Viewphoria

//

 

The graffiti in Hawaii was really excellent.

 

One of the first things I did in Honolulu was go to a store called Battery Bill's to get a new battery for my computer, because mine had just broken and didn't hold any charge at all.  I waited a long time at a bus stop and nothing came, so I moved to another one.  I got on bus 19 and asked the driver if it went near Ahua Street, and he didn't seem to have any idea where it was, so I got the hell off that bus.  I waited for the 20 bus and I think I just asked if it went near the airport.  He actually let me off right at Ahua Street.

 

One of the first things I noticed when I walked up the block was a wall that was just covered everywhere with graffiti.  It was probably about six feet high and it curved all around the corner of the block, so maybe a hundred feet long.  It was outside of a motorcycle dealer, and I'm pretty sure the owner just asked people to come do their best graffiti on it.  One was a really nice Hawaiian flag, and then there were just maybe a dozen or so really great paintings up there.  I have a picture that I tried to upload a bunch of times, but I don't really have any means of doing it - especially not from my BlackBerry.  Oh well.  Maybe when I get back home I'll figure out a way.

 

//

 

The Union is incredibly rocky right now.  I don't get seasick anymore, but it's still kind of annoying.

 

//

 

We went to the Polynesian Cultural Center, which is kind of like a zoo for people and cultures instead of for animals.  I thought it was going to be educational when I signed up for it, but then I heard it was really more of an entertainment/theme park than anything else.  I suppose I was cool with it at first.  The Samoan dude that made fire and cracked coconuts and stuff was hilarious.

 

Then we were walking from one "culture" to another, and we came across a guy with tattoos from his hips down to his knee caps.  Our tour guide said something along the lines of, "Look at this gentleman, this would make for a great photo with your friends."  It felt incredibly uncomfortable to me, like they were making him into an exhibit.  I don't know if his tattoos are real, but tattoos are really important in the culture he was representing.  They show the story and prowess of the family, and surviving the week-long ritual of getting said tattoos is a rite of passage into adulthood.

 

I pieced together later that all the actors were Mormons attending BYU and they were doing this to help pay for college.  That made it a little worse even, I think, because there's pretty much no better symbol of cultural imperialism than the Mormon church.

 

I talked about it with one of the professors that came with us - Dr. Lopez - and she agreed with my thoughts on it.  Apparently respected ethnologists had used the exact same words - a "culture zoo" or "people zoo."  I ended up decided to just talk to the people who worked their the rest of the time instead, asking them about where they grew up and stuff like that.  We ran into some Mormon girls on a mission from different countries.  One was from Hong Kong and I told her I would really love a camera from their black market, and she gave my friend her number and said we could call when we showed up.  Another one was from Taiwan and we talked to her about growing up there for a while.  She kept asking if we wanted to go on their temple tour.  We were totally uninterested, and I feel a little bad about it...  but not too bad.

 

//

 

Aleeza, Kelly, and I went for a walk on Waikiki beach on the last full night in Hawaii.  A lot of other people went to the bars, but a number of us didn't want to.  After a while we saw a nice pier, and we walked out to sit on it.  A guy there asked us if we were staying at the youth hostel, and we said no, we're on the ship.  Later he asked us if we wanted pot.

 

A guy on a bike rode by later on the sidewalk and also asked if we wanted pot.

 

I've never been asked by a stranger in my life if I wanted pot, and now it happened twice in one night.  That was weird.

 

//

 

There was a group of Hawaiian kids playing football at about 10:30 on Waikiki beach.  We asked if they had school tomorrow, and they said they did.  We climbed up the stairs at one point.  A girl who looked black was laughing when we did, and then said, "Oh ****, did you hear that?"  We said no, but it didn't matter.  We could tell she was being a punk and didn't want us there.  They weren't very nice at all, so we left.

 

//

 

The last thing I ate in the US was a child's sized ice cream cone with cookies 'n cream.  I saw some of my friends sitting near something that looked like a cafe, and I wanted a nice last American meal before I left.  I walked through and couldn't really find anything that I thought looked good, so I walked through the shopping center and found an ice cream place eventually.  I thought I might try some shave ice, but there was none to be found.  I asked if I could have the smallest size possible of cookies 'n cream, and the lady working there (I believe she was Japanese) said I had to pick small or large. 

 

I clearly looked disappointed.  She pointed up to the sign, and I said yeah, I wanted the smallest one, or something along those lines.  Eventually her daughter, who looked like maybe a high school senior, said to her in Japanese what I wanted, and then her mother said okay, and made it for me.  I thanked her daughter, and her, and left some of the change for tip.  It was good ice cream, especially considering that it was in a waffle cone and not a cake cone.  I ate it outside the shop, sitting right next to the highway.  I wondered if I should have asked that girl to come talk to me about living in Hawaii, but then I thought that might be a little weird.  Especially 'cuz we're both just Americans, really.

 

Peace out.

Polynesian Cultural Center

"You've got cameras, we've got coconuts."

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

The Poor Cow

"The reason milk is so expensive here? The island only has one cow. It's to your left."

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Addictshun

//

 

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU KIDS WHO WROTE TO ME!

