Dolphins!!!

Dolphins... what more can be said about today. Had my macroecon class (which seems ridiculously easy) and Global Studies and caught up with all of my reading for all my classes. And the rest of the day was generally the same shenanigans except for two things: massive mafia game with 16 other people late at night, and dolphins. After finishing my readings I was just chilling on outside deck 5 with Dino who was taking a nap in the beautiful weather. Suddenly I heard a girl scream, “DOLPHINS.” And immediately everyone starts frantically looking. There was a school of them portside off the stern. At first they were just jumping out of the water lightly, so I was like, cool I’ll just watch. But then a few began leaping only a few hundred feet from the ship and I was like, “Oh crap I gotta get this picture.” But of course, as soon as I get my camera and get it ready, they stop leaping. Funny how that works out. Nevertheless is was a nice thing to see because it was the first sign of life I have seen (aside from the people on the ship) since leaving Halifax. And it also intrigues me how people just completely freak out about dolphins. During those 30seconds – 1min of seeing the dolphins I heard a plethora of “AHH”s and “OH MY GOD”s in different frequencies from different girls (maybe guys to, I’m not hating). Don’t get me wrong, I think dolphins are awesome too, but just the aura humans have put behind dolphins is disproportionately large compared to that of any other animal. I know this sounds stupid but had to say it.
-Nimish
August 31, 2010

Recovering and MY First Day of Classes

Woke up.... wow the seas are so much more calmer today...and I feel SO MUCH BETTER. It seems that we have passed the storms, so the seas were really pleasant. It was a great way to start the day after a horrible day. I got some more Meclazine for tonight, and made my way to my Comedy and Improv class. My teacher is a comedic actor and is awesome. He started off by simply showing us some stand-up comedy, and then continued on how the class was going to be lots of fun and not very serious (great news for me :). He then organized us in a circle and taught us how to play a game called "Schwang-Bang-Bounce" (I didn't quite understand the point of the game though), and then had us interview someone in the class we didn't know yet and present them to the rest of the class. And there were some pretty interesting stories (the most interesting was my partners story, which in interest of the youngsters I cannot write here). Then went off to my History class which was like any other history class: reading, studying, etc (but didn't seem so bad). I spend the rest of the day catching up on stuff from yesterday's rut: signing up for Field Trips, setting up my laptop with the Tech guys on the ship, catching up with the people I already knew, and meeting more people of course. I meet another girl from UCSD and played a game called Bananagrams with her and her group of friends. The game was really addicting even though I sucked at it, and we played for a good 2 hours until dinner. I tried to do some work (mostly for history) but didn't really understand the reading at all. And then at 8pm, David Giess (our Academic Dean who is awesome and funny, as I had mentioned before) had a presentation on Spain to give some background and possible things we can do there. The one thing I don't understand, is how SAS expects us to get any work done for our classes when there is so much other things we have to do in order to make this trip as memorable as people say it should be. Whatever, I'll try to figure that one later. Now I have another fun-filled and work-filled day ahead of me and we are losing another hour of sleep tonight. Time for bed!
-Nimish
August 30, 2010

Being Seasick Really Sucks

I was ridiculously sea sick today. In the morning, I could barely get out of my bed and to the bathroom without feeling like I was going to vomit all of my innards. I tried to get ready for my classes that day, but eventually gave up. And for the first time in my college career..... I skipped a class (actually two). There was no way I was going to make it through my Macroeconomics and Global Studies class with seas this rough and the ship rocking this much. I was bed-ridden for the rest of that day. I couldn't sleep, couldn't get out of bed, and didn't even feel hungry. Eventually I got out of bed around dinner and made my way for the cafeteria, where all I felt like eating was some romaine lettuce, cucumbers, and plums (and I couldn't even finish those). Fortunately I met a nice guy from my Macroecon class, who was also a student from Mumbai, and he gave me some company. The ship started wobbling even more, and I went back to my room and bed. I wasn't able to attend my deck's (Mediterranean sea's) dinner and scavenger hunt, which made me really sad (I was really looking forward to meeting more people from my sea). But what can one do you know? I was feeling the depression that accompanies all the times one gets sick. It was not a good feeling at all. Hopefully I can sleep some more tonight and feel better for tomorrow.
-Nimish
Sunday August 29, 2010

