Let me tell you a little somethin

Apparently it's hard for me to blog, but it's just as hard for everyone else to email.

 

I have NOOOO CLUE whats going onnn!

 

 

 

I dont ever check facebook, except maybe I have for half an hour at a time in a couple ports, but not enough to talk to anyone.

 

So like, even though maybe people can happen upon my profile and feel like I am still alive because people will sillily (not a word) write on my profile and because there is a smily picture of me at the top, I feel like everyone is most certainly dead.

 

So please email me.

 

Please?

 

You can email me at cos-ette@sbcglobal.net

or at ruesg100@mail.chapman.edu

 

 

they're both liked to my semester at sea  account.

So I should get it.

 

 

What if I should ever join the peace corps?? I would probably die of loneliness and extrangement.

Oh my.

 

 

 

Dear blogginq world:

Im sorry that I let you down.

im sorry that you dont know anything about anything farther than Japan and maybe like a ghost of China.

 

Im sorry.

I simply was not cut out for this business.

The Blogging world is a hard world to be in.

Shit goes down.

dog eats dog.

 

Im sorry.

hello!

so apparently you can email posts and they will publish themselves.

if this post is successful,

i will have like five thousand more things to say to you very soon.

February 13th - post Japan review:

 

This review is postponed until I finish eating my crunch bars and peanut butter.

 

And wash my peanut butter hands.

 

 

….

 

 

Kay done.

 

What can I even say though? I feel like anyones description of Japan is going to start out with “its amazing” followed by some description of the magnificence of their toilets, and I do not intend on straying from that form.  Japan is entirely amazing, and their toilets are the proverbial solid gold shit.  I don’t understand why the U.S.  hasn’t jumped on the toilet seat warming thing.  The bidets and everything are cool (what, they are) but the best thing is the warmth that greets you, that completes your toileting experience.

A few other things I don’t understand:

-Why is all the food in Japan GOOD, like I could go to any random place and get good eats, but by experience in the US if you get random food/eat at random places you very well may end up wasting your bucks on mediocre edible substances.

-Why doesn’t the US sell more random food? I found such diverse treats, and picked anything and it was good.  Little breads with cheese in them, or bacon and asparagus on top, or sticky buns that look like pandas with sweets inside, or with meat inside, and all these odd little things.  But if you go into a US shop everything will be relatively predictable and people will most likely ask what is in the said pastry/treat/etc.

- Why is everyone so hot and why does it have to cost so much because I want to go there all the tiiiiiime?

-WHY couldn’t I find a Japanese mirror for sale ANYWHERE. Like a cool wall one. Anywhere. Why?

-WHY IS KARAOKE CONSIDERED DORKY OR WHATNOT HERE, THAT WAS ONE OF THE BEST THINGS ABOUT JAPAN, PEOPLE COULD TOTALLY BANK ON THOSE KARAOKE BARS

 

Japan is beautiful.  Tokyo is the adolescent younger sister who admires her big sis and loves to rock out, and Kyoto is the legit Indie beautiful collegiate older sister.  Tokyo is perfect for fast times, fun times, people like Joey.  Kyoto is perfect for spiritual things, cultural things, people like Tayler and Jessgah.

 

I have a lot of stories and ideas and no idea how to put them here.  Whenever I have thoughts that pour out like rain I have no computer or pen..or will to document either.

Similar thing here though, I love Japan and I want to remember this experience for ever and everything that I did but I don’t feel like writing it all, and then telling it a bunch of times, and then writing the same things in a bunch of postcards.

 

So I’ll just ramble with whatever comes to mind when I reflect upon Japan.

 

 

I love how helpful everyone is.  A lday ran to another shop to find out if they had mirrors for me, whenever I shop and have more than one bag, store employees give bigger bags to put them in, a guard who took my picture gave me free candy, etc.  And the free samples everywhere.  It seems to be tied in to the value of gift giving.  I never really felt awkward about taking the samples.  At one shop I was at the same guy must have offered me about 8 different camples, and his wife offered me tea, and not because they wanted me to buy it.  Yknow? Like when you go to get ice cream and you sample a few flavors and then you begin to feel guilty about it, like they’re annoyed at you or expect you to buy? I didn’t get that feeling at all and I had billions of samples.

 

Everything is so safe.  I did make a couple would-be-fatal mistakes, such as not noticing my camera slipped out of my pocket, or dropping my shipboard Id, and people would let me know right away.  And I love the bowing and the general feeling of good will.

I love how warmly the food sits in my stomach and the feeling of warm tea, and the feelings that subsequently follow and stay with me the rest of the night.

 

I love Japan.

Tuesday Feb 9th, 2010 - port in yokohama, Japan!!

