Last Post until After Japan!

I am finished with my 2 tests and now am packing for Japan!

Last night was another super rocky night and dinner was very exciting with plates, food, and drinks flying everywhere. One of my friends was sitting cross legged in a chair and just completely tipped over backwards!

Dodgeball was cancelled AGAIN due to high winds….. It has been surprisingly warm out all day though- probably in the 50s and we are only 120 nautical miles from Japan- hopefully that means it won't be as cold as we have been expecting!

We had a UVa reception where all the UVa students and faculty met up. I am surprised at how few of us there were… about 16 students and 4-6 teachers…. some may have been no shows though…. They had chips and salsa though and it was absolutely incredible- I can't get over how food that normal can seem like such a treat on the ship!!

I am meeting my "ship family" tonight! There is an optional program where you sign up to be part of a family and one of the teachers, spouses, or life long learners becomes your "parent" with a group of kids and you can do meals or activities with them just as another way to meet and connect with more people. Tonight we are going to get pizza and ice cream at the snack bar!

Also tonight is Japan "pre port": a required meeting telling us safety, dock time, and logistics. I thought these meetings were going to be really annoying but they are actually really helpful, short, and surprisingly interesting.


Thanks for the comments! To answer virg's question- yes, your test posts came through!! i got lots of email notifications and it was pretty funny! and also I figured out that right now if you add 10 hours to my time here, you get EST but earlier in the day. So if its 5:45 pm on Tuesday for me, it is 3:45 am Tuesday for EST. We got 2 extra hours over the course of the past 2 days- catching up on sleep we won't be getting in Japan!! To answer your other question if you go to semesteratsea.org and click on the Spring 2014 50th anniversary voyage you get our whole itinerary! And I'm obviously missing family, friends, uva and chloe but with February coming up where I am only on the ship sporadically for 9 days, and seeing mom and dad in burma I'm really all set!

Dad- I will be sure to ask about how long 1,200 nissans would keep the plant busy!!!

Jessica- yes- i literally can't sleep without white noise- its the best!!!

Thanks for the long emails from lots of my friends and mogie- its sooo good to hear from you!!!

I am not planning on blogging until I get back on the ship and have email which will probably be February 4th. I will have a big update then though!!