Orientation:

Today was Orientation. What more can I say. It was the same old same old at all schools: honor codes, plagarism, what the program is about, health and safety, etc. The coolest part of the day by far was when Archbishop Desmond Tutu walked into the Union and gave us all a speech. For someone that old he is quite energetic, and is an amazing speech-giver. We all gave him a standing ovation when he started and when he ended. After that nothing more can be said. We are actually sailing in between two storms, a tropical storm off of Greenland and a hurricane near the Gulf of Mexico. The waves started getting bigger, the ship started shaking more, and I started feeling sick. On top of that, I had an 8am class the next morning. Definitely not going to take a risk, and am going to sleep early.
-Nimish
Saturday August 28, 2010

Halifax

After a 4.5 hour flight from Orange County to New York, and then a 3.5 hour transit time, and then a 1.5 hour flight from there to Halifax, I finally arrived to the place of my departure, and the beginning of my adventure. I was tired, hungry, and a bit worried about how exactly I would reach my hostel. Fortunately, I meet a really cool guy from Albany, Noah, who was also going on SAS. We chit chatted and found out we were trying to take the same shuttle to our places of residence. On the shuttle, we meet a few girls going on SAS, and after a 40 minute drive, I finally got to the Hi Hostel. After checking in and dropping off my 4 "ton-heavy" bags I met up with Noah again at the MV Explorer's Docking station. That was the first glimpse I got of the ship that I would be calling home for the next 3.5 months, and boy did it feel awesome. We then, belly starving, attempted to get to a supermarket near-by by walking through the chain link fences in our way. That unfortunately did not work out, so we have to take the long way around. The super market was quite big, and reminded me that this would be the last "super" market I would be in for a long time. From there, we dropped off our snacks in my hostel room, and proceeded to fill our empty stomachs. After walking another mile or so and 15 minutes of arguing of what to eat, we decided on getting Thai food (although the Subway smelled really good), since we would not be visiting Thailand, and Noah had never had Thai food before. After, what he called, a delightful meal and experience, we continued to just walk around and check out the city, although there was not too much to do, for just half a day at least. We walked through the city's restaurant and social area, the docks, and made a number of stops at my hostel to check our emails and what not. The weather was not amazing, overcast and sprinkling, but at least it wasn't hot. We met a number of other SAS students here and there, since the city seemed to be half full of SAS students and parents. The night was capped off by a visit to a comedy club right next to the dock and my hostel. The show was amazing and I did notice a very diverse audience. People from the US, other parts of Canada, Newfoundland, and even a man who was released from jail just 3 days before for an alleged B&E (the comedians of course joked about him.... a lot). The Indian comedian did propose an interesting thought: could you get away with freezing all your liquids when you go through security at the airport? Probably not for me, but them non-brown folks could maybe get  away with it. As it was getting late, and I had to wake up early the next day for embarkation (8am), I decided to call it a night. And now here I am, soon to go to sleep, ready to start this crazy adventure tomorrow. Hopefully the weather is better and more pleasant than today. Can't wait!!!

-Nimish

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Wait a minute......

I had an epiphany today. Only 17 days to go. Not only will I not be going back to school, but I will be traveling around the world. In a few weeks, instead of San Diego I will be in Spain. Instead of studying for midterms and really concentrating on academics, I will be on a safari in Ghana. Instead of worrying about my future, I will be sleeping on the Great Wall of China. Wow, life has never looked so good. I am excited beyond belief for the experiences, the places to visit, the new things I will be doing, the new people to meet and friends to make, and to find out more about who I am deep inside. And yet, I feel so unprepared. There is still so much to do, so many plans to make, places to research and learn more about, trips to organize, luggage to pack. Yet I am keeping a positive outlook. Things will work out ... or at least I hope :)

-Nimish