet, but it is not a delicacy.

The highlight of the evening was the entertainment.  Several groups performed, and students got a chance to learn the hulu. I had never seen the hulu performed live, and it is quite an expressive dance.

We also got to end up with a dance by some Polynesian dancers.  They got everyone very involved.  All the dancers were students at the University.








Back on the buses and returned to the port.  Most of the students went back out for the rest of the evening.  I don't know how they had the energy because they had an active day.  Here's what I heard:  whale watching, the beach, volcanoes, water falls, a round of golf, trips to Walmart, walks around town, snorkeling and a visit to the Observatory.  Then we do it all over again tomorrow.  I'm headed to bed.

Pre-port

The Union was packed as we just finished our "logistical pre-port" meeting to prepare us for tomorrows arrival in Hilo, HI.  The pre-port meeting consists of announcements of procedures for that port as well as safety issues and some things to do. Dean Loren Crabtree listed his top thing to do as "see molten lava flowing".  That would be pretty cool, and I hope to do it. The Dean Crabtree also praised the students for the judgment they have shown on this voyage.  They do have a 3.3 gpa, so this is a pretty smart group of kids.
Dr. Chiles warned everyone to use sunscreen and continue to show good judgment in the use of alcohol. They were also educated on the concept of "onship time".  Our onship time for this port is 1800 hrs on Tue.  That means they must be checked in, so not everyone can come running to the ship at 1745.  The recommendation was to start boarding at 1600 since we have to screen our stuff through security.  Arriving after onship time carries a penalty of "dock time" at the next port. Dock time could mean missing some trips, so, hopefully, everyone got the message.

Profs Spence, Shun and Israel gave an interesting presentation on Chinese culture during cultural studies today.  It was an interesting format.  Prof Israel gave a scathing indictment of the culture of China and Prof Shun answered with the indictment of the U.S.  It was an interesting vehicle to show how the different cultures view each other.  Prof Spence followed up with four concepts to reconcile the views of each side.

1. Concept of History: includes artistic traditions

2. Concept of Identity: the context includes such areas as gender.

3. Concept of Finance: includes tariffs, trade and currency exchange.

4. Concept of Law: includes the perceived validity of courts.

As you can see, I took notes.  In introducing the group, Prof. Gogniat correctly noted that we will probably never have the chance to be among such a group of prominent China scholars again in our lfetime.

These kids aren't really in a cage.  The nets keep sports equipment from disembarking while at sea.  There are about 22 faculty/staff kids on the voyage.  It's an extraordinary opportunity for the kids as they travel around the world.  These are really bright kids, and they are home schooled and tutored as we go, so they don't miss out on school.  The students interact with them, and their presence gives a kind of normalcy to the community. If it takes a village to raise a kid, this is one heck of a village.

On a housekeeping note, we got our first bag of laundry back today.  You just fill a bag with dirty laundry, fill out a ticket, and it magically disappears from your room and reappears a few days later --clean. I could certainly get used to this perk, but I'd better not.

A few people spotted flying fish today. Looking forward to Hawaii and terra firma.

Comfort Food

As I was preparing for this voyage, different people would come up to me and say "I hear you're going on a cruise".  And I said "Voyage--not cruise".  Nancy and I did do a cruise in Alaska in the summer of 2008, and I had been warned about weight gain from all the food--24 hour availability.  Thank goodness this is not the case here.  I'll talk about food more another day, but the students seem to have food on the mind.  Yesterday in the library, there was a conversation about what they were missing.  It was not parents, television, their pets, or friends.  It was comfort food.  One person wanted more chewing gum.  One had gum but wanted chocolate.  She had gum.  "This sounds like a good barter possibility, " I said.  And they negotiated a trade right there on the spot.   Lunch yesterday had mac and cheese as one option.  I never knew you could get so much mac and cheese on one plate.  The students were in heaven.  Then dinner had stir fry.  These meals were so popular that I'm glad they weren't available on the days when everyone was so seasick..  I think the first place many of them plan to go in Hawaii is a nearby Walmart to buy snacks.

