Baldwin-Wallace
Moving in tomorrow and classes start Monday. Am I ready to be back at a normal college where I will have class five days a week with a weekend on land without an ocean view and dinner that doesn’t have outside seating with an ocean breeze with the most beautiful sunsets? I think not; gotta miss everything about the MV Explorer especially the passengers and crew!
Sorry I haven’t been updating… I’m going to work on it ASAP, promise. But this next semester is going to be crazy. 18 credit hours plus mucho hours at work and babysitting… Pray for me! Lol.
Yikes…
Sooooo I’m a bit overwhelmed at this second and I feel like blogging it out to help me settle down. There is just so much to do. 4 FDP papers to write. A Global Studies test to prepare for. Blogs to write (since South Africa! :0 ) An International Business and Comparative World Religions essays to write. Planning for China and Japan to complete. Planning classes for next semester and emailing my advisor. Trying to keep up with emails from family and friends. Grrr! Soo frustrating. On top of it, I’m still trying to get over being sick. The day after we left India, I got sick. I first thought it was just a normal cold until I started to get a fever and felt literally delirious. Then, my fever went away and I thought I was getting better in time for Malaysia… Nope! It must have somehow got to my stomach because before I knew it, my stomach cramped up for everything. I barely ate in Malaysia without needing a restroom 10 minutes later. For the past two days, I have been nauseous 24/7. I visited the doctors a few times already and they keep trying to have me wait it out to see if maybe it’s just a nasty bug. They gave me anti-nausea and Loperamide medication. The medication doesn’t seem to be helping too much anymore though. HOWEVER! I didn’t let any of this affect my Malaysian experience. I had an amazing time. It was truly an epic adventure I’m so glad I went on. I’ll be sure to write about it in more detail shortly… Right now, I have studying to do. :[ Wish me luck!
I love you!!!
Happy 21st Anniversary Mom and Dad!!! I miss you so much! Have a great day! <3
Hmmmm
It’s about 10 PM and I am having a hard time deciding on what to do… Just got back from an Indian home stay and am completely exhausted. Sleep, laundry, read, lots of homework, blog, sleep, homework?? … I’m sorry for keeping everyone waiting with my blog posts about South Africa, Mauritius, and now India, but as you can notice, I’m extremely busy. And when I’m not busy, I’m TRYING to catch up on sleep… I’m working on them though!!! :]
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darkened. A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin! Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in? How much can you lose? How much can you win? And if you go in, should you turn left or right… or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite? Or go around back and sneak in from behind? Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find, for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
We’re at Cape Town! There is so much on the agenda right now. We just got our passports back and were let off the ship. Unfortunately, my FDP won’t leave until 11; wow, hard to believe I’ve been up for four hours already. Today, September 23: Township Performance FDP Lion’s Head Sunset Picnic Hike Excusion with Trevor Going out for Rhanya’s birthday tonight! Tomorrow, September 24: Doing an all day trip to five different places including beaches and penguins with John and Nichole. Sunday, September 25: Hanging out with Alex all day at the 2 Ocean’s Aquarium and then walking around the marinas including the fishing marinas. Monday, September 26: Open for options! Maybe find an internet cafe? Tuesday, September 27: Habitat for Humanities Volunteer Shopping and walking around with Nichole, Rejina, and possibly Alex. Wednesday, September 28: Afrikaans Language Musuem FDP Listening to Archbishop Desmond Tutu speak on the ship and hopefully get the opportunity to meet him. :] I feel like this place is more of a resort than it is an educational port. The vacation will come to an end shortly though. I come back and have to read a lot of books on top of writing three essays. Can’t wait… The fun that we find on this ship mostly is in cards. We play so many card games all the time to avoid doing our homework, especially this week. The ship was rocking so much it was ridiculous. I couldn’t go a day without getting a splitting migraine and trying to sleep was horrible because we are all the way at the front of the ship. I cannot wait to sleep tonight while we were at port. So long for now! :]
Neptune Day Sept 17
Today is the first time that we were crossing over the equator. There is a tradition in which you need to perform some challenges to be allowed to cross over by King Neptune. My morning started off a little nuts.
Because I fell asleep so early around 7 the night before, I woke up at 2am and couldn’t fall back asleep. So, I went to the piano bar to hang out with Owen, the crew member, all night. He’s super sweet and was excited to have company. We listened to music for a little while, as I ate my cup of noodles to wake myself up. Then Owen and I watched movies all morning on his friend’s laptop as I attempted my religion essay. Owen is such a sweetheart, he kept on making me “baby milk,” that’s what the other crew members called it. It’s essentially just hot chocolate made with hot milk and water. He also got me a bag of Fritos to munch on when it got closer to breakfast time.
