Classes Unraveled!

Hey All:

 

So in this post I wanted to explain how classes will work on the ship. Everyone on the ship has to take four classes at three units each, so a total of twelve units (the exception is those people who decide to sign up a fifth class, but have to talk to the dean [the environment here on the ship creates a very personal and direct contact with your professor, dean, assistant dean, and any other official within the organization of the college] and register for their fifth class). Of those four classes Global Studies is required, every person, ALL six hundred four of the students, have to take this class. This class encompasses curriculum focused on global problems, and how to attempt to solve them. For example today, Professor Sanchez talked mainly about how most of the world is very unequal within the boundaries of wealth distribution and development. Farther along in the semester he will be talking about these subjects in a more magnified lecture, but since it is only the first true class he had to start of broadly.

 

Now your classes are split between two days, Day A and Day B. On these days are two sections of Global Studies, they cannot accommodate all six hundred four students in a single room for an hour and a half, so half of the students go to one section on Day A, and the other half of the students go the Day B section. During the period of class (920AM to 1030AM) there are no other classes.

 

Your elective classes, the other three classes, are on set days already. For example, I have three other classes besides Global Studies. I have two classes on Day A, Intercultural Communication in the afternoon and Global Studies in the morning. On Day B I have my other two classes, Contemporary Social Issues at 1455PM and Rhetoric of Film right after that class. The Day A & B switch off, so today was a Day A day, or Day A2 since it was the second day I had class for the Intercultural Communication and Global Studies. Tomorrow, September 1st, will be Day B2 since tomorrow will be my second day having Contemporary Social Issues and Rhetoric of Film. Remember, while we are at sea, we have class EVERYDAY unless we are in port in which we do NOT have class for the duration of time in port. This week will end with Day B3, since Thursday will be my A3 day and Friday being my B3 day. Is that too confusing?

 

Today was yet another awesome day, went to class, chilled with some people I have come to hang out with everyday. I taught them Killer, if you do not know what it is, I will save for when we are in person or ask around, I will bet someone will know what it is, besides those on the ship. I got them hooked on it now that is all they want to play, and it is a fairly good sized group too. We advance yet another hour tonight, which right now it is 0:49 or 12:49AM. We still have to jump two more hours until we reach Spain.

 

Well it is late and I am off to bed. Good Night everyone,

 

Until my next post,

 

"When the wind changes direction, there are those who build walls and those who build windmills."

-Chinese Proverb

Classes Unraveled!

Hey All:

 

So in this post I wanted to explain how classes will work on the ship. Everyone on the ship has to take four classes at three units each, so a total of twelve units (the exception is those people who decide to sign up a fifth class, but have to talk to the dean [the environment here on the ship creates a very personal and direct contact with your professor, dean, assistant dean, and any other official within the organization of the college] and register for their fifth class). Of those four classes Global Studies is required, every person, ALL six hundred four of the students, have to take this class. This class encompasses curriculum focused on global problems, and how to attempt to solve them. For example today, Professor Sanchez talked mainly about how most of the world is very unequal within the boundaries of wealth distribution and development. Farther along in the semester he will be talking about these subjects in a more magnified lecture, but since it is only the first true class he had to start of broadly.

 

Now your classes are split between two days, Day A and Day B. On these days are two sections of Global Studies, they cannot accommodate all six hundred four students in a single room for an hour and a half, so half of the students go to one section on Day A, and the other half of the students go the Day B section. During the period of class (920AM to 1030AM) there are no other classes.

 

Your elective classes, the other three classes, are on set days already. For example, I have three other classes besides Global Studies. I have two classes on Day A, Intercultural Communication in the afternoon and Global Studies in the morning. On Day B I have my other two classes, Contemporary Social Issues at 1455PM and Rhetoric of Film right after that class. The Day A & B switch off, so today was a Day A day, or Day A2 since it was the second day I had class for the Intercultural Communication and Global Studies. Tomorrow, September 1st, will be Day B2 since tomorrow will be my second day having Contemporary Social Issues and Rhetoric of Film. Remember, while we are at sea, we have class EVERYDAY unless we are in port in which we do NOT have class for the duration of time in port. This week will end with Day B3, since Thursday will be my A3 day and Friday being my B3 day. Is that too confusing?

