Friday, October 3 ("Baltic Bash"/ sailing to India): The rock, rock, rocking of the ocean was not kind last night. I didn't get much sleep because I was being tossed around in bed. Needless to say, I was less than enthusiastic when I woke up this morning. As I stumbled out of my cabin for breakfast, I noticed a small white envelope on my door. I got mail! How exciting! Mail! REAL MAIL from Tracey & Mom! It's such a simple thing and I never thought I would appreciate it so much. Students have been complaining about limited internet access, which means they can't check email often, but I think snail mail is better than email. Sure, email is immediate, but you can keep letters. Kids today don't know what they're missing (hmm, am I getting older or wiser?).

My afternoon was busy, but the highlight of my day was the Baltic Bash social. In September, each LLC was given permission to have one social event in the faculty/staff lounge located on deck 7. The lounge overlooks the front of the ship, has a white baby grand piano built into the bar, and a dance floor. Outside of sea socials, students are not permitted in the faculty/staff lounge.

In an effort to get students involved, I formed a small committee to plan the event; Brittany & Sarah made invitations, Marissa organized music, Sheila, Brain, & Whitney hyped up the event. Before arriving in South Africa, they decided on a dress to impress theme for the social. We invited faculty, staff, and only Baltic Sea residents. OMG! The Baltic Bash was a smashing success. In fact students taught Bob (a 60 year old Assistant Dean) how to do the solider boy/superman dance. Armond, a faculty member, was shaking his groove thang on the floor. During the course of the evening we danced in our dressy clothes, indulged in ice cream (also a big deal on the ship because we RARELY have ice cream), sipped a few glasses of wine, and enjoyed each other's company. We had tons of fun…only a handful of people opted out of participating. Everyone was so excited we had the event and lots of my residents came up during the night to say they appreciated having our Baltic Bash.

Saturday, October 4 ("The Writing Center"/ sailing to India): Prior to working the voyage, I thought I would have tons and tons of time to write, read, exercise, and floss. Well, none of that has happened. Aside from maintaining my blog, I haven't been able to do any creative writing. I'm on chapter two of my book, The Celestine Prophecy. I've been discouraged from exercising due to the rocking seas. And flossing, well I hoped to floss more regularly during this trip, but I haven't done that either. Now I'm determined to step it up and make time to do some of these things while we're sailing from port to port. It's easy to let work get in the way of enjoying life and taking time for yourself. As I reflect, I can see myself doing that on my land campus and I've been doing it here too.

Curtis, Shalina, and I all have an interest in writing children's books and today we agreed to meet at 11am daily to focus on our writing. We sat outside, shared our ideas, and began writing. Sometimes I forget that you gotta just jump in there and start. During the course of sharing, we also realized that we all wanted to devote time to exercise, so we agreed to workout together too.

Monday, October 6 ("Come on, let's work out at 11pm"/ sailing to India): Okay, so I thought my sea legs had matured, but I was knocked on my butt. My attempt to work out two nights ago combined with rough seas equals one sick chic. I crawled out of bed for one meeting and managed to eat a few crackers today. Initially I thought I was being a wimp about the sea sickness until several other people were also sick. I think exercising was the straw that broke this camel's back.

Despite my feeling ill, I tried to tough it out and meet Curtis & Shalina to work out...exactly 15 minutes later I was hugging my toilet...yucky! So that, in and of itself, started a two day long episode. Anyway, I'm now feeling much, much better and I'm starting to surrender to the fact that my wellness, on any given day, will be largely dictated by the motion of the ocean. LOL. I'm doing my best to hang in there and remain positive.

Wednesday, October 8 ("Mid-terms"/ sailing to India): Yikes, students are really stressed and many folks are getting testy. Several students have complained about Sea Olympics because they really want time to study, write papers, etc. Over the past few days I've been reminding students about the writing center/ tutors, study classrooms, and group study areas. People have been sitting in the hallways to read and catch a wireless signal on their computers…

Thursday, October 9 ("Sea Olympics" /sailing to India): THE BALTIC SEA RULES! My students are fantastic people and I enjoy interacting with them! Each deck has a specific color: white, purple, black, and Baltic Sea wears blue. Last night we had the opening ceremonies for the Sea Olympics. Three students made a huge, blue whale flag on behalf of the entire deck…one student created a simple chant for everyone to sing (Bal-what? Bal-who? BALTIC/ They don't know- who we be!)…another agreed to be our mascot and dressed up as Baltic Blue Man. They really crack me up! People signed up to compete in three legged race, pizza making, human knot, volleyball, paper boat float, and pictionary just to name a few.

I asked everyone to come into the hallway at 8pm so we could decorate ourselves with body art. Originally I planned on using paint to for body art, but the paint was thin, so I used smelly markers instead. Yep, smelly markers. Everyone allowed me to write on their arms with blue markers (see pictures). The students were so spirited that they walked through the ship singing their chant and talking trash to the other decks.