 

IN JAPAN!!! I’m sorry that I haven’t been keeping up with my adventure save for little wimpy notes for each day.  Even though its been fun, writing about the ship is a little tedious.  Also hard.  There are a lot of things going on and I can’t remember everything.  Ive also been kind of seasick for a couple days.  Never threw up, I’m stubborn about throwing up unless its for a legitimate illness that will get it out of my system.  But I felt gross and was unable to study.  Seriously, going to school on a moving, sometimes rattling, tipping campus is really trippy.  Well, lets see, last night I found out that my Meditation with Zen Buddhist Monks and my Karaoke with Yokohama University students were cancelled for today, so I’m now preparing to travel around independently with Nat and his fabulous roommate Wade. From Canada.  Because of the previous stormy spell we had for a couple days, the boat had to slow down and they thought we’d be super late to Japan (in terms of hours, not days) so they cancelled the trips.  However, apparently we booked it because we only arrived a couple hours late, about 930 (of course, its now 11:41 and my “sea” (hall – which is dubbed the Caribbean Sea) hasn’t been called yet.  Nevertheless, it turns out that out of the three trips they weren’t able to reinstate, two of them were the one’s I’d signed up for.  Dray.  Oh well.  Some goals I have:

Buy a Japanese umbrella because apparently I didn’t bring one?...

Hang out with a Monk, and with a Geisha, ideally at the same time…

Find something cool to collect from all the ports. Maybe a tapestry or scarves or cool symbolic charms.

Go to a hot spring.

Public bathhouse!

Eat a bunch of cute shit. (ALL THEIR FOOD IS SO CUTE, WTF.)

Karaoke Bar.

Meditate with a monk ON MY OWN, since the trip was cancelled. Not stopping ME.

Go to an ice bar. Maybe. It sounds cool, but may be pricey…

 

My stomach is churning, I’m suddenly very nervous and happily nauseous.  How beautiful that getting off the ship has taken so long that by the time I’m dancing on Japanese soil it will be exactly time to eat!

 

notes from a hard and nauseating week-plus that i couldnt manage to blog about

Saturday January 30, 2010 (B4)

Salsa

Played pounce

 

Sunday January 31, 2010 (A5)

Nat finally played pounce

 

Monday  February 1, 2010 (B5)

 

So much to do.  Missed knitting, because of extended family dinner, and missed zumba, but went to salsa dancing. Was going to go to Japanese flower arranging but lost interest. Dance till midnight. Again going to watch movie but kept talking and got tired

Turned in forms and japan overnight form

 

Tuesday February 2, 2010, (no class)

 

Today we cross the international dateline, which means we lose a day, and tomorrow will be Thursday instead of Wednesday.  Technically I guess we switch to Wednesday in the middle of the day, but whatever, that’s too much to handle.
global studies meeting/pictures

 

Thursday February 4, 2010 (a6)

Spiritual Dance again!

Tried a smoothie?

 

Friday February 5^, 2010 (b6)

Slept in, booted from room
Latin dance

 

Saturday February 6, 2010 (a7)

Kids party

Foodies meeting

 

Sunday February 7, 2010 (b7)

 

Monday Feb 8^th 2010 ASIA DAYYY

The day before Asia, there are a bunch of seminars we can go to etc, I slept through most things but oh welllll at the end of the day I had free popcorn!

Friday January 29th, 2010

Ew it’s rainy and gray and I just want to sleep and not go to class.  I like rainy and gray, but not when on a moving boat that is also threatening to make me sick in the middle of class.  It is thoroughly impossible for me to get work done on days like this.  Another thing I have to admit, I have this vampirical dislike for natural light in my bedroom.  Not like I literally DISLIKE it, I just feel cozier when it’s dark and can’t concentrate very well when there are windows or blinds open.  I guess that’s a little weird.  But being in this dark windowless cabin really doesn’t bother me, as long as there is a strong artificial light source I can use to work by, get dressed by, etc.

Forgetting sarah marshallll

 

Thursday January 28th, 2010 - Honolulu day 2

 

I slept in for awhile, deposited some money into my shipboard account, and was supposed to meet honey for lunch or Yogurtland or something.  That didn’t work out, but I did end up getting lunch at a Mediterranean café with Nat and then hitting the beach for half an hour.  The water felt fabulous, but again with the rocks, I was not going to swim out too far and cut myself on all the coral and rocks, so I stayed in the shallow area and got safely and painlessly wet and salty.  On our way back to the ship we stopped at Haagen Daas and I got a brilliant chocolate peanut butter milkshake.  I love peanut butter chocolate anything, and am not sure what they have in the way of shakes in other countries, so this was a nice time to indulge.

OH, and let me fill you in, Hawaiian water is the best I have ever tasted.  Straight out the fountain.  I think I hit up every single water fountain on the way to the beach.  It was so pure and revitalizing,  I’m kind of pissed about it in an inexplicable way. 

            Later that night I called some people on the seventh deck, and then found that a bunch of students were outside waiting for the boat to leave.  I did too for awhile and then went back inside to my room.  By this time the boat was getting kind of rocky already and everything smelled like sulfur, so rather than do homework I just went to bed very very early.  Or like, eleven pm.

I’m really excited for the rest of the trip.  Not for the twelve day stretch we’re facing of classes and boat swaying, but Hawaii was a really good honeymoon phase for what’s to come.

A lot of students or people not on SAS have the impression that this trip is just a glorified booze cruise, and I have to say that may be entirely true.  For some people.  Which is silly.  But for the rest of us, or perhaps I should just speak for myself and for some of my friends who agree, this is a really godo opportunity to apply lessons in real situations.  I feel like it helps me learn a lot better to be able to do things like learn about Polynesian families and then go out and be able to compare them for myself.  It’s really cool, and a really ideal way to learn for the students who look at it in such a way.  Or, the way it’s intended to be.

