Aidan and The Hotdogs

So, as you'll know from my video blog once I have it up, I have a friend named Aidan who eats hot dogs like nothing I have ever seen.  She is a relatively picky eater and doesn't like the "cafeteria food" but she LOVES hot dogs which you can get on the top deck.  I have been keeping a count in my journal, she's eaten 40-something so far.  Everyone has made bets on how many she'll eat before the trip is up.  I made a joke once that if I had a band, I would call it Aidan and The Hotdogs, which brings me to my next point... While we were in Brazil Hassan picked up a guitar.  We discovered within five minutes of him bringing it home that we both love "No Children" by The mountain Goats and also that we sound pretty decent singing together.  We've had "Time To Pretend" spinning on repeat and tonight we were pretty bored so we decided to learn that song and "Kids" by MGMT.  After about an hour of practice Aidan and the Hotdogs were born!!! Aidan isn't technically in our "band" but I think Whitney is going to be our back-up dancer.  Videos to come.

MAN BITES DOG

Last week I received my first assignments for journalism class; I had to write two articles.  I finished them both relatively quickly but worked hard to make them the best I could and edited them several times afterward, something I rarely do.  Today in class we got them back.  Before handing them out our professor said "these were your first articles so I'll consider them practice and not give you grades. Don't be offended if I was harsh, I am your editor so I will have to make changes.  The majority of these will have to be revised so just go back to the book and rework them, but there are a few that will say 'ready to go.'"  I was preparing for the worst because I've never written a news article but I got amazing feedback! On one of them there were a few grammatical errors but at the top she wrote "good read" and at the end she wrote "good job!"  On my second one at the top she wrote "wonderful!" and at the end she wrote "READY TO GO!"  I am SO proud of myself.  Being a journalist is not something I ever really considered but I am really enjoying this class. Talking to people and interviewing them is a bit tough for me but putting together the articles I find awesome and extremely gratifying and I obviously did well on my first ones.  Soon we will move past news and more into feature writing which I'm extremely excited about because I think I'll enjoy the process for those stories a bit more.

That's about all for now. I'm feeling a lot better today than yesterday. I went to pub night last night and hung out with people outside my normal social group and we had a good time. Last night I remembered to shut the shade so I got a little bit more sleep. We set the clocks forward again so, while I slept in until nine it was really only eight but it didn't bother me except that I missed breakfast and my normal cup of coffee. I laid out a bit today and got a little tan and a little burnt but nothing too serious. I'm about to go to Indian Singing Ensemble and then dinner, hopefully some homework and then I have a photo club meeting and a meeting with my group for my global studies project but they may overlap.  We meet all the freaking time and never accomplish anything so I don't really know why we're meeting, today I might just tell them I'm going to get my work done myself because it's a waste of everyones time.

I'll write more soon!  February 3 is the "Sea Olympics" which is like a day of contests between all of the floors and the winners get to get off the boat first in San Diego. I don't really care about getting off the boat first and I have my first exam the next day so I might skip out to study.

xoxo

ps. The title of this entry is one of our mantras in News Writing... a dog biting a man isn't news; a man biting a dog is.

Sacrifices

        I’m feeling a little bit down today.  I love my friends here but their inconsistencies and ignorance sometimes throws me off.  They talk constantly about wanting to start non-profits and help the underprivileged yet they go through internet time like it’s free, some have already spent over $500 on it in the short time we’ve been here.   That time and money spent surfing facebook could have easily changed the lives of people in many of the countries we will be visiting.  Having motivation to save the world is great but you need to make changes every day and not just when you can put it on your resume. 
        Next Sunday, a week from today, we dock in Ghana.  Ghana is one of the countries I have been most looking forward to as I am part of a small group going to the Senase Village to participate in a homestay.  In the village we will have three days of drum and dance lessons, visit the children in their schools, make dinner with our “families” and help with work on the farms.  We will sleep with the villagers right in their homes – we essentially become a part of the village for three days.  To get to this village we will have to drive seven hours out into the country, leaving before sunrise. 
This will hopefully be one of the most amazing experiences of my life – the people who have done it in the past said it was absolutely incredible and I feel lucky to be part of the small group going.  I assumed this was the type of thing people would want to do in Ghana – cultural immersions, connecting with the locals and really trying to change our perception of the Global South.  I found out today, however, that not everyone had this idea.
        The majority of my friends are taking a tram to a beach resort about an hour away from where the boat docks. They will stay in a villa, have free wifi, go swimming, tan, get drunk, and watch for leatherback turtles. Obviously, this sounds amazing, but ten years from now which memory will be more meaningful, more relevant?
        Taking a vacation always sounds wonderful but will be nothing compared to what I’m going to do. That being said, it’s hard for me to continuously feel left out of all of the fun adventures and pictures because I’m trying to really understand where I am and what it means.  I feel left out sitting around during the planning and even more so afterwards when there’s new drama, new relationships, new jokes and I’m not a part of any of it.
        Whenever I have dilemmas like this I use the 10-10-10 rule. I think about how this will make me feel in ten minutes, ten months and ten years.  In ten minutes I will feel how I am feeling now, lonely and sad that I’m missing out on the “fun.”  In ten months, however, I will have had a completely eye-opening experience that changes the way I view the American lifestyle and the way I was raised while everyone else’s tans will be long gone.  And ten years from now… well, I guess we’ll have to see.

i am a piranha in the a-ma-zon!