Throughout the day people won second or third place with the events, which was great bu we didn't win the complete Sea Olympics competition. Although we were not victorious, everyone participated and had an enjoyable afternoon. Initially I was concerned about having Sea Olympics because students have been stressed, but maybe this was the de-stressor they needed. We ended our day with a Gods & Goddess dance outside on deck 7 aft. A number of students dressed up in costumes, danced, and continued to be in good spirits. I danced to a few songs and wrapped up my night kinda early.

Saturday, October 11 ("National Coming Out Day"/ GOODNESS! still sailing to India): Whew, it's been a busy day!! I left my cabin at 10:30am and I literally did not return until 11:30pm. It all started with a staff meeting, followed by a one on one with Cindy, next a desk shift, followed by a Taj Mahal trip leader meeting, The Vagina Monologue auditions (which I'll come back to in a minute), then a session on International Careers, ending with a reading of The Laramie Project.

Okay, so, yesterday a student came to the desk because she needed to make copies for Vagina Monologue casting call. In the moment I was not fazed by her request, but today—kinda on a whim, I decided to audition for a part in the show. Now I love, love, love The Vagina Monologues and I've seen it five (maybe six) times. I've always wanted to be in the show, especially because I appreciate the purpose of the play, but I just never made time to follow through on my interest. Initially I was a little hesitant to audition because I thought it would only be a student production. But this afternoon I was talking to Patty, a faculty member, and Savannah, the casting director came up to ask Patty a few questions and during the course of their conversation Savannah mentioned that all students, staff, and faculty were invited to audition. And that's what I did. I was amused by the whole process of signing up, waiting in line to audition, reading two parts, etc. Savannah said she would have decisions finalized late, late tonight or sometime tomorrow. Fingers crossed…

Pride at Sea, our LGBT group, hosted a series of fun and educational events this week. Students created a nice bulletin board for others to write positive affirmations about LGBT history and posted current news articles. They also made "Safe Habor" post ups for cabin doors…facilitated a "Coming Out Stories" session…showed "But I'm a Cheerleader" movie…and ended the week by reading The Laramie Project.

I had never seen a performance of The Laramie Project; SAS students did a great job despite such a heavy topic. Essentially, The Laramie Project is a play about the brutal attack of Matthew Shepard, a gay college student from Laramie, Wyoming. This hate bias incident occurred in 1998 and sparked conversation/debate across America; unfortunately Matthew never regained consciousness, but his attackers, two Laramie residents, were apprehended for the crime. Overall, I think, Pride at Sea students successfully educated many members of our shipboard community.

Sunday, October 12 ("Casting Call Results" / sailing to India): Yay, yay, yay! I'm sooo excited! Casting results are in…I got a part in The Vagina Monologues. I will perform "My Angry Vagina." AWESOME! This part is really well written, in fact someone wrote the part for Whoopi Goldberg when celebrates performed the play and I believe it's been permanently added to the script.

Why do I love the play? The mission. Playwright Eve Ensler, created hilarious and disturbing soliloquies in The Vagina Monologues in an attempt to raise awareness about violence against women AND to celebrate a mumbled-about body part. Eve has turned this play into a book and has been spreading the Monologues to other countries for the past ten years, which is absolutely amazing. She asked hundreds of women of all ages a series of questions about their vaginas (What do you call it? How would you dress it? Were you ever violated?) that prompt some wondrous answers. This production will also be unique because we have three men in the play to bring awareness to transgender issues.

Brooke, another LLC, also received a part in the show. Our first meeting is tomorrow. I think this will be a lot of fun! Hopefully this experience will allow me to bond with and get to know a few more students.

Given the pace of the past few days, I completely forgot to get malaria pills. Before I left Maryland, I thought I only needed malaria pills for safari trips so I didn't get an extended prescription filled. Umm, wrong. SAS doctors (and the US Center for Disease Control) advise everyone to take malaria pills in India too. Malaria is spread by mosquitoes and can be a harmful disease. About two days ago I realized that I had not taken care of this task…yeah, two days later, today, I still hadn't done it. So today I went to the clinic to get malaria pills and, luckily, everything worked out. I have to start taking pills tomorrow.

Tonight, in Cultural Pre-port, we learned about Indian etiquette and behavior. Three points especially stood out. First, sanitary practices are not like those in the West, from what I hear. Toilet paper is not provided in most places; so one is encouraged to carry a few squares. Second, people eat with their hands in India; they only touch their food with their right hand, as the left is considered unclean for eating…the left hand is used for wiping away bodily functions (without toilet paper). Third, Indian women dress modestly; no shorts, tank tops, low necklines, or tight clothing in general and skirts should be below the knee (ankle-length is best). Women are encouraged to carry a scarf to cover up when entering temples. I feel like I have so many cultural nuances to learn in a few short days…I'm slightly nervous, but mostly excited to experience India!

Tuesday, October 14 (INDIA): Alright, we FINALLY arrived to India. I can't wait to leave the ship. This morning LLCs helped customs distribute shore slips and other documentation. Afterwards I attended a meeting about the Taj Mahal trip I'm leading. Rachel and I are leading 70 students on a tour up to Delhi to see Taj Mahal, one of the seven wonders of the world. Here's to good health and a calm tummy in India!