20:20:20

6/19
Tonight we are losing ANOTHER HOUR. This is the fourth time in a row that this has happened, and we still have 2 more to loose! :( The good news is that when we sail back, we will gain an hour every night for 6 nights, which will be much needed after traveling the Mediterranean :)

In my intercultural communications class this morning, we were assigned in to small groups of 4 people and got to choose a topic from a list. The topics are things we will individually discuss with at least 4 natives in each port we go to. The topic my group got was “games people play”. This is the one I put down for my top choice! Some of the other choices were house designs, holiday, heroes, nonverbal communication, and some other categories I don’t remember. I’m excited for this topic! We came up with basic questions on what to ask and how to compare answers from across the Mediterranean. At the end of all the ports, we do a 30-minute presentation showing the similarities and differences within each country. We were recommended to take pictures of the games if possible and get a picture with the people we talk to! This is going to be fun and I think it’s so cool how we get to actually apply ourselves in the real world, and get out there talking to real locals! What an amazing assignment for this amazing opportunity :) Another group assignment is to read an assigned article (about 30 pages) and lead a 15-minute class discussion, which we are graded on how well every one participates. I started the article this afternoon and it’s about a study done in 1990 about Moroccan adolescents moving to Italy with their family and how they socially integrate and adapt. In the 1980’s a few Moroccan men moved to a small town in Italy to look for a stable job and cheap homes. They found it and in the 1990’s, the rest of their families joined them! I still have about 15 more pages to read, then I have to write discussion questions for the class.
In global studies, we focused on Alexander the Great and conquerors of Egypt; pretty fascinating stuff! I don’t have a hard time paying attention to any of the classes because I’ll be seeing it all! I still can’t get over how cool this program is, learning about where you are going, which is fun, and getting graded for it, which should be easy because it’s very enjoyable!

In global music, we went to a storage room and were each handed a strange musical instrument from around the world. Not to my surprise, I recognized all of them and knew most of the names. There is one or two other musical people in there so we were naming them all and describing them to everyone, pretty cool! We passed them all around, determined what materials they were made from, then determined what country they originated in. About 30 minutes into class, the ship took a turn! Since this class is in the very back of the ship, the room was shaking so loudly that Dr. K. stopped talking because he was yelling. This loud rumbling and shaking went on for about 10 minutes then we got back to playing around with cool instruments. Tonight we have to read an article about a term that has no real definition, “duente”. I don’t know what it means yet but our assignment is to describe it to him tomorrow!
After music I made a PB&J and hid it in a napkin, and snuck it to my room. You aren’t supposed to take unpackaged items out, but I wanted to eat it while I studied my map for the quiz tomorrow!

At dinner, everyone ran to one side of the boat, and someone shouted “whale!”, but it wasn’t. It was a pod of about 50 dolphins! They weren’t very far away and a few were right next to the ship. Finallllly we saw some after all this dolphin talk!

I just looked at my watch and it said 20:20:20! Weird.

I’m sitting in the piano lounge in the middle of the ship with Shea. We are doing some reading and studying our map some more. I bought some gummy bears :) My favorite!
Time to go to the 7th deck!

Ok, back, We just had another party on the 7th floor deck, which has happened every single night and will continue! It’s like bar night at college, everyone stands around and talks! I’m still meeting new people each night with random connections! So fun.