Hello everyone,
I arrived on the MV Explorer on Wednesday and we'll be in our first port, Dominica, tomorrow morning. This ship is really nice and I haven't gotten too lost yet. I'm also glad I haven't been seasick yet. Some people are really not doing well but I seemed to have my "sealegs" on the first day.
For the first two days we had orientation which was pretty boring, but now classes have started and they are really interesting. In food and Culture, we spent the first class talking about foods we like and don't like. Our readings were about how humans evolved to be able to eat what we do and about the vitamins we need to stay healthy. For our field component, pretty much anything counts. I'm going to an organic farm tomorrow in Dominica and we can take cooking classes in some of the ports we visit.
Global studies should be interesting, though we have a group project already. The professor seems nice and we had someone come in today and talk about maps. For Altruism and Social Justice we basically just outlined the course, but I'm going to the Amazon for four days to help build schools for a village, and we will be talking about some really great stuff like poverty, racism, oppression, and how to help.
Stress management won't be stressful at all. We'll be talking about things like reliance, how to strengthen relationships, and different ways to overcome stress, like deep breathing and meditation. Apparently we're ending each class with Thai Chi. Our professor is the same guy who teaches Altruism and he's kind of a hippie, but he's really cool. He'd do well at HB.
My roommate and I get along fine and I've met so many people already. It's a little weird right now because I I don't have plans for a lot of countries yet and I'm not sure if I know people well enough to plan stuff out with them. Everyone says not to sweat it. No one really has their friends yet and you'll get to know a lot of people when you start your trips in the countries and it's pretty easy to just jump on an independent trip if you don't have plans yet.
I'll update again after Dominica.
Re: sealegs - it's funny. I've never had any trouble on the water despite my motion sickness while playing video games(!), but once off the ship, you'll feel the effects of the rocking most while taking a shower. Suddenly the shower stall will slowly begin to shift.
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