Daily Life Aboard the MV Explorer

4/26/09
2:10

Took my Global Studies final today…well technically yesterday since it’s 2am.  I am officially done with that class forever.  Good riddance, Global.  I don’t think I aced it but I feel like I did…decent.

Tomorrow is a study day and I am going to SLEEP for the majority of the day.  I can’t wait.  I am basically nocturnal now.  Seriously, my sleep schedule is so off.  I never sleep at night. And I nap several times a day.

In this blob I’m going to write about some interesting observations and entertaining happenings on the ship.  They might bore you, but I want to remember them so here goes:

The first is about an annoying habit I have developed, but not whilst on the ship.  In fact, many of my good friends from home are aware of this frustrating tendency of mine, and now my shipboard friends have caught on too.  It is my tendency to zone out or listen to another conversation while someone else is talking and when they are halfway through their story I get interested and ask, “Who? Did what? When?”  Which basically requires the storyteller to start from the beginning because yours truly cannot focus on one thing.  Yes, it’s rude and I don’t mean to do it, I just get swept up in other things and realize I’ve missed out on the majority of the story. So now I try to catch myself before I do it, but it’s really no use.  Greg and Jill are constantly making fun of me and mimicking me, saying “who?” halfway through my stories or calling me out when I do it.  Good times.

Another funny instance aboard the MV Explorer:
So lately I’ve been playing a lot of Scrabble with Jill.  She is the master Scrabbler, and I am not.  But our friend Doug is the worst.  And somehow I always have a way of putting down a word right where he intended to go.  He hates it.  So anyhoo the other day I was down to the letters: D U G M I E. Dugmie.  So I asked if Dugmie was a word and since it is not, we made it a word. 
       Dugmie (n): a rare bearded species (even the females) who can read minds and breathe under water by trapping air bubbles in their beards.  Most commonly found on Nugget Island.
Strange? Yes.  But Doug is a bushy-bearded fellow (at least he was until he shaved he grew for two months today….it’s weird seeing his bald face) and he is really good at reading people’s body language, so we always say he can read minds.  Also one time he said “Now get this, Hannah” but I thought he said “Nugget this” (again with my bad listening skills), thus Nugget Island.  So we based the Dugmies off of Doug.  Good times.

Ship-life has come to be quite enjoyable.  I thought these long stretches in between ports would be hellish and boring, but time is flying by and it has been really fun.  Tomorrow = study/sleep day and the next day I have my Money and Banking final.  That class is ridiculous.  The teacher is probably brilliant but he cannot teach at all. He is senile.  I don’t know how he got this job, but he is past his prime.  I’m a little nervous about that final, because I basically half to teach the material to myself…we’ll see how it goes.

Then it’s off to Guatemala.  Last port.  It’s kind of dicey there right now so there are all kinds of warnings and restrictions.  I’m not worried, though.  Things will work out, they always do.  The first day Jill and I hope to go biking in Antigua, the next day I’m climbing am active volcano with a volcanologist (hope I don’t fall in!) and the third day, we’ll probably go to the beach.  I can wear my new swimsuit.  Yahoo!

Okay it’s practically 4am right now with the time change.  Constant time changes.  I’m sick of those.  It will be nice to be in one time zone when I get home.  Home.  It’s so soon. I am still in shock.