        I will begin my apologizing in advance if any of my spelling is ridiculous. I’m a bit tired and lately I’ve been messing up really simple words. Yesterday I spelled “baby” like “babie” and I “maid” the bed. Maybe I just have a thing for myself right now. Haha. Is that too clever, is it clever at all? Ok, moving on.
        The reason I’m kind of tired is because I wake up at 7 every freaking day! Even with all of the time changes we go through, it’s always 7 because that’s when the sun comes up and I always forget to close the shades at night.  Then, once I get up I can’t motivate myself to go back to sleep because I want coffee and a croissant and breakfast is only served from 7-8:30.  I’m usually not too hungry in the mornings but today I had a chocolate croissant, peach yogurt and coffee.
        We got back on to the boat last from Brazil. Coming back was AMAZING.  I know that because of my specific circumstances I was dying to be back “home” but I wasn’t sure how everyone else would feel.  As soon as I turned my passport back in and put my bags down I rat outside to our hang out spot and waited. Within 15 minutes the first groups of my friends started coming out and it was tackling hugs all around while screaming as fast as we could at each other random things that had happened and laughing uncontrollably.  This continued and repeated itself for the next hour until 5:30 hit and we all ran to dinner, starving.
        Brazil was definitely an interesting experience. Not what I expected, but I’m learning quickly that expectations are a waste of time. For those who don’t know my itinerary, I went on an SAS sponsored trip spending two days on a riverboat in the Amazon followed by a red-eye to Rio, two days there and a 5 am flight back to the boat where we would board a half hour before on-board time.
        First thing Sunday morning I said good-bye to all of my friends and boarded the riverboat. I was a bit freaked out because it was literally me, 20 sorority girls and three guys. There are very few people on this trip that I dislike but there is one group of (I’m sad to say) rich, Jewish girls who are obnoxious, rude, self-centered and feel like they are better than everyone else and entitled to everything.  Because of this I got a slow start and spent a lot of my riverboat time doing my own thing, but that wasn’t necessarily bad as I have barely spent any time alone since I’ve been here.
        The first day we started by going to see “the meeting of waters”  where the Rio Negro, which is black, meets the Rio Solimoes, which is brown.  I’ll post some pictures as soon as I have internet in port.  Following that we went to a small market on the water to see giant water lilies.  While there we saw two crocodiles which was awesome! Y’all know how I freak out about the wildlife.  There was also a little market where I bought an AMAZING headdress and two maracas.  I fear it may have been made from the feathers of an endangered species ( =( ) because the feathers are definitely real but I will cherish it forever and keep it high on my shelf as long as it isn’t seized by the Wildlife and Fisheries Agency is customs.  There was a total language barrier when I was trying to buy it and I ended up accidentally bargaining. The woman wrote down $40 which I thought was a fine deal but all I had was an $100 bill. I kept trying to ask if she had change and motioning my hands in the “smaller” position and she thought I was saying “less” and we went through this until it got down to $25 and some guy came over who also didn’t speak English but understood what I was trying to do through my elaborate sign language and found me change.  Pictures to come. I won’t be saying that again, because there are pictures to come of everything.
        We left the market and had a five-hour ride to this lake, I can’t recall the name. This was a bit frustrating because we hadn’t been told and I had brought NOTHING to do… no ipod, no book, no homework, and neither had anyone else.  They gave us our hammocks to set up for that evenings sleep and everyone ended up napping the afternoon away as it was too hot to sit in the sun anyway.
        We eventually docked and had dinner on the boat and by this time it was dark.  All 30 of us then piled in to a tiny boat, like one of those little ones that looks like a motorized canoe that is used for fishing, and we jetted out in to the abyss, no one really sure what was happening. The stars however were amazing. I thought we would get good stars on the MV Explorer but there are too many lights everywhere and we’ve seen barely any. Here, though, it was totally dark. The second I put my head up I saw a shooting star right across the sky. I made a wish fast and I’m glad I did because that was the only shooting star I saw all night.
        As we got farther and farther in to the middle of the Amazon and heard more and more animal sounds I honestly began to get a bit freaked out. Our guide was shining his light back and forth over the water so quickly I thought it impossible he could find anything and found it unlikely our mission – which we discovered was to catch a caiman – would be successful.
        Wrong I was! All of a sudden I heard a quick splash, a gasp and he stood at the front of the boat holding a tiny crocodile in his hands, one hand around it’s neck and the other on it’s tail!  It was probably around 1.5 ft long. He began to tell us about it, showing us his belly and making him open his mouth so we could see his teeth (so cute!).  There was a piece of his tail missing – it had been bitten off by a piranha and we could see the bite marks.
        I thought that was it, but he then proceeded to pass the caiman around the boat so we could all hold it and take a picture! Unfortunately the girl who took my picture is the only person on the boat who can’t use a camera and it’s not really a good shot but I do have photographic evidence.
        Around 9 we got back to the boat, hung out and got ready for bed. Now that I think about it we might have had dinner at this point and not before but I can’t exactly remember.
        Going to sleep was an experience – sleeping in a hammock literally within a 20 foot radius of 35 other people is difficult. If one person’s hammock started swinging it would bump the others and everyone started swinging. You could also hear EVERYTHING.
        Previously mentioned entitled girls kept everyone up for about three hours. That is not an exaggeration. It may have been longer, but that is when I finally fell asleep. She started with stories about her car accidents which were actually quite entertaining but it terrified me to hear the things she had actually done while driving and I can’t believe she still has her license. Following was an elaborate discussion of all things Chicago. The mechanisms of the best pizza, the best shopping, the best shoe stores, mutual friends, etc. It was the most boring conversation I have ever heard and I typically love eavesdropping.  I finally passed out and actually got a decent night of sleep in my hammock. It’s really comfortable! When leaving the boat I ended up buying it for $20 and it’s way nicer than anything you could get for that price in the US.
        The next morning we woke up at 5:30 to go piranha fishing. We loaded right back up in to our tiny dingy and headed about 200 meters away from the boat we had been on and literally places sticks with string and meat on the end in to the water.  We sat there wondering if anyone would catch anything when someone felt a tug and flung their stick out of the water – empty.  We all slowly raising our sticks and discovered that the sneaky piranha had eaten the meat off of everybody’s fishing pole! They are obviously very experienced.
        Two students ended up catching piranha and the guides caught three. I didn’t catch any but I wasn’t really disappointed. They just threw them in to the bottom of the boat to eat for dinner later and there was a little water so myself and the three other girls in back just watched them die for about an hour =/
        Our last stop was a locals house a jungle walk.  At this mans house he showed us how he lives which was very cool. I can’t really tell you because than I’d have to kill you. No but really I just can’t remember/pronounce any of the fruits and nuts he grows and sells so I would just be making things up.
        Eventually we got back on the boat for our long ride home and I saw two awesome things. One, outside of a little house boat (there are many house boats along the river) was a family outside feeding fish to a wild dolphin. It was really cute. I love the degree to which the people who live in Amazonia live in harmony with nature. Next, we passed a little boat with a boy in it who could not have been older than seven. With him in the boat was a small caiman, tied up, and a sloth sitting around his soldier. YEAH, A FREAKIN SLOTH. I am soooo jealous. All I wanted to do was hang out with a sloth, I was talking about it all week, and I didn’t get to. And THEN, I got back to the boat to find out ALL OF MY FRIENDS HUNG OUT WITH SLOTHS. I’m beyond jealous.
        Oh, one other crucial detail. As we’re about to leave we hear a splash and run to look over the side of the boat. It was our guide swimming in the water! We all freaked out for a split second before realizing it was intentional and he asked us all to join him. People stared in disbelief before realizing he was serious.
        “Won’t the piranhas bite you?”
        “I haven’t been bitten yet.”
        I started to get back in to my hammock, content to be warm and dry, when I realized that this may be my only opportunity ever to swim in the Amazon.  And I didn’t go to Brazil to be an American in a hammock, I went to do what the locals do, so I threw on my bathing suit and jumped in. It was awesome!  The water was really warm and while I was a bit paranoid I got comfortable real quick.  
        We were told that there are certain areas of the Amazon where you can’t even put your finger in the water for a second and you will probably get it bitten off but luckily this wasn’t one of them.  We were also told, however, about an American researched who had her legs dangling in the water and was then dragged in and had them bitten off by a crocodile. Terrifying. Luckily, she survived, and is now on a book tour.     

