More Fun Filled Days On the Indian Ocean . . .

We’ve been at sea for several days now, so I thought that I’d write an update. This has been such a busy crossing. The first couple of days I spent in the standard routine: catch up on sleep, eat, unpack, attend class (mostly), eat, attend global studies, study and do homework, eat, attend club meetings, attend various community colleges and study sessions, eat, watch movies, lay out on deck and tan, eat, and socialize. However, there have been some special events this crossing that I’d like to write about.


The dreaded mid-terms . . .

I had two mid-terms this crossing. My first one, Asian Religion, was yesterday. I really didn’t do a ton of studying for it. But, it was a dark cloud over my head for the first couple days of the crossing. It consisted of four, one-page essays. It really wasn’t that bad, and I was so relieved when it was finished. I celebrated by spending the rest of the day up on deck basking in the glorious sunshine and reading the book that I’ve been reading for pleasure (stopping for socializing breaks of course) while listening to my ipod and sipping a diet Pepsi. Talk about heaven on earth . . .

However, the worst is yet to come. I have my Geology mid-term coming up the day after tomorrow. Now that one is going to be killer. I am just completely lost in that class. Science of any type is just not my thing. And, this teacher, while very nice and intelligent, just doesn’t reach me. I haven’t started on the reading yet and I also haven’t really paid much attention in class. So, tomorrow is going to be a study hell. On a promising note, I got back my big paper that I was so miserable writing last crossing. And, guess what??? I got an A-. So, I guess there’s hope for me still on this mid-term. I can usually rally for this kind of thing.


Touring the bridge . . .

A couple days ago I randomly took a tour of the bridge of the ship. It was very interesting to see where all the navigation occurs. We got to see all the instruments they use to navigate and control the ship. There were lots of satellite map programs and gadgets of various sorts. Surprisingly, there were only two people working in the entire bridge during our tour, including the man giving us the tour. It was also funny to see that the actual steering wheel of the ship is smaller than a car steering wheel – no big wooden theatrical wheel. In honesty, the tour was a little dry to me (I’m just not a gadget centered person), but I’m glad that I did it. We also got to take the prerequisite picture in the captain’s hat. So, all in all, it was a successful half an hour – saw the bridge, learned a little, and got a cute picture in a $700 hat.

And now, the main event . . . .


The Sea Olympics

Like all SAS traditions, the Sea Olympics far exceeded my expectations. The Sea Olympics had been talked up since day one on this ship. During the last couple of crossings, there had been various meetings held with each sea to choose team names, mascots, chants, talents for the talent show, and who would represent in each event.

My Team Stats

Sea: Yellow Sea

Team Name: Yellow Fever

Official Chant:
Who’s got the fever?
I’ve got the fever.
Who’s got the fever.
I’ve got the fever.
Who’s got the fever.
We’ve got the fever
Yellow Fever!
Yellow Fever!
Yellow Fever!

Official Song: (sung to “We All Live In A Yellow Submarine”)
We all live in the Yellow Colored Sea.
The Urine Colored Sea.
The Sea that smells like pee.

We all live in the Yellow Colored Sea.
The STD free sea.
You want to sleep with me.

We all live in the Yellow Colored Sea.
The sea that is a sea.
The sea you want to be.

*Ok. I know this sounds completely lame. But, trust me, it’s a blast with 80 college kids belting it out in a competitive situation.

So, last night, as the games began, students flocked to the union supporting their sea in various states of dress and undress sporting their official color, names, and slogans. There were only thirty five seats in the union for each sea. So, there was a mad line for admission. Each sea was in packs of like colored kids randomly belting out their team chants and heckling the other teams (this was before we were told that we weren’t allowed to heckle). It was a complete madhouse. I was the fourth yellow sea person in line, so I made sure to fight to keep my seat in that line even once the crowd started pushing forward and mingling.

The opening ceremony consisted of a few speeches, the lighting of a torch, an official chance for each sea to do their chants, and a lot of unofficial chanting. Then the talent show commenced. Each of the nine seas had two acts in the show. Wow, was I ever impressed. Every single act was amazing. I have no idea how people came up with this stuff. Most acts involved many sea members and most were comedic. For example, there was a girl who sang opera, but before she sang opera, they did a little skit pretending that it was one of the tough guys who was going to sing and he pretended to sing but it was really her voice and then she came out from behind the curtain and sang. The kids on the ship put on a really really cute skit that they made up themselves incorporating a ton of fairy tale characters. There were a couple comedy acts making fun of our global studies professor, with his blessing of course. There were tons of crazy dance routines, skits, and songs. And, the list just goes on.