 

Wednesday January 27th - port in Honolulu, Hawaii

Today was the day of the Polynesian Cultural Center FDP (Faculty Directed Practica) which, again, I was able to attend FOR FREE. Things were getting really expensive so a big invisible thankful hug to whoever cancelled and put it in the donation bin instead of trying to sell it, because otherwise I probably wouldn’t have gone.

We bussed over at 1030 and began exploring at about noon.  Or rather, we followed a semi-designated path from Polynesian “Island” to “Island.”  There were six different centers, Samoa, New Zealand, Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii, and Tahiti.  They each had different events ranging from firemaking to chants and dance, to bamboo instruments, to drumming, to hula, and some cultural descriptions and such interweaved with the entertainment.  There was also a canoe pageant that we stayed to watch.  Actually, most of the group didn’t go to the Tahiti section, but Natali and I wandered off while they were getting snacks to watch their dance demonstrations, and then to go to a cooking demonstration where they kept bring out bamboo basket after basket of BEAUTIFUL sweet soft perfectly edible Tahitian Coconut bread.  AND I got the recipe.

 

I’ll paste it some where eventually.

 

After taking about two loaves worth of bread samples, Natali and I hopped on a canoe ride and then headed off to the buffet dinner.  It wasn’t a whole lot better than the shipboard buffet, but it was a nice change.  Plus the buffet had miso soup, which the ship generally does not.  Once we were done eating we proceeded to an Imax movie about coral reefs in Fiji and the surrounding islands.  After the movie was finished, I really wanted a hangglider, and I still want one – the kind where you sit and there’s a little motor and you can videotape – but I can’t buy one right now soooo, ummm, well after that we went to a show called “Ha, breath of life”.   The money from tickets from the Center goes to students from the different islands, who were the ones who performed for us, hich was cool.  The gist of the story was the life of an island human named Mana from birth until the death of his father and birth of his own son. 

The show was the last event at the Center, so we took the buses back to the port, and Natali and I met Nat who had returned from his own day out.  We ended up taking a free party bus with some other SAS students to a Hawaiian club, where we hung out and danced until like almost two.  It was mostly Semester at Sea students there, which was nice.  The other half of the students seemed to be at the beach, attempting to spend the night (though I heard the attempt was unsuccessful).  When we left, Nat, who actually had left the club a little after midnight, introduced me to a couple international travelers he had met outside, Paul from Germany and diego from Switzerland.  They were part of a program on the island where international students spend two months on Hawaii studying English, and were happy to hang out with us for awhile.  Diego was intensely energetic and had a lot to say or poke fun at about everything on the street.  Paul was his antithesis, very reserved and putting a lot of thought into his questions or comments when he so chose to make them.  He also loved Walmart because “everything is all together” and because the people are nice whereas Germany has a different store for everything and people don’t look at you.  They were both really nice, but by 3:30 they decided they wanted to go find a bar so we split up and took a cab back to the ship.

 

Tuesday January 26, 2010- Hilo day 2

I slept in till like ten and then got up to go out with Sarah and Kayln.  Thankfully my wood varnish was still around so I returned that first thing to Walmart, and then we took a taxi downtown to explore the farmers’ market.  I bought an avocado, water, a pastry and something like a Hawaiian sweet tamal made of rice and coconut and wrapped in banana leaves.  After moseying around awhile we had lunch next door at a Mexican restaurant (Reubens) and I got my much-craved guacamole and all was well.  Then we took a taxi to rainbow falls, which apparently a lot of students had been hitting up to swim and explore and jump off cliffs.  I, however, am not very god at negotiating with rocks, we do not understand each other.  So when Kayln and Sarah began climbing these rocks to get to the cliffs beyond, I wimped out and went to go sit and be weak and unexciting in a little cove.  Mostly what I did there was sit, bark at rustling leaves, eat my pastry after noticing that I had sat on it, and attempt to do tai chi even though I was on an awkward incline.  After like an hour they returned with some other brave people who know how to have fun and we called for a taxi with pink seats.  I should mention that prior to this trip I have never taken a taxi.  So this is good and I feel all accomplished and things.  We got off in another section of town and went into a Kava Bar, where we drank Kava out of coconut shells and had beautiful ice cream.  There is a tradition before drinking one’s first Kava to clap together, sprinkle some on the ground for th earth that it came from, sprinkle some behind us for the ancestors, clap in unison, chug it, and then clap twice.  However, I am royally ungifted at chugging, so half an hour later I finished my Kava shell, and five minutes after that I remembered about the clapping and partook.  By this time we were supposed to be back on the boat so we called our same taxi and headed to port. 

About an hour or so later I headed to dinner, it was this guy Corey’s birthday so he had a cake, and I got up about four times to hunt down this chocolate mousse that kept disappearing as soon as it was put out (I hunted in vain).  But like, Nat proceeded to give me a necklace he got me at the farmers’ market, so it’s all good.  Hoorayyy.  Then a bunch of us (including Kayln, Sarah, Tyler from yesterday, my friend Edwin, and two cats from England James – in my theatre performance class- and Kristina) played a very addicting stressful and exhilarating card game called Pounce.  We meant to go to spiritual dance on the seventh deck but were much too roped in to quit.  Afterwards we thought we’d spend the night outside on the deck, but Kayln Sarah and I changed our minds and thought we’d have a movie night.  In reality, we sat in our room with Nat and talked until we decided it was too late for a movie and went to bed.

