Thursday, January 20, 2011

Ship Life

After unpacking, I realized that I have way too many clothes. The original plan was to take only what I needed and not try and fill the empty room in the suitcases with stuff just because I could, that was a fail, but challenge number 2 was mine! Lucky for me, the closet is much bigger than I expected and although a bit cramped, everything fit just fine.

We boarded the ship yesterday morning and have been in orientation meetings with the entire ship, our floor (sorry, im supposed to call them decks), and another small group which we can refer to as the reflection group, until right now, 10 pm of day 2. Luckily in between all of that Karissa and I had time to set up our room so it is really very comfortable. We decided to bring duvets with us so that it didn’t feel like we were leaving in a hotel for 3.5 months and I’d have to say it was a great idea cause our room definitely looks like its our own. Ill post pictures as soon as I can. The internet connection isn’t usually strong enough to upload them so ill have to find an internet cafĂ© in port.

We had club sign up’s tonight and I signed up for photo club, service learning/community service, arts and crafts with the kids of teachers onboard, and a program that semester at sea has called extended families where you get a member of the faculty/staff or a lifelong learner as a “family” member along with some other students and you have dinners and activities with them.

Challenges number 3 and 4 made themselves evident today:

3) As I was thinking about what to write tonight, I realized that I am writing this blog for my friends from school, my family, and everyone in between. I usually write for the person that I am writing to and I hope you can all see where this is a challenge when writing to such a huge span of ages, personalities, and interest in what I’m doing. So, I have decided that I am going to try to write for me, and I hope that I don’t bore any of you, but you can all let me know how im handling that challenge with some emails! slhakim@semesteratsea.net (we don’t have to pay for internet to use our SAS email account).

4) Making friends. I have to keep telling myself that it really is only the second day on the ship (referring to this vessel as a boat is a NO NO!) It took me about a semester, maybe a little longer, to form my group of friend at Bentley, and for those of you that are reading this, you are really the best group of people I could have ever imagined getting to know and enjoy at college. In our reflection groups tonight we discussed the book Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, some of you may have heard of it. Im not going to go into a synopsis of the story but the title comes from the following passage

“The first time you share tea with a Balti, you are a stanger. The second time you take tea, you are an honored guest. The third time you take tea, you become family, and for our family, we are prepared to do anything…”

Perhaps in the American culture tea can be substitude for meals, or in the instance of college…shots (haha). But in all seriousness, for most of you reading, we have already shared three cups of tea. So to summarize my blabbing on about challenge number 3, it is to have three cups of tea with the people ill be surrounded by day in and day out for the next 102 days. Wish me luck!

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