two by sea (Nancy and Warner travel @ the world): 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.