Mon Jan 25 2010 - port in Hilo, Hawaii

LAND!!!!! HOORAH I WILL WRITE LATER

 

…Well, It’s later, which means its actually Tuesday and we’re getting back on the boat (ship) to move on to Honolulu, so allow me to recap.  I had to go back and add ship in there because apparently it’s wrong to call it a boat; ship’s carry smaller boats, boats only carry people. 

So anyway I woke up at like 530ish to shower and check in with my passport or whatever business we have to do before we eat breakfast and then run to land, couldn’t find my ID card for awhile, that was mildly annoying, yadadaddada.

Ummmm I was buzzing around Kayln and another friend Sarah and we went with a group on this tour that took us to Akaka Falls (I may have been there before, I think..), the Mauna Loa Macademia Nut Factory, and the black sand beach.  There was a man outside of the Akaka Falls trail crafting things from palm leaves, and our driver ordered a hat, which turned out really cool, and this is going to turn out to be a very eyeroller-y chronicle of my most trivial and sometimes unneccessary meanderings but it is more for my record so that I can read it every now and then and get these pictures really deeply imbedded in my brain so that by the time I’m 80 my mind will have travelled certain paths so often that my memory will just be simply AWESOME.  Um anyway we got back on the bus, and our driver, who was kind of a Hispanic (?) dude along with his Hispanic but quieter dude brother, made a lot of comments about how girls in certain cars were really hot especially if the car was taller than yours, and how hunting wild pigs is harder than you might think, and how annoying people should be hung from trees like Christmas tree ornaments (or, I suppose, hanging dead people), and how there aren’t any tigers on Hawaii, but there is actually one at the zoo and his name is Namaste and he would like to shoot him.  So that was the driver.  As for the tour we got some samples and some ice cream at the Mauna Loa place, and we hung around the black sand beach and I waded some and it was sooooo pretty.  Speaking of wading Nat’s roommate is from Canada and his name is Wade and he is proverbially the nicest sh*t ever.  Okay. 

Then the tour dude(s) took us back, and we hopped on a bus to Walmart and it was magical and I bought some reeses and gum and sunflower seeds to sustain me (hardly) for the sad and tedious onship treks between countries and freedom, and I also bought some mask-making materials that my professor had outlined on a shopping list for the various countries.  After Walmart Sarah and some other SAS-ers Emily and Scott went to get lunch at a local joint; I personally bought a mahi mahi burger and it was figgity fine.  As we were walking back one of the waiters came running after us because one of our guys had left his card in the restaurant – which was entirely nice of him and signs of incredible and good karma.  We went back to the boat, had a little mishap because the wood varnish I was told to buy for masks wasn’t allowed on the boat and they were probably going to throw it out, I went to my room and dropped stuff off and then met Sarah and Scot and another student Tyler and we headed out for anywhere on foot, presumably a beach that we could sleep on.  Which would be cool, cause I also bought a tiny fleece sleeping bag at Walmart, but possibly not cool because it is soooper thin.  But also fleece.

            We took a break and walked along this one thing that is made of rocks and possibly called a Jetty/Jeti/?? before continuing on our way. We walked for awhile towards Richardson beach (actually the same black sand beach we were at before) and halfway along got a free taxi ride from a friendly Hawaiian taxi driver who was heading that way anyway.  His people cancelled on him though, which I guess sucked.  Once there we ran into some other SAS-ers, hung out for awhile and then ordered some pizzas and a liter of Coke to have on the beach while we identified each others mostly obvious movie quotes.  Everyone kind of changed their minds about sleeping on the beach cause some people were getting chilly and such, so we headed back, to be picked up along the way by a pickup truck of friendly Hawaiians.  The ten of us piled in, and then we accumulated three more students before we ultimately reached port.  Technical hitchhike, right?  That’s a lot of how people have been getting around in Hawaii, people are so friendly.  By noon Ben Mullinkossen had already hitchhiked six times.  Fun. Jealous. Just throwing that out there.

            I got hold of a free Polynesian Cultural center tour through SAS that someone else had discarded, which is cool because I need it for my sociology class, and then tried to find something else to do to finish the evening.  Apparently there was a dance on the ship which consisted of only the DJ and his lights and music.  It was pretty sily to schedule a dance on everyones first night out in port, but oh well. A bunch of people went to this bar later on that night, and I checked it out but was unconvinced and returned to the ship.  Besides, I was entirely exhausted. Pretty Good first day.

Sun January 24, 2010

B3 classes today.  (Third session of B-Day classes, as opposed to A-day classes).  I woke up at eight, when my first class was supposed to start. But got there in fairly good time, and nobody really cared.  Time on the ship doesn’t seem to be as crucial as land-campus time, which is nice.  I’m excited to be in Hawaii, I really do live by the Hawaiian minute.  In general, today was a day of me being late to things and sleeping a lot. 

