I SHAVED MY HEAD!!!!

Okay, not really. I didn’t shave my head but there were plenty of girls who did as we celebrated King Neptune’s Day today. We crossed the equator this morning at 3am (and lost another hour of sleep). At around 8am the entire ship was awoken to Neptune’s Parade of ship staff, dressed in bed sheets and faces painted, banging drums, pans and jingling bells. After rallying everyone on the 7th deck the transitional pollywog to shellback ceremony began. After being doused with fish guts, I jumped into the pool (by that time it was nasty with other’s salty fish guts). Upon exiting the pool I proceeded to Neptune’s court where I kissed a dead fish on the mouth and then kissed Neptune’s ring… then it was official! I am now a shellback (with my lovely locks intack). Then I got some prime equator-sun today as I shaved my friend, Q’s hair. There was fish guts and hair everywhere when all was said and done! Overall it was a good time, but the best part was having no class!



Jan 29th, 2006

I wish I had more to post, but I don’t want to bore everyone with the trivial details of ship life. It’s not too exciting, quite frankly. However, the ship will be passing the equator at 3am tomorrow, and consequently, we’ll be in a satellite shadow for anywhere from 6 hours to 2 days. I already tried to check my email (right after the announcement) and was unable to get on the internet. So most like when I post this it will be after the ‘blackout,’ whenever that maybe.

Last night I learned some Portuguese. While it was similar in written form to Spanish, there are many different dialects (even in Brazil) that absolutely slaughter the pronunciation. So pretty much I learned that no matter where I am, I won’t be able to understand nor speak any understandable Portuguese. Oh well! At least I tried…

The shipboard community has an environmentalist professor from Berkley who is absolutely amazing! He is advising the “Change the World” club on the ship. He is leading seminars on literally how to change the world through social change. He has study many social movements, although relating to environment, and believes he has developed a model of effective social action. I can’t get over how fascinated I am with this man’s charisma. Anyone who knows me personally knows that I am not really an activist of any type. But I figured it would hurt to learn how to lead a social movement, just in case the need every be. J There is another seminar tonight on how to discover your passions and dreams that I am looking forward to attending.

Also, before I get off the ship I am told that I need to see the movie, “City of God.” I know little about the movie other then it takes place in Brazil and it will make me scared to go to Rio. I guess we’ll see… Tomorrow is King Neptune’s Day.