Ship Life

Hello!

Most people cannot understand what I do all day on a ship in the
middle of the ocean. Understandable. No I do not lay out by the pool
all the time sipping pina colada's and reading James Patterson novels.
This isn't a vacation. There are no such things as weekdays and
weekends on the ship. When we are on the ship it is either an A day or
a B day. It is set up this way so there are an equal amount of classes
because of all the ports we stop at that disrupt classes. So when we
got back on the ship from Ghana the next day was A8 then the next day
was B8 then A9, B9, A10 and today is B10. I will then be in Cape Town
tomorrow for 6 days and when I get back on the ship it will be A11 and
continue until the next port. We don't have weekends to be able to
relax and get homework done, and being in port is CRAZY. I literally
do everything I can and barely get any sleep. It is amazing to be in
the ports and no one wants to waste any time. It is a very crazy
lifestyle being on Semester at Sea! Then everyone has to get used to
rough waters. Today is especially wavy and people are struggling with
sea sickness and literally falling over while walking around the ship.
There is always something to do on here while we are traveling from
port to port. First of all, my homework keeps me busy most of the time
because it is a small amount of class periods and still a whole
semesters worth of information to learn. When I get back from Cape
town I have a 3 midterms on the same day....awesome can't wait! I took
my first midterm the other day and got an A which gives me some
confidence but it was also in my favorite class. My African American
psychology and Cross Cultural psychology class are both taught by the
same professor and she seems like she gives really hard tests so I'm a
little nervous! Plus her all essay format is not going to be easy for
me. Second, there is ALWAYS something going on. We get an email
everyday called the Deans Memo which has pretty much everything in it.
Today it said there is a pre-port meeting tonight, this is when
everyone goes into the union (biggest lecture room on the ship, also
used for all events) and a lot of professors that have knowledge in
the country we are going to get up to tell us what to do, what not to
do, where to eat, where to go, where to shop, where to go grocery
shopping if we want to bring back snacks, etc. Last night I went to
the Black History Month symposium where people got to have a
constructive conversation about racism. Then I stayed for the Jam
session which was basically a short presentation on different types of
African music then it was open mic night. So there were a lot of
students that read poetry and danced. The nurse on the ship played
guitar and sang a song. It was really cool to see how talented a lot
of people on the ship are. Those are just a couple of examples of
things that go on. I am now sitting up on the pool deck writing this
email and looking out over the wavy and choppy ocean getting very very
very excited to be in Cape Town tomorrow morning! I love waking up in
a different country. Especially this country, besides Vietnam this is
the country I have been looking forward to the most!! I will be doing
a wine tour, 3 day safari, shark cage diving, visiting a children's
hospital, hiking table mountain, and other really cool things! :)

Miss everyone from home like crazy!!
Love,
Alli