The world in our Hands

The world in our Hands

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Part Two: Initial Shipboard life: Hold on to your chairs!

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I am totally off the grid for a while. No Internet, no phone. I know my parents are close by but I have no way of reaching them to tell them that we push off at 8 tonight. As it gets darker, I feel weirder. It was fun walking around the ship and setting up my room with my newest roomie Meghan (my 3rd Meg roommate in three years.) People are all still getting to know each other; most people didn’t know anyone. It’s a little lonely because there are groups of people who stick together and even though we are all in one place everyone is doing their own thing.

We're off!!!!!!!

I am currently wearing my seabands, drinking ginger ale, wearing a patch and I’ve just taking Dramamine. The ship is really rocky. People key hitting the walls. There is no sun out, we are in a tiny little storm – light rain fall, rough waters and everything is gray. People are throwing up left and right and EVERYONE feels ill. Walking around feels like walking around in a plane during turbulence, you’re light on your feet one second, and then the ground is pushing up at you the next. The chairs are sliding around the decks.

First day of classes today. Last night we got a huge game of Scattegories going which was really fun. I had a difficult night sea-sickness wise, but we saw birds for the first time in days which means that we close to land. We docked in Puetro Rico for a few hours to refuel. As soon as the boat got into the harbor and stopped moving, I got “landsick.” I do hope this goes away completely, and soon. We keep seeing rainstorms off in the distance and sometimes we go through them and it pours rain for 20 minutes and flood the decks and then we get out of it. Yesterday we saw something pretty remarkable. It was a huge double rainbow very close to us and because there was no land to get in the way, it’s reflection on the water formed a complete rainbow circle. I’m convinced that if we’d taken a left, we would have sailed through it and entered an alternate universe. It was at the peak of sunset too and so everyone came running out. I hear they let people out of classes if a whale or a school of dolphins are in sight. I have met a bunch of California kids, and also a ton from Mass. We’ve only been out at sea for three days but it feels like a month. The semester is going to zip by but at the same time I know that the experience will age me much more than 3.5 months.

THINGS IVE LEARNED:

The great wall would stretch from Manhattan to Texas
Maps are liars and they give us biases toward other countries who are “below” and appear smaller in size comparatively
We have a deaf student on board with an interpreter
The key to success here is getting up early
Boats stay afloat because they are full of air and therefore are lighter than the water.

One of my professors is so excellent I can’t stand it! He looks like he grew up in Topanga and spent at least half the class teaching us a Tai Chi routine he came up with himself designed for college students with limited physical space.

I’ve finally gotten over my seasickness enough to feel hunger and get work done. It was crazy yesterday. The waves were so big that people as well as furniture were falling over. People kept running out of class to throw up. I wonder how big the waves have to get before they cancel classes. It is such a strange experience to be sitting in class and needing to hold on the table to keep from falling off your chair. The professors can't easily move from the board to the computer, and one professor actually fell over while teaching. Not getting distracted is virtually impossible. Staff members were standing at the back of rooms with airplane vomit bags in their hands to give out. I went to see the doctor the other day because I was hallucinating. She told me that I have been overdosing on seasickness meds. Oops.

Its weird seeing waves that don’t have anything to crash on to. They just kind of slosh around and resemble the insides of my stomach. White tips mean rough seas. We were told that rough seas at this point is unusual, normally its smooth sailing until the atlantic. Lucky us!

There is a girl in one of my classes from China. (There are a bunch of international students here – Ive met people from all over Asia including India and Singapore, as well as from Brail, Venezuela, Canada, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan). Her English is so limited that she carries around a translator. It occurred to me the other day how interesting it is that when we are in port, it doesn’t matter in the slightest. Even though her native language is Mandarin and mine is English, we will both be at a loss to communicate with people from the countries we visit. Her culture may be different from mine, but both of them are different from the ones we will be living in. We are all outsiders here.

The idea of “in the same boat” has really sunk in.  What I like most about it is the way it gets rid of the distinction between “work day” and “after hours.” Instead of writing down phone numbers for group projects, we write down cabin numbers. Every day we are eating breakfast with the professors whose classes we are about to attend and the same is true of lunch and dinner. Even if it is 8 o clock at night I can walk up to the ship's doctor in the piano bar and ask her a medical question. We are all away from our families, we are all feeling the effects of the sea and we are all grateful for the same things. My definition of community is changing. Its not about whose job is what or when they are supposed to it. Students, faculty and staff are all a family here. Office hours are 24/7. If a friend has something to say to you, they knock on your door. There is no texting, all communication is face-to-face.

It is also completely acceptable to sit down at a table with someone you don’t know at dinner and have a conversation. Each meal is like Emerson when its crowded and you awkwardly have to share tables. Minus the awkwardness. Empty space is a rare commodity.




2 comments:

Unknown said...

Your pictures continue to astound me. They are GORGEOUS!!!!! Love you and miss you......your maasha

CarolNanRothBrum said...

Wow, Jen! Love your update and the pictures are magnificent. So glad you are feeling better and enjoying Manaus & the Amazon! Stay in touch!
love you, ESM