Update continuation

It's weird not being home after being home all summer...and it may be even more weird that I'm actually here right now. But it's awesome so far. I've had a wonderful time and I've met friends that I know I'll have for the rest of my life. Currently, I'm sitting on deck 5 aft in the shade from the deck above writing people emails and listening to the sound of the waves and the humming of the engine below. Did you know there's 44,000 horsepower in this ship? That's CRAZY! I would love to see the engine room one day...I wonder if that would be at all possible. I'm starting to get used to the rocking of the ship now, but it's still waking me up in the middle of the night. I keep having dreams about the ship sinking, or it flipping on its side and I shoot up out of bed. I guess that is what some may call a slight case of paranoia. It's neat being able to wake up every morning to the sun shining through our window and being surrounded by nothing but blue sky and blue water. We see the occasional mega barge here and there, and sometimes we pass some unknown island, but other than that, there is nothingness. It truly makes me feel like a speck of sand floating around somewhere in our huge universe.

The only thing I don't like is not being able to know what's going on back home. Yes, we have access to CNN.com and things like that, but I didn't even know that McCain picked his VP OR that she was a woman until two days after the fact. I felt so out of the loop of things. I think that was a pretty ballsy move on his part...I don't know whether I'm for or against it now. This presidential election is definitely going to be one for the record books. I'm glad that I'll be able to vote via absentee ballot for it. Speaking of politics and elections, I think I'm joining the Elections Committee. We're going to be in charge of educating the entire ship on the candidates, their VP's and what their political positions on issues are. I figured the best way to learn what I don't know is to join this club cause they're going to educate us before we educate anyone else.

On that same note, I signed up for Intramural Volleyball, Yoga, the Spirituality and Diversity club, the Health and Wellness club, and I think a few others. We'll see how many I actually will have time for figuring my classes are already more demanding and time consuming than I thought they would be. But hey, this is the best education I'll ever get...it might as well be difficult. I've had all my classes at least once now and I really am interested in them all. I have 2 classes on A days and 2 classes on B days. My first class is at 9:20-10:35 on A days and it's called Religion, Politics and Society. It's one out of a choice of two core courses each student has to take. You have the option of taking both, but I'm fine with taking just the one! I may attend the other one a few times (The Rise of New Great Powers), but I won't enroll in the class. My second class on A days is called Introduction to Anthropology. It's basically what the title says. My professor seems awesome and a little cooky, but hey, she makes the time go fast and her class was entertaining. That one is from 2:20-3:35 on A days as well.

My first of 2 B day classes is at 10:45 and it's called The Psychology of Food and Culture. Again, another awesome class. It's a mix of psychology, sociology, and anthropology that somehow seamlessly blends food and culture together across those disciplines. And finally, my last class on B days is called Race and Ethnicity. It's a sociology class that is going to move at an extremely rapid pace. I haven't taken a sociology class yet in college, so thankfully I took Sociology my senior year of high school and actually paid attention and still remember the basics. My professor, Dr. Scott, is amazing...extremely left in her views (which I noticed a lot of my professors are) so I was afraid that she would teach with that attitude, but she told us from the get go that she leaves her political beliefs outside of the classroom. I wonder why it is that a majority of my professors I've ever had, even at a school like Christopher Newport, are so far left? Maybe I'll be able to sit down with a few of them and discuss it.

The food has been pretty good so far. I'll give it a 7 out of 10 right now. It seems like all we do is eat, go to class, nap, eat, go to class, eat, read/do homework, and sleep. I don't think I'll be able to keep that pattern up for too long without exercising or else I'll pack on a few pounds! My rationale is that I'll get plenty of exercise in the ports we go to...AND that the rocking of the ship makes me use muscles I haven't ever had to use before. Speaking of ports, I'm really looking forward to Brazil. We've been learning so much about their culture and history these past few days in each of my classes that I have a new found enthusiasm to visit Salvador. We learned all about the slave trade from North West Africa to the Bahia area in Brazil today in my Core class. Did you know that 50% of all slaves shipped from Africa ended up in Brazil, 37% ended up in the Caribbean, and only 5% ended up in all of North America? I had no idea...I just assumed that a majority came to the US...see what education does? It kills those assumptions and replaces them with fact. I feel like I'm going to be having quite a few of those "ah hah" moments over the next 3 months when the light bulb just goes off over my head and a little voice inside me goes "DUH". I'll keep you posted on anymore of those.

I wish you could see how blue the water is. It's a blue I've never seen before. Take a beautiful royal blue color and mix it with a splash of aqua and that's the color of the ocean that I'm surrounded by. The waves haven't been too big, but the ship still likes to rock a bit. Two nights ago the waves were bigger than normal and a ton of people were getting sea sick. There was a point when you could jump up at the peak of the ship listing to one side and defy gravity for a few seconds longer than normal as it listed to the other side. How much fun does that sound? Good thing I don't get sea sick! Well, I think that's all of the update that I can give right now. All the people I've met so far have been wonderful and I've found the core group of friends that I'll be doing a majority of my activities with. I'll keep you posted on any new happenings over the next few days.

Love you,
Amanda