We are almost to Japan! We are almost to Japan! On the map that we can see on the tv’s in our room, it looks like we are touching Japan. Today was Asia Day- which basically means a day of no classes and a bunch of seminars and activities that you can go to and learn about different things in the Asian countries we are visiting. I watched the movie Good Morning Vietnam with Robin Williams- very funny, I highly recommend it.
Anyways, to recap my time since my last post (which happened to finally post itself a few hours ago but was written 4 days ago), the same day that I had a test, I had a pop quiz in a different class. I got 100% WOOT WOOT! I did aerobics afterwards that was led by a friend, and that was fun but interesting because of the boat rocking. And for the rest of the night, as per the usual things, played lots of games and discovered that I really suck at Pictionary.
The next day we gained another hour again AND my morning class was cancelled. It was incredible. My email broke that day though (as did everyone elses since the server on the mainland broke down) and it really bothered me. Lots of my emails apparently didn’t get through to me too during that time. It was Friday and one of my friends had mentioned that I should go to Shabbat services so I did. I have yet to go to one in college, so I don’t really know what to compare it to, but I know that it was different. It was a service filled not only with Jewish students, staff, faculty, children and professors, but non-Jews too that were curious as to what the Jewish thing is all about (2 of my friends who are extremely religious Christians attended as well). Since I was singing and reading and sitting with them I was very aware of what they must have been thinking listening to all these people singing songs, some of them clearly memorized, in a gibberish language. I also found (and so did a lot of my friends when we talked about it after) that transliteration is MUCH more difficult to follow than Hebrew when you are accustomed to it. The melodies of the prayers were different than what I know, and I couldn’t process the words in English and learn the melody at the same time. So, they are now making more copies of the prayers in Hebrew for next time.
Following the service and dinner, I headed to the Union to participate in a Swing Dancing seminar being taught by my good friend. I can officially say now, that I know the basics of swing dancing and can complete them without stepping on peoples toes and falling over more than once every few steps. It was a ton of fun though, and they got so much positive feedback from everyone there that they are going to make it into a recurring activity.
The next day (Saturday if you’ve lost track by now), I woke up, had a pretty average day, did some studying for the upcoming Global Studies exam, etc. One really cool thing that happened was during my Global Mental Health class- we were discussing a book that we had just finished (which I highly recommend, called An Unquiet Mind) and our professor was explaining to us how the author is one of the most well-known psychologists in the field and wrote the first textbook (or the first good one) on people with mood disorders, or specifically Manic-Depressive Disorder. He then showed up an email that he had sent to her with hopes that she would respond and answer a question we had. Of course, no one expected HER to actually respond, but she had and while unfortunately she had no answer to our question, it was crazy that my professor and this incredible doctor were emailing each other personally! Moving on… after my third and last class of the day, I went to play board games with some of the children and one of my friends. It was a lot of fun- the kids are absolutely adorable. It was a great hour. BUT, we eventually had to go back into the real world of people our own age.
That evening, I had a “sea social” which is basically a social with our sea. Each sea is a hall or a part of a hall. It was really great because not only did I meet some cool people on my hall, but it was in the normally off-limits faculty lounge and we were able to drink and talk with all the professors and other staff who went up there during that time… it was definitely different than anything I have ever experienced. Later in the night, I went to sleep while the extremely loud crashing of the ship into waves persisted. (We had to go extremely far off-course because there was really bad storm in our path. Each big wave brought with it the sound of a bomb, the 30-second aftershock vibration of an earthquake, and REALLY scary dreams because of it. Luckily, I was so tired that night that when we hit the waves I would wake up in a panic initially but then just pass right back out!
Sunday, which was the next day, was spent mostly attempting to study for the Global Studies test that we were taking that night. It was nice to take it and be done with it. I thought it was definitely fair and that seemed to be the general consensus. That night I played poker with some of my friends- we ended up getting shut down because people were caught playing for money the night before and they have it temporarily banned until they can figure out a way to permanently ban it. Regardless, the guy who told us we had to stop was really nice so at least that was that. Anyways, when we stopped I had the most chips, and 2 out of the 3 guys we were playing with (out of 6 total) were out, and the third had the lowest amount of chips left. Moral of the story: girls should play poker more. After we stopped, we went to watch the last few acts of an open mic night and then headed to bed... which finally brings me to:
SUPERBOWL MONDAY MORNING! Due to the time difference, I woke up at 8:30 on Monday, no classes day, and watched the superbowl in bed while reading Lovely Bones. It was awesome, but different, as everything seems to be. Since they were streaming it they announced twice that no one should be on the internet so that they could use all the bandwidth.. of course, they announced it at 8 am on a morning where no one had to wake up for classes or do any work because our next class day isn’t for a week and we only have 4 total class days left in February (yes, I am on the best study abroad program ever), and people went on the internet out of spite. Anyways, after the game ended, I went to get lunch and spent the rest of the day playing cards with my friends (literally, spent hours and hours playing). I also figured out that I will not be in South Africa for the seders as previously thought, and that was a really sad discovery. I had the cultural and logistical pre-ports for Japan, where we learned everything we should and shouldn’t do in the country that we already have all our plans laid out for as we will be there tomorrow, so that was NOT useful, but we also learned that it is much safer than the US so we shouldn’t worry about crime and that the drinking water is good. The customs process will be very intimidating tomorrow- they are extremely strict about it there. We have to get fingerprinted, go through a thermascan to check for fever, be checked out one on one, and who knows what other kinds of shenanigans- but I guess its all part of the adventure. It just sucks that we are getting in a few hours later than planned so it takes away even more of the day.
Well, I am off to bed. Gotta wake up to see us pulling into port in just a few hours. The next time I blog, will be during or after my stay in Japan. GOODBYE!!!!!!!!
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