The International Date Line is Crazy!!!

Greeting from the middle of the Pacific!

Heard Edmond just survived ice/snow storm #2 this winter so I hope you all enjoyed that. My dad informed me that Shaun White 3-peated at the Winter X Games and I am super mad I didn’t get the chance to see his run. But oh well, there will always be YouTube when I get back to the states!! I just hope he carries through the Olympics and stays healthy enough to bring home another U.S. Gold baby!!

Alright you guys and your comments are hilarious!! Love it!! Nat Attack – Girl you totally know I will be your dance party date!! You just gotta ask! I wouldn’t call it planning…simply deciding what I am going to do and then people wanting to tag along cause I know what I am doing haha. And congrats on no injuries, I must say I am impressed! Although Chris says you are lying… Courtney – Love you too Sista!! Daryl – Thanx man!! Hope all is well with the family, miss you guys!! Sara – whoa whoa whoa…you are definitely still the dancing diva, don’t pin your title on me haha! You would rub it in that I can’t watch criminal minds…but that is good to know that it is still going strong and the episodes are good!! That’s a bummer that you didn’t get to go to Denver, but I am sure Chicago will be stinking awesome!! God is good and that is so cool that He provided for you! Esther – duh…Latin Dancing is sooooo AWESOME…don’t be hatin!! I’m not struggling as much as I thought I would, but a couple of the steps take some serious practice to get down. And yeah that is totally cool that you gave your friend this website…not a problem at all. A lot of people are giving it out to friends and stuff so that is all good! And we will just see, it might be too hard for Kayla to figure out with an OSU education…haha just kidding…well kinda. Chris – dude I totally know what you mean, sometimes Natalie has to be put in her place….haha jk Nat, you know I love ya! Yeah touché, 6:1 is definitely good numbers…and last night it was more like 12:1 cause a lot more people came and even fewer guys lol. Yeah everyone loves the shirt…I just need you here wearing yours so we can rock em together! Wes – you would about the girl comment haha…dude I miss you and mike man. Definitely wish I could have been there for the LOST watch party, and haha I knew you would get hooked eventually!! Oh and thanx for not ruining it…I appreciate it bro. I actually was just with Kaylin and I told her “hey” for ya and she says “hey” back!

Oh and my wonderful little sister Courtney (don’t know what I would do without her sometimes) and Sara have informed me that I need to explain the pictures I put up…like what was going on in them and who was in them with me. The above picture for this blog is of a group of us right after the huge group picture. We wanted to take advantage of the blue sky (I still think nothing tops a perfect Western Texas sky on a good day), really pretty water, and great weather. From left to right you have Courtney, Emily, Amy, Edwin (he is one of the British kids with a crazy cool accent!!), and then me on the end. We all took a bunch of pics with our friends after the big group picture and this is one of the ones I like the best!!

So the other day we crossed the International Date Line. This line is the other half of the prime meridian which acts as a line of longitude toward the middle of the Pacific. The cool thing about this line is that since we are moving from east to west across the line we lost a day of our lives. Literally when I went to bed last night it was Tuesday, February 2, but when I woke up this morning it was Thursday, February 4. Weird huh?!?!?!? February 3, 2010 did not exist for us on the ship. Okay so I know you all are like how is that even possible. Well here is my best explanation. As we are moving around the world we are continually changing time zones; because of the direction we are going, every time we cross a time-zone we fall back an hour (which by the way is really nice cause we keep getting extra hours of sleep…it’s awesome!). However this also presents a problem. How can we travel around the world and continually keep gaining hours without ever losing them? The answer…we cross the International Date Line and simply lose a whole day!!!!! So a couple days ago I was like 6-7 hours behind all of you people back in the states, but now I am like 17-18 ahead of all you guys. Haha SAWEET!!! So now everytime we “fall-back” an hour as we move from time zone to time zone, we are simply moving closer and closer to the time that it is back in the States. So I know this might not make complete sense because let’s face it, I’m no expert….but this is the best I can do in trying to explain it. Hope you guys understood all that haha.

Last blog I briefly mentioned how once we got back on the ship after Hawaii everyone got much more settled in and it is starting to feel more routine and more like a college campus. People are actually having to do homework and study because papers are due, quizzes are happening, and even some tests are starting to happen. Other people have gotten into similar routines such as working out and eating schedules. It’s also really cool because when people aren’t doing homework there are card games and all kinds of board games going on. Austin and I joke that shipboard life consists of sleeping, eating the same food over and over, doing homework, and playing cards. I have found people that are very good at spades so that was exciting!! Then I found out that Courtney knows how to play Gin and she is really good so that is cool cause that is another card game that I can play with her. Oh and I also found a girl who knows how to play Screw Your Buddy!! (for those of you that aren’t familiar with this game, it is just a card game that is very similar to spades…if you thought differently then please remove your head form the gutter hahahaha). So yeah the card game groups are in full swing and it is really nice cause you just kinda walk through the piano lounge and you can find a game to jump into, and you are always playing with a different group of people so that is a great way to meet more people (although I think I scared this one girl yesterday because I got super competitive over a spades game, guess Newkirk and Daryl have rubbed off on me…haha who am I kinding, Smith’s are just too competitive lol). Oh and Egyptian Rat Screw is also a very popular game on the ship!!

