Hey friends and family!!!!
How’s the United States? Sorry I haven’t blogged yet since getting on the Ship; I’ve been so busy! A typical day on the ship consists of eating, class, studying, watching movies, and just hanging out. All the activities and clubs are starting up, so that will fun! We had good weather when we were leaving Halifax, but now it’s been cold and rockier! I went outside tonight for the first time in 4 days! It’s crazy how you could never go outside while on the ship if you wanted, but I’m going to go outside more often! I’ve been eating pears because they said it gives you Vitamin D.
It’s been so fun meeting new people and seeing where they’re from. I’ve been hanging out with these 5 girls nonstop! We get along really well and we’re all traveling together. One of the girls is my roommate, Rachel. She is so much and we’re always together! Rachel grew up in Orange County, but her senior year she had to move to Los Gatos for her dad’s job. She’s currently a junior at Chico State, but she really wants to transfer, so we’re all trying to help her right now! My other good friend is Kellen. She going to USC with me in the Spring! There’s two Briannas: Bri (we call her) is a junior at the University of San Francisco and is from Scotsdale, Arizona. The other Brianna is a junior at the University of San Diego and is from Half Moon Bay. Then there’s Ko. She is hilarious! She’s lived all over the place: New Jersey, Virginia, and Mississippi. Right now she’s a sophomore at Claire Mont McKenna, but she also wants to transfer. The six of us are un-seperataeble! It’s a great feeling to already have such great friends!
The classes I’m taking are Global Studies (which everyone on the ship has to take), the West and the World, The Economic History of Globalization, and Intercultural Communication. These classes are no joke! I’ve been getting so much homework. I’m trying to stay on-top of it though because once we get to Ireland, all the ports go back to back to back with only one sea day in between. All of my professors are such amazing people, with impressive resumes and they’ve all traveled so much! My Economic History of Globalization is from England, but he’s been living in Australia with his wife for the past few years. His wife is from Ireland, so they’re so excited to go to Ireland and England together. I really like my Intercultural Communication class. We always do interesting personality type tests. My teacher was in the Air Force for 30 years and he’s really on it. Today we had to rank what is most important to us, some examples are national security, freedom, health, family security, true friendships, equality, and much more. First he took a tally of the students from the United States. The themes that got the most votes were Family Security, Freedom, Mature Love, and Health. Then he tallied what the international students ranked what was most important to them. Equality and self-respect received the most votes. Also there are “Life Long Learners” on the ship with us who are older adults who visit the countries too and they can sit in on any class. We have one Life Long Learner in my class named Betsy. She told the class what was most important to her and that was an Exciting life, Health, True friendships and some others. It was so interesting to see the differences between the three groups. We have three different textbooks for this class, “The Ugly American,” “The Software of the Mind,” and “Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands.” I’ve just started to read “Kiss, Bow, or Shake Hands,” and it’s so interesting! It tells you how to act and behavior when you are in a certain country and how to make business deals with people of other cultures. One of the students in the class is Korean! I was so excited! She’s been living in the United States for 6 years, and she said her family says she is very “Americanized,” and selfish and self-centered. Our teacher explained how the United States is a very individualistic society whereas the Asian cultures are collective societies.
One more thing I’ve learned in that class, is to stop calling ourselves “American.” Being American includes Canadians, Mexicans, El Salvadorans. We need to get into a habit of saying we’re from the United States.
We’re all so excited to get to Galway, Ireland! We’ll be there Friday morning. Tonight is the last night we’ll have to move our clocks forward. We have a hostel booked in Galway for one night, then we’re going to take the bus to Dublin. One of my friend’s mom got us a hotel for 2 nights! It was so nice of her and we’re going to send her something from Ireland. While we’re in Dublin it’s the Notre Dame vs. Navy game. I really want to go! We’re going to try to get tickets there, so hopefully we can. There’s going to be so many people in Dublin while we’re there.
In my Global Studies class, my professor gives us one of his ten travel tips each day. I’ll write down what he’s given us so far.
- Never let your age be greater than the number of countries you’ve visited
- Figure out the essence of the country
- The more you know, the more interesting it is
- The taxi driver/waitresses/bartenders are your best friends
- This adventure is all about the people of each country
Today my friends and I counted how many countries we’ll have been to after this semester. My number is 21! So I’m doing really well on my country count so far... three more than my age!
Okay I think that’s it for now! I know it’s lengthy, but I wanted to let you guys know what I’ve been up. I miss you all and thank you to everyone who has been emailing me! Just as a reminder it’s jamilyn.carter.f12@semesteratsea.org
I LOVE AND MISS YOU ALL!
Jamie
