Day 5

So I got my vicarious voyage classroom assignment today! I'll be working with a girl named Courtney (she's from Cincinnati, but goes to Marquette) and we have a 5th grade class from New Hampshire. It sucks that we aren't close enough to visit the class, but I'm looking forward to getting letters from the kids. We're supposed to be sending them letters/maps/pictures/postcards/educational stuff. Apparently they're already tracking our ship in class! Gah, I'm excited!

The ship has been super rocky for the past two days. It's nothing scary (except once in a while) but it's hard to walk and our dresser drawers slide open and closed in the middle of the night, which wakes us up sometimes. My oceanography professor told us today that these waves are 10-15 foot swells that were made to the north (aka back in SoCal where the weather has been horrendous) up to 4 days ago and are just reaching us now. The sea is supposed to calm down within the next day or two. Today at dinner on the 6th deck (we try to eat outside at every meal) my chair slid away from the table; yes, I was sitting in it at the time.

Today we also saw flying fish and an albatross (it was a species native to Hawaii) was circling the ship all morning and into the afternoon. It's the first bird we've seen since we left port a few days ago. We stopped class to watch it fly around. I think it knew we were talking about it because it started flying right at our classroom window like it was showing off. haha

Last night I discovered that my shoulders got a little color when I spent an hour outside on deck 6 eating lunch! It's the beginning of my soon-to-be-epic tan! Also, it was about 70 today and I wore shorts and a t-shirt to class.

Due to our slightly shortened semester, we all have to do Faculty Directed Practica in port to make up for the 3 or 4 missing class periods. It's a little overwhelming trying to organize everything and find out which trips count for which professors, but so far it looks like it'll be fun.

I'm trying to get a group together to go scuba diving in Hilo when we arrive in a few days and I have my heart set on doing a service trip to the Missionaries of Charity Orphanage in India. It was founded by Mother Theresa!

I'm going to go work out with Heather, but I'll try to post a picture or two later tonight.

lovelovelove

Molly