Japan

Three Words for Japan:

Safe, Nice, and Clean

I'll come back to those three words in a bit, but first I'll attempt a day by day of my trip.

The first day Mani's (friend on the ship) Japanese friends that did a study abroad at her school last year, showed us around yokohama and kamakura city including temples and a big Bhuddha. That night included a karaoke bar until 6am. The next morning aka like three hours later, was a trip to Honkomagome where our groups AirBnB was located for the night. We woke up late of course because we didn't sleep until 6am, so after a few hours on trains and struggling we finally made it to the area where our AirBnb was. We were walking around literally half a block from the place for at least 20min until we gave up with directions and messaged the Air Bnb guy and he came running out in the street to find us. The space was pretty nice for the 12 of us. One big room, 8 beds, very little heat (or we just couldn't figure out how to work it), one toilet, one shower. Seems small but from what other people talked about this place was a palace for the amount of people we had. For those who don't know and I just figured out less than a week ago, Japan is the size of Cali with 4x the population or something like that. Living spaces are tiny and cramped. Anyways, because only 6 of us went to the Air Bnb to start with, we had to wait on the rest of the rest of the group because they had field labs (field trips) for their classes. We decided to go to a Starbucks in Shibuya (kinda in/near Tokyo) to view the busiest crosswalk in the world. If any of you have ever witness a commercial with what looked like a million people and cars flying by, it was most likely shot at this cross walk. About an hour after we got there we ended up having to head back because the second group was headed to the Air BnB and there was only one key, so we were gonna go back to meet them, go to dinner, then go out. We got there, they got there, there was alcohol everywhere and we started the going out process a little early. We conversed about our first days and the very long trip getting to the Air BnB in Honkogome. Eventually we made the move back to the Shibuya area for our late night excursions and ended up in a hole-in-the-wall bar. We then walked around to find another Karaoke bar which was a lot more fun the first night and a couple of us dozing off, some of us decided to head to the famous fish market. But first food! There was a McDonalds across the street which had an amazing chicken sandwhich, but right after we decided to head to the fish market. Keep in mind its just before 4am and you're supposed to be in the fish market before 4am to see the good part. We ask a cop outside the McDonalds and after some brief sign-language and bad translations, we figured out where we needed to go and got a taxi to the fish market. We didn't get there until 4:25 and it was freezing outside. We walk around aimlessly for 20 minutes through open buildings and everywhere until we get the background area of the fish markets. Little trucks speeding around corners, not really caring if they ran into our small little group of 4 or not. We almost got ran over a couple times, first by the little trucks, then a scooter. We got pretty far behind the restricted area until an officer came up to us and pulled out a sign that said "restricted area please leave"  So that was the end of that, but we walked around a bit more, outside of the restricted area, and happened upon a temple thing and finally decided it was time to get back to the Air Bnb for a few hours of sleep. We got a taxi, got back and passed out by around 6am. The group who stayed at the karaoke bar had got back 30min before us, so they were sound asleep. I, being exhausted from two days of 5 hours of sleep total, slept until like 1pm, which i deeply regret, but there were 5 of us still there at 1. So we all started to get ready and headed out to the city for some shopping. We stopped at KFC on our way out. If you're thinking we only ate at American food places...you're wrong, I just remember the names of those. We had plenty of traditional Japanese food, along with the occasional Chinese food. Anyways, the 5 of us went to the bus station, which was a long story, but in the end 8 of us grabbed our bus tickets and then went to one of the biggest malls in Shinjuku. Our same group of 4 that went to the fish market the previous night, decided that the mall wasnt for us, so we went exploring through Shinjuku which was so beautiful. We walked around for a couple of hours, before having to head back to AirBnB because we had to catch our 2230 overnight bus to Kobe. We planned to meet at 2030 at the AirBnB and our group of four (we had the key) were about 20min late. BUT we would have been on time if the train had come on time. It was 20 minutes late and apparently there was an accident on the rails. But we finally made it to the Air BnB and of course tensions were high between everyone. We had about 15 minutes to pack up every thing from the AirBnB and head back to Shinjuku to catch our bus. So everyone packed up in exactly 15minutes and we were on the move. BUT our train from Hokomagome to Shinjuku was delayed because of something and the emergency breaks were applied. By now its 2000 and we have an apparent 10-20minutes wait on this train + our 15 minute walk to the bus station from the Shinjuku train line. People are really starting to get anxious because most of us have already paid 5000 yen (~$42) for this bus and I have a field program early the next morning at the ship. Our bus happened to be the last bus that would get us to Kobe at 755 and I had to be at the ship by 810. So the train had stopped between stations. But pulled up to the next station and opened the doors and announcements on the train started happening in Japanese. We started to frantically shout out "ego" meaning english to any one on the train. 4 people jumped off the train as soon as the doors opened and decided it was best to take a taxi instead of train. One of the Japanese people told us that we would be leaving soon, so we tried to call to the other people back on the train. We didn't find out that they had made it to the train station until we all got there and saw them come up the stairs 5 minutes after we got there. Its about 2215 and we book it to the bus station. We ended up being 10 minutes early but tensions were still high between a couple of people haha. We made it, what an adventure.

