I know it’s been a while since I’ve updated! I’m sorry!!! It’s been crazy here on the ship the last few days and I’m finally getting settled in. I’ll start back from when I boarded the ship to get you all up to date.
MOVE-IN DAY – Thursday, August 27th
Thursday morning came very quickly! I had all my bags ready to go and we headed to the hotel lobby at 9AM. I met another girl doing SAS and could quickly tell we would be friends! It was settling my nerves a lot to meet another friendly face. Before heading down to the ship Mom and I grabbed breakfast in the hotel restaurant. I got a call from Jacque, my cousin, who wished me well! The hotel provided complimentary service to the port and we got a ride in a nice, black Lincoln to the ship! When we first pulled up I could see two HUGE ships and almost thought it was mine; turns out they were Carnival Cruise ships (whoops!). I got a glimpse of the MV Explorer and it was not as intimidating as I expected it to be! I had to go through the line and fill out a few forms, hand in my yellow fever vaccination card and passport, received my SAS ID card, and put my bags in the luggage check. From there I hugged Mom and after a few tears I was going through the security check before boarding the ship. Luckily I would see Mom later at the Parents Reception to say goodbye. The stairs to the ship were so high and I couldn’t believe I was finally boarding! It was a little hard to find my room at first but I eventually made it to the 3rd Deck room 3148. My roommate was already there and she is actually the RA for my Sea (which is like Floor back at school). She’s very nice and is from York, PA which is not too far from us considering where everyone else is from on board (we have at least one student from all 50 states!!). My room is all the way at the Aft (end of the ship) and is right above the engine. The noise is not bad and our room just vibrates a little which has turned into a kind of soothing background noise. Because the room is on the very end of the hall it is a quad (2 rooms joined together by a door and everyone shares a bathroom). My other 2 roommates would be arriving the following day.
I had only been in the room for 15 minutes and I had a work/study meeting. There are 6 work/study students for the Student Life desk (my work/study job) and we all ate lunch with our supervisor Rita. She said if we forget her name to call her “Sparkles” because she’s always wearing sparkly shirts. So far I haven’t seen her in a shirt without them! We got to know each other at lunch and Rita gave us the jist of Semester at Sea and how it works. Then she gave us a tour of the ship which was great because none of us had had a chance to look around yet. After the tour I went back to my room and unpacked!!! There was so much stuff and not so many places to put it. The room is actually a lot bigger than I expected and it worked out nicely with placing things in the closet, cabinet, drawers, and under the bed. I even got all my pictures hung up JWhile I unpacked I got to know my roommate a little better which was nice!
After having dinner on the deck with some new friends I met Mom at the Parents’ Reception. It was great to see her again and I snuck her to my room so she could take a look! After mingling a while with the other parents and some faculty it was time for her to go. The students were allowed to leave the ship at anytime as long as we had our ID card so Mom and I, along with a few other girls, were going to go to a bar (drinking age in Canada is 19!!). Mom decided not to go because she had an early flight so after walking about half way to her hotel it was time for goodbye. We hugged for a long time and I don’t think either of us wanted to let go but we knew it was time. I told her I loved her and that I would be back before she knew it, and of course added in Girl Power! It was a quicker goodbye than I thought it would be which made it a lot easier! After that, the girls and I headed to the bar to which we couldn’t get in because we forgot our IDs. Go figure! One of the girls and I walked back to the ship (a very longggg walk) to go get them. Once we were back on the ship we decided we were pretty tired and didn’t really want to go back so we ended up talking to some other students and a few of the Living Learning Coordinators which was awesome! We got their advice and tips on how to not get kicked off the ship. The whole staff is so down to earth and easy to talk to! After a long talk, I went to my cabin for my first night aboard the MV Explorer!!!
EMBARKATION DAY - Friday, August 28th
Today was a very early morning! Pre-embarkation meeting was from 0700-0730 (the ship runs on military time so I’m using it to practiceJ) with all the student workers. Then we split up into small groups, some outside and some inside, to help with the rest of the students boarding the ship. My group was outside at different tables required for check-in. My job was to get the students’ room numbers, write them on a tag, and put the tag on the luggage they weren’t carrying onto the ship. It was a fun job because I worked with some really cool people that are now some of my new friendsJ I also got to meet everyone else that was coming on the ship. The morning was long and we were on duty from 0800-1300 with a quick lunch break in between. Once we were done we got to go mingle around the ship until dinner time. The atmosphere was so much different now that 500 more students had boarded the ship. It was definitely great to feel like we were about to leave! Everyone was still getting settled in their rooms throughout the day and at 0400 we had a lifeboat drill. We put on closed toed shoes, a sweatshirt, pants, and our lifejackets! Each Sea had a different Muster Station (place to go when drill/emergency occurs) throughout the ship. My Sea was in the Main Dining Room and we all lined up in 3 lines and waited for the Captain to come check on us. It was pretty crazy to think that this is what we’d be doing if there was a real emergency. The Captain finally came through to check for all the proper procedures and made an announcement that this drill was the best he’d seen since in all his voyages with Semester at Sea (total of 9). It was a great way to start our voyage J Shortly after 0500, everyone gathered on the top 2 decks to wait for embarkation. I was walking around the ship snapping pictures and getting video of the ship and Halifax. It still wasn’t real that we were leaving, FINALLY! After the ropes were untied and a few honks from the ship’s horn blew, we were off! Everyone yelled and waved; it was finally our turn to set sail around the world.