 

//

 

Port calls are pretty intense.  At least it seems so, thus far.  We knew that we were going to be woken up very early and that we'd have to go through customs really early in the morning on the top deck of the ship, but we didn't know exactly when or in what order or how long it would take.  Our LLC (Living Learning Coordinator) knocked on all of our doors at about 5:30 in the morning, and the Voice Of God came on over the loudspeaker a bit later to say that it was wake up time and a certain hall (Aegean Sea?) was supposed to report to customs at that time.  I woke up around 6 and went to breakfast with a couple people (pancakes!), and my sea didn't get called until I was leaving breakfast, and I ran right upstairs since I was already on the sixth deck.  They basically just looked at my passport and my face and said I was good to go.-

 

The gangway is where you get on or off the ship, and it can be on different levels, but it was in the rear starboard side on the second deck for this port.  I was waiting around down there, and they opened the door sometime right around 8am.  My friends were there waiting with me, and we walked right to the information center and figured out how to get ourselves to the Botanical Gardens.  We took a cab to rent a car, and went from there.

 

//

 

HERE IS A GENERAL OVERVIEW OF THINGS I DID WHICH IS BORING AND FROM WHICH YOU WON'T LEARN ANYTHING:

 

-Got the car

-Went to Botanical Gardens

-Went to Hilo City Orientation

-Went to Wal*Mart (sad face)

-Went to a Hawaiian restaurant

-Went to a Kava bar

-Went to Volcanoes National Park

-Went to McDonalds (sad face)

-Went to Akaka Falls

-Went to a small beach after returning the car

-Walked back to the ship

 

//

 

NOW COME THE FUN ANECDOTES WHERE YOU MIGHT ACTUALLY LEARN SOMETHING OR LAUGH

 

//

 

When we were at the Hawaiian restaurant on the first night, we noticed that the tablecloth had snowmen on it.  Keep in mind that it's January here, and when I went to the gardens at 9am, I was sweating when I walked from the car to the entrance.  The person inside was wearing a sweater - she said it was chilly that morning.

 

Anyway, Kristina and Aleeza decided to share this big dish full of some local favorites, and I decided to try a couple bites.  Of course it included poi, the Hawaiian condiment that tastes pretty bland but apparently is pretty nice to add to dry food or to cool your mouth after you've had something a bit too spicy.  Apparently most people say it tastes like wallpaper paste, but I thought it kind of tasted like nothing.  There was also laulau, which I think is pig.  We had a bit of it left when we were finished eating, and someone mentioned getting it packed up to take with us.  For some reason I imagined the laulau dish (sort of stringy meat) sitting in a pile on the floor with two teeny duffel bags by its side, ready to get on a plane.  I laughed, and people though I was crazy.  I explained, and people thought I was crazier.  I told Katie later and I think she still thought I was crazy, but didn't say so out loud.

 

//

 

One of the coolest things you can do at Volcanoes is to go through the lava tubes.  There's a lit one right near the park road that we walked through.  We heard from our friends Nick and Max that there's another unlit portion that goes for a while after that that you need flashlights to get through.  We actually walked past it, and one of us luckily noticed the sign on a gated door saying that the tube continued for 334m afterward unlighted, and we could go if we wanted.

 

Jenn, Kristina and I all decided to go, even though we didn't have flashlights.  We all had cameras and cell phones and figured that was good enough.  We went down and saw that it was a pretty flat surface to walk on, so nothing to worry about.  Kristina's flash was really good (and went off multiple times each push), so that gave us a ton of light.  My flash is only one go and it takes some time to recharge, so it didn't help a whole ton.  Jenn was pretty scared, and Kristina was a little bit too, but she wanted to make herself do it.  We ended up walking out after a little bit, and we joked about how creepy it would have been if - in between camera flashes - I had disappeared.  I think that was because I was walking in front, not because they hate me.

 

Anyway, Kristina decided she wanted to go further when she saw that there were no more tubes.  Jenn was too scared so she stayed out.

 

We used the same method as before, and went back a good way.  We went down a four-inch drop or so that we saw coming with no problem.  Eventually we got to a huge mound of rocks in the middle of the cave, and I asked Kristina if this was supposed to be interpreted as "Stop walking when you reach this."  We decided it probably was, and decided to turn back, so now Kristina was in the front.  I slipped a couple of times, pretty quickly after we turned back, and Kristina told me to take her hand and I did.  There was no tension, it was just to stay close in the darkness.  She said it was creepy when she would put her flash on near me and see that my normally very-blue eyes had become 100% pupil.

 

Some hikers with flashlights came our way after a little bit, and we asked if we could walk all the way in with them.  They said yes and we let go of each other's hands, and went all the way to where the ceiling touched the floor.

 

//

 

I'm having pretty good luck with my friend-crushes so far this trip.  Kelly M and Emily B both came out with us at different points this trip, and Toby was planning on coming out with us too until the last second when everyone else backed out because they were too tired.  I met McKenzie when I jumped in to Rainbow Falls, and I think Katie might even want me to be her friend too!  Though I would like to get better at NOT mentioning her ex-boy in front of her, ever, because she doesn't really want to think about it and I can't really help.

 

//

 

During the Hilo City Orientation, we stopped by Rainbow Falls, which I always accidentally call Angel Falls.  It's not a very big drop - maybe about 70 feet - but it's still pretty nice to look at.  The whole bus got out.  I heard that you could jump in somewhere, and so I asked around, and found out you needed to go upstream a good bit and you didn't actually jump with the falling water.

 

I ran upstream through the cleared woods a bit.  There was a sign saying that it was dangerous and I shouldn't swim there, but it was just one of those signs adults put to stop kids from having fun.

 

I eventually found my way to a path back to the river upstream maybe 1/5 of a mile away, and walked through it.  Some fellow Semester at Sea students said that there were more of us on top of the rocks, near where you can jump, so I went.  I saw a couple of them, and asked them how to get to where they were.  They said to just walk through the water, because it was shallow and not too cold.