It seems as though I have some kind of i-am-suddenly-interested-in-leadership-give-me-things-to-organize sticker on my person, unbeknownst to me.  Today I was asked to be the rallying, organizing type person for any events pertaining to the kids on the ship.  During the involvment symposium like 350 students signed up for tutoring and babysitting the kids on the ship who came with faculty, etc, and I guess it was getting sort of overwhelming for the professors to figure out, so they need a middle man figure to keep in contact with the families and students and keep track of what events are organized for the kids.  As of right now I need to plan a casual game night thing for Friday 1700-1800, the day after we leave Hawaii.  I will probably just grab Natali and have her dance around and make weird sounds in one of the classrooms, they will probably all get extreme enjoyment out of that.

 

Pre-port logistical meeting was today icantwaitforland and IWANTGUACAMOLESOBAD

Sat. January 23, 2010

 It is 330 and so far everything has been pretty blah.  I feel like I’m not allowed to have “blah” days because I’m studying abroad, but nonetheless today I am feeling inexplicably unmotivated and unenthused by people and prospects.  Usually I guess I get this feeling if I have a series of exchanges with new people, and then enough time goes by where I acknowledge that none of them have amounted to anything substantial or deep.  I have a big love to meet people and to be absorbed in new conversation, but I much prefer depth in understanding to surface joy.  I don’t want to get too comfortable in a clique that I don’t want to meet new people, but I don’t want to meet so many people that I have no time to “know” any of them either.  I suppose it is only the first week, and yes, this same thing happened to me freshman year of college and is probably a trend with all new social settings, so I will just have to suck it up.  I wish I had access to a telephone.  How dumb.

 

·      Guitar solo *

 

It is now 11:11 in the evening and I hardly remember writing any of the above.  Since that rant, I had a successful first Foodies meeting, where we concluded the basic common interest was to taste food from other cultures, and bring information on foods to eat, foods not to eat, places to eat, etc. in the ports we are to visit, as gathered from library sources or other students, and to arrange a “foodies” outing or dinner to a specific and promising restaurant in each port.  If there are substantial enough findings, we may create a folder on the intraweb so the rest of the community may similarly be informed for their culinary benefit.  Then I had dinner at the Chinese Language Table, which is essentially a group of five Chinese students on scholarship who are travelling with us and who you can practice your Chinese with.  Except that I don’t know any Chinese, and neither does Natali (my last semester roommate, who was there as well) so we just sat there hopefully and thought in English.  My SHIPboard roommate, however, Kalyn Williams (I haven’t mentioned her name before, have I?) has class with them and does speak some Chinese, so she conversed and it was swell and all of that.  I need to learn more languages.  Anyway, Natali and I left to go to the Spiritual Dance meeting in the Union. 

So far, BEST thing that’s happened so far on the ship. Definitely. About 25 students and the LLC of religious and spiritual life danced around to some music, in different parts of our body, expanding till we were using more and more of it.  It was really freeing and intense.  And then at the end we spent one song in stillness.  This too was beautiful, and made me regret that I keep letting myself sleep in instead of going to Morning Meditation and Sacred Poetry. One day.  But getting up is hard. It is. It takes guts.

p.s. …and this will most thrill Kelsey and Joey and Chelsea and Jessie and everyone of those sorts, but Jenny, the Spiritual LLC, is just about the coolest ***#$*#$*^ ever.  In short, she is in the middle of acquiring her PHD in Mysticism. From the University of Wisdom. IN san Francisco.

How.

Hot.

Right?

Afterwards there was an impromptu and delightful massage circle of love, but that had to be broken up eventually so that the pre-port cultural meeting could get underway.   Following the communitywide meeting, there was a coffee house open mic.  I was there for bits and pieces, but my favorite was definitely when Emerson (I think?), one of the Chinese students I had just met at the language table, went up and sang “My Heart Will Go On” to accompaniment.

All in all, I am feeling very resfreshed and excited to be in port the day after tomorrow. Holyyy Molyyyyyy.

I miss my friends, and may call them upon touching U.S. ground. Also, I may have to find the nearest Walmart and stock up on Reeses and cheap delicious snack foods.  I’m getting kind of tired of the late evening snacks, and the stuff they sell at the Piano Bar or even outside costs money I don’t want to spend.

Friday Jan 22, 2010

Global Studies was cancelled for today, which was nice because seas have been very rough and the Union (where that class and a variety of other events are held) is the most nauseating place to be on the ship.  Last night was probably the worst we’ve had it so far, I think it took me three hours to fall asleep, and then I had a class at eight to wake up for.  That class too, is in the Union, but there are only five of us so we all opted to sit on the floor. 

Immediately afterwards I returned to my room and passed out until lunch.

 

It turns out everyone else is still just as amazed by the whole “niceness” thing as I am.  I sat with a group of students I didn’t know or recognize at all, and all anyone asked was “so are people always this nice where you come from?” and all anyone answered was “no…”  To me, it seems everyone really does just want to meet and love everyone, they’re just too afraid to because they’re aware of their societal norms and social boundaries, and this is so new and so brief an experience that everyone figures they’ve nothing to lose.  Hopefully this voyage if anything, sets more people out into the world that are newly confident in bestowing huge and open love everywhere and with abandon.

