Super Bowl on a Monday

Whatsup everybody?!?!?!

As you are reading this we are currently 13 hours ahead of you all back in Oklahoma. Yeah I said ahead…like in the future…weird huh?!?! (If this doesn’t make sense read my last blog about the International Date Line and it will all make sense)

The picture above is one from my first night in Hilo. This is the group of 10 of us that hung out all night and hitchhiked. Freaking awesome group of people to chill with! On the back from left to right you have Kaylee, Grace, Me, and Scott. Middle row from left to right is Rorrie, Courtney, Cosset, Eric, and Emily. Then all alone in front is Sarah. Like I said we all hung out all night and if you wanna read about it check out my Hilo blog and I went through the night in detail. Great night and great group of people!!

Shout Outs!!! (as called by Ms. Kayla Willis herself): Alex – dude you know you are gunna come to OU…it will be one of the best decisions of your life!!!! And yeah everyone at OU calls in “The Caf.” So you were right. Zumba is awesome!! Like I really think that I will miss it after the ship haha. I don’t think there are videos but if I get my hands on one then I will totally snag it to show you when I get back!! Thanx for your prayers brotha…can’t wait to get back and chill with you this summer!! Kayla – You always get a “Shout Out” if you comment, or if I have an experience where something relates to someone…so here is your Shout Out!! Zumba is so Tight!! And since the boat rocks, we have to keep our balance a lot better which works out our abbs and calves even more. I will pass on the skirt though…although me and my friend Austin totally get into it…duh!! It’s way more fun if you don’t care and just do it! No promises on cage diving tho…you never know what could happen lol. Uncle John – oh Uncle John. The score speaks for itself…although I do believe I predicted the outcome perfectly. For more Super Bowl talk just continue reading please. As far as “Smith Intensity” in card games goes, definitely keeping it intense! I mean my parents raised me that way so I gotta make momma proud and dominate!! Thank you for your prayers Uncle John!! They are greatly appreciated!! Love you guys!!

The other night we had our first Sea Party. I guess I should probably explain what a “sea” is first though huh? Basically all the students are split up into like 8 or 9 “seas” based on where we live on the ship. For example my section of the ship is the Mediterranean Sea. We have a Living Learning Coordinator assigned to each sea and mine is really cool! She has actually sailed on one of the summer voyages with SAS so she is also experienced with how everything works. So anyway we had our first social last night and decided to rent out the big union room (biggest room on ship) and watch a movie and get free cookies and popcorn. Sidenote - I don’t even like popcorn but it was something new so I ended up eating a whole bag haha. They actually picked the movie before I showed up and they picked a great one. Top Gun baby!!!!!!! Ahhhh such a good movie!! I sat by one of my friends and she had never seen it before and I was like “What?!?! Who hasn’t seen Top Gun?!?!?” At the end of the movie she was like “How have I never seen this?!? That was so good!!” Great movie and a great first Sea Party, just another group of people that is easy to socialize with and get to know!

Since the last time I wrote you all the sea have definitely gotten rougher. Apparently we detoured around another storm so that we wouldn’t get clobbered. I think it’s funny that our voyage theme is “sustainability” yet we have detoured hundreds of miles out of the way twice now, wasting who knows how much fuel, all so some city slickers don’t get rocked around. Ironic? I think so!! Hahahaha I really don’t care either way, it’s just funny that they are like “be sustainable” and everything we do has this central theme, all while in fact we are being “unsustainable.” Oh well the point is the seas are back to knocking us around again. Honestly I don’t even notice it anymore. It’s just second nature to walk around holding onto something and you don’t even notice it at night. They told us the other day that the waves were over 15 feet high and that is like what the little ones are. The really big ones that happen a couple times a minute are easily double that. Between Ensenada and Hawaii the waves were hitting us from the sides so we were rocking side to side, now we are going head on into them so it is more like turbulence on an airplane while constantly going up and down. So it’s definitely a different type of rocking. Honestly we have been amazingly lucky with the weather so far and there is no reason at all to complain. It is starting to get chilly now so there aren’t very many people in shorts anymore.

The other day for lunch they served French fries and you should have seen people devouring those fries. It literally was like pigs feasting!! After the same basic stuff over and over again it was an awesome surprise. They also served these like thicker hot dog style things that were delicious. Definitely the closest thing to American food we all had eaten in awhile and it was sooooooo good!! Ahhhhh French fries!!!!!

As far is school work goes everything is pretty routine at this point, a lot of reading and basic college homework/studying but nothing too too hard. We actually just took our first Global Studies test last night and I hope I did well. It was weird cause everyone on the ship had the same test to study for so the night before was pretty dead on the ship. I don’t really care for Global Studies cause it is way boring and I get too easily distracted. My other classes are AMAZING tho! Marine Biology is my favorite class because the material is the most interesting and I don’t mind doing the reading and stuff. My other favorite class is Sociology of Global Travel and my teacher might just be the coolest teacher in the world. Her name is Audrey and she is so TIGHT!! The class is very engaging and she will always like stop and chat if she sees us around the ship. She always says that she like chilling with the students because we offer differing perspectives and are more engaging. My American Politics teacher is cool too but I just get really bored in class. The teacher is tight though and interesting to talk to outside of class. I have never had teachers like these 3 before and it just adds to this once in a lifetime experience. Like I said I just took my first test and I don’t know how I did, but the cool thing is all the stuff I have learned. I never pull information out of a lecture like I am here. It’s just a totally different environment. Some stuff is small and totally random but it is genuinely interesting information.

This morning we got to watch the Super Bowl!! Yeah I said in the morning. Because we are 13 hours ahead of you all, like I said earlier, the game started at 8:30 in the morning for us. On a Monday!!!! How crazy is that?!?! I watched the Super Bowl on Monday morning!!! Haha one more thing to add to the list of weird things I have done. They streamed the game into the Union and since it took up so much bandwidth they didn’t let anyone else on the internet during the game. The Union was packed!! All the seats were full and there were people sitting on the floor and in the aisles. It was so awesome! And everyone was like “Yes football!” Very, very cool atmosphere. Oh and by the way…I picked the Saints by 14 in an earlier blog. Boom I was right!! Sorry Uncle John...better luck next year!

By the time you all are reading this I will be in Japan!! The whole ship is freaking stoked to finally get off the ship after 11 days sailing from Hawaii and it is Japan!! We are so close we can taste it!! Ahhhhhh it’s gunna be so awesome!!

Love you all and hope everything is going great!!

T