 

[[There were tons of rocks all over the river at this point, but concentrated mostly in the middle, where they got very high.  Further upriver there were two peaks with grass on them, and the one furthest up was where you jumped from]]

 

When I walked over I met McKenzie and Brook for the first time.  McKenzie was taking pictures and I think wearing a backward baseball hat like she always does and pulls off amazingly well, and Brook was still swimming around the exit ledge because she'd just jumped in.  I took off my shirt and sandals and took out my electronics and climbed up to the jumping point.

 

When I got there, there were a bunch of kids I didn't recognize.  A girl asked me if my name was Jeff, and I said yes.  I asked her how she knew, and she said, "It's written on your arm."  I wrote it on my arm because no one on the bus knew anyone's name, and I wanted to make their lives easier.  Turns out I helped her too.  I think her name was something close to Mehlee, but I didn't really catch it, and I felt bad about that.  A fairly built boy was up there too.  Both were probably about 18 years old.  I asked where to jump from and they pointed to right next to where he was standing.  I asked if he could jump first so I knew that I wouldn't die, and even though he'd just gone in, he went ahead and did a belly flop from like 25 feet up, and swam right out unphased.  I got on the ledge, and they told me "Just jump FORWARD," and I did.  It was cold, but not Take Your Breath Away cold, and it hurt my feet a little bit.  I swam back down to where McKenzie and Brook were to get out, and put my things on.

 

The girl was leaving as soon as I was.  She took her flip-flops on and off a bunch of times as she navigated the rocks, and did so much more skillfully than I.  She had to leave to go to kickboxing practice - turned out she was a local.  I ran back to the bus, and people asked if I jumped.

 

"No, of course not..."

 

//

 

Kava is a local drink that tastes like the ground, numbs your tongue, and relaxes your muscles.  The Kava Bar nearby was a nice place to go, and there were people playing guitar and talking there, so we hung out for a while after Kristina and Emily said we should definitely return.  It was definitely a pretty good time, and I was glad not everyone was going out to drink.  I asked a guy about the Akaka Bill, and he gave me some interest stories about the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

 

There was a store next to it with glass window displays.  There was a fat cat sleeping inside of it.  I was confused, so I took a picture.

 

//

 

Hawaii feels very much like America, and not so much like the Pacific Rim.  It feels culturally dominated.  Maybe it's just because I didn't wander into any neighborhoods and knock on some doors and ask them to let me live with them overnight or tell me what was going on.  I don't know if that's really appropriate though.  But I do wish I could do things like that and know that it would turn out well.  But I guess sometimes opening unmarked doors in more fun anyway.

 

Peace out.

!!!!!!

OH MY GOD WE SAW ANOTHER BOAT WE ARE SO CLOSE.

Roughly 150 miles from port.

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

!!!!!!

OH MY GOD WE SAW ANOTHER BOAT WE ARE SO CLOSE.

Roughly 150 miles from port.

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Opening Song

The song playing today when we walked into Global Studies was "Swimming to the Other Side" by Pat Humphries. I never heard it before and usually don't listen to the pre-class songs, but this one caught my ear because it sounded so pretty. It was folksy and acoustic and the artist is Pat Humphries. You should check it out. I actually got the name and title by asking the academic dean. He said it was one of his favorites and he even had the chords if I wanted them. The GS professor had picked the song, and told us we'd hear it again.

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Coffee House

//

 

The Programming Committee organized a coffee house/open mic last night in the piano lounge on the sixth deck, right near one of the three bars on the ship.  There's a pretty good amount of room dedicated to it, but it's really just an open space on the side of a main hallway, not its own proper room.

 

Anyway, the ship was full of AMAZINGLY TALENT PEOPLE so I'm going to talk about some of them now.

 

//

 

Two of my friends from Penn State, Will and Brian, went up with two girls as the very first act and said they were going to do an interpretive dance of Hero by Enrique Iglacias (sorry if I spelled it wrong).  So the song started, and all like 100 of us were watching intently.  They were pretty funny, but even during the first verse I wasn't sure if they would be able to keep everyone's interest.

 

Then the chorus came along.  And instead of interpretive dancing, they started to sing and dance "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" at the beat and in roughly the same key as the song.  Everybody loved it, myself included.  They had a couple dance moves planned for the next verse, but when the chorus came, they did Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes again.  It was great, and a perfect first act.  They got a ton of applause.  They were listed as "Impact" on the sheet, which Drew said stands for Improptu Activities.  I think they want to be like Improve Everywhere on the ship, which is cool, and should be fun to see if they keep it up.

 

//

 

There was a girl with blonde hair and a flanel shirt who played guitar and sang.  She had a really lightly brown colored guitar that looked like it had a Henna tattoo on it.  It was really small, and I wondered if it was made for girls.  She was a songwriter as well.  She said that she wrote her first song - like most of her songs - about "a boy who didn't deserve it."  She was a very good singer, and played some bluesy pop-form stuff.  Three songs might have been a little much considering how many people were lined up, but she still got wild applause because she is crazily talented.

 

//

 

My friend Max is tall, excitable, and has perfectly sculpted facial hair that I suspect he works on every day.  He told me earlier that he would be doing some musical comedy with this guitarist onboard named Tolen, who I met the other day.  He's taller than Max and pretty rail thin, and has hair that's roughly my style but black and a little bit shorter.  He reminds me of another guy on the ship named Toby but that doesn't mean anything to you guys yet.