 

This afternoon I had a meeting with the Wellness LLC about that Foodies Club we had conceived the other day. Um, I’m kind of overwhelmed but then again maybe not.  I’ve just never really been the head or chair of anything really.  Usually I’m side help.  And then today Rob (the LLC) was talking about maybe securing a minute-long spot during the pre-port cultural meetings to talk about what food to eat, avoid, etc in the various countries we’re visiting, and we went to the library to check out their resources and met up with the Dean of Students and all in all I just was feeling really weird, I really never have experienced that much followthrough on any idea I’ve ever put forth. And I have a lot of ideas, I just don’t really commit to them I suppose.  So I feel overwhelmed, because I want to be involved in so many other things and to still have time to breathe, but we haven’t actually had a “foodies” meeting so I don’t know, maybe I’m just being a baby. I probably am, I am pretty sure babiness has thus far been my comfort zone.

 

There was speed-friending tonight, I went to evening snack, went to bed, lalalala.

Thursday January 21st, 2010

I woke up in a pretty good mood, I think my new schedule will be a lot less worrisome for me.  Plus, the boat was hardly even rocking, which helped me to ease out of sleep mode and to shower without any jarring disruptions of balance.  Of course that changed by about noon.  Natali and I had lunch with the linguistics professor.  He’s teaching a world languages class that I think sounds pretty cool, you basically learn about the differences and similarities fo world languages, particularly of the countries we’re visiting.

  Shoot! I should have asked if I could sit in on one of his classes.

There’s a human voice in performance theatre course I would have liked to sit in on, but it’s the same time as my sociology class, so maybe not.

 

Field events for Sale 1 were due today. Ummmm this is costing way too much money.  There were a few I wanted to do, but then the professors al have Faculty Directed Practica (FDPs) they want their students to sign up for which conflict with ones I want to sign up for or which are too expensive for my budget. Also, there were quite a few FDPS from other professors I want to take, but with all the extra money that would cost, field event conflicts, and considering the priority given to students in the guiding professors classes, they may not happen.  The only thing that really matters to me right now is that I get into the Cape Town Jazz Safari event, and at least one service event. And Tai Chi, Tea and Dim sum.

 

I also had to apply for a Brazilian visa today. 175 more dollars. Wuh-oh…I really need my scholarship refund.

 

This community is really ideal.  Everyone is really involved, there are always events or seminars going on outside of class for everyones personal education, betterment, or sense of peace and/or fulfillment, and everyone appreciates their opportunities, no one condescends upon any of the choices other people make in terms of classes, field events, clubs joined, etc.  And if you sit with someone once at lunchtime they automatically call you friend and will stop to talk when you pass them.  It’s hard for me to tell whose known each other before and who has just met on the boat, because everyone engages each other in conversation and greets one another with equal enthusiasm and interest. If only this was a more stationary campus….Or at least one that remained parallel to the ground and did not play mind games with gravity.

Wednesday January 20th

Today I had my first set of B classes – Theatre that Matters Performing Community, Global Studies (which is every day), Communicating in Small Groups, and I audited the World Theatre Techniques class I want to add.  However, by the end of my classes I was seriously freaking out about whether to do the recommended 12 courses and drop either World Theatre Techniques or Communication, or to keep both and do the more stressful maximum 15 credits.

The thing is, I have always enrolled in as many classes as possible, and even though communications won’t count towards anything for my major or minors I still really wanted to try it. However, because we’re in class every day we’re at sea, and because of all the other seminars they have and group meeting that are going on and people which there are to meet and things that must be planned for the ports, it was starting to seem really unappetizing and really unnerving.  Usually when I’m that unnerved I have to call someone like my parents or Kelsey or other people who have smart things to say but alas, that would be really expensive while I’m still on the boat.  Also, all the classes have nightly readings, and because A) its kind of hard to concentrate on the boat because of the rickety noises and the things that fall down as it sways across the Pacific Ocean B) reading on a swaying campus makes me all dizzy in the head and C), again, there are so many other activities and things to be involved in, I really wanted to drop a class.  On the other hand, my overachiever nature was really uncomfortable with that and was “complaining” that I might have too much free time.

I need to breathe more often.

I ended up adding World Theatre Techniques and dropping Team Communication, and though I won’t get to “plan” a service project myself, per se, I will enroll in a bunch of others. 

All this worrying made me miss the hula and Hawaii seminars, not to mention evening snacks (fo freeeeee), but oh well.  Hopefully this schedule will better suit my needs.

It is already I think, I did go to a “knitting for a purpose” event.  So yeah, I have minor minor knitting skills.  But only when copying someone with major major knitting skills, of course.

Tues Jan 19 2010

So meditation and sacred poetry didn’t happen.

Go figure.

I wonder what happened.

I had my soc class, families in cross cultural perspectives, there are three other Chapman students in it as well, one being the lovely Natali Zogheib.  Chapman is the second most represented school here, the first being CU Boulder.  I understand Chapman’s rank seeing as how Chapman started Semester at Sea, but I don’t know what’s up with Colorado.  Ummmmm yeah, got out of Global studies, which is about 250 students in size, and there are two sessions every day.

 

I’m sorry, I really have nothing interesting to say so far, I get bored reading boring blogs and this is probably pretty boring for you too.

Excuse me while I go jump ship to create a story for you.

Except I won’t jump ship because they it will cost me 25,00 dollars for them to turn the ship around and save my life. It’s happened before, I think even this last semester.

Sucks.

 

P.s. everyone is still nice, it’s kind of insane how easy it is to talk to anyone and how little people put themselves in cliques.  I can tell already that this is going to be a fabulous community, because everyone has the same values to meet and share and learn and contribute.

