Forgot to mention

11.25.12

Yeah I did forget to mention- as one last incentive for people to
donate-we are e-mailing those who did donate two new ringtones!

Semester at Sea has had them for 2 years and has never given them out!
One is the Bing Bong (which is totally going to be my text ring!!) And
the other is the honking of the ship's horn! (Which is going to be my
Alarm!) :D People are going to look at me funny, but also be pretty
scared if all of a sudden I'm having a sleep over and they wake up to a
blaring horn! :P

SH

Week of the Shipboard Drive!!! :)

11.24.12

So as everyone knows, I have a work study position on the ship, and my
group worked on the Shipboard Drive, a week long fundraiser. Well, the
week in between Rio de Janeiro and Manaus is when it took place!

We also had a spirit week during this, and we made a Mind The Gap
Thermometer of how much money we raised, those who donated got to color
in a life ring and we glued it to this sign, and we had a participation
percent thermometer as well!

The first day went remarkably well-we had over 50% participation the
first day! (We also may have bribed people with stickers and cookies,
but that's beside the point!) The next days were much slower, but we
made the incentive that if we got 50% participation, we would have
another Taco Day before Manaus! (We kept it a secret for a couple days
because we didn't want people to just reach the incentives and stop
donating, you know?) Taco day happened, and it was nice because the
food on the ship this week hadn't been too great!

The third night we had the Auction...which went fabulous! We raised
over $28,000!!! People waited outside for at least an hour to get good
seats! Also, some of the most expensive items were over double that of
the average of previous voyages! The Captain's Map, the Captain's Hat,
a Semester at Sea Flag, and Shadowing Dean John for a day were all over
$1,000 or $2,000! How crazy is that?! The air was so chaotic, but so
exciting too! I was Kate's right hand man for the night, so I basically
did whatever she needed me to do. :) So at first I was just hanging out
with her, and then she had me go around and write down the second
highest bidder information-that way if something happens with the
winner, we can offer it to them. This was by far one of the most fun
nights on the ship!

After the auction, things really slowed down a little bit, so we started
writing hand notes to people, which actually worked pretty well! We had
a competition between the seas, and we had 2 seas reach 100%! The first
was the Arabian, the second was the biggest sea, Aegean! What an
accomplishment that our biggest sea could come together and have
everyone donate to Semester at Sea! I don't have exact numbers, but I
do know that we have raised the most money out of every SAS voyage! We
even had the most money raised before the Shipboard Auction! I think we
have a total of around or over $67,000!!! What an accomplishment, and
thanks to everyone who donated on our behalf! :) When I have official
numbers, I'll definitely post them! :D

Well there was something every night during the Shipboard Drive too,
after the Auction. The first night after the Auction was the Crew
Talent Show...it was so good! People waited in line for up to 2 hours!!
All the crew members that we have come to know and love were up showing
us their talents! There were native dances, a comedian, and bands too.
It was an amazing night and everyone had a great time! I got everything
on video, so I can't wait to upload a couple acts!

Then two nights later we had the Shipboard Talent Show! Again, people
had lined up for hours to get good seats! A lot of people sang, played
instruments, and me, Ali, and Colleen made a parody to the song "Baby
Got Back" and called it "Baby Got Ship." We started laughing so much
during the song, but everyone liked it! The little girls on the ship
did a dance, and the atmosphere was very supporting and excited! I
loved every minute of it! One guy sang a song by Josh Grobin- You Raise
Me Up, and it reminded me so much of home and STEM because of my friends
Adam and Kim!

Our last night before we got to Manaus, we had our very own Thanksgiving
dinner. Everyone lined up like they did with Taco Day, and the dinner
was pretty good! We all had tons of turkey, they had mac n cheese, some
potatoes, but they had pumpkin pie!! I definitely ate my fair share the
past two days, between Taco Day and Thanksgiving haha. But I had dinner
with my family, and I had a great time! :)

Overall, this week was by far one of the most crazy/hectic, but most fun
weeks I've had on the ship! I love my work study group and life on the
ship! :)

I think that's all that happened, but if I forgot something, I'll add it
later!

SH

Happy Thanksgiving!

11.22.12

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY WONDERFUL BROTHER NATE!!! :) Also, Happy
Thanksgiving everyone!! We had our Thanksgiving meal last night since a
lot of people don't come back to the ship for meals! I'm going to
discuss it more later when I write about this previous week.

However, I had a field lab today- BEST DAY EVER. I HELD A SLOTH!!!! :D

You all know I'll write more about it, but seriously, best day ever
because I held a sloth!!!

SH

Rest of Uruguay!

11.21.12

Sooo I definitely forget to talk about the rest of Montevideo, I was so
caught up in mine and Amy's rock story! haha.