 

Anyway, Tolen's girlfriend is actually on the ship with us, and when they got up there she was sitting in the front row.  They pretended to be taken aback by her beauty, and said, "Geez man, I think we're gonna have to change plans.  We're going to have to serenade this girl.  Just follow my lead, okay?"  And then they went into a song from Flight of the Conchordes.  The gist of the song was "You're the prettiest girl in the whole wide room."  Other lines included saying that when she walks down a street, she must be in at least the top three, and that she could totally be a part-time model, but she'd probably have to have another job, too.  They added in a line about being a Sears refridgerator model.  It was really funny and well done.  Max isn't an incredible singer, but he's enthusiastic and knows how to have a good time so no one cared at all.  Tolen, on the other hand, is a very good singer, and people thought the contrast was really funny (myself included).

 

When that was done, Tolen played some songs of his own, just acoustic guitar and vocals.  The first one was really really well done, and could definitely be on the radio if he would just get a record deal or whatever.  He's definitely incredibly skilled.  The second song was still good, but I think most of the point of it was for him to rock out some really cool guitar solos (which are less radio-appropriate).

 

//

 

Emerson is from Thailand (his parents escaped China to go there) and I had dinner with him the other night.  He speaks English pretty well but he's really enthusiastic about Chinese and holds dinners to help people learn and practice is (that's where I met him, actually).  He organized the whole Coffee House thing.

 

He got up there with this guy Jay on piano, who plays all the time - probably excessively.  He said when he opened it, with a strong accent:  "Hey guys, I know that I am probably not the best singer in the world or very good, but I really miss my family and my friends and singing just makes me happy [with them] so I'm going to do it here too.  Sorry if my voice is bad."  Then Jay started playing My Heart Will Go On, and Emerson sang.  I mean, he really wasn't a great singer, but no one cared the least bit.  We applauded louder for him than almost anyone.  He actually hit the notes pretty well after the key change, on the words "forever this way" and we all went crazy.  But seriously, he went balls to the wall publicly doing something that even HE said he wasn't very good at.  He definitely won a ton of respect for that.

 

//

 

Emily is a pretty unique character.  The first day she wore a shirt that said, written on the back in permanent marker, something to the effect of:  "Hi!  My name is Emily, I'm 21, I'm from Indiana but I go to school in Chicago, and I major in [her major].  I really love art, music, acting, and late-night talks, so come find me if you do too!"  She's also seriously beautiful and incredibly nice to everyone.  I knew that she played piano and for some reason I suspected she played guitar and sang too, but I don't remember if I knew for sure.

 

Anyway, she got up there and said she was going to play a song that a friend had shown to her when she was going through a hard time, on guitar and singing.  I forget the name of the song, but it was very pretty and had good lyrics and I think I should ask her the name of it again sometime.  She had a really nice voice, and great voice control too.  I'm jealous of how high girls can go and how natural their falsetto sounds.  Anyway, she only played one song because we were getting pretty late and quiet hours were starting soon, but she got crazy applause too.  I actually talked to her later when she was reading alone on the side desk to ask her how she felt about her performance.  She said she was glad that she could get up there and share something about herself with people, but that she was nervous as hell when she was up there.  I told her she looked totally calm, which she did, and that I had been incredibly nervous too [especially since my voice cracked].

 

//

 

There was a 16-year-old girl who did slam poetry.  She didn't have them memorized so she read from a book and I could tell she was really nervous, but she was REALLY good, especially for someone her age.  She read one about a boy, and one about finding religion in everyday objects instead of musty old places which I really enjoyed.  I also dug that she could do it in front of a room of people 5-7 years older than her, and in front of her parents (!).

 

When she was done, she sat in a chair two people away from me, and I turned to her and basically said, "HOLY BALLS THAT WAS AMAZING."  She just laughed and said thanks, and her dad (who was sitting right behind her) laughed with good humor and said "Apparently you don't go to church either?"

 

//

 

I was toward the end of the show, and I was afraid people's patience was wearing thin, so I didn't want to do more than one song.  Of course I did Mr. Brighteyes, because EVERYONE knows it to some extent.  When I got up there I said hello, and that everyone before me had absolutely crushed my ego with their awesomeness (which was pretty true).  Then I said that if you know the words to sing along, but don't mumble because that sounds dumb.  Even before I was done playing the intro, people knew exactly what song it was, and started singing along right away with me on the first word.

 

It was really nice to have people sing along, and I think most people were pretty into it.  I jazz it up a little bit and it's at the top of my vocal range, so I belt just a little, which makes it sound more impressive than it actually is.  People actually applauded by the end of the first verse.  When I was about to start the second verse, I paused the music for a second and said, "Okay, the lyrics repeat here, so if you didn't get them the first time around you have a second chance," and went right back into playing.  Everybody kept singing along.  At the second prechorus ("he takes off her dress now...") I just stopped playing to listen to everyone sing, and they kept right on going, which was great.  My voice did crack a little bit on one of the high notes at the end, and I actually messed up the ending a little bit, but not beyond the point where I could claim It Was Just Artistic License Really.  My leg was shaking like mad though.  When I sat down, the 16-year-old's dad turned to me and said, "Holy balls!"

 

Peace out.

Opening Song

The song playing today when we walked into Global Studies was "Swimming to the Other Side" by Pat Humphries. I never heard it before and usually don't listen to the pre-class songs, but this one caught my ear because it sounded so pretty. It was folksy and acoustic and the artist is Pat Humphries. You should check it out. I actually got the name and title by asking the academic dean. He said it was one of his favorites and he even had the chords if I wanted them. The GS professor had picked the song, and told us we'd hear it again.

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Keen Elizabeth

The interport lecturer that we have from Hawaii is really cool. Really great speaker, former Marine, Ph.D. in Peace Studies and an archaeologist.

One of his jobs is aerial ballistic herbicide. He shoots paintballs full of herbicide onto invasive species growing on the mountains of Hawaii from a helicopter.

