In Front of the Whole Ship

I woke up with 15 minutes to spare before piano tutoring. I quickly got a bowl of cereal before tutoring began. Aldin and Genavieve seemed to learn much faster today than usual, which really pleased me. It is really satisfying when you see progress in someone you are teaching. Keeping their attention using the black keys as bait works magic on them. Before classes started I did some last minute organizing of thoughts for the history midterm. Comedy class was awesome as usual and the others commended me on not using an accent today (I don't really believe that before today, I've always used a strange accent). The History midterm went well, but my hand really hurt at the end because writing two essays in an hour and fifteen minutes is not very easy. After a lunch of the normal pasta, I headed out to Dean David's office where I was able to use his internet to get pictures for my presentation. With the short time I had I was only able to get half of the needed pictures before I had to go. I went to the computer lab where Balaji let me use his computer (since he has unlimited internet) to find the rest of my pictures. That's when I realized that I forgot to put the pictures from Dean David's computer on my flashdrive, so I had to find those pictures again and look for the rest. It took longer than I expected. In the middle of it all, Balaji and I spotted flying fish soaring out of the water from underneath the ship. It was pretty cool, but Balaji took it to a whole new level. He was freaking out with excitement and had his face glued to the window to see more. It's amazing how excited he got over this and how I was simply thinking "They are just fish, and I've seen them before." I finished putting together the presentation just before the "Dinner with a Professor" event. I ate with Professor Tim Wood, who is a zoologist researcher, teaching "Disease and Healing" and "Food for Thought" on the ship. He was quite a pleasant man and very friendly. We (along with the others at the table) shared background stories, talked about his travels in India and how amazed he was by his experience there, about our travels in the other countries, and our aspirations for the future. After the safari at Aquila, I have gained an interest in Zoology, and I questions Wood about his profession, the research he does, and any advice for possible aspirants. At 6:50 I took my leave and made a short stop at Aldin and Genavieve's dinner party for their tutor's. When I got to classroom 2, I was astounded by the number of tutors they had. They had tutors for everything from math and science, to PE and playtime. That is when I really realized how many people you need to take care of just one child. I remember something my mom always says, "it takes an entire village to take care of one child." How right she is. I went back to my room, where I got physically and mentally prepared for preport. I started feeling tense and a bit nervous. I really began to think about it and realize that I would literally be the center of attention of the entire ship for the duration of my presentation. That thought was quite nerve-racking. But soon, time came and I headed up to deck 6, Union. Preport started with Balaji and Sunila opening with a violin and singing performance (respectively) which was very beautifully done and soothing to my edgy nerves. It was then my turn. Dean David introduced me to the audience, I got up to the podium, and I looked upon everyone. Literally the whole ship was watching me right now. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it would come out of my chest. I took a deep breath and started the presentation. It turned out so much better than I imagined. I calmed off the more I talked, and soon it felt as if I was just advising a few people. The computer I was presenting on froze in the middle for sometime, so there was this 3 minutes awkward period when we were trying to fix it. I had a great time presenting and talking about India, its culture, food, and travel tips. I was able to make people laugh (quite a bit actually), ooh, and aah and I finished too much applause. I felt really good, and then I found out that I went over my allotted time by..... a lot. I felt really bad because this pushed into other's time, and the audience seemed much less interested in the other presentations by Sneha and the interport lecturer. However, everyone I talked to told me that I did an amazing job and that the info I gave was very helpful and needed. Balaji and Sunila closed off the preport (30 minutes late) performing Vande Mataram. As I walked to our sea meeting for the sea olympics, I got a lot of "good job"s and "great presentation"s along the way (it felt good that people were really appreciating what I did. I was unfortunately too late to the meeting for chips which had run out (many of the audience at the preport just left after my presentation). This was I think our first sea meeting all semester. I signed up for the sustainable art team which was going to make a sculpture out of trash. Some others and I began designing the sea banner and I was chosen to draw a "sea god" (a triton if you will), on it. I found out more about the lip synching group, and decided to join them instead (I couldn't do both since the times conflicted), and I was very happy that I made that decision. We went down to the open area in front of our LLC Tara's room next to the stairs and began choreographing and dancing to "Bye Bye Bye" by N'SYNC and "Telephone" by Lady Gaga. It was so much fun doing this and it really reminded me of Freshman Dance at UCSD Sangam Culture Show. The dance was coming out quite well and many of other sea members watched us and gave us positive feedback. People just had a really good vibe going and it was great since it felt like the same vibe during the first few days of the voyage. When we were deciding outfits, many people dared me to wear a dress for "Telephone" under my "Bye Bye Bye" outfit. Surprisingly I was actually kind of up for it, but then we decided on a different outfit. I met a lot of people in my sea today, which was cool because I knew so few of them before this. We decided to call it quits on dancing once we had a rough 2-minute dance routine going and the clock turned 1. Before going to bed, I stood outside my room and had a lengthy conversation with Dennis about the voyage, what it's meant to us, and how we feel like we've changed so far (both of us felt that we got more comfortable with ourselves and really discovered many social skills we never knew we had). Around 2 it was time to go to bed. We would be losing 30 minutes tonight, quite unique (it is India afterall) from the previous 1 hour loses. I am really excited for tomorrow. This is going to be lots of fun
-Nimish
October 20, 2010