        Eventually we got back to the MV Explorer and it was about 4:30pm. We had to be back in the Union at 11:15pm to catch a flight to Rio.  At this point I got some unsettling news which threw me off a bit. I didn’t know where any of my friends were because they were out and about in Manaus so I did the only thing I could – got my computer, out on some calm music and went out to our spot. After sitting there for ten minutes I heard my name. 
        “JORDYN?!?!?! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?!?!!”
        Mia and Mackenzie had been on their way to get water and glanced to see if anyone was around.  They came outside, I filled them in on the previous few days and they decided we had to get drunk immediately.  I was directed to go to my room, shower, get my make-up and go to Mia’s room to “get dolled up.”
        Around 7:30 we made out way out in to Manaus. I’m going to be straight up – no one wants to be those assholes hanging out at the port bar, but Manaus was TERRIFYING! It was Mia, Mackenzie, Kayla, Sam, Coleman and I and we did not feel save. 5 girls and the most zenned out hippie on the boat and we were not prepared to lose our money so we went right back to the port bar as we only had a few hours anyway.
        (Side note, this is not us being paranoid – we had multiple lectures about the dangers of Brazil, travel in groups, etc and within three hours of docking there were THREE muggings.  We just didn’t want to risk it before I had to catch a flight).  
        We spent a few hours drinking and I went back to the boat to go to Rio.  Traveling was a bit difficult in my state but it turned out for the best because I passed out on the plane no problem.  After traveling all night we got to Rio in the am to start touring.

Ok, I have been writing for awhile now and am losing focus so I am going to write the Rio part of this entry alter. I hope everyone is doing well at home!!!
       

hey!

Hey everyone... I know this is terrible, but I got so much random email while I was in Brazil and my inbox is really chaotic and I'm not sure who i have and haven't responded to!  I will try to figure it out, but if you are waiting on a response from me email me and let me know with the subject or the first line of your last email (or even just forward me your last email) and I'll respond as quickly as possible!!!!!  A full blog entry about Brazil as soon as I finish my homework!

bugs n stuff

        Hello everyone! Tomorrow morning we will dock in Brazil and I will have my first real cultural experience!!!! Not that Dominica wasn’t “real” but I think Brazil will be unlike anything I have ever seen before.
        Today in order to give us a heads up on classes we’ll have after Brazil we had a “reading day” which basically means no class!!!!!!  The day is supposed to be used for homework but people kind of just hang out, relax, sleep in and do whatever they want.
        I’m still not really sleeping well because our sailing is so smooth – how weird is that? – so I didn’t get a great night of sleep. It’s still better than most of my friends though who are having nightmares because of the malaria medication. I’m glad I’mi not part of that 25% - apparently it’s pretty common.  Anyway, a couple of us decided to stay up all night to watch the sunrise two nights ago but around 3:30 gave up and went to bed, mostly because we planned on sleeping outside forgetting that the Amazon and not the middle of the Atlantic = HUGE BUGS! Seriously, they’re everywhere.
        After tossing and turning I finally got to sleep and got up this morning around 7:30 with the sun. I rolled around in bed for a while but after realizing I wasn’t going to get back to sleep I decided to start my day.  I got up, put on my bathing suit and headed up to the top deck to lie out and do some reading.  It was HOT.  And I got a beautiful tan, no burn!!!! I guess that actually works when you’re rigorous with sun screen – I literally reapplied every hour and after every time I swam.
        I spent most of the morning reading as the pool deck filled up and by noon it was bumping – meaning all the fratty people blasting terrible music, splashing each other and bitching about tan lines. My friend D came up to do some reading but we ended up just hanging out, listening to Passion Pit and swimming while waiting for the rest of our friends to filter through.      
        One of the coolest things about being here is definitely the sky. It goes on for miles and miles in every direction and the clouds are amazing.  There are crazy formations everywhere and we would sail under a dark cloud, it would rain for 5 minutes, then when we were passed it it would be done. We also watched it rain in different places far off in to the distance while the sky was blue over us. Apparently there was a super epic rainbow but I missed it =/
        When we had enough sun we went inside and I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the boat and catching up with different people.  I was all salty (the pool is saltwater) and I didn’t want to shower and then go the gym so instead I did crunches and danced around my room. In the middle of an epic twist (listening to Beats Antique of course) Ashley walked in with a friend and it was almost awkward but luckily as always she thought it was funny… she must think I am the craziest roommate!
        Around 7:30 my friends and I met up and we went to dinner and spent the meal laughing and telling funny stories and I decided since I’ve been good about not drinking on the boat I could have some wine with dinner. It was crazy, two glasses of red wine when I’ve barely been drinking and I had a great buzz!  Following dinner we had the preport meeting so I definitely needed to be.  The meetings are always funny, they do a great job keeping us entertained, but they are wayyyy too long. A lot of redundancy. Regardless, though, we had a good time and managed to laugh quite a bit.
I’m excited for Brazil but there are so many dangers up ahead! We learned about a million different fevers if we don’t take all of these preventative measures and apparently Brazil is extremely dangerous and crime is normal enough that local woman carry two purses, their real ones that they hide and a fake one to give to muggers when they’re held up.    That’s why I’m really glad I’m on an SAS sponsored trip. That means they know what’s up, have taken all the right safety precausions, have reliable transportation and hotel, etc. I’m not going to bring anything of value to Rio though so I won’t have my computer or camera and, while I’ll probably bring my phone, I definitely won’t walk around with it.  I’m not trying to get robbed!
The past few hours have been really fun as well – I love having such a large social group because there are always different people to hang out with.  I got ice cream with my main crew, then had a music exchange party with a couple of other people who I’ve been wanting to spend time with and I showed them Supernews – they were very impressed.  Afterwards I found the rest of my friends to say good-bye because I won’t see them until after Brazil and now I’m hanging out with Ashley in the room and talking about plans for tomorrow.
That’s about it! I am extremely excited for the next week but I can’t even process what’s in store for me, so we’ll see! 