Yeah. That's his job. Be jealous.

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Classhole

//

 

Some of my professors aren't terribly impressive or fun to listen to, so I asked around to find out who the really amazing professors are, and I think I'm just going to try to sit in on some of their classes for fun.  It'll be kinda like Brown.  This next bit is more for me and my recollection, but you might find the course titles interesting to see.

 

-----1.  Robbins

 

Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism;

800 - 915 B

Anthropology of Food;

1100 - 1215 B [conflict]

Anthropology of Stuff;

800 - 915 A

 

-----2.  Sprenger

 

Sociology of the Sea;

1530 - 1645 A [conflict]

Sociology of Global Travel;

1530 - 1645 B [conflict]

Sociology of Race in a Global Context;

1230 - 1345 B

 

-----3.  Sumner

 

The Sea and Human Imagination;

1400 - 1515 A [conflict]

Philosophy in Literature;

930 - 1045 B

Literature and the Object World;

800 - 915 A

 

-----4.  Medora

 

Dating, Marriage, and Family;

1400 - 1515 B [conflict]

Child & Adolescent Development Around the World;

1100 - 1215 B [conflict]

Families in Cross-Cultural Perspective;

1100 - 1215 A [conflict]

 

-----5.  Abel

 

Oceanography;

1230 - 1345 B

Marine Biology;

800 - 915 B

Biology of Sharks;

1100 - 1215 A [conflict]

 

-----6.  Paterson

 

Digital Storytelling;

1230 - 1345 A or 1230 - 1345 B

 

//

 

I got the names of most of those professors by talking to the academic dean's kid.  She seems really nice, but says that sometimes it actually seems to hurt her socially that she's the dean's child.  I thought people would be all over that trying to be friends with her.  Anyway, she said that she got to schedule first, before anyone else, and she asked her dad which professors to take, and he pretty much listed some proper subset of the three above (I think, specifically, she's taking the first three of them).  She said they were the superstars that her dad was most excited about.  I was glad I somehow got to talking to her about this, and now I just hope that I'll find the motivation to actually make myself go to those classes on top of my ones I already have.  Or maybe instead of the ones I already have.  I think I'm going to aim (once again) to not get all As, especially since it doesn't matter.

 

I use the notebook Mom gave me to keep a calendar of all the trips I have planned in foreign countries, and to take notes on some random things.  I wrote down all the professor's names in the back of it when I was talking to the dean's daughter, and her eyes nearly burst when she saw it.  She asked if it were a Moleskine, and I said no (because that's a brand), but I think it might be moleskin cover.  She asked if she could touch the paper because it feels so nice, which I thought was funny, not because it's weird but because I love how good paper feels too, and I guess that is actually weird.

 

//

 

I really wish I could get in my car right now and turn a CD up to full volume and sing wrong notes at the top of my lungs and no that no one was listening and have my ears ring from the sound when I get it and wonder if the ride was worth the permanent hearing loss.

 

But I guess that'll have to wait.

 

Peace out.

Katie Did

//

 

The amount of reading here so far is pretty ridiculous.  My Pakistan and Africa courses both assign roughly about 100 pages per night, which is unbelievable.  If each of my four classes did this, it'd be equivalent to reading two hundred pages of a text book every night.  That really is just insane, and furthermore, counterproductive.  I think we would learn a lot more from 10 really great pages of material that we read every word of than 200 pages that we only read the first sentence of each paragraph from.

 

//

 

Could somebody in GV (maybe Chloe?) please tell Jen P that I'm doing Semester at Sea and that I can't text and it costs money for me to receive texts?  And that I said I'm fine, and sorry I couldn't get back to her.

 

//

 

There's a "coffee shop" tonight, I'm pretty excited.  There's a pretty good number of musicians here, and one of them (I think his name is Talen?) does vocals/guitar/piano and apparently is touring with his band this summer.  I'm interested to see him.  I think I'll probably play Mr. Brightsides because it's so much fun to rock out to, and everybody knows the words, but some people have heard me play it before.  I'm not really sure what other songs there are to rock out to though.

 

//

 

It's gotten way way calmer in the last day or so.  My bed hardly creaked from the rocking, and I was able to sleep without waking up and feeling like my body was vertical/perpendicular to the ocean's surface.

 

Sometimes the water is a really nice, bright, deep blue, like you might find right outside Hawai'i in the deep waters, but a lot of times it's kind of dark and ugly like it is in most parts of the Atlantic.

 

Peace out.

I

There's a word in Chinese which translates most closely to "I, the emperor." It may only be used by the emporer.

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

...

 

 

I think I've accidentally screwed myself out of about 90 minutes worth of free Internet time.

 

I thought that when you logged into 24Online (which is how we access the Internet), it would only charge you if you were actually going to one of the sites we don't get for free.

 

As it turns out, every time you log into it, it charges you, whether or not you're visiting any site at all.  They never really explained that to us, and I thought we had to log in to get to the free sites as well.

 

God.

 

Well anyway.  I guess I'll just have to depend on friends a little bit, and hope my BlackBerry works a bit more consistently, and be incredibly efficient when I book trips through the internet.  That was seriously annoying though, because I swear to god I've only legitimately used the internet for about 5 minutes so far, and it's say I used it for 90.  Oh well.

 

Peace out.

Shave the Whales

So the formatting on this page isn’t going so hot. I would normally fix it, but I don’t really want to use up my internet minutes to do that. I got rid of the black text on prior posts, but now the linebreaks are kind of screwed up. Hopefully that will only happen to those two posts, and the rest should be good…

//

On the first night that we shoved off from port, the doctor told us that drinking a lot of fluids helps to fight seasickness. I took his word to heart, and started using my Nalgene bottle first thing the next day. I filled it all the way up before I went to my African history class.