My own personal comfort food is a smoothie.  They sell those up on the 7th deck, and I'm running up my shipboard account.  I figure this is about how much I would be spending on gas at home.  They also sell burgers, so I'm going up there for a special meal soon.

The seas are very smooth this morning, and we can see a container ship in the distance.  It's nice to know that there are other human beings nearby.  We are very close to Hawaii, and you can feel the excitement. We have been checking out the Hawaii guidebooks like crazy as everyone tries to plan some trips and adventures.  Last night, we had the first "preport lecture".  The lecture was oriented around Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Mark White led the discussion with examples/graphics of how many of us satisfy those needs.  For example, he showed some photos of what a typical American family might eat during the week.  The pictures showed the family and all the food stacked up.  Then Scott Fisher, our onboard lecturer from Hawaii, picked up the conversation with what you might see in Hawaii.  This could be the last port where we will see similar kinds of foods since Scott says that most Hawaiians seem to ship at Costco.  We also got some information and sound samples by David Harnish, our music faculty member.

The students are busy and really appreciated the great weather. Some are sunning and studying

Some are enjoying activities like Yoga.  

At the University of Virginia, the students organize many of the clubs and activities.  This philosophy has been transferred to the ship.  I walked past a classroom last night, and there were a bunch of folks playing acccoustic guitars and mandolins. A group of students has formed for Bible study.  There is even an AA meeting every day..

Our library student staff continues to impress us.  I brought a bunch of lanyards and name tag holders. Theresa got a file with the Semester at Sea logo, and Andrew, one of our students, made up professional looking nametags for each of the students.  I had not imagined that something little like that would have such  a great response.  They were the envy of the workstudy students in the other departments.

 

For my bird friends, we were visited by an unidentified bird yesterday.  He/she took some time out to rest  and preen on the ship and later flew away

Today is B3, and we have smooth seas and another beautiful morning.

Sleep

If anyone on this ship said that he/she slept better than I did last night, then they would be lying.  The seas calmed substantially. The shipboard audio-visual folks have 3 channels of movies/videos showing every night.  I only made it halfway through "Blue Hawaii" before I fell asleep for the night.  Yes, Elvis is alive and living on this ship. The other sleep bonus was that we went through another time zone, so we are now 5 hours behind the east coast. It's 8:30 am here as I am writing and  1:30 pm back in Virginia.  It's day A3 on the class schedule.

The LLCs (Learning, Living Coordinators) are doing a great job of programming activies for the students on the ship.  One of those was a "speed friending" event where the students tried to meet as many other students as they could in a short period of time.  I walked by, and they were heavily engaged.  I think there was a contest at the end to see who could name the most people.

Left: Academic Dean, Mark White. Center: Executive Dean, Loren Crabtree

On the faculty/staff side, the Dean's sponsored a reception for the Life Long Learners.  This is a group of adults who want to be part of  this university environment but are no longer students. Most are retired folks and they are totally integrated into ship life--eating, classes, port trips, etc.  Nancy and I had the pleasure of eating dinner with a group of ladies who are seniors.   Two were from Alberta, Canada, and one is an active golfer and plays in a curling league.  The rough seas were hard on them, but they're up and attending classes.

One of last night's Explorer Seminars was with Sal Moscella who is one of the SAS executives.  He talked about sustainability on the ship.  The MV Explorer is ISO 1401 certified which means that it is certified "green". 
A few facts about the ship and the challenges of being sustainable, managing water, electricity and waste
 The fall 09 voyage used 2,261 lbs of peanut butter.
The ship makes its own water while at sea using a desalination/filtering/chlorination process.  It has the capability to make 150,000 gals per day while it only needs about 50,000 gals per day.
The ship uses 1.6 metric tons of fuel per hour for propulsion and another .65 metric tons per hour for generating electricity.
The ship uses washable cups instead of paper.  They save water by not using trays in the dining rooms. All bathrooms use low flush toilets. Everything possible is recycled.

It makes you proud to be on this ship.