 

Today was yet another awesome day, went to class, chilled with some people I have come to hang out with everyday. I taught them Killer, if you do not know what it is, I will save for when we are in person or ask around, I will bet someone will know what it is, besides those on the ship. I got them hooked on it now that is all they want to play, and it is a fairly good sized group too. We advance yet another hour tonight, which right now it is 0:49 or 12:49AM. We still have to jump two more hours until we reach Spain.

 

Well it is late and I am off to bed. Good Night everyone,

 

Until my next post,

 

"When the wind changes direction, there are those who build walls and those who build windmills."

-Chinese Proverb

Second Day of Classes

Hey Everyone!

 

Another wonderful day at sea. In two days we get to see our first view of land! However, we see it between 5AM and 7AM, but it is ok, I have never seen a sunrise so it gives me an excuse to wake up early and watch my first sunrise over an ocean, since back in San Diego I see sunsets ALL the time.

 

Had my last two classes today, Contemporary Social Issues and Rhetoric of Film. My Contemporary Social Issues will probably be the most exciting, interesting, and engaging class I will ever take. This class requires us to debate, well, social issues in modern day. For example, the professor asked us to get into groups of two, (I am in a group with a pretty cute girl =D, we chose each other since we both shared the same view on topics), and the girl I am with, Amanda, and I chose "should the right to abortion be kept within the state, or go into federal law?" Our class today involved a heated debate into what we define "Liberals" and "Conservatives" as, and I wanted to add in a comment that would start something so when we were defining Liberals, I said, "socialists" and everyone (since the majority of the class defined themselves as a Liberal, [the professor at the beginning of class put up numbers 1 through 7, 1 equaling extremely liberal, and 7 equaling extremely conservative, I marked 5 {slightly conservative}]) got really irked with that comment. To keep a long argument at a shortened length, to not bore you, it ended with the professor ending our debate.

 

Tomorrow I will explain how classes work, since here is 12:45AM, and I have class at 920AM tomorrow, or today. So I wanted to keep this short. Sorry everyone and have a good night.

 

Until my next post,

 

"Sorry no quote today"

-Drew

 

 

Hey All (930PM or 2130):

 

So first day of classes is all done and accounted for, whew. Today I started the day off with global studies at 920AM local time (instead of writing it out everytime, time will always be local time, I will tell you when we lose/gain an hour), and then following that at 1215PM I began my Intercultural Communications class. To be honest, I fell asleep during my global studies class, but from what I heard and understood, conciously, it will be a great course.

 

My professor for Intercultural Communications is phenomenal. He engages the classroom unlike any other teacher/professor I previously had. Also, another trait that makes him so great is he is an Eagle Scout. He stated during a story he preached during class, that he "...took my boy scout hatchet and cut a hole in the ice." You are probably wondering how such an obscure comment made me formulate in my head, and another guy in the class who also is an Eagle Scout, that he is an Eagle Scout. To anyone that is not an Eagle Scout, this comment would have flown by in the conversation that you would not have even given such a comment a second look. But to a fellow Eagle Scout, we only know that if one accomplishes this task, you have the knowledge ingrained in your head to call a "hand-axe" a "hatchet." Also, by saying "boy scout hatchet" gave me more insight into who this man really is, for anyone but an Eagle Scout would not refer to an inanimate object in such a way. I can already tell that this semester with Professor Mcelmore, will be a fantastic one. I also have him tomorrow as my Rhetoric of Film professor.

 

Besides my classes, it was another full day of meet and greet with other students. I met a couple more people who are from Rochester, New York and play basketball for them as well. Also met a guy from La Jolla, California who even knows a few I know, small world eh? Apparently San Diego is the most represented town/colleges on the ship, with USD having more than one hundred fifty students. I am just waiting for the sport teams to start up, playing soccer/dodgeball, so I can have mroe opportunity to meet people on the ship.

