From the Atlantic to the Indian

I woke up at 11. That is over 12 hours of sleep. I don’t think I have ever done that before. I can only imagine how tired I must have been. I made my way up for lunch which was eventful for the following reasons: first of all I saw a number of whales in the distance (first noticed by the puff of smoke made by their blow holes). Its interesting to think that I had not seen any whales in the open ocean, and after seeing them from 20 feet away in South Africa, I see some on the open ocean the very next day. Second, they announced that we had crossed the Cape of Agulhas (the southern most tip of Africa) at 3:57am last night, officially making our transition from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. And thirdly, Global Studies for B day tomorrow, will be canceled for tomorrow and replaced with our favorite, the lifeboat drill. I went to Deck 5 to read for classes. The day had very misty and yet sunny weather, with very wispy clouds. In the distance, I could see the African mainland, which was teasing us since we had just left Africa yesterday. I must say, I don’t think I have ever been this interested in reading for classes since middle school. Reading for Comedy and Global Studies were actually quite interesting: the comedy books were of course entertaining while Global Studies was eye opening and informative. During dinner I ate a lot of toast. I don’t know what is up with me recently but I have been craving toast recently and have been eating around 2-4 pieces each meal. It is just such a nice change from the usual pasta, potatoes, and random vegetarian dish. I am already getting a bit bored of the food now, and we are not even halfway through the voyage yet. I signed up for trips for the second half of the voyage, met my Macroecon group at 7:30, went to the Zombies game meeting at 9, and hung out with Ben and Howard till after snack time. I made my way back to my room and found the Drew group (Amy, Jenn, Drew, Kevin, Dennis, Katie, etc) getting ready to watch Ratatouille, so I joined them. Before the clock struck 12, I got ready for zombies and got my sock weapon to protect myself from the zombies. I was sitting along the side of the “cubby spot” in the hallway near the stairs, and I suddenly felt a pat on my head. It was Aaron standing on one of the top stairs as he was coming down. “What’s up Aaron?” “I got you.” “What?” It turns out that Aaron is zombie #0…. And I was his first victim. That’s right, from everyone playing the game on the entire ship, I am the first one to be tagged. I lasted 5 minutes in the game. As “angry-like” I was, I couldn’t help but laugh at the situation and the coincidence. And Aaron and I were then immediately pegged by a sock by the others, knocking us out for the next hour. Aaron then left for his room to email the Zombie leader to claim me as his victim. We continued the movie, and eventually Ben came along and touched me too. “What?” “I am zombie #0, and you are my first victim.” This was confusing because we were told that there was only one Zombie #0, so we went to Aaron and talked to him and emailed the leader, later to find out that they made three Zombie #0’s just to speed up the game. So I was once again laughing at this fact which was even more ridiculous: I was tagged first by two of the three Zombie #0’s. The mere probability of that happening is so small, and yet it did. I finished the rest of the movie with the group, as they were constant on edge and freaking out to keep themselves safe. As soon as the movie was over, I took off to my room to sleep, still amazing at what just happened. It is what it is.
-Nimish
October 9, 2010