Neptune Day: Fish and Hair

Eyes open, 6am, it's quiet. Did they already wake everyone up? Did I sleep through the wake up call. Roommate still in bed, but he does not wake up easily anyway. Open our room door, it's quiet outside. Maybe it hasn't started yet. Continue with my daily morning activities (brush teen, take shower, etc). It's 8am. As soon as I get out of bathroom..... BANG BANG BANG. I hear a man whistling, another clashing cymbals, and a few others playing snare drums. Immediately I hear commotion outside; other students waking up, my roommate confused since he did not know it was Neptune Day, or what it even was. I go up to the Garden Lounge to get some breakfast. But first, I make a stop at the Medical Clinic, where I get a seasickness-preventing patch (I have a test later tonight in the Union, so I'm not taking a risk) and some saltine crackers (the salt helps a lot). At breakfast, people were excited, energetic, and some making last minute decisions to either get their head shaved or not. To those of you who do not know what Neptune Day is, it is basically a ceremony/celebration of having crossed the equator. There are some ceremonial speeches from faculty, followed by people getting soaked in water full of fish guts, then jumping in the pool, kissing a fish, and then getting knighted by the Neptune day King. After that, there was hair shaving, where a lot of people got their heads shaved (a lot of girls actually did so). It was a great time, and we even got to see Archbishop Tutu get his head shaved. I was actually strongly considering getting my hair cut/buzzed. However after seeing everyone getting dunked in fish guts and then getting their fish-gut-covered hair cut by the same razors, I decided to pass. Dino got his head shaved... that was exciting. I've never seen him with short hair, so that was quite a sight to see. One of the first things he said afterwards, "My head feels cold." After lunch, it was time to get some essay writing and last minute studying done. It was pretty interesting seeing 600 students studying for the same test that they will be taking at the same time. I would have loved to walk around the ship during the test, just to see what the ship feels like when there are no students walking around. The test went very well. It was pretty ridiculously easy (aside from a few questions that required specific knowledge from the slides). I felt good afterwards, but had to finish my history essay due tomorrow. I also had a book to read for comedy that we were having a quiz on the next day, so that was fun. I was able to get all the work done by 1, and so went to bed. We were also losing an hour of sleep tonight so I wanted to get as much sleep as I could.
-Nimish
September 28, 2010