February 13th, 2009

Sorry, I have not written a blog in the last few days. I suppose life on this ship is comfortable now and I am not finding our everyday things we do super exciting or note worthy. 

 

But let me recap a few things that have happened in the past few days.  We had a themed pub night “Decades”so me and the girls all tied scarves around our heads and went for the 70‘s look. I had my first dinner with my extended family, unlike other families who have many members (staff and their families) plus students. My family is the Librarian Beth she is super nice and there are about 6 other girls in the family too. The dinner was nice but hard since it was only Beth and none of us really seemed to have much in common. There was another girl in my family from Boulder which was nice and two girls from San Diego whom I had mutual friends with. 

 

Other exciting recent news is I am trying to get involved with a Morning TV Show Club started on the ship. Kelly and I found out about a meeting they were having through Dylan, because the girl who started the club is in Dylan’s extended family. We went to a meeting a few nights ago apparently it was the group’s second meeting. There was about 10 people in the meeting and it was a little chaotic. Nobody really took control and ideas seemed to be flowing around the room. One girl attempted everyone now and then to focus everyone in and was taking what she called “minutes”for the meeting. They wanted each segment to be about 5 minutes long which I suggested seemed to long to hold people attention and that even most news stories weren’t that long, but I kind of got shut down. Another new comer to the meeting Tiffany, Kelly and I decided we would shoot a quick 1 minute sports report on the volleyball tournament going on, on the ship. So after a chaotic meeting I gave the girl taking the minutes my email and hoped to hear from them when they would shoot the actual show which they hoped would air on Friday (which I haven’t seen or heard about it airing today so I don’t think that’s going to happen). The next day Tiffany, Kelly and I met up at the volleyball court to shoot our segment. It went really well and we had a fun time. Tiffany said she would give the footage to Stephanie and I have still yet to hear about what happened with it. The next day I heard from Kelly she saw the rest of the group filming the show one night in the dining hall. I was pretty bummed nobody mentioned anything to me or tried to get a hold of me for it. I wrote Stephanie an email last night and I hope to be able to get more involved with the show and lend a helping hand if they want it. 

 

Other than that I had my first exam in my Sacred Sites course and I think it went very well, which is good news! I have also been learning a little belly dancing in my dance class which is fun I know I look silly doing some of the moves cause of my back but I am working at it one move at a time. I know I look silly though cause a girl in my final performance group came up to me the first day and said “So I am assuming you don’t want to do belly dancing for the final performance do you?”haha this is before she knew I had back problems. 

 

Besides school and clubs, I have been working out everyday doing Tally and Katie’s aerobic and strength training class on “A Days”and Erica’s aerobics class on “B Days”both of them have been kicking my butt and I’m super sore. So after working out I usually go lie out and tan to relax my muscles and well ya get a nice tan!

 

So tomorrow is Valentines Day and the student life desk set up a box in Timidz Square so people can send each other Valentines. I know some of the girls and even Jeff have made some for each other. I am not really the best artist so I told them I would just give them a hug tomorrow. But when I went by the box earlier today it was really full so I am glad people are still getting in the spirit even though most people don’t seem too excited since they are either away from their boyfriends or girlfriends or are single and being reminded of it.   

 

Tomorrow we will also be in Namibia!!! I can’t believe it and I am super excited. I still cant believe I am really on this trip and in Africa. Erica, Kelly, Anna, Courtney, and I are going to travel together independently and have some sandboarding and 4 by 4 planned. I don’t really know too much more than that because Anna’s friend Audrie let us join her and her group of friends in their plans. Apparently we are staying at a hotel and the hotel has planned our excursions for us. It all seemed like an amazing deal so we joined in and are along for the ride. From what I have heard there is a group of about 25 –30 of us, so it should be fun to meet and travel with new people.  So we will see what is to come and I will tell you all about in three days or so!