I didn’t realize quite how much I was drinking, and by the end of class, I think I’d taken in almost the whole 32oz in the bottle. I had to go to the bathroom so badly – I’d never done that to myself before. I didn’t really make a note not to do it again, and so it’s actually happened a few times since then because I was still using fluids to help fight seasickness. It’s really weird that I just have absolutely no concept of how much I’m actually drinking when I have it with me. Many times I’ve almost finished the whole thing within a 75 minute class, and been itching to go to the bathroom at the end of class.

//

If you check out the Semester at Sea website, you can probably see a double that looks exactly like the one that Pierce and I have. Between the two beds, there are two little sets of drawers. I have one and he has one, and each one has three compartments to pull out, each of which is maybe five or six inches high.

There was a particularly huge swell on the morning of January twentieth at almost exactly three in the morning. It three Pierce’s entire set of drawers right across the floor of our cabin. It’s a good thing we weren’t standing around in the room when it happened, because it would have been pretty painful. We both woke up when it happened because it was so loud, and just cursed at the insanity of what must have just happened. We picked it up together and tried to wedge it back into place. It sort of creaks now at night, so I don’t think we got it in perfectly. I think I might ask one of the housekeepers if there’s a way to fix it, of if I’m crazy and it always creaked.

//

Breakfast is definitely the best meal of the day here. It seems like they always have at least either pancakes (which are WAY better than the ones Penn State serves) or French toast (which is about equivalent to what Penn State has, but not as good as IHOP). I never really know when the next dinner or lunch that contains something I really like will be coming up, so I find excuses to wake up for breakfast. Yesterday I decided to sit in on a class (English as a Global Language) early in the morning just so I’d have an excuse to wake up for breakfast. Today it was shaving my face (finally) and filling out the form for the next sale of Semester at Sea-approved trips.

It’s nice in the morning. The wind is usually calmer than other times of the day, so you can eat right up against the back railing of the boat instead of having to sit under the awning near the doors. Today was nice, but it started to rain (pretty cold rain, too) suddenly at about 8:15 or so, so we all rain inside. Some people were about to go anyway, so they left. I sat with Aleeza and a few others until 9 or so.

I think most people on the ship are pretty upset about the breakfast timing schedule. It goes from 7:30 – 8:30. Classes start at 8:00 or 9:30. So that means that basically only people with 8:00 classes have any reason to wake up for breakfast. If you have a 9:30 class and you wanted to eat breakfast, you’d have to wake up in time to eat by 8:30, then sit around for an hour, and then you could go to class. It should definitely be served for two hours instead of one.

//

Everything is extremely close. I mean, imagine if your entire college experience were crammed into a 70’ x 600’ area. That’s what we do here. We have fifteen minutes between classes, which is totally necessary at Penn State, but when Classroom 1 and Classroom 9 are seriously less than 150’ apart, it seems kind of silly. People always get to classes incredibly early, partially because people want the good seats, but also partially because we’re used to leaving more than sixty seconds ahead of time, which is about all you’d ever need on the ship.

//

The only way I can tell that I have internet access on my phone is that I get two vibrations to notify me someone sent an email to my Gmail address. I get tons of listserv things from Penn State clubs that I don’t care about, and the Songwriter’s Club president sends a minimum of one email a day, and sometimes other officers write too. It’s kind of annoying, but I do always know when I have a few seconds to try to check out XKCD or Dinosaur Comics.

I think our email accounts here clear things out after just a few messages, which is really dumb, and I wish I had known that. I’m going to forward everything to my Gmail account, I think, so that I can save them to look at later.

Peace out.

Outside

Standing outside before my 1100 class right now on the back of the top deck. Slight breeze, 75 degrees, pure blue water everywhere and a clear sky. Suck on that, Penn State.

Sorry about some of the posts coming up all black. I'll have to use a couple internet minutes to fix that sometime, it's really annoying.

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Happimess

My professor for my Pakistan course is Dr. Barnett. He's the only teacher of Pakistani history in the United States, and has been for like 27 years. He's strange, in a good way. He's clearly extremely smart, very stoic, and humorous. His tone is somewhat monotonous and detached, but still lively somehow. Today he was talking about how he doesn't get seasick and how he's just kind of lucky, but he imagines all the rocking this way: "I just pretend that I'm a baby, and I'm in my mother's uterus, and I'm safe, in a liquid environment... and I get free meals. ...I went too far, didn't I..."

He's also an expert witness for defendents from the ICE, which I think is Immigration and Customs. He has a guy right now who's a brown-skinned Muslim, married a Jewish woman, and has a misdemeanor on his record (Three Strikes, as he said). So my teacher is writing an affidavit to try to get him asylum in the US. He says that if he goes back to Pakistan, he's got a target on his chest (Jewish wife) and a target on his back (wrong form of Islam), and he'd pretty much be killed immediately. He had to send the document to the law firm in five-page chunks because that's all he can do from SAS.

//

Take a number between 2 and 9. Multiply it by 9 and add together the digits. If 1=A, 2=B, and so on, keep in mind the letter that goes with the number you just got. Take the first country that comes to mind starting with that letter. Name the first animal that comes to mind that starts with the second letter of that country. What color is that animal?

Grey elephant from Denmark.

Our teacher in Global Studies did this today. If you do it honestly you pretty much always get grey elephant in Denmark, but some people knew it was coming so they got yellow jaguars in Djibouti.