My field lab was filled with a bullet train to Hiroshima, a trip Miyajima island, which was very moving. We had a tour guide that explained a lot to us. We ended that day with a trip to the Hiroshima museum around 1700 and then we headed to our hotel. We ended up going out again in a city near Hiroshima and it was a crazy night. I met a guy that used to play at Ohio State University but decided to play in Japan professionally and got invited back when I'm near Osaka or Tokyo. In other news, a girl almost lost her passport and everything because she left in a taxi and I rode around with her all night trying to find it at the bars we went to. Turns out, she left it in the taxi and the taxi driver turned it into the front desk of our hotel. Another long night and just 2 hours of sleep for me, but the next day we had a bullet train to Kyoto where we saw 3 big temples and got to go shopping near one of the temples. I got plenty of key chains and post cards and things, but after that we were to the ship and off to China.

I slept the whole next day besides one of my classes and most of today as well (1/30).

On a side note to it all, the first day was awesome. I want to give a huge shoutout to Mai'i(Mani's friend)! She was the best tour guide of them all for our first day and dinner was amazing. We were also on Japanese TV because there was a journalists standing outside the Big Buddha place we went to go see. So he asked if he could video us while we were walking around the area and interviewed us after as well.

Oh yea! Japan was one of the safest places! Idk if you caught it, but a cab driver returned a passport, a phone, wallet and everything. Everything in Japan was super clean. There are not that many trash cans at all, and if there are, there are recycling bins separated into paper, glass, and plastic next to it. And the people were sooo nice. Some people would take time out of their days to walk us to our destinations that were 30 minutes away.

All I can say is that I am excited to be able to a have a few new friends in Japan to show me around again when I visit! It feels like the people I met, both in country and the people I met during the journey that are a part of SAS, have been my friends for life and I can't wait to travel with them in the rest our destinations.

We're already in China which is scary because I'm not quite sure I'm ready for this journey all over again. But we'll be docking in about 8 hours and my China adventure will begin.

Honestly don't think I could have pick a better Study abroad program.

Quote of the Day:

"We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures we can have if only we seek them our eyes open"

"YATAAAAA"
 

Meetings and Japlans!

Yesterday (1/22) was another step towards our goals!