It is very very fabulous.

 

p.p.s The bathrooms are incredibly tiny but at least there is warm water.

 

p.p.p.s. I’m wearing new pants today so I feel pretty good about myself.

 

p.p.p.p.s. Either the swaying has lulled or I am just getting really used to it. Regardless, I am pretty sure I am going to land in Hawaii and et very critically landsick, and they don’t have pills OR patches for that condition. Uh…

 

Monday January 18

So my room doesn’t have a window, but I don’t really mind because 1- I tend to draw my curtains shut anyway, 2-I don’t plan on being in my room that much, 3- it makes sleeping ay easy and nice 4-it is replaced by a huge wall mirror that is perfectly suited for putting on makeup and dancing wildly in front of. There is just something really thrilling about dancing in a mirrored room. Oh ,and it helps make these fairly small rooms seem a little roomier.

I keep eating cheese squares, its like the best part of meal times, but I’ll probably get over that soon.  Already im wondering how many cheese squares my body is going to be able to contain

Haven’t unpacked yet.

Returned my extra books, but have not yet been reimbursed for them.

Okay, unpacked one bag.

There was an “involvement symposium” this evening, or rather the fancy term for “activity fair where everyone actually participates in an excited frenzy.

Seriously, this was the only activity fair I’ve seen where the booths didn’t have to advertise, everyone wanted to be there.

Which is really nice.

I signed up for about a thousand things (some LLC-lead, some student-lead), I am never involved in very many oncampus extracurricular stuffs, but I assume I will be for this semester, because I signed up for two different yogas, salsa dance, dance club, improv, community service, language club (people teach basics of languages they know so we’re better prepared for countries or just later travel), tutoring kids, babysitting kids (the faculty brought their families with them),  career/resume building,  snakes club (“lets hang out and talk about SNAKES”),  meditation and sacred poetry, drum circle (YESSS), knitting for a purpose, and a bunch others. There was one called “bluegrass jam,” I forgot to sign up for that one, oh well.

ALSO, apparently I am chairing a new club, a “foodie club.”

Basically I went up to the Living Learning Coordinator for health and wellness, who had various signups sheets for weight loss, vegan/vegetarianism, etc, and was like “is there any just like…FOOD club? Like maybe eating healthy in other cultures and just being a fan of food?”

And he said “NO, but we can MAKE ONE.”

So the official description is something like we get together and discuss what is healthy to eat and what we’re interesting in eating in other cultures, and then perhaps getting hold of the ship’s kitchen and doing some cooking of our own, of the recipes we’re interested in of whatever culture.

Everyone here is so nice, I cant emphasize that enough.

Anyway after the involvement symposium there was trivia, which was fun for a little while but then got frustrating because my group didn’t know everyone, and so spent the hole hour talking about snakes and pretending to talk about snakes. Courtesy of ben mullinkosson. Whose sea name is “toby.”

Before we quit (we weren’t much of a competition anyway), there was an evening free snack service from 10-1030!! And Apparently this happens every night! They had PB&J, meat and cheese sandwich triangles, breads, cream puffs, cheesecake minis, éclairs, and it was SO PERFECT for that moment.

I may very well be able to get away without ever spending anything at the snack bar.

All I really may consider is a cheap massage or use of the sauna/steam room. But like, once.

I wandered around the ship for awhile and played ping pong with a new friend Edwin before going to bed.  He is also trying to organize a group to do stuff independently in Vietnam, since no one knows what they want to do through SAS- anyway.  Update, everyone still looks drunk all the time (if I didn’t mention this before, I am now, and everyone walks like a toddler, and it’s really funny), and I am similarly spilling everywhere I try to walk on  this here rocky ship home.  However, the rocking it is somewhat conducive for sleeping,  I feel like adult humans would still get big satisfaction out of sleeping in adult size cribs/rockers, they just don’t have the balls to “go there.” Also ,there is no window in my room, so everything is pitch black once the lights go off, and my brain just kind of goes “Well, nothing to do here” and shuts off. Classes start tomorrow, but first I plan on getting up to go to meditation and sacred poetry at seven tomorrow morning.

 

Sunday January 17

Boarded the ship, checked in ,found just about everyone else’s room that I knew before I came across my own.

I found some instructional papers on my bed

Roommate nice,

Played bananagrams with other students,

Almost thought I lost my purse, but turns out I left it in ben mullinkossens room on our quest for water.

Ben mullinkossen is eternally friendly and carefree, I think he already met everyone

I talked to some professors and their kids. Including one of the theatre professors who said there were only three kids signed up for her world theatre techniques class. One of those students is Justin, not a theatre major.

Which is weird, because when I checked my email I had a message from a different professor from the theatre performance class, and it was only sent out to four other people. So I’m beginning to think I  may be the only theatre major on this boat.

I don’t get it.
I feel like theatre majors would love to do something like this, or should, to expand their horizons and to be able to effectively tell the stories of people from other cultures. Ce la.
Everyone is extremely friendly and I am really loving this already.