//

They told us to set our clocks back today at lunch, so we did it immediately. There was a seminar tonight at 2000. I found out at about 2020 that we weren't supposed to set our clocks back until midnight, so I ran up there with my friend Kristina. We sat in with a group of people who'd just done an inclusion/exclusion experiment. A bunch of them sat around talking for a while afterward, and Zach came too. He was probably looking to play piano, but ended up writing an email on the side of the floor instead.

After everyone else left, I stayed behind to play piano. After one or two songs, I saw a guy walk out of the back room (where only staff can go), sit down, and take a picture or two of me with a nice DSLR camera. He was wearing a red collared shirt. I played Mr. Brightside and when I was done he came to talk to me. His name is Henry and he's the videographer for our voyage. This is the first time he's done this job, which he says involves a ton of editing, but he does get paid to go around the world. He also did a Semester at Sea sometime when he was a student himself.

I left a few songs after that to go to the piano bar and just talk to Kristina, who said she'd be going there to do some work. She was writing some emails and we talked a bit, and eventually a bunch more kids came to join us. At some point Toby went to the piano, and Kristina yelled at him for not playing, but he said he was shy and forgot the song he was going to play. A girl sitting in a group adjacent to ours played the Jaws theme in a really really low octave. I said, "I'll play something but you all have to sing along.... if you know Mr. Brightsides...?" And the people sitting with me said Sure!/Okay, though Kristina did say, "No, I have a horrible voice..." I played it and sang it, and some people stopped to listen as they were walking by, which was pretty cool. They'll probably talk to me about it if they see me around sometime, or if I sit next to them in class, which I guess will be nice as an ice breaker instead of the normal questions. People clapped when I was done. People did that once at PSU, but they stopped when they found out it was a regular occurence. Maybe I should keep it rare. I don't know. I do try to play in The Union as much as I can.

The bartenders are three ladies, one is Spanish, one is Asian, and one looks eastern European or maybe French. They stopped me as I was walking out and asked me what my name was tonight. I didn't get the question, so I just said my name was Jeff, and they said I had to change it, and we agreed on Justin. They said I was talented and asked if I knew some of their favorite artists. The European one asked for Arson (I think), one asked for Evanescence (which I have played before, kinda), and one asked for Neo, which I didn't know. They also mentioned Umbrella and Chris Brown. I think I can figure out Umbrella, but I don't know any Chris Brown. The one said that she would bring a flash drive with some Arson on it, and I said I'd try to figure some out for her. She said it would make her cry if I could. I think it's possible - we'll see.

//

My computer is acting a little funny. It'll say that I have full battery - six hours worth - and then like fifteen minutes later it'll say that I only have 15 minutes left and need to save immediately. And this is after a long charge. I don't know what's going on... Hopefully I'll figure it out or it'll stop happening. It's been okay for this writing.

//

We took a circuitous route to Hawaii to avoid a storm. Apparently we moved pretty quickly to get out of its way, and we were ahead of schedule, so we slowed down and that means we had to pull in the stabilizers. It's been much rockier today, although I don't feel seasick at all. I think I have my sea legs. But at dinner, I was sitting across from my friends Margalit and Aleeza, and on a particularly rough swell, the silverware container behind them just came crashing down. Margalit looked absolutely terrified and screamed fairly loudly, but they didn't get hurt at all. We ended up just laughing at it, and the cafeteria workers cleaned it up. One of them was bending over humorously close to Margalit so she pretended to spank him, but didn't actually do it.

//

I'm sitting in on an 8AM linguistics class tomorrow just to have an excuse to wake up for breakfast...

//

If you are Sonali: Sorry I never got back to your last FB message… go for it! Listen away! I’d be interested to hear what you say later.

If you are Hortense: Sorry I didn’t respond to your email yet! >.< I promise I will soonly!

Peace out.

Back That Aft Up

It’s 3:16AM Philadelphia time, which means it’s 12:16AM ship time, but it’s actually more like 11:16AM local time – we just haven’t changed our clocks yet. They actually haven’t even told us when we do that, just that they’ll make an announcement when it happens. I wish I knew so that I would know what to do with my phone setting, whether to leave it on automatically changing or not.

We had a lot of Semester at Sea orientation stuff today and it was pretty boring, in general. I think the highlight for everyone was Don Gogniat, the Global Studies teacher. He’s extremely animated and has a funny accent that I can’t quite place (imagine a half-Cajun accent) and is full of energy all the time. He’s maybe 5’10” with graying hair and a wide smile at almost all times. He greeted every single person as we got on the ship. I’m kind of looking forward to his class, which we have 38 times through the semester. All the kids on the back of the pictures say not to go to Global Studies (not even the first day!) but I think I’ll give it a shot anyway, because this teacher might be different.

They told us not to refer to the MV Explorer as a boat because it’s a ship. The difference apparently is that ships can carry boats but boats can’t carry a ship. I don’t think it’s that important. If they really cared, I think they’d change the name “Semester at Sea” to “Semester at Ocean” or “Semester at Bodies of Water” or something along those lines. But whatever, I’ll call it a ship if they care that much.