5 of us from the diversity and inclusion group got a meeting with the deans on the ship about certain incidents, but more importantly about how we can increase the number of conversations about diversity on the ship. There was an event we had today (1/23) called stranger danger dinning to try to get people to sit with people outside of their cliques. It was pretty successful during lunch, but was back to the same at dinner. The meeting with the dean's allowed some of us to voice our concerns about the level of diversity on our ship and what exactly the deans are doing to get people in the mindset that we, as a community, should be willing to fully engage with the cultures we will experience in each country. All-in-all, I believe the meeting could have gone better because all we did was talk about the problem, but not really talk about any possible solutions. The stranger danger dinner we had was a good first step, but there is definitely more that the deans could be doing to get people used to being around different people. As one of my peers put it, "Its like when we got on the ship everyone was put into a blender and people were new and wanted to interact with each other because no one knew each other. In other words, the blender was still on. But after the first few days, its like somebody stopped pressing the button on the blender and we started to separate into our different groups of people who are like us"

In other news, from yesterday (1/22), I got some midterms back, went to sleep between classes and debriefed with the other 5 students after our meeting with the deans. We all went to the diversity and inclusion meeting together later in the night and talk about what happened in the meeting with the deans and how we were expecting to have more meetings with them that were more solution based. After that meeting ended, most of stayed around afterwards to debrief that meeting as well and some of us ended up at the snack bar on the 6th deck just talking and relaxing for most of the night.

Also been slowing learning how to play the piano again. I had one girl teach me one song that I picked up pretty quickly and this other guy taught me "piano theory" which, from what he said, seemed like playing the same 5 notes, but in different pitches. It was pretty confusing, but when I get back on the ship from Japan, someone is going to teach me how to read music again :)

Speaking of Japan, Ill be there in a couple hours. I can already see the city out in the distance and I cant wait until we get there. It's like 2am here so technically its (1/24) but...yea. The plans for Japan, of Japlans as some people have been saying, are staying in Yokohama for the first day and exploring the area. The morning of (1/25) we're going to head to Tokyo to explore the city and stay right outside the city in an AirBnb. On (1/26) we'll be exploring the city again until we take an overnight train/bus to Kobe where I'll have my field program that goes to visit the temples in Kyoto and things.

Speaking of field programs, today in our logistical pre-port for Japan, somebody got on stage and talked about an IMPACT program that was in danger of being cancelled in India. The program is called, "Kranti workshop in Mumbai" and it is a program that is empowering girls from the red-light district to become agents of social change. After hearing about this program in our logistical pre-port, I signed up for it and cancelled my other field program that went to the Taj Mahal and tings like that. I'm pretty excited to be able to be a part of this IMPACT program in a month or so!

Also we only have like 6 days of classes in the 3 weeks because we're going to be in and out of ports, so my posts will probably be very spread over these next couple of weeks, but I will try to have a breakdown of each day when I do finally post them.

Can't wait for Japan! Probably gonna end up staying up for the rest of the night since I just drank a red bull. I also have to pack for what I'm taking into country but I'll probably do that a bit later. Unfortunately the immigration process for Japan is gonna take like 3 hours apparently so there's no need to be rushing in the morning.

That's pretty much the gist of my last couple of days. It seems like I've been on this boat for an entire semester already, but I'm still worrying that the rest of the semester is going to fly by.

Quote of the day:

"Travel is the only thing you spend money on that makes you richer"
"Tokyo is about to be lit"

 

Lock Down

20 foot swells!

So all the outside decks on the ship were closed pretty much all day. I did happen to get outside around 7 though before they closed everything down. A ton of people have been seasick since last night, so the ship was pretty quiet today.

I woke up early to fill out some applications and I have to somehow organize a skype interview while I'm in Japan, but its all part of the adventure.

It was Charles' birthday today, so we all chipped in for a ice cream cake and some cookies. It was also kind of a party in the dining hall because we had speakers going and everything.

Also had my in class essay in my music class which was more about the general history of Japan than the music they used. It wasnt too bad, but because it was so wavy the ships propellers were like out of the water so the ship starting vibrating a lot.

Not much happened today other than that, but tomorrow we're going to be talking to both of the deans on the ship about diversity in their offices. That's it for today though.