One last thing – tomorrow, January 23, is my wonderful boyfriend Rollie’s 22nd birthday.  Happy birthday baby, have a great day, I’m sorry I can’t be there but you’ll probably have more fun without me because you can at least go to the bars. I love you! Be safe, be bold, be mega.

right in this moment this order's tall

hello blog. the past two days have been good. this morning i woke up and we were sailing down the amazon exactly as i pictured it! well, kind of. we were closer to the edge and we could see trees and grass and huts and fisherman and birds and... cows. yeah, idk about that either.

anyway, classes are good. my newswriting class is sooooo interesting. i now know how normal people must feel in school.  it's freakin awesome to not be doing science! to learn about things that are funny and interesting and relevant.

this morning I met a girl named Kelly. we both didn't have anything to do so we decided to go to the meditation seminar that was taking place in the union. it was AMAZING! i was so pleasantly surprised.  i walked out of there feeling more balanced and alive than i have in a really long time.

this afternoon i had indian singing again. sooo much fun. i can't wait to upload some videos.  during class in between songs our teacher said "Ok... now story time..... who wants to tell a story? You look like you have a story."  And this is the story I told about last night:

"I was sitting on the deck writing in my journal when I saw a beatle with some of it's legs broken. It was struggling to stand up and fly but it was too hurt and couldn't do anything. For 15 minutes my friend Aidan and I watched it die, helpless.  There was nothing we could do to make it better.  We looked at each other and both understood what we were seeing - it was a metaphor for so much that we will experience on this trip. We are going to so many countries where I will see people who are hungry or sad or dying and there will be nothing I can do to help them.  I felt so hopeless that I started crying, feeling like no matter what I do I will never make a difference big enough to matter.  Eventually, Aidan had to go inside and my friend Hassan sat next to me and told me to snap out of it. I told him why I was sad, thinking it was a good excuse, and he said 'so what?'  Do you realize what an amazing opportunity you have been given to be here? Do you realize how little of a chance there was that you, as you, would be here right now and have a chance to learn all of these things and actually make a difference? So many people are sitting at home, in front of their TVs, in America, and they will never even know about the world.' He took out his notebook and showed me the math of how I ended up here. The chance that of all the eggs and sperm I was born, of all of directions my life could have gone, and when the numbers were too high to count he said 'You see?  It's incredible. This math is what keeps me going.'  I took a second to breath and realized he was right.  We sat in the dark and made funny faces and sang Indian Ragas under the full moon, but not forgetting about the journey that lies ahead."

ps. we finally got speakers on the deck today. we were rocking out to dubstep, and Hassan turns it off and puts on Skinny Love. I'm happy and amazed to say the exact same thing happened that happens at home.

WILDLIFE EXPEDITION #1: SUCCESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

First of all, imagine my boat floating down the Amazon river. If you're like anyone I know, you picture a huge boat brushing through branches as monkeys hop from tree to tree and parrots can be heard in the distance.  What the Amazon actually is is FUCKING HUGE. It is the largest river of all time. OF ALL TIME. And that's true.  You can't even see both sides at once. It's like a massive beyond massive lake, but it's a river. And it's wide and long. And that's what I said. Anyway, the boat is stopped right now for customs so we're just kind of kicking it in the middle of this huge ass river.

Now imagine a normal person.  They are sailing around the world and while floating down this massive amazon river they see the nose of a crocodile skim the top of the water. Then another.  "Look at that," they say to the person next to them.  "A crocodile. How about that."  They then go inside, return to their daily lives, and maybe mention their sighting to the next person they see.

Now imagine me.  Do I even need to tell you how this went down? I'm sitting in the hallway and overhear someone say to another "Yeah, he said he saw a crocodile."  I instantly jump up, slam shut my computer and race to my room.  "ASHLEY!!!!!!!!! I'M GOING ON A WILDLIFE EXPEDITION!" I spend the next ten minutes frantically getting dressed, applying sunscreen, and gathering my wildlife expedition materials: camera, notebook, binoculars, diet coke, water bottle.  I race up to the deck and stare straight ahead. "I heard there are crocodiles. I heard they're here." A minute later my friend Sam comes out and goes "Yeah, I saw them," casually as if it's not FREAKING CRAZY THAT WE ARE SAILING AMONGST CROCODILES. I continuously scan the water with my binoculars babbling excitedly to anyone who passes when she goes "Oh look, there's one."  "WHERE?" "Right, there, that's it's nose." And then I see it. A tiny black nose pop out of the water. Then another, then a nose and some eyes. "AAAAAAHHHHH GIGIGIGI AAHAHAHAHAH CORCOCO CROCODILES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I think I startled everyone with a 100 foot radius.  I spent the next half hour staking out the area commandeering anyone who walked by and telling them all about the crocodiles and trying to make them look through my binoculars. No one really cared that much.  But my life is a success!  A picture of me on my successful first wildlife expedition to come!

