Day 5 – At sea

Sept 2nd

Early Riser
Despite loosing an hour of sleep, I woke up early to test out the gym. Unfortunately, half the students that signed up weren’t there, so I could have definitely gone later and gotten more sleep. Regardless, running on the treadmill turned out to be quite the adventure! I felt a little ridiculous grasping the handle bars, while desperately trying to balance myself against the ship’s swaying. Luckily, the elliptical ended up being much more manageable since you hold on anyway.

Classes and such
Today was econ and soc. My soc homework assignments was to “break a social norm,” by dressing up excessively for class. No one even noticed when another girl and I wore dresses and heels because half the girls on this ship dress that way anyway. Only Charlie, who wore slacks, shirt, tie and dress shoes, was singled out as ‘spiffy.’ Other groups’ assignments included walking around with toilet paper in their pants, cutting people in line and spreading rumors on the ship. The ship’s coziness makes it highly conducive to rumors. One such that my class spread was that we would each be charged $2,000 for having to go 75 miles off course to avoid a hurricane. Students were freaking out about it at dinner. The Helm, which is the onboard newspaper/memo, had to include a special note that said rumor was false. Between classes, I lunched on my peanut-butter sandwich on the pool deck. When it got too hot, I took my first, dip in the salt-water pool. By filling the pool with ocean water, students smugly claim we can swam in every ocean! I can’t stand in the deep end, but the best part is the wave pool effect. Not big enough for surfing, but enough to get a slap in the face sometimes.

First Prank
After stopping to talk to Jen and Alexis, two girls I met on Pub Night, Julie runs up to me to tell me this embarrassing story. Apparently, one of the kitchen staff told her she “has the most beautiful face on this dinning center.” So, he asks for her name, she tells him and she sprints away to the safety of her table. After a nerve-racking meal of trying to avoid all possible forms of eye contact, she heads to the deck to relay the story to me. Understand that Julie is super sweet and conservative (not religiously- thank god), so this totally freaked her out. After she told me the story, we parted ways and I headed back to the room to get some serious reading done. Suddenly, it dawned on me I should make light of the situation and write her a little note courtesy of an admiring kitchen staff member. Just a short while later, Julie comes barging into the room totally stressed out with this creepy note that says:

Dear Julie,
You really are the most beautiful girl I see. I cheked the manifest to find here.
I wish it to be real you. Please meet me at the gangplank on 2 deck.
Your friend from meals,

After observing the misspelling, poor English and bad grammar we deduced “It must be him!” Watching her obsess over the note for the night was delightful, but I’ll let her know who it really was tomorrow.

Highs and Lows
My “high” was my day of firsts—gym, pool and prank. My “low” was discovering that literally half the students dropped my soc class bc they hated the first assignment.