Quote of the day:

"it's lit"

"Once the travel bug bites there is no known antidote, and I know that I shall be happily infected until the end of my life"

Titanic/Study Day and First Midterms

So the dean of students decided to show titanic last night (1/19). It was the first time I've ever seen it and it was pretty good but I probably wouldnt watch it again because it was soooooo long. Some people were crying because of how sad it was at the end and others are just a little bit nervous about being on a boat in the middle of the ocean now. Of course it does help that we started getting 15ft swells today (1/20). Its only supposed to get worse as we get closer to Japan and its supposed to get a lot colder.

Yesterday (1/19) was pretty unproductive for me, I spent at least 8 hours procrastinating for studying for my finals and either played or watched people play chess for a good amount of that time. Other than the showing of the Titanic, yesterday was pretty uneventful. We set our clocks back an hour yesterday as well as today.

As for today i had my first midterm and immediately after went back to sleep and thought I had slept for 24 hours. Apparently when I set my time back last night, I changed the date as well and I didnt notice when I woke up for my final. So when I woke up after my final I thought it was tomorrow and freaked out a little bit. But i checked the date on the TV and its not tomorrow quite yet lol. I also had a quiz in my emerging markets class which wasnt too bad.

There was supposed to be a meeting for the hula club, but the girl is feeling really sea sick along with my roommate and half the ship. Still enjoying my seasicknessless, if that made sense. I'm not sea sick (knocks on wood). Pretty upset I didnt go outside much today or see the sunset like I had planned. It was pretty cloudy and I've been doing homework for most of the day. Also had an in-class essay tomorrow in my global music class, but I'm not wquite sure whats its going to be on since the teacher talks more about the history of each country in general rather than the music in that country.

In other news, the group of people I'm traveling with in Japan have yet to book the AirBnb, sooo hopefully we'll do that tomorrow. For like 10-15 people its only $40 a night.

The person I usually get quotes from (you know who you are) has been MIA with them, soooo here's the quote of today:

"One sign of maturity is the ability to be comfortable with people who are not like us"

Something I forgot to mention a couple of days ago is that my music teacher had his nine year old daughterOH come in and tell us about Japanese music/culture, but mostly music. She did pretty well for a nine year old.

Oh! also had my sea meeting tonight with all the people that live close by in out sea and we did trivia and stuff along with starting this game called code red. Its kind of like assassin but we're the Red Sea, sooo yep.

Good Morning to everyone in the states! I'm about to go to sleep. Thank you as always for reading.
 

B5 Diversity and Inclusion

Tomorrow is the study day!

Today was MLK day and the BSU along with the help of other members of the diversity and inclusion group put on a programming tonight that we felt was very successful. We got MLK day to be in the announcements and also put out fun facts and quotes on each of the tables in both dining halls on the ship.

Fun fact: Hiroshima celebrates MLK day!

We had a very powerful diversity and inclusion meeting last night (1/17) and talked about how diversity and inclusion should have been in the first week(days) programs for semester at sea. It should have been a culture that was established immediately. We are going around the world and we are expected to immerse ourselves in other cultures, but how can we do that if we don't even stand our own cultures? How can we attempt to understand others if we do not and are not willing to understand the people on the ship first. We planned out our event that happened today (1/18) and it was a great discussion about MLK and who inspired him, but also the other people he inspired. We talked about how everyone who came to the meeting tonight was ready to be able to talk about the subject of diversity. But those who did not were not quite ready because it is easier to ignore the reality if you do not have to see it. We also talked about how once people on the ship start to see the poverty and struggle in the countries we visit, that more of them will start to come to our diversity and inclusion meeting. And finally, we are planning on starting a "I love my heritage" campaign and have each culture represented on the ship have a week until the end of the voyage and educate us about their culture and values.

In other news, yesterday was my most unproductive day yet. I sat around the pool between classes and never really started homework. Today was a better because I set up a lot of meeting for tomorrow for my group meetings, step practices, and other things, so it was much more productive as a whole. Also have a couple midterms in 2 days...sooo...tomorrow is going to be extremely busy. I'm hoping to be able to get up in time for the sunrise.

