Day 11: This Is Going to Be a Long Stretch at Sea!

Location: About half way between Honolulu and the International Date Line.

We gained another hour of sleep last night. On the ship, everything is communicated in 24-hour time or military time. I think they do this so that it is consistent with everyone and they minimize mix ups. I have my watch set to 24-hour time. My phone and computer, however, are still set on 12-hour time. On occasion, I change my phone to 24-hour time. It is nice though to have one clock saying 24-hour time and the other clock saying 12-hour time so that I can cross check for accuracy. Many of the students are quite stubborn about switching over to 24-hour time. Students will refer to 8:00pm and most of the crew members, staff, and faculty refer to it as 20:00. 

Today is pretty similar to my other “A” days with breakfast, study/do some homework, go to my Nutrition course, have lunch at my leisure, study/do some homework, go to my Diverse Cultures class and then head off to dinner.

People are starting to get frantic. Before we get to Japan (in six days) I have midterms in most of my classes. I think that is just crazy! One of my professors said this morning that after the next time we meet (in three days) we will already be 1/4 of the way through the semester. This semester is seriously flying by!

A few days ago, the sign-up sheets for intramural teams were released. We weren't very organized in putting an indoor soccer team together. So we (Lauren, Shelley, and I) opted to be free agents. After dinner, there was an intramural team meeting in the Union. This was a time for people who were free agents to get on teams. Lauren, Shelley, and I are all on separate teams! The games will be in a 3v3 format. They will be played in the basketball court area on the ship. I'll let you know how that really works! The schedule for the teams will be released in the next day or so.

Tonight I was all excited to attend the Unreasonable "fireside" chat. It has become a standard part of my everyday routine to attend. At the "fireside" chat, the Executive Dean and the Captain were speaking to discuss water conservation on the ship. One of the Entrepreneur classes is making it their project to try and conserve water usage on the ship. Today, for example, 68 gallons of fresh water per person was used on the ship. The Captain said that it costs two cents for every ten liters to convert salt water to fresh water. I also learned that it is easier for the ship to convert water while we are at sea than when we are in a port. By the way, it turned out, I was sitting in on the Entrepreneur's classes' meeting rather than the Unreasonable chat. Whoopsies!

If my blogs are getting monotonous or you simply have a question about how something works on the ship, feel free to reply on the comments or shoot me an email. I’ll include the explanation in an upcoming blog.