I must have been the only passenger awake, cause all of the crewmembers kept asking me what I was doing out of bed. Then they told me that their the wakeup call was at 7am for Neptune Day. I was prepared to take a video for them of them drumming away and screaming through the hallways. It was so funny to see sleepy heads popping out of the doorways.
The traditions started right after breakfast was over on deck 7. The staff involved came out wearing Greek togas and symbols of their identity. King Neptune is Captain Jeremy. He was only wearing the bottom half of the toga, had a pitchfork, and was painted green. It was an awesome event to attend. The first tradition consisted of getting a mixed liquid poured on you, then you jump in the pool, come out and kiss the fish, then kiss King Neptune’s ring. It was hilarious and fun. Allison and I were one of the first few to do this. I wish I would have known they had this event sooner so that I could have worn appropriate clothing; I was stuck wearing my sweatpants that remained soaked and dripping. The next event was the shaving of the head. Many guys did this event, and more than expected girls did so as well. I kept my hair though, it takes way too long to grow my hair out. Alex and Trevor wanted to shave their head, so we waited… For hours. It was super annoying but after an hour of waiting because of the pushing and forcefulness that was involved, they both got their heads shaved. It was a pretty horrible job, so I helped clean up their haircuts with their razors in Trevor’s room. It was nice just relaxing the morning away until lunch.
Lunch was the end of Neptune Day activities. Unfortunately I had an essay to write. It wasn’t too bad since I had most of my concepts figured out that morning, it was just tedious to write the essay and read over it. It was my first official essay in a while and I wanted it to be just right. I read it once and decided it was fine, we’ll see what happens though! Professor Green seems like an easy grader, so I have nothing to worry about.
The rest of the evening just played out nicely. I pretty much just relaxed and hung out with a few friends all night. I especially needed this night, the rest of the reading can wait for tomorrow. As of for now, it is time for me to get some sleep. Sweet dreams world! I miss everyone back home! <3
Ghana Sept 15
Today I just spent the day in Tema with my friends. Our goals were simple though we had so much that we still wanted to do in Tema alone. We all wanted to find the Internet Café. I wanted to be able to Skype my parents and sister and add a few Facebook pictures. Our first stop was the post office so some people can get stamps to send letters out. I picked up a few postcards here.
The next stop was the café where we only spent about an hour at. It was so great to talk to my family again. I wish it were longer though and with a little privacy cause talking in a café where everyone can hear you was a little awkward. I wasn’t able to Skype my mom like I wanted to, but I did talk to Dad and Amanda! It was nice to hear from them again. By the sounds of it, nothing’s really changed; everyone’s still busy as always. It’s weird hearing them talk about the events that I usually attend. I can feel myself getting a little homesick especially thinking about them. We have extended families on the ship where we can be part of a family made up of a mom and/or dad (a professor and significant other, or life-long learners) and siblings (other students or professor family students.) Dr. B, the marine biology professor, and his wife Janie are my parents. Janie’s really awesome, her birth parents are from Poland and we had lots to talk about because she also knew some folk dancing along with Polish school on Saturdays. I’m going to schedule a meeting with her soon to shower her pictures and music of our costumes and songs. I also have three students and two songs/students of Dr. B. I always wanted an older brother and now I get four! Lol. These families are supposed to help us if we start to get homesick, but I feel like it’s just making me feel worse because they’re not my real family. So Skyping with Amanda and Dad was amazing.
Next we decided that we wanted to get a coconut. On the way there, we stopped at this shop where I found this purse that caught my eye. I had to buy it. It turned out to be only 20 cedis, I only had 13 but Alex spotted me a 5 so I was able to get the bag for 18 cedis. I don’t know what is up with the bag, but I absolutely love it and it is my style. We finally got to the coconuts. It was interesting to drink out of the coconut. I’m not a fan of coconuts, but I heard this is the tourist thing to do in Ghana that is cheap; I couldn’t just pass up a tourist attraction!
Soon it was time to start heading back to the ship. On the way back, we stopped at the duty free shop to buy some soda for the ship. I ran out of money this time around, but everyone stocked up with their leftover cedis. When we got to the ship, we still had time left, so we stopped and talked to some of the locals. Everyone here is so nice and friendly.
I went to bed extremely early that night out of complete exhaustion even before the ship departed Ghana. I’m going to miss itl I love it here. There is no doubt in my mind that I will come back some day in the near future.