On the activity fair day I signed up for this extended family program and I met with my person for dinner and he's pretty interesting. He has traveled all around the world and has worked in a few different countries.

Not much else for the last two days, so...Quote of the day:

"What is traveling? Changing your place? By no means! Traveling is changing your opinions and your prejudices"



 

Day 11 (1/15/16) B4

So I've been trying to write this field lab report for Hawai'i like all day. I woke up early to work on it and have been working on it through-out the day.

In the mean time and between time I went to class and somehow ended up teaching a STEP class today. At first it was just the BSU starting practice for our black history month performance, but we were practicing near the hip hop group. After the hip hop group ended which had between 30-40 people, they all came over to me leading a transition step to the BSU. So i had to start all over again and reteach it to them, but it was a lot of fun. This will be the first semester I will probably stick with step for the whole semester since I'll be teaching it this time around. I cant wait to get back to Bentley to start stepping on that team and try to finally do it for the whole semester.

After that, I went to the hula club and learned some more hula dances and a welcoming chant. The hula dance was a version of the one we learned while at the Pa'i foundation in Hawai'i. Now, I'm procrastinating doing this field lab report by writing this blog post. But i'm going to finish it up now, so goodnight/ good morning to everyone.

We skip Saturday the 16th, and its the 15th now, so when I wake up it'll be the 17th which is still a strange concept to wrap my head around.

Quote of the day:

"To each his own"

Day 10 (1/14/16) A4

I am in awe of the active ignorance of some of the individuals on this voyage.

We had a class discussion in my intercultural communications class today about the speaker in Hawai'i. One of the worst comments I heard was that some were upset that we were inside all day instead of being outside at beach. Not only were we fortunate enough to learn about traditional hula dancing and lei making, but also got here from Professor John Osorio a very prominent activist in Hawai'i.

Another one was that Professor Osorio seemed standoffish the entire time. But it is understandable why he would be that way. He came into a room of semester at sea student, who last year trashed a beach in Hawai'i, who he believed were tourists and not there to learn. But, nonetheless, told his story to us and explained to us what happened, what was happening, and Hawai'ians goals for the future.

One student talked about how he felt uncomfortable while Professor Osorio was speaking because he was so passionate about what he was talking about. But, he talked about how he immediately questioned himself about why this made him uncomfortable and I thought this was a very powerful statement for the class.

Other than that, today, I slept a lot and started on my field lab report due tomorrow. Also we have gained 2 hours over the past 2 days. Today was pretty relaxing, sat out on the deck to read/sleep and also spent a lot of time with friends.

Quote of the day:

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."

Day 9 (1/13/16) B3

Well, I wrote this out, but then my computer blue-screened, so ill just to a brief summary so what happened today.

I finally woke up for breakfast for the first time since orientation and then went right back to sleep.

I ended up waking up 15min after class started and walked in about 20min late to find my professor hopelessly struggling with trying to download the powerpoint for class.
So, i didnt miss anything and we ended up getting out early because the powerpoint was so crucial to the lesson today.

Also, watched the sunset again today instead of going to the cinematography club. Then went to the music production club and I have decided that I want to relearn how to play the piano. I'm going to start right after my second class tomorrow, so I'm pretty excited for that since there are 3 baby grands on the ship.

I ended the night hanging out with some friends in the dining hall again. Luckily because my professor was struggling with technology and my other professor moving back our paper I didnt have any homework to do tonight.

Quote of the day:

"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about"
 

Hawai'i

Aloha!

So last night i tried to stay up all night to watch the sunrise and only made it until about 330 in the morning. However, I was able to wake up by 615 to make it up there to make a couple calls and see the sunrise around 7ish. It was beautiful and so was Hawai'i.