Well the first day I wasn't feeling that great,but I had an open ship.
I helped lead a tour of the MV Explorer to a really nice couple who live
in Montevideo. They were awesome and wrote down several things that we
should go do while our stay in Uruguay. I'm still in contact with
Sarah-Jane because her one of her sons is looking at the University of
Virginia for college, and she is looking into seeing if he can attend
Semester at Sea!!! After the open ship tour, we basically just walked
around. In one of the main squares, we saw a TV show that was filming!
It was a Uruguayan soap opera apparently lol. Then we saw this street
performer who was a cellist! We stopped to watch, and he even let me
play a little! (but of course, I forgot just about everything when I was
put on the spot!) I tried to go back and find him another day after I
found some of my old music online, but I was not able to see him again. :/

The next day we all went to Punta de Este- one of the prettiest beaches
in the area! It was a couple hours away, but it was worth it. There is
this giant hand that was sticking out of the sand, and Jared, Amy, and I
all took pictures of it...Jared climbed a finger and jumped off-that
picture looks pretty great! Then we met up with Colleen and Danielle,
and more SAS students. We realized that there were tons of jellyfish
there-but don't worry, they didn't sting!! So naturally, we made a game
out of trying to catch them...I succeeded in catching a couple and let
Colleen hold it next...Danielle kept freaking out about it at first, but
finally held it. Then I convinced Amy to touch it, and when she did, I
tossed it on her! ahahahaha. She flipped out, but it was so funny!
Needless to say, she didn't trust me much the rest of the day lol.

The last day was much like the first, just kinda walking around, but it
was fun! I'm not sure I would go back there, but I definitely had a
great time!

I also don't think I'll ever be caught up with my blog! I'll talk about
everything that happened this week after my time in Manaus, but then
I'll have to write about that too! eep! Either way, hope everyone is
ready for the Shipboard Drive Week!!! It has been the most fun/stressful
week of my entire voyage, but I wouldn't trade it for a minute!!

SH

Let me take you to Rio, Rio!

11.21.12

Hey everyone! I'm so glad I'm almost caught up with my blog! (After
this, I'll just have to write about this week-it's been pretty busy on
the MV Explorer!)

But first, let's talk about my times in Rio de Janeiro! I had a pretty
great time in Rio, I wish we would have had a couple more days there,
even though I still haven't been feeling 100% better.

Day One: I went to a Hippie Market and Impanema Beach! The Hippie
Market was really neat! There were so many different items, like masks,
jewelry, headbands, purses, etc. Most everything was hand-made as
well! I'm glad I didn't have much money on me, because I probably would
have spent it all there! The group afterwards went to Impanema
Beach...it was extremely crowded, not what I would have expected since
the beaches in Uruguay had hardly anyone there. Our group (Chris, Jen,
the twins and Ellie, Colleen, Danielle, Ali, and me) met up with the
Freeman family there too. Elena and I tried to walk to Copacabana but
it turns out it was a little bit of a walk and we didn't have shoes on
(we thought it connected to Impanema beach-which it does, but there are
rocks in the way, so we have to walk down a different road to get
there) So we just hung out on these giant rocks, and it was a gorgeous
sight!

Day Two: I went with the Freeman family to the Botanical Gardens! It
was definitely interesting, and we saw so many plants and animals! We
saw these adorable monkeys, they were so little too! I don't know what
kind they were. Elena, Willa and I also saw a Toucan!! It was a rare
sight in the gardens, so we were pretty lucky! :) My favorite part was
probably the sensory garden though! We got to touch and smell a lot of
different plants, like an aloe plant, lots of spices, etc. The
Botanical Gardens was a huge area too, and I know we didn't get to see
it all, but I'm glad I got to go see some of it!

Day Three: This was the day of my "field lab" for Coastal Cities and
Climate Change. We went with SAS to the Babilonia favela, and got a
tour of it. (The entire day it was pouring down rain!) A favela is an
area which is lower in economic status, built on hills, and can be seen
as the "slums." There isn't necessarily good sanitation, nor the best
police enforcement, but Babilonia is a good favela in terms of trying to
be eco-friendly! They're taking steps to incorporate green practices
into their everyday lives. There are a couple examples of these
practices. The first is having basins on the top of their roofs so that
when it rains, they can catch the rain water and rely less on city
water. Another green practice is that for everything a family/person
recycles, they get part of their electric bill reduced! Babilonia also
relocates people in areas of high risk at no cost to them, so that they
can remove the houses in high risk areas (areas that are more
susceptible to climate change/mudslides/flooding, etc.) and start
planting trees...Reforesting the top of the hills. We got to take part
in helping reforest! My group (Jenna, Tori, and one other person, I
can't remember his name right now) had a caja fruit tree that we
planted, and we named it JaJa! While up there, the people who were
helping us let us take some sort of fruit off a tree to eat...They were
like little berries. I have no idea what they were, but they were a
little bit spicy! We then had a traditional Brazilian lunch afterwards
for all our hard work. I had a lot of fun this day!