Dominica

        All right, finally time for a quick overview of Dominica. We arrived at around 7am and were allowed to get off the boat at 8:30.   Of course everyone was extremely anxious so a decent size line formed and Hassan (previously known as Asan – I can’t spell), Ashley and I stepped foot on land at around 9:45.  We wandered around town a bit and instantly noticed something strange: everything, and I mean EVERYTHING was closed. It turns out Dominica is over 85% Catholic so on Sundays the city literally shuts down.  When getting off the boat we had been overwhelmed by probably 20 different tour guides trying to take us on different adventures but in an attempt to take it easy we had avoided them. We then realized that was all there was to do.
        We made our way back towards the boat as Ashley and Hassan both had FDPs and I caught up with my friend Tatiana and two other people, Cassie and Alex whom I had never met.  In about a second a tour guide named Kelvin approached and said, “Want to go to the waterfalls?”  After agreeing on a price of $15 per person for 3 hours of touring around the island, we figured why not? (PS – all of the tour guides has special shirts and ID badges to show they were registered with the visitor center so he wasn’t a random dude trying to kidnap us).   
        He drove us to two waterfalls called the Mama and the Papa while giving us a brief history and tour of the island. Dominica is seriously gorgeous – just sprawling hilltops of lush green rainforest with rivers, waterfalls, hot springs and sulfur springs throughout.  We got to the waterfalls and he said showed us to a trail we had to pay $5 to walk. He said “I’ll wait for you here, it’s a quick 7 minute walk to the pools.”  Uh – yeah, maybe for a 6’ Dominican man!  It was a normal hike for a while, but then in order to get to the waterfalls we had to cross streams and huge wet, mossy boulders!  I followed the group about halfway up but then decided to stop because I hadn’t realized I would be hiking and was not dressed for the occasion – a huge back-back, a dress, sandals and a camera around my neck. I wasn’t willing to lose any part of that equation, especially my ankle, so I waited behind while Tatiana and Alex climbed to the top.
        After the waterfalls we jumped back in to the car and continued our tour of the island. My personal highlight was when driving past a river and what did I see… a man in tattered clothing standing in it with a HUGE SNAKE!!!! I screamed STOP!!! And Kelvin slowed down and said oh, he will make you pay $1 to hold it. And I was like “That’s his pet…? And I can hold it…? For $1?!?!?!? Hell yeah!” Everyone else in the car winced in disgust, but as soon as they saw how badass I looked with that boa around my neck (see facebook pictures) they got right on board and held her too.
        We then took a drive through the botanical gardens and head back to the boat for our afternoon tours.  I went snorkeling in Champagne reef, which is named that because of all the bubbles – I think I said this already.  It was cool; I met some other fun people from my trip and saw some sweet fishies. No sea turtles unfortunately but my favorites were the Stoplight Parrot Fish, the Trumpet Fish and the Trunkfish.  The damn trumpet fish (which is ridiculous looking if you’ve ever seen one) kept swimming along the top of the water and popping up next to my face and scaring me!
        After snorkeling we headed back to the boat to get ready for our first night out.  I rushed to take a shower and look cute to meet my friends at the pier at 6. I arrived at 5:45 just to be safe.  At 6:15 still no one, and I was being hit on by a super creepy English dude with a rat-tail. Luckily at 6:30 Hassan came out and rescued me.  It was a back and forth fight for my attention for about 5 minutes, then the English dude realized I couldn’t even understand what he was saying let down did I want to join him for a drink, or a shag, or whatever English people do.
        I told Hassan how depressed I was that my friends blew me off and we decided to get a drink before meeting the rest of our group at 7 to go to the bars.  We walked to J.R.’s and got what Dominica is famous for, their “rum punch.” This was a whole lot of rum with maybe a droplet of punch. It was STRONG!  The bartender told me to take a big sip and he would water it down with juice, but even after that it was like pure rum… but good rum.
        We got back to the boat to meet everyone around 7, and Mackenzie and Mia (the girls I was supposed to meet) arrived a minute later. They were like “Where have you been?!” and I was like “What… where have YOU been?!” It turns out they were waiting at the bottom of the boat, and I was waiting at the end of the dock.  Ha, ha.  Luckily all was forgiven and we headed to the bars.
        Our group was lucky – we headed out early so we were the first people there. We hung out, danced a little, had some drinks and as soon as it became overrun we jumped in a taxi with Greg (one of our others friends tour guides from earlier in the day) and he took us to the Crazy Coconut, the big Dominican club. It was empty so we had it to ourselves for about an hour where we continued to drink, dance to Lady Gaga, etc, until it became overrun with other SAS kids and we were all too drunk to keep drinking anyway, so Greg took us back to the boat.  We went up to the top deck, got drunk food (grilled cheese, pizza, burgers) and passed out after a wonderful first day.
        My second day was not nearly as exciting. I woke up pretty hung-over and met the group to make plans. We had a bunch of differing opinions about what to do and I could sense the drama starting to unfold so I decided to do my own thing.  I went to the fruit market, walked around for a while then found a cute Internet café where I went on facebook to upload pictures. I wandered around town a bit (I didn’t go more than two blocks from the boat so there were other SASer everywhere, don’t worry) and talked to some of the locals. I talked to one old man named Avon who told me about his kids who were at school in the US.  We had a long conversation about work ethic, finding what you want to do and the importance of happiness. It was really nice and I was successful with one of my first port homework assignments – have an extended conversation with a local). 
        After our talk I went to a bar and drank some orange juice (lame, I know) before spending some time in the sun and buying souvenirs.  My goal was to buy a pair of earrings in every country but I couldn’t find any that I liked so I bought a couple of CDs instead.  I haven’t listened to them yet, but the girl working at the store suggested them to me as her favorite Dominican artists so I am excited to give them a listen.
        I eventually met up with a couple friends and we headed back to the boat around 4 to avoid being late and getting “dock time.” There is often times a line to get back on to the ship, and if you get back later than the “on board time” (in this case 6pm) even if you have been waiting in line for 2 hours, you have dock time in the next port. That means for every ten minutes you are late you can’t get off the ship for three hours.  If you have something scheduled it doesn’t matter and you lose your money.
        Anyways, that’s about it for my Dominican trip! I think that’s about all that’s going on on the boat right now. I’m still loving my classes, my professors get more hilarious each day and everyone is really cool.
        Hope all is well at home – send me emails!
        xoxo

I don't know if you'll ever hear about Dominica

So I realize last nights long blog entry never happened.  Here is my excuse:  while I was trying to do my reading, we went from the Atlantic Ocean to the Amazon River. To do this, we had to go through shallow water which means the boat was rough. Rough boat = rocking back and forth. Meaning I fall asleep in minutes.  Around 1 my roommate came back and found me passed out with my book open. The irony is that I got up finished my homework, then afterwards was so exhausted that I tried to go back to sleep but it took me about an hour because we were IN the amazon river and the water was perfectly calm. Yeah, turns out that unless I have my cradle of rough seas to rock me to sleep I can't 0.o

It's around 7 now, and I'm up about to eat breakfast and have class for the day.  I'm feeling exhausted, which is sad because yesterday I had *such* a great day. Two nights ago I was blasted from Dominica so I went to bed at 8:30.  Woke up at around 7:30 yesterday morning and just had the most epic day. I got a nice little breakfast, then got changed and went up to the top deck because it was gorgeous.  I was one of the first ones there so I got a good chair and laid out in the sun all morning while listening to music and getting reading done for my classes. At around 12 I came inside, changed, and went to my News Writing class which was great.  After, I got a quick lunch then worked out & showered before Indian Singing Ensemble.  After singing Hassan and I did a quick performance for our friends, then we all got dinner and hung out until the Photo Club Meeting at 7. Went to photo club till 9, then went back to my room and read about 10 pages before I did that whole falling asleep thing.  Woke up at 1, finished my homework and went back to bed. Now I'm here.

The food here is old already, but breakfast is always awesome - you know it must be if I'm dragging myself out of bed at 7 when I don't have class until 9:15.  Today I have a spinach and cheese omelette, strawberry yogurt, orange juice and a chocolate croissant, and that's definitely eating on the conservative side.

That's just about it for now. Oh, one more piece of news - I've decided to add video to this blog!  All those days where I don't feel like writing I have been taking little videos so as soon as I'm in port I'll upload them.  xo

Empower Nepali Girls

I know it's been a few days since I've written, and I keep getting halfway through blogs and then getting so tired that I fall asleep.  I have tons of reading and meetings and stuff today (they keep us busy here) but I PROMISE, well not promise, but 98% promise an entry about ship life and Dominica by tomorrow night!

There is one quick thing I want to write about because I can't help it. This morning in my global studies class we had a speaker, Jeffrey Kottler, who is a professor on the ship, has written many "self-help" books and is also the founder of the non-profit Empower Nepali Girls.  Now the first thing I want to say is that this guy has renewed my faith in humanity just a bit - this guy is the author of seriously, like, 50 books with titles like "Help yourself Help Others," "Finding Yourself While Helping," etc. (I just made those up, but you get the picture).  He is the living practice of everything he preaches.  He spoke to us for an hour and a half, and he was the most emotional, passionate, real speaker I have ever seen.  To see him change throughout his talk was amazing - he spoke, he smiled, he laughed, he yelled (and i mean YELLED) and yep, he even cried (along with half of the audience).  He was absolutely captivating, and if you ever have the opportunity to see him it is a must.