I am so thankful for my field lab in Hawai'i where we started by going to this organization called PA'I. It is one of the locations focused on the revitalization of the Hawai'ian culture and focuses more on the hula dance. As many of you probably thought, as I did, hula dancing is not just the girls with coconut bras and leaf skirts. Hula involves very specific movements and chants that tell a story. Because Hawai'ians did not have a written language, their stories and folk tales were passed down through dances and chants called hula. We learned one today as soon as we got to the organization! Right after we had a delicious Hawai'ian meal with torough bread, rolls, the most delicious pulled pork ever, a special Hawai'ian styled salad, and special chips. I know I spelled the name of the bread wrong and I already forgot the name of the chips, but the people were so friendly and welcoming. Then we had an professor from one of the Hawai'ian universities speak to us. Little did we know that he is also a musician, so he brought his guitar and sung while telling us the story of the history of what happened in Hawai'i leading up to modern issues they face now. Afterwards we made leighs with different flowers and leaves. I'll have pictures of my beautiful wrist leigh when I get back. We finished up the great day with a Q/A session with both of our hosts, the hula teacher and the professor. They are both seen as cultural activists in Hawai'i and today was a great learning experience. Next time I'm here, I definitely want to learn some more advanced hula dances.

After that we were lucky enough to drive past the palace of the last king of Hawai'i on our way back to ship. It was beautiful and its definitely on the itinerary fo rthe next time I'm in Hawai'i!

I may or may not have passed out as soon as I got back to the ship because of my failed attempt at an all-nighter last night, but I did wake up in time to see us leave Hawai'i.

A great island nature with such rich culture and people.

Quotes of the day from Professor John Osorio:

"Science is a way of knowing, a way of understanding" He said this while discussing that there are different types of sciences and how governments and foreign entities have been putting telescopes on the highest mountain in the pacific which happens to be a holy ground to many Hawai'ians.The telescopes have disrupted the air and have started to kill the delicate plants that exists because of the machines used to put the telescopes up. All this happens while the foreign entities only give $1 per year to Hawai'i to use this "highly sought after space" for telescopes. Where in the world do you pay $1 for something that is so "highly valued"? I urge all of you reading this to look in to the history of Hawai'i and discover how they became a US territory and to look at the controversy revolving around this mountain that is sacred to the native people, but disrespected by outsiders. As i am studying in my intercultural communication class, most people fail to have the ability to take a step back from their own perspective to be able to see things in a new light. To be able to look from another person's view and not think that this is weird or different or wrong but instead think that this is someone else's reality that they believe is true and is valid.

"What is true is that you cannot survive without an identity" This quote speaks to more about how America created boarding schools for the children of the chiefs' of Hawai'i's children do make them forget about their history. Hula dancing was not allowed and neither was the native language. This was something that 2-3 generations of Hawai'ians missed out on and now there are revitalization efforts to restore these practices and the culture.

"Don't be a person who doesn't listen" This one is pretty self explanatory, but Professor Osorio spoke about how the native Hawai'ians had been protesting the construction of telescopes on the mountain for years, but people didn't listen. And the big telescope that people want to build on the mountain which would take up approximately 8 acres of land is a billion dollar project, but there have been protests and walls of people stopping bulldozers from reaching the mountain to start construction on this. Do not be a person who does not listen, be aware, be informed. 


Mahalo which means thank you as usual for reading! Hope you learned something with this one because I was fascinated with finding all this out about Hawai'i over the last couple of days.

Welp, on to Japan! Only 12 days of classes at sea before we get there (sigh).

Day 7 (1/11/16) A3

Land! It’s about time because the food is starting to get really dry.

Tomorrow we officially reach Hawai’i even though we are close enough to get a signal on our phones tonight. I made a couple calls and still have to call my aunt at some point tomorrow. Its like 3am as im writing this. Im excited for Hawai’i and my field lab so its kinda hard to sleep. Aslo my phone calls earlier lasted longer than expected, but its okay since we’re still technically in America and I’m not using my international phone plan yet.

I’m really starting to like my intercultural communications course because it talks a lot about being accepting and willing to learn from other cultures instead of thinking our own culture is better than others. Valuable lessons everywhere.

