The same evening that we re-boarded the ship in Mauritius, we had our opening ceremonies for SAS's long standing tradition of our Sea Olympics. There's no classes for a day and each of the ten seas compete against each other in a variety of competitions such as work out relays, mash potatoe sculpting, paper boat float contests, poker, and it's all capped off with the popular synchronized swimming competition.

My coworker Ben did an amazing job with this event. He was inspired by the Beijing summer olympics and put together a really cool opening drum ceremony with a bunch of students and some african drums, it was HOT.

I honestly don't get too fired up for such competitions (especially since ucsd's shennanigans) but I must say they are a lot of the fun for the community to come together and bond. It was pretty cool seeing hundreds people gathered around a pool on the back deck with the horizon of the indian ocean in the backdrop. It was a reminder of how unique this shipboard community is as we've been growing closer each day of this voyage. Every time you meet a new person, you will then see that person 2-3 times a day, every day for the rest of the voyage. A thousand people is begining to feel more like a hundred.

Our sea color was blue, so we wore blue all day and called ourselves the smurfs. It certainly helped bring my community of 80 students together, many of whom do not know each other. It's just so hard for them to hang out together primarily because the cabin doors cannot be propped open...at all. So Olympics provided a great way for each sea to come together, work together, and compete against other seas!

After struggling with the common apathy of male students, I counted and I have 68 women and 12 men on my sea. We struggled to get involved so I ended up playing texas hold em, making a paper boat, joining the synchronized swimming team, and almost had to play flip cup! (i don't know how to play flip cup). In the end it was a lot of fun. You may catch a pic of my team throwing me in the air during the synchro competition....which is funny because the last time that happened was powder puff chearleading...senior year of highschool.

We had our fourth church service this past Sunday. It had been three weeks since our last service, so it was great to come together again as a body of believers. We mixed it up a bit this time, Candace led worship and we had three students come up and share how God has been working in their lives. There was more time so we opened it up and had students come up and share. It was great to get the students more involved in the service so it wasn't just the faculty and staff speaking. It helped take steps towards feeling more like a community. There were probably about 60 people in attendance, many of whom don't normally go to church or participate in campus ministries. I'm looking forward to see where this group goes in the next two months.

btw1...we're arriving in India in a couple of days!
btw2...i'm meeting up and traveling with Priti around South India
btw3...we're crossing the equator again....it's really HOT outside!