my first break :)

Things are starting to settle down a little bit. Yesterday was the first day I didn’t have meetings and commitments all day long, so I actually got to join the students out on the deck and catch some sunshine! I’m actually starting to feel quite spoiled. It’s amazing when you look out from any deck on the ship and all you can see is water for thousands of miles in every direction. It’s so peaceful and beautiful. The water is such a deep dark blue. I wish I could swim in it. Today is gorgeous, the sun is shining and it’s really warm. All the skinny white kids are out on the deck trying to get a tan while they study. (Don’t worry, Mom, I brought sunscreen!)

The activities fair was Thursday and Jennifer and I had 175 students sign up to be ambassadors. That’s over 1/3 of the student body! Wow. We decided to split up the group, and I’m now in charge of the Ambassador’s Ball. We had a meeting last night and already elected our two co-chairs and all the subcommittee chairs. I was pretty excited that my two co-chairs both have event planning backgrounds (does high-school prom count? lol) and they both want to be event planners, so from both a career counseling perspective and logistical sense, we definitely chose the right people. So far the theme they came up with is Bollywood, which ties in really nicely with our trip to India, especially since some of the students are film majors and will be meeting Indian actors and studying Indian filmmaking while we’re there. Plus, the decorations we can buy in India will be amazing…

Tomorrow we port in Hawaii for just one day. I think we are all looking forward to land (even though we are all pretty accustomed to the movement of the ship by now). No big plans for Hawaii, just want to get out and walk, do a little shopping and play around in the water. Tonight we are playing Texas Hold ‘Em up in the faculty/staff lounge (finally we have a break from chaperoning the after-hours parties that the students have nearly every night on the back decks!) Last night we played catch-phrase up there; it’s a great place for us to get away and also to bond with the other staff – there are some really amazing, fun people on this voyage (students, too, but they’re not allowed up there). And it just kills them that there might be something going on up there that they can’t do. Hehehe.