GO BALTIC OR GO HOME

Rereading this I have noticed so many grammatical and “good writing” errors but I am way too tired to deal with them and want to post this, so this is the usual “I’m tired, don’t judge me” precursor.

Hey everyone, sorry I’ve been slacking on the blog.  I write emails daily and kind of forget that everyone doesn’t know everything that’s going on. I actually didn’t realize I haven’t been updating until my dad pointed it out to me today, so here you go dad!

We’ve officially been on the boat for a week! Crazy, huh. It is amazing how much it feels like real, regular life. The waters have been unusually calm… or maybe this is usual and our first week was just ridiculously rough.  Also, everyone was terrified that this week would drag on but it’s actually been great. The first few nights we were a bit stir crazy but we’ve been so busy that it’s died down.

Today was the Sea Olympics! I know that I mentioned in previous blogs that I wasn’t really excited about it and wasn’t sure if I was going to participate.  I was WRONG! I wish that I would have had a better grasp on the deal before hand because I would have gotten a lot more involved. 

Last night the Opening Ceremonies started at 9 and I wasn’t even sure I was going to go, but seeing everyone put on their team t-shirts got me excited so I threw on some light blue and headed into the hallway.  Realizing it was an excuse to dress up, I ran back into my room and put some blue stripes under my eyes,  then back into the hallway. This is when I ran into my friend Alan and saw that he had a drum. What a good idea! Third trip to the room and I got my maraca from Brazil.  We were ready.

SAS has a tendency to make all meetings way too long, so even though they do their best to make them fun and entertaining everyone is restless by the end.  The Opening Ceremonies, although two hours long, went surprisingly quickly and were hilarious!  First all of the teams marched through the ship to the Union while cheering, doing chants, etc.  Once everyone was settled each sea presented a banner they made.  Some were better than others and my sea’s (Baltic) was OBVIOUSLY the best. We ended up tying for first with the Yellow Sea which many of my friends were on.

Following the banners we had a speech from Dean Dan who is GREAT! I know I’ve mentioned him briefly before but I just want to say again how much I love him.  He is the Executive Dean and is just the sweetest most sincere guy. He is always wandering around the boat making small talk and smiling and making conversation and it is so obvious that he is here because he loves and believes in the program and the participants. As a general rule I avoid anyone who can get me into trouble but I always jump at the chance to talk to him or listen to him speak because he is just so sweet and inspiring.

After Dean Dan’s speech Dr. Bill gave his speech.  Dr. Bill is HILARIOUS. He always gives the funniest, most elaborate speeches and everybody loves him.  The main messages of his speech were good sportsmanship, teamwork and having fun but he articulated this by talking about setting the bar low so you you’ll meet our expectations, how two “L’s” with your fingers make a “W” for “win,” how the losers are actually the best because they allow the winners to win, etc.  He had everyone howling with laughter by the end and cheering way louder than they had been for their seas. 

Next was the team cheers. I’m going to be honest, ours kind of sucked.  We sang it to the tune of two popular songs but I didn’t know either of them so I couldn’t participate and they went really fast so everyone got lost. Some of the other teams had funny ones though. There is a boy on the ship, Obai, who sounds EXACTLY like Barack Obama so he made an epic speech and had a “body guard,” I wish I had a video. I may try to find one because I’m sure many people got it. 

When the opening ceremonies closed my friends and I convened on our deck to hang out and get ice cream and the mood quickly got competitive so we made it a neutral zone which was a good idea because I was afraid Mia would throw someone off of the boat! Kidding… but not really.

Eventually I got to bed.  I woke up bright and early to score some face paint and regretted it deeply before I got two cups of coffee in and felt better.  The paint started to melt after an hour or so of running around studying, filling out immigration forms, etc and I realized I could cover it with blue eyeshadow.  While doing this I realized I could also paint my lips blue, and my day of epic spirit began.

At noon when everyone was rolling out of bed in their pajamas I was fully decked out in light blue, chanting through the hallways with my maraca and had already accomplished half of my work for the day.  I LOVE being a morning person and waking up early. I will have to remember this.  The events started and as the day went on I got more and more into it, running around yelling and cheering and making noise. I actually have two blisters from shaking my maraca so much!

Around two Whitney decided she wanted to do her face too, so we went to my room to get it and both of our eyes went directly to my Brazilian headdress sitting on my shelf.  Yep, it was time to break it out and get serious. I put on sports bra, the headdress, re-painted my face, and had her write “GO BALTIC OR GO HOME” on my stomach and “I BLEED BLUE” on my back. 