All of the cabins on the ship have a picture on the wall. They have screws on two places on the wall that some metal strips at the top of the picture latch on to, using gravity to hold it in place there, and the rest of it is secured with double-sided tape. The tradition is to take it off the wall when you get on the ship and see was past SAS’ers have written to you for advice. Ours was pretty good, I guess. One guy wrote four ways to sneak alcohol on the ship, plus a couple general tips for the same activity. Another congratulated us on taking the picture off the wall (“You’ve done something right.”) Another said “Don’t go to Global Studies (not even the first day!),” but I don’t know if I’ll listen to that one. I’ve checked out the pictures in other peoples’ rooms as well, and they mostly say the same things:

--Don’t have sex with SAS’ers at first

--The easy girls become visible after the first or second port

--Don’t worry, you will have lots of sex

--There are ways to sneak alcohol onto the ship

--Hiding places specific to your room

--Enjoy every second and never sleep if at all possible

--Do independent travel as much as possible

There was one picture in one of my friend’s rooms that had a novel written across the back of it. The pictures are like 2.5 feet x 3 feet or so, and this one girl wrote on most of the back of it, with medium sized handwriting. She really seemed to be in love with herself from what we could tell, talking about how she didn’t drink at all, making fun of people who did, saying that only service visits were worth your time, things like that, and left her phone number saying “Call if this helped you!” Needless to say, we didn’t call. Because we’re on a ship.

I’ve been taking a steady stream of Meclizine just in case I would be getting sick otherwise. I don’t know if I should take it tomorrow or not. Classes start tomorrow and I don’t want to be nauseas for the first day – that would suck. It doesn’t really make me drowsy so there doesn’t seem to be any harm in taking it… I guess I will. I can get some on my way anyhow. I’ve also been drinking a ton of water – probably a little less than a gallon today – because it helps with seasickness.

I’ve met a ton of people. But I don’t think I really like social schizophrenia. Meet everybody! Make new friends! Meet new people! Right, I get the point of diversity, I would love if it I knew everyone. But I only have 100 days here and there are 600 of us. Even if I gave everyone as much time as possible, that’d only be four hours for each person. That’s useless. And besides, it’s nice to know Where You’re From And What’s Your Major And What Year Are You, but I’d much rather have a Meaningful Relationship With You. There’s a group of kids, mostly Jewish and mostly from Pitt, who are really nice and I think would make good outside-of-class friends, but I suppose that might change. I do like them though. They also seem like pretty good travelers. I keep countering my reluctance to meet every single person with, “But my future wife could be one of them!” I guess there’s really only 400 girls here and the odds are pretty low. Maybe I should stop that.

Anyway, my roommate (Pierce) is going to bed so I think I’m going to be polite and do the same. I don’t have any classes till 1100 ever, which sucks because breakfast ends at 0830 and is supposed to be the best meal (and is my favorite). Maybe someday I’ll find a way…

Peace out.

Current Coordinates #1

En route from Ensadana, Mexico to Hilo, Hawaii

 

Latitude:  27

Longitude:  121

 

Peace out!

Safety

The chief safety officer of the ship sounds like a poor impression of Schwarzenegger. He's also really boring to listen to and talking forever.

I'm doing pretty well with seasickness but not with the boredom this instant.

I was really close to falling asleep, so I checked XKCD and Dinosaur Comics. They were both pretty good, though I was sad to learn I can't view long mouseover texts.

Somebody should take the coordinates from my last post and plug them into google maps until they actually bring up longitude and latitude. Then please tell me if they point you anywhere near the coast of Mexico, which is hopefully wherte they should. If not, I'll find another way to update you on my position.

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

First Little Bit...

As with any new place, I'm meeting tons of new people. Everyone's really nice, because that's just how you act around new people. But that's fine. I've actually met three math majors so far, which I didn't think would happen. Though to be fair, one is actually a stat major, one is doing it as part of an economics curriculum, and I think one isn't officially declared. That last one is a guy named zach who's really cool. He was homeschooled and went to college when he was 16 or 17.

I met the child of the academic dean's kid. She's a little shy about that fact, but she seems like a really nice kid. This would be her second semester at UVA if she didn't come here. Her dad teaches at UVA.

We're all a little seasick and that supersucks. Last night we shoved off around 7, and by 10 pretty much everyone was colored green, or turning green. I was doing pretty okay for a while.

The biggest class on the ship is The Union, which is on deck six and fits everyone on the ship. All the students at least. It rocks back and forth a LOT because it's so high, and the openness really does not help at all. We had a big introduction to staff and faculty in The Union last night for about an hour, and a good portion of kids left in the middle because they were feeling too sick.

Later, I had a Sea Meeting (with my floor) and it was in Union again. We actually had another sea there too, and we were expected to individually introduce ourselves to the whole room. It was going to take FOREVER becausew each sea was like 80 people. A lot of people just left right away. I decided to just introduce my partner Nik quickly and then go, because I was bored AND sickly.

I decided to look for Gatorade then because being hydrated helps a lot with seasickness, and got some at the bar on the top deck near the pool. I walked by one of the three pianos onboard on my way back, and figured I'd play a little bit since there was almost no one at the piano bar. I played a couple songs, and one guy shouted "Ben Folds!" after I played You To Thank. Another guy named Max came to talk and sing with me and I thought he seemed really cool. He's into acting and wants to get into music.

Playing piano was seriously amazing at fighting seasickness. I wish I just play constantly for the first few days to get my sea legs. Hopefully I'll get to go there more often if I start feeling sick...

We're in Union today for 3 hours straight for orientation, which will last all day but we'll go to other rooms. I took some Meclizine just in case. It's rocking a good bit in here but I don't really feel drowsy or sick. Not yet at least...

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

Sorry captain, I've been live-blogging this lifeboat check

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

During the Lifeboat Check

Earlier I was in the room of my friend zach. His roommate isaac was in the bathroom and 3 girls walked into the room, including anne and one really cute blonde one. Zach was just about to say "my roommate's in the bathroom" when the blonde opened the bathroom door and poked her head in. She was totally shocked and closed the door while jumping back. She had a sheepish look on her face and said, "yeah, I'm gonna go now..." And they all left.

Damn.

Peace out.
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry