Updates From Sea . . . Almost to India . . .

Disclaimer: I think that I am going to start adding some names throughout this blog where appropriate. So many of my good friends tell me that their parents are reading my blog and don’t even know that we’re good friends. Plus, I want to have names for myself to better remember events later.

THE WHITE SOX ARE GOING TO THE WORLD SERIES!!! I am seriously pumped. My Chicago friend, Patti (I know her mom reads this) and I found out yesterday morning after global studies. We were so pumped that we ran to our rooms and donned ourselves in black and white attire. For the finishing touch, our friend Crystal did Sox tattoos on our upper arms. They were actually pretty tough looking.

Well, the last couple of days have been pretty interesting on this ship. As of yesterday after global studies, the internet has been free because they have been making some repairs. You might not think that’s a big deal. But, it is. It’s a huge deal. I have never seen so many people littering the common areas at all hours of the night. There were people who stayed up all night last night just to use the internet, a lot of people. I might have been one of those people except that I have no computer charger and my computer was dead. Right now I am borrowing my friend’s charger, but I hate to ask too often. Anyways, the internet is ridiculously slow and I’ve been unable to download my e-mail at all. It’s actually really frustrating. The only thing that you can really do well with the free internet is talk on IM.

Besides the excitement of the free internet, we had a pub night last night. We had two themes: freaks and geeks and CEOs and secretaries (corporate hoes basically). I went as a gothic glam freak. I wore a short black skirt, sexy black top, sparkly black necklace, fish nets, black ballet slippers, which I added black ribbon and wrapped it up my lower legs, a black rope tied around my upper arm, a suede and furry black long jacket, very dark eyes, very pale lips, and black magic marker streaks in my hair. As usual, there were tons of really unique outfits. The whole thing was a really fun party. And, it really really freaked me out when I walked through the ship at like 2 a.m. and there were people everywhere (due to the free internet). It has been complete ciaos on this ship. But then, it always is.

I woke up this morning with the drowsy, incomplete memory that always accompanies the morning after pub night. This time I had blue hair to show for it. Apparently, I didn’t see the value in washing my hair last night and somehow my black, magic marker streaks had turned to blue. After two showers, I am resigned to the fact that I now have some light blue streaks in my blond hair. I think that it will come out after a couple more washings. But to tell you the truth, I’m ok with my blue streaks. I’m planning to dye my hair a darker color after Myanmar anyways. So, worse comes to worse, I make a unique fashion statement for a couple weeks. I’m not worried about it. I do find it funny though that this is the second time that I’ve woken up with blue hair on this trip.

Anyways, even after my night of partying, I woke up at the wee hour of 7 a.m. and made myself rally to study for my Geology mid-term. In my Asian Religion class I got my mid-term back. I got an A. Geology wasn’t nearly as successful. The best thing that I can say about it is that it is over. It was really difficult. I guess there’s no use in worrying about it since I won’t find out my grade for two weeks. I was so exausted after the test that I went to my room and took a nap (which I rarely do) for four hours.

Now, about India . . . We will be there tomorrow morning. I am so nervous. I am going on a really intense trip to the Taj and Varanasi. They schedule about six hours a night for us to sleep. I leave the day after tomorrow at 4:45 a.m. Tomorrow I have free to wander in Chennai. People say that India is the most intense place we will go on this trip. They say that it should be a continent on its own. They have told us that we have never seen such poverty. I’m really nervous. This will be completely unlike anywhere I’ve ever been before. Even our ship has taken on physical changes. They have lined the floors of the hallway with plastic (because there will be a lot of dirt that they don’t want us tracking in) and have replaced our white bathroom towels with blue (in an effort to have us reuse our towels more so that we can conserve water). As of tomorrow, we are officially on water conservation. The water from the port area is not clean enough for us to use, even with our filtering system and apparently the water that the ship has to buy is very very expensive. My sea is sleeping up on deck tonight, but I think that I will sleep in my room. I want to be rested and ready to start what I think will be the adventure of my life tomorrow.

On top of everything, we only have one day at sea between India and Myanmar, so it is going to be really hard to recuperate and prepare for Myanmar in such a short period of time. I am going to try to write my journal daily while in port so that when I get back on the ship, I only have to type it up.

But, ready or not, here I go . . .

P.S. Today official marks our half way point on the journey. This fact really depresses me. This program really needs to be a full year.

Position Report

October 18, 2005
Latitude 07 degrees - 06 minutes South,
Longitude 082 degrees - 10 minutes East

October 17, 2005
Latitude 03 degrees - 00 minutes South,
Longitude 080 degrees - 02 minutes East