The rest of the afternoon was AWESOME.  I cheered my ass off, random people were asking to take pictures of me, and I was told multiple times that I was “the most spirited person.” The more positive feedback I got the more energy I got and I just ran around to all of the different events trying to pump people up. It was awesome to see a group of my team just sitting around and as soon as I would come in everyone’s energy levels would sore and people would get excited.

By 5pm we were burnt out so we went to lay by the pool and discovered something magical… they were setting up a BBQ! I haven’t been eating very much here because the food isn’t that good and it’s all the same but tonights meal was EPIC! There were hamburgers, hotdogs, a bunch of different kinds of macaroni salad, ribs and ice cream!!! Basically, all of the things they usually charge us for.  We watched the sunset and took silly pictures while waiting to eat and eventually the rest of our crew filtered up and we had an awesome meal while catching up on the gossip from the day and guessing who would win. 

After dinner I went to check my email, and when I came back a half hour later Hassan and Whitney were swimming.  They beckoned me into the pool and, referencing my face paint and headdress I said “no way!” That lasted about three seconds… seeing how much fun they were having I threw off my shorts and jumped in.  Eventually we convinced Coleman and D to join us and we spent the next half hour splashing, wrestling and just being so happy to be where we were. I definitely have the coolest, most fun friends on the ship. People all around the deck were watching us, some laughing at how much fun we were having and others glaring because they were probably jealous of how awesome we were but no one was having nearly as much fun.  At seven they closed the pool so we got out, got Rocky Road ice cream and ran to take showers before the closing ceremonies.

Synchronized swimming is the big event for Sea Olympics. Everyone wants to do it and it is always HILARIOUS!  My group had six big frat guys wearing ridiculous 80s gear dancing to a mash-up of famous songs throughout pop-culture history and another group had four guys doing the Titanic theme.  We were hands down the best and had the winning score… except we got disqualified for going overtime.  Once I found this out I lost my hope of winning but it turned out to be a good thing because it killed my competitive spirit and allowed me to have fun and not worry about the results. I did however get a video of the full performance and will definitely post it when I can!

The reason I mention this is because our whole team assumed we were way out.  We had been in the lead the entire time but losing 30 points can set you far behind. So imagine our surprise when they announced that in third place… was the Baltic Sea!!!! We FREAKED out.  Everyone was so exhausted and burnt out from cheering and playing all day that we had been sitting basically dead in the Union but we had new life when we found out we placed.  Placing is sweet, but it was even more exciting because it means that when we dock in San Diego we get off the boat third, which means in about three hours.  it’s apparently an all day 12 hour process.

After the closing ceremonies I tried to go to bed several times but kept getting caught up hanging out with people.  I ended up doing some emailing, playing guitar and emailing with Hassan and hanging out with Ashley.  I finally got back to my room to study and… you guessed it, I wrote this blog.  But this was long overdue! There are probably many more relevant things I should tell you about sea life but right now Sea Olympics is all that’s on my mind.

Today was so awesome because I’ve never taken an outgoing leadership role in an activity like this before. Usually I’m strictly a background participant, but being at the center of everything today made me feel really good and I got great reactions from everyone.  People who I’ve never spoken to have been talking to me all night and I know I will definitely always be recognized now.  Every time I run into my roommate around the ship and I’m doing some ridiculous thing she always introduces me to whomever she’s with and sounds really proud which makes me happy. 

Tomorrow it’s back to normal life. Two days of class and then on Sunday… GHANA!  GHANA! GHANA!!!!!!! I have no clue what to expect but I am beyond excited. I’ll try to blog again in the next couple days at sea, but if I don’t then you may be hearing from a changed woman next week!  The weirdest thing of all is that we’ll get back on the ship after Ghana, and then two days later we will have been here a month.  I can not believe how fast time is going and I know it will only get faster.  I can’t even process the amount I will see and learn and do in the next month but I can’t wait.  I’m already dreading the day I have to return to the “normal world”… it’s amazing how quickly and seamlessly this has become our existence.  We have our own words, our own culture, our own lifestyle here that is so different from anything anywhere else yet it all seems so normal, so “as if it always was.”  I guess that’s the good part of going with the flow, everything is always just as it is. 

Ah, it’s past midnight and I need sleep!  I’ll be back soon! One last thing – to all you random readers out there (I know you exist) who are thinking about doing this program… do it. Don’t even think about it, apply right now and do it. Get on this ship as fast as you can. It will be the best decision you could ever make.