Also, I’ll be setting up my blog sometime “today,” since its 3am, so that I can just send an email and it’ll post on my blog. So soon they’ll be blog updates every night and you can read it before you go to work or whatever it is that you do in the morning.

In between my class at 930 and 1610, I was gonna do homework until I realized that all my home work was done until I get back on the ship today after my field lab. Unfortunately I have to right a 5pg paper about my experiences in port, so that’s what I’ll be doing tomorrow night.

In terms of the BSU, we had a meeting tonight and got the planning started for Black History Month and we’re going to be submitting that to the club director tomorrow to see if we can get the events approved. Also turns out that stepping may not be able to happen because there have been complaints from the crew about noise and stepping definitely doesn’t help. But we’ll see because there is a stage in our assembly hall on the ship that would probably be better for stepping. Even if that doesn’t happen, we still have a ton of other stuff planned.

Synopsis of the day: I woke up early yet again and got a good start to the day until my roommate took forever and a half to take a shower and almost made me late for class. After class I went to the side of the 7^th deck to relax and enjoy some sun and the great view. Then it was lunch which was pretty terrible and I ended up getting a banana split at the pool deck. It was a pretty relaxing day and after the pool deck my roommate and I were having some good conversation with our neighbor. I made it to class and the Hawai’i group had to do their hour long presentation in class today. Luckily mine isn’t until Vietnam, which is kinda around the corner, but we’ll figure it out. Anyways, after class I went to dinner to hang out with some people from the BSU and we stayed there until it was time for our logistical pre-port for Hawai’i. After that was out meeting to configure the BSU itinerary for February, then cards for the rest of the night. I went up on the deck and was planning on staying up all night but my phone started dying after my long conversations on the phone and I actually passed out midway through writing this. I was able to get up for the sunrise, but I’ll talk more about that in my next blog.

Until then, thanks for reading!

Quote:

“When in Hawai’i”

Day 6 (1/10/16) B2

Wow!

I saw the sunset today and it was the most gorgeous thing ever. We are close enough to Hawai’i that there are birds here flying near the ship. We are like 577 nautical miles away from Hawai’i but I’m hoping tomorrow that we’ll get close enough to Hawai’i to be able to get a signal and be able to send these blogs out finally. Sorry for the wait again!

Also, today we had a meeting with the diversity and inclusion group and the students that wanted to start the BSU, including myself, decided to not create a separate group for the BSU. Instead, we decided that the diversity and inclusion group was best because then we will get to talk about how each of us felt and how we were treated while in each country. We are planning on having another meeting within the next week and will hopefully decide on meeting after each port for our discussion. We still want to be able to do something for Black History Month next month and are planning a couple events out on our own including a cultural dinner if possible, a movie night, and even a performance of some type like an open mic. I’m glad it turned out the way it did because now we are able to open our eyes to even more cultures and perceptions.

In other news, I spent way too much money today on the ship, but it all kind of balanced out because I haven’t been spending much on the other days. I bought a ton of water today and also decided to buy dinner at the grill because the main meals were getting really boring and tasteless. But I decided I will not be buying any more meals and only buying water until our study day before japan. Maybe a smoothie here or there as well.

Synopsis: Got the early start I needed this morning when my neighbor came to wake me up! I worked out too! Then did some homework due today, ate lunch on the deck. In fact I was outside for most of the day. My classes in the theater put me to sleep every because it is so dark and you can feel the rocking of the boat a lot in there so I can’t help but doze off for a couple min. It was kind of funny because my whole row dozed off at the same time. But after my second class and before dinner I went out to see that beautiful sunset and it was awesome. I missed the table tennis meeting though and could only stay at the hip hop dance meeting for 15min before I had to go to the ethnic club meeting. I don’t like the hip hop dance club much because there is way too much spinning around. I felt like I was about to fall off the ship. Also study with my study group again tonight and we actually got a lot of work done. I even finished some of my homework that’s due after Hawai’i.

Today was yet another great day.

Quote:

There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.