Day 48 – At Sea

Today was laundry day! Which was great. I was on my last pair of boxers. We hadn’t gotten fresh laundry since being between ports in Japan. Meaning I had dirty clothes from Japan (I did not sail between ports), China, and Vietnam, plus all the days at sea. And Vietnam was scorching hot, so I sweated it up and dirtied a bunch of clothes. Normally, we get laundry two days after turning it in, so I expected to have to rock the same boxers for two days before getting everything back fresh and clean-like.

Between my classes I continued to read Nelson Mandela’s autobiography. About 300 pages in it starts to get really, really good. I am thankful for a lot of things on this voyage, and one of which is certainly rediscovering the joy of reading for pleasure. I did it a lot in middle school and some in high school, but I completely stopped in college. When the majority of my homework is reading, it’s tough to sit down and read for fun. But that is precisely what I have done on the voyage, and I’m so glad I have. I love it when a book is hard to put down.

In Digital Storytelling, we turned in our first SeaTV broadcasts. Of the five production teams, our broadcast was selected to air first. The episode was well-received, and I got a lot of compliments for my segment (a first-person perspective using a Japanese toilet). Unfortunately, I was a bit bummed that my team seems to have veered off from its original comedy route. I vowed do my best to make sure I can keep people laughing, though.

At 9:00 there were Opening Ceremonies for the Sea Olympics. And I had signed up to participate in the lip-sync routine, and we were going to rehearse immediately following the opening ceremonies. Earlier in the day I ran into Megan, and I invited her to watch a movie with me at 7:00, trying to schedule around my Sea Olympics commitments. She accepted the invitation, and I was stoked. College students are well aware that movies are the normal social practice leading to make-out sessions, so I was excited to finally get my first kiss of the voyage. 48 days in. Pretty, pretty, pretty, bad.

Anyhow, we’re watching the movie, sitting closely as if to indicate we would be making out in the near future, and suddenly there’s a knock on the door. It’s a girl I’ve never seen before telling me that rehearsal time has been changed. Instead of meeting after the Opening Ceremonies, we would be meeting immediately. Megan, trying to be polite, stood up and left. God hates me.

So I went to rehearsal somewhat pissed off. But that soon wore off when we began dancing, because I just love dancing. Our song was MJ’s Thriller, which, as I’m sure all my astute readers know, has a sweet beat. Though I’m not very good at choreographed dances, I was able to pick it up well enough. It’s all in the sell.

After rehearsal, I headed to the Opening Ceremonies wearing the only orange shirt I own (orange is our sea’s color): my Occidental tee. Sadly, we were weak in the Opening Ceremonies. Actually, it would probably be better described as anemic. We were not colorful, not coordinated, and not loud. A few of us met immediately afterward, vowing to do better the following day. We planned a secret meeting at 9:00 the following morning to make sure we kicked off with a bang.

After the meeting, we rehearsed the lip-sync routine for another hour or so. We really started to pull it together this rehearsal, and left stoked to perform the following day.

Just in case I hadn’t done enough creative stuff, Tolan and I continued to work on Latin Chick. Considering I’m writing these entries roughly ten days removed, I’m surprised we spent so much time working on the song. We didn’t even finish this evening, just continued to shape it. I guess there’s a reason I’m so pleased with how it turned out: we worked on it for quite some time. But by the time we finished practicing it was nearly midnight, so I headed off to bed.