ORIENTATION Saturday, August 29th
Today was filled with lots of workshops! The entire ship crammed into the Union (the auditorium of the ship, fits everyone, used for Global Studies and other presentations) to listen to the different speakers. We were told about the UVA Honor Code, which the SAS follows because UVA is our sponsor school. We also learned about the Field Office which handles all of the SAS sponsored trips into each port and country. The Living Learning Coordinators all spoke and described what each will be in charge of: Career Development, Health & Wellness, Academic Advisement, Recreation, LeaderSHIP, Religion & Spirituality, and Diversity & Culture. The Academic Dean, Dean of Students, and Administrative Dean all spoke to us – it’s crazy how many Deans we have..I’m not even sure what each of them do! We were given a very long presentation about safety on the ship from the Captain. He’s British and his accent is awesome!!
Later that night was the Involvement Symposium. Each LLC (Living Learning Coordinator) had a section where we could sign up for different activities/clubs that go along with their topic. It’s sort of like the Club Fair at Naz. They offered a lot of different activities and a lot of the same! I signed up for Vicarious Voyage, Students of Service, leaderSHIP, and aerobics J Vicarious Voyage is a program where you adopt a classroom from the U.S. I have adopted Mrs. Spry’s high school global studies class! I’m really excited to work with her and the class and it’s nice because it’s a class from my high school. I’ll tell more about that later. Hopefully there will be time for everything!
1st DAY of CLASSES Sunday, August 30th
Classes go by A days and B days because there are no weekdays on the ship. Sometimes we have classes on the weekends, sometimes we have classes for 10 straight days, and sometimes it’s only 2 days. It works best this way because we are in port so often. On A days I only have 1 class at 1340-1455: International Service Learning. This class is going to be awesome! My teacher is amazing; his name is Bernie Strenecky. He’s an older man and his wife is on the ship too! She is the director of the LifeLong Learners (typically retired people who are interested in traveling and learning). The class is geared towards serving in the countries of port. We are required to do at least 1 of his FDPs (Field Directed Practica – trips into the countries conducted by the professor and directed towards the specific class). I’ll be doing the Vietnam FDP. We will work with Vietnamese college students and travel to an orphanage with severely disabled children ranging from 2-15 years old. The Vietnamese believe that much of the reason the children are disabled is because of the Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War. We will be learning more about their point of view and working with the children. Our goal is to incorporate the $100 Solution (Dr. Strenecky created the idea) into the orphanage by asking them what they need for $100. Dr. S’ philosophy is that the problem is not solved with $1 million, $1,000, but with $100. In past voyages, he worked with an orphanage in India and asked how he could help with $100. They told him the children had never had a hot shower in their entire lives. With the $100, Dr. S and his students bought a hot water heater and had it installed. The children can now take hot showers. When I first heard this story it immediately gave me goose bumps. His theory and ideas are chilling and I am positive this class will be a life changing one.
2nd DAY of CLASSES Monday, August 31st
B days are very busy for me! I have 4 classes – they recommend we only take 12 credits but I really wanted to take another one so I have 5 classes total.
0800-0915 Strategic Communications for Influential Leadership
This class is going to be really exciting, even at 8AM. My professor is a riot and is definitely a fabulous Communications teacher. We are reading some very interesting books about intercultural communication which will be helpful for me as a Business major. I’m really looking forward to her FDPs and learning more about different influential communication styles. I’m starting to think I want to be a Communications minor now! This trip is making my mind spin – in a good way of course!
0920-1035 Global Studies
I thought this class would be directed to learning about the different countries we will be visiting and their cultures. It’s more directed towards the idea of globalization and how it affects different countries in general. The class is not my favorite because it is half of the students on the ship. I’m not used to being in a huge room (Union) with that many students and being lectured at. Hopefully it will get better as we enter the different ports.
1050-1200 International Business
This class is being used as my International Economics credit for Nazareth. It will be really interesting learning about it as I travel internationally. We have already had some in depth discussions about how globalization is affecting the different sectors of business. I’m becoming more and more interested in International Business so I think this class will give me a great idea of what it entails. Throughout the class we will discuss many interesting topics relating to Int’l Business which ties into my other classes.
1335-1450 Leadership Development
Dr. Strenecky also teaches this class. Service learning and this class are like sister classes because they will be working so closely together. The Leadership Dev’t students will lead the service projects that the Service Learning students will be acting out. I had to choose 1 FDP for this class as well: LifeLong Learning and the Elderly in Hong Kong. We will be going to a Chinese elderly home where the elderly are interested in learning English. We work in teams a lot in this class which will be very helpful to practice sharing leadership styles.
Lots of things have been going on and I’m staying very busy! I absolutely love life on the ship. I’m meeting so many amazing and interesting people. I can’t wait to tell everyone stories already! Spain is in 2 days!!! I’m SO excited! I’ll update again soon, and I promise it will be soon this time J
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