His organization, "Empower Nepali Girls," sponsors lower caste girls in Nepal and sponsors them for $50-$100 a  year so that they can go to school.  He founded this organization ten years ago.  He had been doing service work and research in different places and was in Nepal in a small village.  As he walked around the village, he kept hearing about girls "disappearing," and afterwards no one would speak of them again.  He did a bit of digging and discovered that these 8-13 year-old girls were being sold in to sex slavery in surrounding countries (like India) by their parents and would be raped as many as 10 or 15 times on their first DAY.  It was unclear whether or not the parents knew the girls were being sold in to sex slavery because no one would speak of it, but when the only other option is starvation and death it can seem like the only choice.

Anyway, one day he was standing by the school and saw one girl named Inu standing off to the side.  He asked the principal why she was there and the principal told him it was because she was the next to disappear. He asked the principal how much it would take to keep her in school and he continuously said "it's too much, it's too much, no one can afford it."  After a lot of pressing, Jeffrey discovered that in order to stay in school Inu would need fall and spring uniforms, school supplies, shoes and food which would cost 2,500 rupies, the equivalent of $50.  He took $50 out of his pocket, handed it to the principal and said "Inu stays in school!"

Shortly after walking away, however, his doctoral student approached him and said "You know what happens now, right?  You have to come back.  If you don't tell the principal you are coming back to check on Inu in a year he will keep the money and she will be gone."  Thus, Empower Nepali Girls was born.  Jeffrey and a team of up to 20 people, primarily women, go to villages across the jungle and the Himalayas every fall award girls scholarships and provide female empowerment mentoring.  In Nepal, these lower caste girls are worth so little that if an elder had to choose between saving their lives or a goat, the goat would be saved every time.  These girls have never even heard of women having professions, and often times in childbirth they are left to die so that their husbands can find stronger wives.  Empowering Nepali Girls aims to change this and to help rebuild the country.

Empower Nepali Girls has no president, no employees, no headquarters.  All volunteers pay for their service out of pocket and over 90% of donations go directly to sponsoring girls.  And how's Inu, you ask?  She is the first girl from her village to go to university, on a full scholarship to the most elite school in Thailand.

If it ends with "it," you probably shouldn't do it.

Day 3 - 1/14


        Writing is literally the last thing I feel like doing right now, but I promised myself that when I had time I would try to write every day, so I’ll give a quick overview. Had my first classes today – Global Studies, World Religions and Music and Cognition. They were all awesome and interesting. In between classes I went ot the gym  - you’re supposed to sign up a day in advance but I just showed up and no one was signed up for the stairmaster so I jumped on for a half hour which was nice. Tonight was the first night we were able to drink alcohol (two drinks either beer or wine at dinner) which was relatively exciting. After dinner I went to a lecture on called “Architecture and Slavery” given by one of the professors on the boat on how the structure of different buildings in Jamaica and Africa tell the story and history of slavery in the 1800’s, it was pretty interesting. After that I hung out with a couple of my friends and we just kind talked and told silly stories and ran around. It’s weird having absolutely nothing to do – no tv, no movies, no internet, no nothing. No one even has speakers so if we want to listen to music we have to gather around a little computer (usually mine because it’s the loudest & has the best music).
        That’s about all I have to report. I promise more insightfulness hopefully tomorrow, but if not than definitely Tuesday after dominica.

Day 4 - 1/15

Hey guys! This is a long entry, so if you don’t have much time here is a quick overview:

- They don’t feed us and class is good
- I joined the Indian Singing Ensemble! – videos to come
- Dominica tomorrow!
- Stay healthy, wear a condom and don’t eat shit
- Sign language FTW
- My French press is making me an elitist
- I love you!

          While we are at sea, we have class every day regardless of the day of the week to make up for the time we spend in port.  We only have each class every other day though, on “A days” and “B days.” Today was my first B day.  For my first time on the ship I go to sleep in which was nice. I got out of bed around 10:30 and hung out with Ashley for awhile as she was just getting back from her global studies class (I have mine on A days).  At around 11 I went out, met a few of my friends on the deck and then we all went to lunch together.  I have been having a hard time getting the whole eating thing down on this trip.  They have meals only at designated times – Breakfast from 7am-8:30, lunch from 11:30am-1:pm and dinner from 5:30pm-7:00.  They have a snack bar which is open all day, but there is literally nothing there with any nutritional value – the healthiest thing would have to be peanuts or twizzlers.
          Anyway, during each mealtime I try really hard to be healthy, meaning I’ll have a big plate of salad and a little plate with a small amount of meat or pasta and a roll.  This is great, but then I am absolutely STARVING by mealtime. I could barely make it through my last class today because my stomach was growling so loudly and I was so hungry I thought I was going to pass out. I am avoiding food from the snack bar though because I want to try and stay healthy. When we get in to port tomorrow I am going to try and acquire some healthy snacks for my room.
          After lunch I went to my Newswriting classs aka Journalism 101. It was fun! I’m excited to learn more about the field and try to figure out if it it something I’m interested in or not. There was one boy in the class who answered every single question and thought he knew everything which he probably does on paper but whatever.
After class I did some readings but the highlight of my dad however was at 4:15, when I had the one and only elective offered on the ship – Indian Singing Ensemble.  The class was an eclectic mix of two Indian girls, a couple of book warm types, three life long learners, a computer geek looking boy, two girls that looked to be around 5 and 7, myself and my friend Asan. I was ecstatic to have a friend in the class and he is the only person I’ve met so far that likes music more than I do so I was thrilled he was there.
          The teacher is an old Indian man who is absolutely hilarious! After every single thing he says he either laughs loudly and freely or has a gigantic smile and looks around the room as if he is about to laugh.  He had us all take of our shoes and sit in a circle on the floor because it’s “the Indian way.”  I guess there is a certain instrument he played in India in order to accompany the songs we would sing but he doesn’t have it any longer. Instead he had an ipod with speakers which he had just bought specifically for the class and he was amazed by it. Apparently a knew program just came out that does exactly what the instrument does.  We spent today singing the Indian version of Do Re Mi and learning about Indian culture and his family life.  As soon as I get better perhaps I’ll post some videos of the songs I learn.
          After singing, Asan and I got dinner and discussed our plans for Dominica.  I am going snorkeling in champagne reef tomorrow – it is named that because there is a volcano near which causes the water to have a lot of bubbles and look like champagne! The fish and coral is supposed to be below average but I am from Ohio with Lake Eerie, so we’ll see.  Following snorkeling the plan is to return to the boat, change, then meet some friends at the pier at six to go out to dinner at local restaurant then hit the bars – let me have it, it’s my first port.
          After dinner, we had our pre-port briefing.  We had a Dominican girl speak to us about the history and culture of Dominica as well as tell us about some fun things to do in Dominica.  The ship doctors, a married couple named Dr. Bill and Dr. Laura gave a hilarious health speech. They started it by doing a fake ad for a “Full Body Condom” – apparently the only way to be fully protected from all of the diseases present in foreign countries. Dr. Laura put a snorkel on and Dr. Bill covered her entire body in a plastic bag.  Then, they told us the only thing us the in port “rules:”

Don’t get bit – by bugs and mammals
Don’t get hit – by cars, they’re fast!
Don’t do it – sex in foreign countries = STDs galore
Don’t get lit – drugs are bad, mmmk?
Don’t eat shit! – E. Coli, anyone?