Walk the Walk

Well, the word is that the Pacific is experiencing some low pressures that are abnormal, and we are experiencing the swells that are a consequence.  As you can see above, most of us have learned to lean into the sway of the ship.  This guy is actually standing perpendicular, and the ship has rolled so much to make him appear leaning.

The student stores took a hit overnight with lots of stuff falling off the shelves.  The conversations at breakfast this morning were mostly stories of how little sleep everyone got and what moved in their cabins. Everything moved in our cabin and much of it ended up on the floor.  I'm glad I started with putting it there myself.  Nancy got up during the night and stood by the bed and slid all the way across the room to the cabin door. She grabbed the door handle, or she would have slid all the way back as the ship rolled the opposite direction.

The good news is that we had the books in the library stabilized so that only a few fell off the shelf.  I wish I could say the same for the library computer--it was on the floor (but it was fine, Mary).  That would have been a good advertisement for Dell.
And, ironically, when I turned on my MP3 player at the gym this morning, the song that came up was: "Wasn't that a Mighty Storm

As I walked around the ship yesterday, the students were having great conversations--about their classes, about their cultures, about their plans for port trips, about sexuality and about diversity.  There is also a constant list of procedural things to do. We thought we had spent the last 4 months taking care of everything, but everyone still had forms to fill out for our Brazil passports since they couldn't be done very far in advance. We had some of our remaining trip requests due, and we are still discovering little things about the ship.  I met a student--Keith--this week, and he had gotten accepted for the program on Jan. 6.  He got all the things done in a few days that most of us had taken weeks to do, and I'm talking about shots, passports, and packing.  Keith will go far in life.

I've started marking off days on our big ship calendar in the library since we don't really have a reference point to know what day it is. No Global studies today, so everyone is getting their teams together for the global studies project where they will create a sustainability lesson plan for high schools.

My birder friends will want to see the picture of the Albatross -there were three of them yesterday.

Rhythms

Well, the shipboard community is starting to settle into a bit of a rhythm.  Everyone knows where there classes are--except those 25 folks standing across the way who are in the drop/add line.   That's part of a rhythm, too, because students everywhere are changing their schedules.  They have started to have groups and activities. Believe it or not, there was a big knitting community meeting together last night and a huge group of kids playing charades.

The Explorer Seminars began last night.  These are classes/lecture/workshops that are "extras".  I attended a seminar by Jonathan Spence.  Prof Spence is a retired professor of Chinese History and an expert as evidenced by the body of his publications.  What a great resource to talk about the history of China.  He will be on the ship for part of the voyage as part of a special program.

The library is hopping.  I've included a before/after shot. Students are reading reserve materials, checking out other books, consulting reference sources and  devouring the big selection  of travel guides that we have.  The reservations for the next group of Semester at Sea trip is due in a couple of days.  I have to believe that if students planned the rest of their lives like they plan their trips, they would be well-served.

The library on the ship was the casino on the former incarnation of the ship, and everyone who sits at the bar says he feels like he should order a drink.  We're trying to find a tip jar.  We did do some major re-arranging of the reserve materials since they are just not wanting to stay on the shelves.  Now many of them are under the counter. We also discovered that cheezy romance novels make a great item to cram in the end of the shelves to wedge the books tight so they don't move.

And finally, I wanted to say a word about cabin bathrooms.  I don't spend much time there, but ours is quite cozy.  One of the rhythms for me was to figure out which way the unique shower handle needed to be turned to produce hot water.  There were two incentives--not standing in cold water for too long and conserving water.  I now know how and can get hot water pretty quickly.  That's good since the water consumption on the ship was 295 liters per person on Tuesday.  As a sustainability theme, we're looking for ways to bring this down, and now I'm doing a little part.

As a last comment about bathrooms, there is a small stainless steel contraption on the wall next to the toilet.  It can be swiveled 180 degrees and forms a small bowl like a possible ash tray.  Since there is no smoking in cabins, I don't think that's it.  I would appreciate any ideas.

I'm still rising early, but I'm usually rewarded.