Getting to Know the Sea

First full day at Sea (01/20/06). And what a day it was. From a geography professor that stripped off layers of clothing to prove a point to Student Life orientation, it was a day with a serious agenda. Thankfully, those days are numbered. School beings today (01/21/06)!

On the ship there are A days and there are B days. Geography is the one course that meets each day for an hour and a half. This class will be incredibly exciting. Dr. Sam Sheldon is the Global Studies official professor. However, he also draws upon the talents from the other incredibly talented and impressively diverse body of 26 other faculty members. He sets the tone for the course and from there, we will hear from anywhere from 1-3 faculty members, guest lecturers, and even students on a daily basis. The overall theme of the course is “Globalization and Localization.” These are incredibly relevant and controversial topics. Everything we do and study revolves around the countries we are visiting. On Monday we will dock in the port of San Juan, PR. On Saturday we will hear from a guest lecturer and will be briefed on the cultural customs and different ways of life on the island. Believe it or not, Puerto Rico is an incredibly diverse island; from Africa to the Western Caribbean, its resident draw their ways of life from deep historical roots from all around the world.

One of the professor’s on board the ship is a native of PR and we will be hearing from her on Sunday. The one thing about doing a Semester at Sea is that your classes meet each day you are at sea. There is really no official weekend, however when you are in port, classes do not meet, so breaks range from 2-6 days at a time.

As far as the ship goes, this is quite the floating University. Lounges and pianos, a union that doubles as a disco, a store, a library, and a fully equipped fitness facility, onboard, there really isn’t much we’re missing. O wait…I forgot to mention the 9 classrooms. These window lined and spacious rooms, are fully loaded with top notch technology equipment, ranging from flat screen TVs, to projectors and even an inter-ship network that can show video being taped in the Union, live to all the other “Satellite” classrooms.

So far, I really can’t complain about the food. Tonight at dinner there was grilled Mahi-Mahi. There have been plenty of great vegetable selections and there seems to be a fish served each night with dinner. The first night was broiled Pollock. There are two main dining halls and all meals are served buffet style. You can eat on one of the two decks with tables and chairs that are on decks 5 and 6, but there is also plenty of room to dine inside. There is also a pool on the 7th deck with tables, chairs, and a bar that serves fresh smoothies and other enjoyable treats that bring the feeling of “home” to the ship. The crew on board this vessel is absolutely amazing. They go out of their way to do what they can to help you, and are just painfully happy while doing so. You know something, people are really too happy around this damn ship. In NY, you just can’t go around and happy all the time, its pretty much impossible. And even more so, even if you are happy, that certainly doesn’t mean all the people around you are going to be also. It feels weird when there is not a range of emotion running about thousands of people.

I’m going to close this post with some very interesting demographics that make up this ship.
Students: 684
Adult Passengers: 19
Faculty: 27
Staff: 33
Partial Voyagers: 8
Crew: 203

Total people onboard the MV Explorer: exactly 1,000.

There are 134 Business Majors, 73 Communications Majors, 71 Psychology majors, and ranking fourth is of course the great study of Political Science standing tall with 42 students. There are 262 Universities and Colleges represented onboard, with a student body stretching from the US to China, and Colombia to Latvia, from Canada to Japan and Singapore to Israel; in addition to charting the globe we also have quite the cross-cultural student body onboard. There are 121 students from California, 99 from Pennsylvania, 41 from Colorado, 41 New Yorkers, 32 New Jersians, 31 from Mass., 26 Washingtonians, 22 ridiculous Texans, and of course, the reason for the big list…20 students from the great state of Connecticut. Which really, when you think about it, is quite impressive considering its overall size and population in comparison to the other states that make up the top 8.

We’re supposed to be encountering some rougher seas come Saturday night, Sunday. I’m with the group that cheers on the big waves and swells while all the weak stomached folk lay low and stay as far from the front (bow) of the ship as possible. That’s all for now; good day mate.