Any more questions, feel free to ask.

        Following the lesson a bunch of us went out to “our deck “ – the area of the ship where we hang out - for our unofficial “Sign Language Club.” There is a deaf girl on the ship, Sheree, and her translator – I unfortunately can’t remember her name.  But anyway, we sat out there talking about sign language, learned the alphabet, learned your mama jokes and dirty words and also funny things about sign language. The funniest thing is how you say the word “boob” – you do the letter B with both hands on either side of your breasts so that it spells b-o-o-b.  Also, “China” and “Communist” are practically the same thing and only an inch apart so you can quickly say “Communist China.” Oh, deaf people.

        That’s about it for today. Sorry this was so long! Thanks a lot to everyone whose been emailing me, it really brightens my day! Without facebook or the internet (barring my quick status updates – they’re expensive!) email is really all I have. If you’re reading I would really appreciate a quick comment on an entry or two just so I know I’m doing this in more than self-interest! And if you had something relevant to say or an actual comment, even better.
        Oh yeah, one more thing! I’ve finally got my French press going. To my knowledge I’m the only one on the ship who has one and I definitely feel infinitely superior drinking delicious Seattle Sureshot coffee while everyone else has the disgusting ship coffee. Yeah, I’m a coffee snob.  It’s amazing, I was drinking the ship coffee for the first few days and today as soon as I had my French press going – I think I’m going to name it, if you have any suggestions let me know – I was WIRED. I think I make my coffee a bit strong. Ok, that’s it.  And if you want to picture me right now, I’m sitting amidst the greek area of the ship drinking coffee with my French press, UW coffee cup, water bottle, journal, and sony headphones blasting Modest Mouse… haven’t changed yet ☺.

Days 1-2

1/12


        So I climbed into bed all excited to write a blog entry of my first day at sea, but turns out shits crazy and it literally feels like I’m laying on a sea-saw.  When I was younger I used to love cruises, I used to LIVE for them… I have no clue what I was thinking. I’m guessing it will get better as we’ve only been sailing for about 3 hours but still, this is ridiculous!
        Anyway, today was my first day. I’m not going to lie to you… it went shockingly well.  I may be so impressed because I was stressed out with relatively low expectations but already 12 hours in I will say this program has far exceeded anything I could have ever expected and I will vouch for it.
        From the moment I arrived this morning to climbing into bed just a minute ago, every single person has been overwhelmingly nice and everything has run smoothly.   My check-in time was 8:40.  Anticipating a long line I arrived at 8:09. I was in my room by 8:30.  Everything was set up at labeled stations with literally a 2:1 ration of people working to students boarding the ship, at least at the hour I was there.  I got all my paperwork figured out, wandered the ship for about an hour, and by the time I got back my luggage had been delivered to my door.  
        The rest of the day we were free to hang out, socialize, etc before we set sail at 8pm and our meetings started at 8:30.  More than anything else today, the faculty and the captain impressed me.  There are two deans who are both chill, sweet, accessible and hilarious.  They both gave speeches that were funny, lighthearted and inspiring.  The basic point they both made is that they can teach students anywhere and travel the world much cheaper while making a better salary – they’re here because they love and believe in the program.  I typically avoid authoritative figures at all costs because they make me nervous but both of their speeches left me wanting to sit with them at lunch tomorrow.
        I was also impressed with the students today.  I literally traveled with probably ten different groups over the course of the afternoon. Everyone was smiling, walking around introducing themselves and making conversations with anyone who would stop long enough to converse.  I was extremely overwhelmed at first but I actually ran in to the only two people I spoke to on facebook prior to the trip at the same time and the three of us ate lunch together. Talking to them instantly put me at ease and I felt better about making friends.
        I also got several compliments over the course of the day which boosted my ego a bit – two different people said my eyes were pretty, one said my hair was, and two people thought I was European (definitely a compliment).  Oh, and as usual… Lara’s hat got at least five compliments. 
        One funny thing happened at dinner – I was sitting with a group I hadn’t really spoken to before and I was pretty fried and starving at this point so I was kind of just zoning out.  Then, someone said they didn’t think cage diving would be fun and that it would be relatively lame and I went off on them.  I went on a two-minute rant about how great and epic great white sharks are and was relatively out of breath at the end of it. Everyone was kind of staring at me and this one girl goes “you don’t say anything for the entire meal and then you come out with this?! A rant about great white sharks?!”  It was pretty funny and pretty typical of my social interactions. 
        I’m getting exhausted so I’m going to wrap thisu p in a sec, but the last thing I’m going to do is tell you about my roommate.  Her name is Ashley, and I don’t think she is the type of girl I would usually be friends with, but she is an absolute doll…seriously, that is the only way I can describe her. She reminds me a lot of my friend Ellie from Israel.  She is from Chicago, cute, blonde and in a sorority, but really funny and sweet.  She’s the type of girl that thinks anything anyone does is great.  She’s never heard of Modest Mouse but loved it when I put the posters up and said they were “really cute!”  We have a window that looks out to the ocean and it turns out the water looks insane at night.  It’s really dark but when the waves crash they make a white foam that’s really bright, and when you turn off the lights it looks beautiful and terrifying. We discovered this by coming back into our room after hours of meetings – we jumped on our beds to look out the window and she’s goes “I wonder what it would look like if we turned off the lights…. Ahhhh! That’s crazy!!! OH my god!!!!” ::turns lights back on:: “Wow, that was scary. Ok… I need to do it again.” And we continue to freak out about the waves and then realized that we each have two lights by our beds, which control the four different lights in the room, so we flicked all of them on and off really fast to make a light show.  Now we’re both lying in bed writing our blogs before passing out.  It’s 11:30pm right now, and at 2am the clocks go forward an hour. We lose an hour of sleep every other night pretty much which is going to be a real bitch, then when we go from Japan to Hawaii we have one day twice to get all of the hours back. Yep, we sail through every time zone.  I kind of wish we were going the other way – we would lose a day early on (so what?) but then get 24 extra hours of sleep. That sounds much better to me. Oh well.  Also, some of the previous voyages apparently landed in Seattle. I’m super upset ours isn’t; that would have have been fantastic.
        This is already far more comprehensive than I anticipated so I’m going to see if sleep is possible. .