I didn't get to do everything in Rio that I wanted to do-I did not get
to hike Sugarloaf, nor did I get up to the Christ the Redeemer statue,
but this is one city I know I will come back to in the future, and will
have the opportunity to do these eventually!

SH

The Rock!

11.18.12

So I have more to talk about with Uruguay, but the best story is with me
and my friend Amy. We went out at night to get free wi-fi by
ourselves. Well we were pretty nervous because people we know had
gotten mugged at this point in Montevideo. Before we left, Amy comes
into mine and D's room. D told us to be safe, and Amy goes, "I've got
my umbrella!"
Me: What are you going to do? Shoot it at someone?
Amy: Exactly!

So as we're walking, I decided to pick up one of the bricks nearby
(there was a lot of construction).

Amy: What is that for?
Me: In case someone jumps out at us.

We keep walking, and I put the brick in my back pack...but then I pick
up a pretty hefty jagged slab of concrete that is small enough to fit in
my hand.

Amy: I want one!

So we grabbed another one for her. Well we get to the wi-fi place just
fine and after a couple hours we decided to head out. I was talking to
my parents and I asked my mom if it was okay for me to let her go since
I didn't want to go out walking back to the ship too late.

Mom: Okay, but be careful!
Me: Don't worry mom, we've got rocks!
Mom: Now I'm worried.

Amy and I start walking back, and we're talking. I suppose we were
talking a little louder, or maybe it was because there was hardly anyone
on the street, but this older gentleman kept looking back at us, and
started to slow down. Amy and I both had thoughts of "oh man-he's going
to mug us!" because he kept fiddling with this bag he had too, and kept
looking back at us. He finally turns around and says to us, "It's not
safe for you here." Well gee, thanks, now Amy and I were even more
freaked out. He goes on to say, "Don't speak in English...you're from
the ship right? Even if you walk back to the port silently, do it-just
don't talk in English until you get there." So he was actually a really
nice person, we had a good conversation with him-but at first he was
being so majorly sketchy.

So Amy and I part ways with him and we kept walking...I don't know how
we managed to get so far away from where we were, because we were at the
right streets until the main street, which we somehow managed to make it
on the other side of the port! We see the ship, and go through another
construction area-this time we have to go under some stuff...and all of
a sudden, it makes this creaking noise...so Amy and I bolted to the ship!

Once we're back in the port, we decided we were going to see if they'd
let us keep our rocks...we didn't think they would, but hey, there was
no harm in trying. And to top it off, the strictest safety officer was
there to check bags. Well I told Amy I'd go up first and he could check
my bag. So I'm running up the stairs and he's joking with me, "Do that
10x and you'll have a work out for the day!" No kidding, but we were
laughing.

So he opens my bag, and finally finds the brick. He pulls it out and
mentions, "This is a brick..."
Me and Amy (at the same time): Yeah...
Safety Officer (S.O.): What do you have this for..? (He's laughing at
this point)
Me: In case we got mugged!
Amy: We needed some protection!
S.O.: And you thought this would help..?
Me and Amy: Yeah...
S.O.: And a rock?!
Amy: I have one too!

He shakes his head and just keeps laughing. He then asks, "So...do you
want to keep these?"
Me and Amy look at each other and then say, "Yeah, kinda!"
S.O.: Alright, but don't take them out of your cabin!

It was amazing that we managed to get him to let us get them on the
ship!! This night was pretty funny :) I'll finish Uruguay tomorrow,
but this was the second night we were in Montevideo! Definitely deserved
it's own blog post :P

SH

Shipboard Drive

11.17.12

Just to let everyone know, Jared's birthday is today! :)  He's one of the boys I work with, and we're all working hard for the Shipboard Drive!

Also, for anyone who is interested, YOU can donate on our behalf!  We ask for increments of $12 in honor of the Fall 2012-whether that be $12, $20.12, whatever is meaningful to you!  Here's how below:

The students of the F12 voyage are working hard to raise money to help others have this once in a lifetime experience. Will you consider giving this group a boost and donating today in honor of this voyage? Go to: https://www.ise.virginia.edu/asp/GiftForm.asp to donate and in the "General Comments" section at the bottom indicate it's in honor of the F12 voyage or someone sailing (me) on F12!

Thanks everyone for listening/helping us out! :)

SH

P.S. I'll write about Uruguay tomorrow!