Rockin' and Readin'

This morning (June 17) we woke up at about 7:00am to the ship rocking. It has been the most extreme rocking that we have experienced so far! All of my stuff on the night table flew onto the floor, the room was creaking, and the drawers were opening and slamming shut every few seconds! It was crazy, and not the best wake up call. We lost an hour of sleep last night so my alarm didn’t wake me up, the rocking did.
Today was the first day of classes. After waking up late, I ate a cliff bar and Shea and I headed to out Intercultural Communications class. It is a pretty small class, about 50 of us, and it doesn’t seem like it will be rough, thankfully.  Since we were close to being late to class, the only seats empty were in the very front row, where we had to look up at the teacher. Hopefully that won’t happen tomorrow ☺ Next, we went to Global Studies, the class everyone is in together. Our teacher is so funny and has a dry sense of humor and great stories. He sings in random languages and it’s just hilarious. To start off, we have a quiz over the Mediterranean map (which is a great idea because that’s where we will be going!) and he lectured a little bit. We learned about the Greeks and gods. A lot of stuff that was mentioned today I learned in my Intro to Poetry class last semester, so I felt pretty comfortable. We learned about “The Mediterranean Memory” and Mnemosyne, the goddess of memory. He told us the story about Minotaur and how and why he was trapped in the labyrinth. We talked about certain battles and events that occurred in the places we are going. I think that it ‘s way more interesting learning about something that you are going to get to see. In regular college and high school, you learn about history from other countries that you may never go to, so it can be a bit boring. But since we are going to the place of birth of many things we learned about today, it keeps me interested and excited. For example, in Istanbul, there is a metal column called The Serpent Column. It was made by victorious Greeks who took it and placed it in their city for decoration and dedications to the gods at Delphi. It is metal and looks like two roped twisted together, standing up tall. . Lastly, I went to Global Music. It is about 30 students and I’m most excited about this class. Our teacher majored in ethnomusicology (Dr. Kaloyandies) and specializes in Greek music. Ethnomusicology is defined as the study of music in a culture. World music is defined as musical fusion from many cultures. He said that the objective of this class is to become open-minded about musical types and to overcome the judgments of certain music. In each port, we have to take notes on how we saw music and even how we engaged ourselves into musical performances. During class (which is going to be really fun and entertaining) he played a type of Greek music called “Rebetika”. It is said to be the music of the criminals and is referred to as “blues from Greece”.  We will get to see people performing everywhere! As he played this really odd sounding, but pretty, music, he danced a certain dance and it was fun to watch. He seems very into this class and he seems like a great teacher. I’m most excited for this class!
Now that my classes are over (8-12pm), I just had lunch with a girl from TCU and one from Carnegie Melon. They live in my hall! I’m about to start studying my little map for the quiz and then read an article for Global Music. The article is about the first musical instrument ever found, a flute, 35,000 years ago!! After that, Shea and I will probably wonder around and just hang out with everyone. It is so fun here, like a vacation with 700 new friends. Maybe I’ll go get some chocolate ice cream or a fruit smoothie, YUM!