Hawaii Bound!

Hey everyone!

I'm currently out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean sailing towards
Hilo, Hawaii aboard the MV Explorer!!!! :)

The first two days have been absolutely crazy! I'm pretty exhausted and
a bit overwhelmed from trying to adjust to living on a ship and taking
in all of the new information that has been piled on us, but I am having
an absolutely incredible time! I can already tell that this is going to
be the best 4 months of my entire life.

I was on the first bus to Ensenada along with all of the other work
study students. It took about 2 1/2 hours to get down there. Meeting
everyone on the bus was so exciting. I could literally feel all of the
excitement and energy! There was not one single second of silence.
Luckily, it didn't take us very much time to go through security since
we arrived first. After I checked in I went to my cabin to put down my
stuff, and then was put to work checking in all of the other students as
they arrived. I really enjoyed getting to meet everyone! It wasn't until
mid-afternoon that I was able to go back to my cabin and start
unpacking, which I was absolutely dreading. These cabins don't have a
whole lot of storage space. Somehow I've been able to find spots for the
most important things, and the rest is still in the duffle bags under my
bed. :) It works!

The rest of the first day was filled with introduction assemblies in the
Union (the largest room on the ship), eating dinner and meeting new
people! I've met some pretty incredible people that I can already tell
will become great friends. We also had a lifeboat drill right before the
ship left port. We each have a designated place on the ship to go during
an emergency, and we'll practice those about once each month.

The rocking of the ship will definitely take some getting used to!
Luckily, I have not been seasick yet. Thank goodness for Dramamine! I
wasn't expecting it to rock this much, but the Captain told us the
waters will be a little bit rough between here and Hawaii and also
between Hawaii and Japan. Hopefully it gets better after that!

I can't believe I didn't mention this in a previous post, but Archbishop Desmund
Tutu is sailing with us on this voyage! We were all
introduced to him on the first night. He's going to be giving some
lectures and seminars along the way. He said hi to me today as he passed
my table during lunch. I hope I have an opportunity to actually
introduce myself and have a conversation with him sometime soon!

The second day (today) was our official orientation day. We all met in
the Union to go over community standards, the honor code, academic
resources, global lens courses, field programs and health and safety. We
also had the Involvement Symposium, which was a time where we could sign
up for and create clubs or organizations we might be interested in being
involved in on the ship! There were so many options to choose from. I
signed up for Singers at Sea, Service Learning, Zumba, Yoga and Extended
Family. With the Extended Family Program, I'll be put in a group with
several other students and a Lifelong Leaner and/or faculty member.
We'll get together for dinner, have game nights and just spend some
quality time as a "family". I'm pretty excited for that, and for all of
the organizations I've signed up for!

Classes and work study officially start tomorrow. I'm actually really
looking forward to it! This is just such an incredible opportunity. As
crazy as these first two days have been, I've had such an amazing time
so far. But I definitely am ready for things to (hopefully) slow down a
bit once classes begin and not every second of the day is scheduled.

I will try and post some pictures soon, but right now it's time for bed.
:) We gain an hour of sleep tonight!

Thanks guys!