 

DISCLAIMER FOR ALL ENTRIES HERE ON OUT

they are going to suck.

they are not going to be interesting.

i write bullet posts i intend to elaborate on later and never come back to them.

ever since hawaii, i mean to write about my day and forget.

this is complicated okay?

hahahahahaha i friggin love this semester.

okay, i am going to post some blogs, and it wont all be nice and editted.

im thinking maybe for the rest of the trip i should do picture-and-caption blogs...

hmmmm..

idk

email me: caruesga@semesteratsea.net

supaflye.

Away We Go.

I am leaving for San Diego today, getting on the boat tomorrow.
After I find my toothbrush.




However, first I would like to go to the bathroom and throw up.
Excuse me.




....p.s. the toothbrush is in no way needed at this moment to facilitate my nervous vomitting, that will happen on its own.
I just really actually need my toothbrush, its the only thing I cant find.
Well Poo.

In other news, who wants to marry me?

Any takers?

You will receive a beautiful dowry of $100,000+ in college debts!
But for your "convenience" we will just refer to them as "CDs"
That way you can take it any way you will.
I mean, who doesn't want $100,000 worth of CDs???!?!?!
Or whatever other acronym you would like to substitute.
Like perhaps, yknow... "Cake Donuts."
$100,000 dollars worth of CAKE DONUTS???
Holy Cow.
Now we're talking!!!

...You so want to marry me right now.

A is for Africa, B is for Boxes

I can't sleep. I should really post my trip itinerary on the side of this page like most people seem to do but

A) I just haven't, and

B) I don't know, I had a "B" in mind, but it was dumb and has no permission to see cyberspace.

Well I already know that I really really want to do some (alot) of working/living in Africa, particularly South Africa. I am, and have been for a long time (since all my friends have known me, at least) really really amazed at and blown over by anything clearly or even remotely African. I love everything. I love it. I want to be one with it. I love the cultures the music the people, and I don't really even know enough to consider myself an expert or even a baby expert on any of those subjects.

So obviously the African countries on the itinerary are most painful for me to be not-yet-experiencing.

Yknow how whenever you super hype something up, and everyone is talking about how great it is (or they aren't in some cases but you're still stoked) and you can't breathe or think other thoughts, and then you experience it and it's just not that great of a feeling, even if the event is great mostly because it was hyped up and romanticized and ****?

Well that is not going to happen.

That happened to me with Across the Universe.

That happened to me with many things.

But not Africa.

Drum circles will always make me fall over with glee, I will never look half-Mexican, and I will always love Africa.

Everything else about my nature is completely up in the air.

Want to make a change? Let me know, and my subconscious might consider it.

Just don't even try with any of the above.

It's just a no-can-do.

Losing one's proverbial shit is just the best feeling every, am I right?

Also, I've been thinking about the song "I'm on a Boat" lately. Assuming it falls under the "song" category.

So basically, I think it's understood that that song has popped into almost every SAS-ers head, or they have mentioned something about playing it everyday, or wanting it to be their theme song, or whatever.

And like, yeah, it'll be cool for a couple rounds.

But I'm trying to sit and imagine what it must have felt like to be a part of the SAS staff when that song came out, and when they realized everyone would be singing it for the remainder of Semester-at-Sea's boaty lifetime.

At first they probably smiled and laughed and thought it was cool. Then they probably smiled and laughed for another month and thought it was a silly applicable theme for their boaty career.  Then they probably thought about what that would mean for the rest of their boaty future, and for all the kids who are excited to sing it every boaty day. And that probably stewed in their minds for a wee bit. And then they probably boaty cried.

I want to study abroad another semester.

Through a PARTNER program mind you, none of this affiliate hogwash.

But I don't think I will be able to afford it.

Furthermore, I want to go to culinary school even though I can't cook, I want to be a food-taster at Trader Joe's because it is a real job so wanting to do that is inevitable and a tease and GOD I want to be a food-testertaster at Trader Joe's, I want to get a double major in psych even though I also want to study myriad other things and have no room, I want to go to grad school for drama therapy and for like five other things, I want to have five billion careers, 

I want to learn more instruments, I want to learn every language, I want to go back in time and slap whiny grade school Cosette for quitting dance like a whiny grade school PRICK, I want to eat something but I don't know what, and I want to learn so many things but apparently that costs money a lot of the time.

My plan is to pay off all my debts and then go live in a box.

But the box is in a foreign country, and so I like it there. 

And sometimes passersby give me wine and cheese and I like that too.

This will be in place of my previous plan, which was to go to school as long as possible and study as many things as possible, and then cut myself off from all family and friends and change my name and be a hermit and die alone and then my debts will just disappear.....

Maybe I can combine both plans.

The excessive school expenses and the living in the box.

Oh wow. They're like perfect for each other. Eureka. Ohmygod.

Nobody's going to ask me my name or if I've paid my debts off,

I'm the homeless lady in the box who likes it there.

I'm unsafe and potentially disease-ridden and should be quarantined.

But of course, no one will do that either, because they will have to touch my box.

I had a dream last night that me and a couple friends were homeless and it was Thanksgiving so we got plates at the free-plate sample table and ran around Costco several times collecting free food samples to go eat on the lawn outside proudly. Oh, and "Thankfully".

I feel like my dream is condoning my homeless box-dom.

"I'm in a BOX, mother****r, don't you eeee'er forget."

Mostly I think planning can be really soul-crippling, but sometimes, it is way too much fun.