 

Nights here on the ship consist of everyone getting together and playing card games, board games, or socializing. Tonight I played a couple people at ping pong (what sucks is there is NO BILLIARDS TABLE!!!!), lost once but won the rest. However, going to bed to early over summer break, the time change, and moving forward in hours kills me and I normally pass out, or begin to, around 930, 10PM here. Which sucks since it seems that everyone is on a nocturnal schedule and I start dozing off as we play some the games. It is ok though, I am getting better with the time change and I am adjusting. Well I am off to walk around for a bit before heading off to dreamland and get some Zs. Good night

 

Until my next post,

 

"Anything that happens once, will never happen again. Anything that happens twice, will surely happen a third and fourth time."

-Paulo Coelho

Hey Everyone:




Sorry I did not post last night, after yesterday I clonked out at 10PM local time (2200 since we have to start getting used to military time). Yesterday was a jam packed day full of orientation and signing up for clubs.



Orientation was nothing special. They just went over the honor code and to be careful with alcohol since we are all over the age of eighteen. Orientation went from 9AM to close to 9PM, with two, two hour breaks for lunch and dinner.



Food on the ship is pretty good. I mean, if you ask a fat man if he likes food he will always answer yes so whenever we eat it yummy. Last night's dinner was a steak dish with potatoes (which we have with every meal), a salad, and for dessert banana nut bread. The only bad thing I can say about all the food/drink on the boat is that you can only drink water and the other drinks at dinner IF you did not bring a water bottle, otherwise you can drink whenever. That is one object I am going to have to buy once the campus store opens up today at 8AM (which it already is, it is 9AM local time, we lost an hour last if anyone is paying attention to the time change).



Archbishop Desmond Tutu spoke at our orientation last night, what an amazing human being he is. The best compliment I think anyone our age can get is when he said we, the students as a whole, give him a "high" and he started dancing around. He always seems to be in a fantastic mood, day in and day out. Sometime in the near future (probably when I read some more of his book) I am going to introduce myself to him. This voyage will be an interesting and wonderful one with him on board.



Last night I signed up for numerous groups on board. Before I got on the ship, I had already signed up for a group called Vicarious Voyage, in which students studying on the ship send postcards/pictures/blog posts to a school in America, and it just so happened that I got paired with my high school french teacher, Stefanie Gaines. Other groups I joined are intramural sports (dodgeball, soccer), a career services group (because within this group there is a woman who worked with the Secret Service for over thirty years, so I plan on striking up a conversation with her), a community service group, and the cardio club. We shall see how all this works out, I might have to drop a a few, or keep them, but who knows, today is only our third day at sea.



Well I got to run, class starts in twenty minutes, our big class, more on that for tonight's post.


Until my next post,



"Sorry no quote today for right now, I cannot get online"

-Drew

Embarkation Day!!!!

        So today we finally left!!! Goodbye Halifax, hello Spain! (although I will not be there until next Saturday) Oh what an exciting day this has been.

         First thing I did today was get checked in for the boat. Went fairly quick considering the amount of people there was, but luckily my last name let me go at 9AM local time, 5AM San Diego time. I head some storied about people on the boat not getting their luggage from the airline, so they were freaking out about not getting their luggage. Lucky for me though, I got my luggage and did not have to have that stress on me. At check-in their were surprisingly a good number or parents with their kids, and I also met those whose parents did not come with them, (my roommates).

        Met all my roommates around noon, since that was when we were all. I have three of them: Jason (an International Relations major in New Orleans, but from Nepal, [if you did not know it is a country just north of India], and the story he told of getting his visas made me happy I am an American and what the American passport is really worth; he said he had to go to India for two weeks, and apply for eight of the countries we are going to, had to bribe the people at the visa office in order to get his Canadian visa); Grant (a psychology/biology major from Nebraska, works in the campus store here on the ship); and Anthony (from Montreal, graduated from Georgia with a degree in psychology) there are four of us total in our room.

       So after that, the day mainly involved walking around exploring the ship and meeting everyone. I met a couple people and hung out with them most of the day. There were two mini-orientation type events, since tomorrow I am busy from 9AM local time to 9PM local time, tomorrow will be so much fun, (sarcasm is involved there). The orientation meetings introduced the crew, the teachers, and the staff. My Life Learning Counselor (LLC), Stephanie (she is kind of like an RA but more important), is really chill.

       Spent a couple hours on the eighth deck with a group that I met during our area's meeting (each "deck" has maybe four "areas" designated to represent groups within our decks, for example my entire block of rooms is the "Yellow Sea" group, there are about ninety-five of us in this group. We sat on the upper deck and sat and talked while looking up to see non-existent stars, since the moon was full and very bright.