That is all!
Goodnight, world.


1/13 5pm

        So I’m not going to lie, Day 2 was a lot less fun than Day 1.  Because of the changing time zones, my phone alarm was confused and didn’t go off this morning. I woke up at 8:45 and had to be in the Union, ready to go, at 9:00.  I didn’t have time to eat breakfast or get coffee and barely made it there in time.  Today was orientation, and it was held in the Union which is the biggest lecture hall on the boat. It sits about 400 people, but there are 600 of us, which means people are also watching in TVs on the hallway, sitting on the floor, etc.  It’s also in a hot room in the front of the room and none of us have our “sea legs” yet so it was just hours of lectures (literally) rocking back… and forth… and back… and forth… yeah, it didn’t take long for me to pass out, especially after losing an hour last night.  We had lectures in the union from 9 – 12, then a break for lunch, then more lectures 1:15-3:30, then an hour long “assessment test” which was basically the SATs.  It’s 5:30 now and I’m in my room absolutely exhausted.
        I got my SAS email set up, so please write me!!! It’s jkfisher@semesteratsea.net. I would love to hear whats going on at home as I will NOT be able to get on facbeook at all until I’m in port because all of the pictures and graphics eat up my collection allowance and I would be out of internet time in about 20 minutes.
        I’m extremely anxious to start classes tomorrow. All of this wandering and meeting people is fun but I really want to get settled with a group of friends and  have purpose to my day.  I like having a lot of aquaintances whom I can chat with but I’d much rather have a smaller group of people I’m close with and can travel with. It’s hard to establish that right now with everyone running every which way all of the time so I’m looking forward to having classes, seeing the same people repeatedly and being able to make plans that make sense.
         Before coming here I went on a *huge* target shopping spree buying every single thing I could ever need but turns out I forgot the most important thing – motiong sickness medicine! Yup, so now I’m all kinds of wobbly with a killer headache.  I suppose it’s not the end of the world, because this way I’ll just get used to it and not be even more tired (Dramamine knocks me out) but I still feel pretty crappy. The on ship store opens tomorrow and I’ll be able to buy some and see if that helps.
        That’s about all of the news I have right now. My phone isn’t working at all but I’ll have it in Dominica.  I think we’re arriving there Sunday but I can’t be sure. That’s all for now – xo.

Bahamas

Hello friends and megabears, this is my first blog. Unfortunately I am not very blog adept and I can't make this as fancy or as functional as I would like but I think the only real purpose is for me to write to y'all quickly and easily and this will definitely serve it's purpose. If I meet anyone who knows anything about blogs I may have them help me fancy it up, but until then this will have to do. I did manage to add a picture behind my countries but that's as far as I got.

I'm currently sitting in the lobby of the Riu Palace in the Bahamas killing time until Wednesday when the ship sets sail. It should feel strange to be here but oddly enough it doesn't, it feels just the same as being anywhere else with my family away from school. I still haven't dealt with the fact that I'm going to be on a "fucking boat," as my friends have often lovingly pointed out, for four months. That should have been italicized, but this is a blog and i don't know how to do things like that. So imagine "four months" in italics and that sentence will be a lot more harsh.

Anyway, four months on a boat with 700 other students from across the country. As I told Feras my ultimate goal is to meet 5 people 2/3 as cool as the friends I have at home. We'll see.

(This was written on Saturday, 1/8)

“There are no foreign lands. It is the traveler only who is foreign.”

–Robert Louis Stevenson

This is a preemptive PS... you know when you're awake for a long time and your mind gets all squiggly? That's what's happening to me right now. I can't really see straight, I'm having trouble with basic grammar and I legitimately spelled "made" "maid." So please excuse my writing.

The day I moved out of my first apartment, my roommate Stephanie gave me a friendship bracelet. It had been a long, hard year with lots of ups and even more downs and when she tied it around my wrist it really meant a lot... it symbolized that we were still best friends, that everything was ok and all could be forgiven. I have never been much of a jewelry wearer, but I love that bracelet and look at it and think of her every day. In some strange way it really ties up last year for me and at the time sent me home on a good note, optimistic about our friendship and the future.

The past few months at school have been amazing. I've worked so hard to become a better friend and roommate and the positive changes I've made have offered clear results in many areas of my life. I would say that 99% of my friendships are stronger than ever and I could not be in a better place to embark on Study Abroad.

Just as I sat here a moment ago, finally completing my first blog entry, my bracelet fell off. I think someone told me once that when a friendship bracelet falls you get to make a wish. It doesn't really matter because I don't believe in wishes but I'm going to make one anyway. I'm going to keep my wish to myself, but on a related note (can you guess my wish?)... what I want more than anything in the world is for this trip to prove me wrong. I want everything I know and everything I believe to change. Lately I've been sitting pretty damn high up and I need to be kicked straight to the ground. Please, world. Prove me wrong. Show me what there is. Make me believe in something, anything, because I've felt so empty lately. It's so much easier when you believe.

Ps. Stephanie, seriously, I love that bracelet so much. I may actually change my wish, and wish for it to be magically molded back on to my hand forever.

Here we go...

Hey y'all. So I've been talking about my "Semester at Sea blog" for months now and here I sit in the Bahamas, 3 am two days before we set sail with nothing to show. I've been tossing and turning for literally the past five hours (fuck you Seattle time) but have finally decided to do something productive with these precious hours because there's no way I'll do anything tomorrow... thus, this blog is born.

I'm not really sure how I'm supposed to ease into this. The Bahamas have been fun so far. A lot of daquiries, sunshine and ugly people - the usual. Tonight my mom and I walked over to the Atlantis to gamble, drink and judge people. It entertained us for about an hour and a half and I won $50 in the slots which was a plus. They have a BOMB aquarium where I saw hella stingrays. THAT was magical.

I'm hoping this blog becomes a bit more intimate than these past few paragraphs but it's hard to force emotion and really all I want to do right now is cool down and sleep, but this room is smoldering (which is strange because it's only about 70 degrees outside) and I'm anxious. My parents have been pushing me to meet people and go out since we've been here (there are SAS kids everywhere) but I haven't wanted to. I'm not sure if it's because I'm snobby or lazy, but I'm going with the excuse that I don't want expectations. That has been my biggest statement throughout all of this; I don't want expectations about anyone or anything. I don't want to walk on to that ship with an obligation to be someone's friend or sit next to someone in class etc. This is my fresh start, my chance to grow and to change and to fully experience myself and I don't want anyone holding me back. I'm excited to make friends and learn about new people but I'd like to do that on ship time. These are my last few days without living within meters of 1000 other people and I'd like to enjoy them.

Alright, the hardest part, the first entry is done. Maybe now this will feel a little more natural.