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"
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"
No comments:
Post a Comment