Yellow Sea ended up with two really funny acts. First, we had a girl who wrote a really funny song about not flushing anything but s*&$ down the toilets on the ship. Since this is all an issue that we hear a lot about, it was hilarious. She specifically talked about condoms, tampons, and joints. Our second act was a guy who sang this really fast fun song that listed all the countries in the world (well, almost). We actually put together the act that very night revolving around his song (that he already knew obviously), but it was really really funny. We first had him go up to the mic and act like he had a serious love song to sing and he pulled up a girl from the audience and pretended like he had a crush on her and wanted to sing this song to her. So, he has this girl come up to stage and starts singing the song for a couple minutes with some serious backup interpretive dancers (although people were kind of giggling at their serious ballet dancing). Then, suddenly, one of the guys from our group stands up and throws a shoe at him and starts screaming, “Stop, stop, this isn’t representing the Yellow Sea.” So, the guy singing starts insisting he has something better and he starts with this fast, fun song listing all the countries in the world. Meanwhile, a group of six of us come in from the sides and start doing this silly dance behind him. Now, we had never actually practiced this dance, so I’m sure it was terrible, but it was just for comedic effect. But, seriously, props for me for having absolutely no shame in going to the front and making an absolute, ungraceful, unsexy fool of myself. Anyways, at the end of the song, we held up this big sign that said: Disclaimer, we may have omitted countries created within the past couple of years. It was really hilarious and fun.

I am just so blown away by how amazing every single act was. I’ll tell you, any one act in this show could have been placed in any other talent show that I’ve ever seen and blown the entire thing away. I guess that’s what you get when you put seven hundred of the best and brightest students in the country together on a ship with limited entertainment and resources.

Anyways, after the talent show, people (including myself) just ran around the ship as usual looking for things to keep themselves entertained. I actually called it an early night and was asleep before 1 a.m.

And, I slept, and slept, and slept, and slept, until 11 a.m. the next morning. Was it ever glorious. After I finally dragged myself out of bed, I showed and got myself all yellowed up. There were some events that I had missed seeing in the morning, but I wasn’t too worried about it. I ended up watching musical chairs (Yellow Sea took third place) and part of the scavenger hunt (we had last place ) before lunch. Lunch was a splendid affair where I pretended like it was a holiday and stuffed myself with sloppy joes on hot dog buns (which I had been craving and we’d never had on the ship) and fried potatoes. It was so good. After lunch, I watched the last five players in the Texas Holdem tournament. Yellow Sea came in second place. Then I caught the push-up/pull-up contest, Twister (third place), the mashed potato sculpting contest, beer (done with lemon aid) pong (first place, leave it to Yellow Sea), and Legends of the Hidden Temple (FIRST PLACE BABY!!!). There were also lots of other competitions such as tug of war, monopoly, limbo, scrabble, and checkers.

Unfortunately, the one event that I was signed up for, the water balloon toss, was cancelled because of in climate weather. However, my RD asked me to participate in the relay race as the person who ate the peanut butter and whistled because the girl who was supposed to do it, didn’t know how to whistle. So, it ended up that I had an event anyways. I wouldn’t have cared either way. I had a great time just being an official team cheerleader. I definitely led the pack of cheerers and had a fabulous time. If there was a spirit award for each sea, I would definitely have won on the girls side. I screamed, cheered, and chanted my ass off all day. It made me feel like I was at the longest baseball game ever. I truly was exhausted by the middle of the day. Each time I did a big scream sequence, I felt like I was about to pass out.

Anyways, the relay race was pretty much the last big event of the day. It consisted of ten teammates doing various silly things in sequence including things like the wheelbarrow, chicken dance, and bear crawl. As, I said above, my job was to eat a spoonful of peanut butter and whistle and then tag someone down the hall. It hit me at some point that I wasn’t really a strong whistler and I had never tried this out before. Apparently, some people had done a lot of practicing for this event. So, as my time drew near, I was getting a little nervous. As I stood in the hall waiting, I did a little flirting with the guy who was judging the contest and when the time came, he became a pretty easy judger, and my half whistle made it through. Unfortunately, our team ended up in seventh place for the event. But, it’s all in good fun anyways. I was just glad that I didn’t hold the team up too much.

