Day 3

11:00
Classes started today! However, unfortunately for me, not only do I have an 8 a.m., we move forward a time zone every day on our way to Cadiz. That means I lose an hour of sleep every night, so by the time we have our last day of classes before port, I will be getting up at around 2:30 a.m. EST. My 8:00 is Oceanography and, come to find out, is an upper level course. The room was jam packed which made taking notes very difficult. The professor is awesome though. He is very approachable, interesting, and fun to listen to. He reminds me a little bit of Bill Nye without all the corniness. My second class of the day is Global Studies. Everyone on the ship takes this class, including the faculty and staff. This would be awesome if there weren’t so many people. The class is held in a room called “The Union” and any overflow students go to different classrooms where the lecture is projected on a screen. When I got out of Oceanography, I immediately headed for the Union only to find out that it was already completely full. By the time I got back to the classrooms, they were basically full as well. I sat in one of the main common areas right outside of the cafeteria. Listening to a lecture out of a box and watching the screen is not fun or academically stimulating. I could barely see the slides, much less the professor. I could hear him, and he sounded interesting, but it was hard to follow exactly what he was talking about because of my inability to see the slides.

After a somewhat stressful morning, I decided it was time to pay the wellness center a visit. I signed up for an 80 minute “Seven Seas” massage. The description reads: relax and experience this unique massage that is a perfect blend of the following seven different healing massage techniques that are world renown: Lomi-Lomi, Shiatsu, Aromatherapy, Reflexology, Swedish, Reiki, and Thai massage. SWEET! I go in today for it at 2:30! I can’t wait because, although this trip hasn’t been as stressful as I thought, it has been very overwhelming. If the massage goes well, I plan to schedule a few more during the rest of the voyage so that they don’t get booked up before I can get in again. I also signed up to work out tonight at 9:30 on Elliptical Machine 4. I hope that #4 and I get along well, because I can see us having a future together.

While leaving the wellness center I ran into my SC friend, Laura. We went walked around for a while and then went out onto the deck and talked. We both have many common acquaintances. It is finally sunny out today and the seas are calming slightly.

18:36
I just got an email that out of 35 people, I have been accepted to be a part of the voyage photography book staff, and so was my roommate!!! I am so excited! I also had my massage and it was wonderful! The only downside to the massage was that when she did the head massage part, she got oil all up in my hair. Ugh, I had class right after too, so I looked like a big grease ball. Its all good though. Tonight was the first real meal I have eaten in the past three days! We had spaghetti with marinara. O, and on that note, I haven’t eaten any meat, whatsoever, the past three days. Crazy! Today at lunch, though, I basically only ate lettuce because the only dressing they had was French, and I am not a big fan. The rest of the food was sucky, but whatever, I am not on this trip for the food haha. I met two girls from SMU, one was nice, and one was, well, lets say, … quiet. But, the nice one is named Kendra and we had actually facebooked before we came, just never met in real life.