I told you all last time that all the clubs and organizations were getting started. Well since then I have also joined/started two new ones. There is the one group called Zoomba that I joined and it is crazy awesome!! I had never heard of Zoomba before but apparently it is like a big thing in some parts of the country. What it is, is a type of “workout dance.” Now you are probably thinking what I was originally thinking, “So it’s like Taebo right?” At first this was my thought process and I was not too interested in going to do Taebo. Let me just tell you, I am really glad I decided to go get involved cause it was nothing like Taebo. The girl who organized it and is our “instructor/leader” started out by saying, “Alright if you have never done Zoomba, you are going to be sore tomorrow!” I was like alright this must be legit then!! Basically you do aerobic dance moves to really upbeat music. Stuff like really upbeat Latin style music and then also stuff really similar to Boom Boom Pow by Black Eyed Peas. It was super intense! All of us were like drenched in sweat by the end of the hour. The biggest muscles that I think that it worked out (at least) in my case, are your abs, upper thighs, quads, and back muscles. So we do that on every B day from now on and it is soooooooo fun and surprisingly a very effective workout. And it’s also very fun with a bunch of friends doing it with me.

In addition to Zoomba I am also still doing Latin Dancing which just happens to be right after Zoomba…so basically we all just walk from Zoomba across the ship to Latin Dancing. Most people who are doing Zoomba also do Latin Dancing so it is a lot of the same people, which is cool cause we are getting to know them all really well. Between the two I am definitely getting a serious workout and not being just a big lazy bum on the ship haha. Oh and intramurals start today/tomorrow!! Right now we are doing intramural basketball and volleyball. I didn’t sign up for basketball (if you have even seen me with a basketball you know why, my brother got all the basketball genes in the family haha) but I am on a volleyball team. It is coed so our team name is Team Lightening Rod and it consists of Adam, Austin, Nicci, Theresa, Michelle, Tammy, and me. Our first game is tomorrow and it is gunna be intense!! So I am definitely involved in plenty of things to keep me busy besides school.

Yesterday was a NO CLASS day aboard the ship; what this means is that it was neither an A nor a B day and there were no classes scheduled. On all of our large stretches of sailing, they give us a day off in the middle so that we aren’t just swamped with school work and get overwhelmed. The ship took this first No Class Day as an opportunity to take the ship wide photo since we had a sunny day and good weather. It actually went pretty smoothly considering they took a picture of 700+ students and faculty. And it was also school pictures day where you take a picture with the other people from your university so everyone was decked out in their school gear. It was a great day for pictures, the sun was out, no clouds, and relatively calm seas compared to what we have been having haha. They took the picture with all of us tiered on the back decks of the ship and the camera above all of us looking down. It was actually a really tight setup for a pic…I’m sure my dad and Mr. Wilson would have approved haha.

Then last night we had our first movie night in the Union. They showed JAWS on the bigger Union projector and we actually had good audio, rather than watching movies on our laptops like we have been doing. It was totally optional but there were around 150 people that showed up and it was a lot of fun! I had never seen Jaws in its entirety and surprisingly neither had a lot of people!! It’s always funny to me at like certain parts when everyone in the audience is leaning forward and then they all jump back at the same time at a jumpy part. I mean you know it’s coming…so why does it still make you jump haha?!?! Oh and I also didn’t know that it shows JAWS dismantle a shark diving cage with a guy in it. Yeah my buddy turns to me and goes “Hey aren’t you doing that in South Africa? How does that make you feel?” I was like “Yep I sure am, although I wish I didn’t just watch that haha.” But oh well I’m totally still doing it!! I need an adrenaline fix…sky diving was like 2 years ago!!

The days are going by a little faster now with the increased school work load and all the various activities going on, but there is still the unreal conception of there being “no-time” on the ship. I mean we just do so much in a day that it is so confusing what happened yesterday or this morning. It’s really cool!! But I have talked about that before so enough of that.

The other day I was reflecting on the beauty of Hawaii and comparing it to the wide open ocean. The differences are staggering but one thing remains constant, the evidence of God’s hands crafting both in their entirety. I mean c’mon, it’s indescribably and staggering to think about!! In Nehemiah 9:5-6, it says “Blessed be your glorious name, and may it be exalted above all blessing and praise.” Take this verse at face value, how can we keep silent and not praise the God who created everything around us?!? Look around, God created everything (or put the idea in someone’s head to create it). He is worthy to be praised. Even the heavens and rocks cry out. We should constantly and unceasingly be treating God the way He deserves…with praise from Everlasting to Everlasting!!

I hope everything is going well with all of you reading this! I appreciate all of your guys’ prayers!! You all are awesome and I don’t know what I would do without you.

I love you guys and am praying for each and every one of you!!

T