          The captain warned us during one of the mini-orientation meetings that we will be heading towards a hurricane that is developing over the Atlantic, but he said hopefully he can avoid it. I took some pills that will hopefully help with the sea sickness, since the ship is pretty small and not as big as a normal cruise ship you feel the rocking pretty badly. Also I found out that you were supposed to take one at a time, and I did not know so I ended up taking both, ooops. Well it is about 23:19 hours local time, otherwise known as 11:19PM, or 7:20PM San Diego time, and I got to wake up at 8AM tomorrow to eat breakfast with a couple people I met. So good night, oh and also, it is 68% women, 32% male, and there are 604 students,(so that makes about 410 women, and 190 men) just so everyone knows.

P.S. Pictures on my facebook might not come that early as I would like, just because airtime on the ship chews up a good amount of money, and when my two hours and fifteen mintues is up, that is all I get unless I want to buy another two hours, at, what I am told, one hundred dollars. I am sorry but that amount of money is not worth it to me for two hours of air time. If I can do it in port, or maybe do it quick on facebook, I will let you all know as soon as possible right here.  Also, to contact me in an e-mail, if you want, my e-mail address is as follows

drewjgarrison@semesteratsea.net

Thanks,
Until my next post,

"So much more grievous are the consequences of anger, that the causes"
-Marcus Aurelius

Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Just arrived in Nova Scotia at about 11 AM local time, about 7 AM San Diego time. My flights when by fairly quick with only one mishap, I forgot to pick up my checked baggage when I arrived in Toronto. No bigge though, they were nice about it, but I had to go through customs twice though. I met two people on my flights. First guy was Paul on my 22 minute flight from San Diego to Los Angelos. He is a retired Navy Helicopter Pilot and was telling me all about the Navy. He had a good sense of humor so we were cracking jokes the whole time, too bad he was not on my flight from Los Angelos to Toronto. The other person I met was a woman from Toronto, heading home from Arizona due to work to go visit her fiancee, nice lady but we both fell asleep pretty much once the airplane took off.

Toronto to Halifax was not exciting, my fellow seatmates were very anti-social. But Nova Scotia is very beautiful. Very green. Pictures will follow if it stops raining. It was scary coming in because there was such a dense cover of fog coming in that I did not even see the tarmac or the ground for that matter until we were right on top of it.

The Westin Hotel is where I am at right, probably about to take a nap since it is still early in the day, then go out for dinner. Met a couple of fellow SAS people on the way from the airport, two of them play rugby for USD. That is it for today, I will try to post one tomorrow, and if oogla and the white girl are reading, thanks you guys for the card    =D

Until my next post,

"Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared."
-Buddha

Packing Day

Hey to all will be reading this, if you did not know what I am doing this semester, Fall 2010, I will be studying abroad on a program called Semester At Sea (SAS). This program allows me to travel to ten different countries while I get an education. I will be traveling to:

Nova Scotia, Canada -- August 27th (DEBARKATION!!!!!)
Cadiz, Spain -- September 4th to September 8th
Casablanca, Morocco -- September 10th September 10th to September 14th
Accra, Ghana -- September 22nd to September 25th
Cape Town, South Africa -- October 3rd to October 8th
Port Louis, Mauritius -- October 14th to October 15th
Chennai, India -- October 22nd to October 27th
Singapore -- October 31st to November 1st
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam -- November 3rd to November 8th
Hong Kong/Shanghai, China -- November 11th to November16th
Kobe/Yokohama, Japan -- November19th to November23rd

Honolulu/Hilo, Hawaii -- December 3rd to December 6th
SAN DIEGO!!!!!!!!, CALIFORNIA!!!! --- DECEMBER 13th

So as often as I can I will post on what is happening on this journey to circumnavigate the globe. Classes that I am taking are as follows as well:

-Contemporary Social Issues
-Intercultural Communication
-Rhetoric of Film
-Global Studies (required by SAS)

I will leave my first post at this, I have got to continue packing.

Until my next post,

"What would life be if we had no courage to attempt anything?"
- Vincent van Gogh