After the relay race, it was time for dinner. Dinner wasn’t extraordinary, but, the beef stir-fry was pretty good. After dinner, it was time for the closing ceremonies in the union. Before getting our final points and finding out who the Olympic champs were, there was one even left, synchronized swimming. Due to the weather, they had decided to hold it in the union. Yes, synchronized swimming, in the union. And, was it ever funny. Again, I am completely amazed at the creativity and talent of the performers. Every single performance was amazing. Obviously, people made a lot of changes to their performances to make them good on land and what we ended up with was a group of really silly and sexy dances done in various states of dress and mostly undress (i.e. bikinis and Speedos). It was fabulous. Yellow Sea definitely had the best routine. We had four guys and one girl. They guys dressed in Speedos and drag and the girl wore a yellow bikini. They had a fun montage of music and they did an amazing, well practiced, and funny routine including a couple lifts. We didn’t see the actual placing for the event yet, but I’ll be really surprised if we didn’t come in first for that event.

Then the event that everyone was waiting for, the announcing of the ranking and the winners. Yellow Sea ended up in fourth place over all. I think that most of us were pretty happy with that. We didn’t make a lot of first place wins, but we dominated with consistency and spirit.

After the closing ceremony, there was a dessert party up on the pool deck. There was a large buffet with tons of fruits and special desserts. I had some good brownies and an apple and enjoyed dancing and hanging out with friends for a while. Then, I came downstairs to my room to call it a somewhat early night and here I am now . . .

So, we have two more days until we get to India. I’m really nervous about the next leg of our journey. The next places that we are visiting are going to be very intense. And, we are only going to have one day to recoup and regroup between India and Myanmar. All I have to say is that I am so grateful that I have big SAS trips planned in each port. I couldn’t imagine having to do anything else right now. The biggest things that I have going in the next two days are my Geology mid-term the day after tomorrow and pub night tomorrow night. Those probably won’t work out to be a great combination. But, as it’s the only pub night of the crossing (thank gosh for my sanity) I am pretty excited. The theme is freaks and geeks, so that will be interesting.

Tonight, as we often do, we are setting our clocks ahead. What is unusual is that we are not setting them back the usual hour, but only half an hour this time. Apparently, India and Myanmar are on a different time system than we are.

Other Major (to me) Events of the Crossing
I watched the Butterfly Effect. This was major to me, because I absolutely loved it. It was so disturbing.
I ate my first PB&J sandwich on this trip (I’ve never really been a fan)
I sang Karaoke completely sober and completely rocked the union. I was loud, silly, and obnoxious and I loved it.
I gave a long, silly interview to Sea TV at 3 a.m. in which I discussed the possibility of jumping off the ship and swimming to the nearest island for cheese sticks (Mandy will understand the reference).
***Do you all see my inhibitions slipping away here***

A Personal Reflection About How I Am Changing
I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but every once in a while, I notice little things about myself that have changed. I’m not quite sure how they will fit into the overall picture when I get home, but nonetheless, I find them very interesting. Something that I’ve really noticed in this last crossing is how outgoing I am and have become. Now, I’ve always known that I was outgoing, but during this crossing, I feel like I’ve let my inhibitions down and stepped so far out of my comfort zone in many situations. I’ve discussed many of them above.

I’ve somewhat recently become friends with a guy who is just crazy and runs around the ship creating a tornado effect wherever he goes. Everyone knows him and he just freaks people out with his complete ADD energy. When I started hanging out with him, I didn’t really notice the similarities between our personalities. I just thought that I was able to deal with him so well because I was a patient person who had done a lot of babysitting in her time. It suddenly clicked in my mind one day that our personalities are actually a lot alike. I said to his roommate one day, “You know, I think that me and _____ are actually a lot alike. I think that he is just like me but on a lot of speed.” (sidebar – I have never done speed) His roommate looked at me and said, “No. There is no difference. You are exactly the same.” Now, that’s a stretch, but it’s been said once or twice recently that I’m the girl version of him.

I just find it interesting. I never felt myself so completely, outrageously outgoing, but apparently I am. And, when I lose the inhibitions of wanting to look good and cute all the time, my personality becomes even bigger. It actually feels really good and therapeutic to just let it all go and be completely silly, to just commit to looking like an idiot and going with it and truly not caring. I told someone that I was an accounting major the other day and she couldn’t believe it. She said, “no, you need to be in P.R.” That just cracks me up, because I’ll bet that most of my friends at home would think that I’d make the perfect, responsible, sensible accountant. So, I wonder if I’ve changed that much or if I’m just finally in the environment where I have the freedom to unleash my full personality. Just a reflection.

Other topics that I’d like to write about soon but not tonight – The Phenomenon of the Chicago Accent??? Huh??? and How Laundry Day Makes Me The Smelly Kid For Three Days