Brand New Alumni of Semester at Sea....

....pending final exam scores.
Phew….after 5175 minutes spent in class over the last 2 months we are all…….finally………DONE!!!!!!!!!!!  I know…no body is sharing in my excitement.  Especially all the kids who’s summer is coming to an abrupt end.  We’ll so is mine!  But my short burst of excitement is dampened by the reality that will come in a short two days when we will walk out the gangway for the last time (get the tissue ready).  Girls will be balling, summer flings will depart (haha suckers…) and guys will be doing some kind of male attempt at a ‘hug-fairwell-without-getting-too-close-cause-that’s-creepy’ goodbye.  Ya it’s gonna be weird.  But more about that later.
The past few days have been an extended blur.  How can it be an extended blur, you all ask curiously?  Well, imagine driving 3,400 miles in your car…but you can only go 20 miles per hour.  That’s what it’s like sailing across the Atlantic at 13.4 nautical miles per hour.  A little slow… But we of course found many things to fill our time…like homework! 

The first day we got back from Morocco, we had a ship-wide auction to raise money for the Shipboard Drive which is money for student’s grants and scholarships to come on Semester at Sea.  We set a $50,000 goal and I think we got pretty close if we didn’t make the goal.  To be honest though, some of these kids just shell out money like it’s printer paper (which we’re still low on from the Global Studies essay).  “It’s for a good cause” just doesn’t justify paying 150 for a three boxes of Girl Scout cookies.  But there were some other items that were pretty good.  Like pie-ing our Global Studies Professor ($400), the map of our voyage with the Captain’s signature ($525), first off the ship, 30-minute phone call (hit big with the lonely girlfriends), unlimited internet for a day, steer the ship for 30-minutes (and subsequently terrify 850 students, faculty and staff) ($415).  Like I said…couldn’t quite justify.  But it was a fun day.

The Global Studies final brought everyone to a common, emotional level that nearly inflicted tears.  Thankfully apathy took over and students decided to make designs on their answer sheets instead of attempting to answer the questions.  (It’s just our luck if they do better than us…)  However, there was a collective sigh when all the tests were turned in and you could breathe for 1.4 minutes before you had to start studying for the next two exams.  We did have one day off to study…that went by way too fast.  I had the pleasure of two cumulative finals that did not make me smile.  Mal had a non-cumulative final and a paper/project/presentation thingy…rainbows weren’t there either.  But now the academic cloud has cleared because we are now, officially done with classes on SAS!  

We have the Ambassador’s Ball tonight which includes dinner, entertainment, dessert, and dancing.  The last part should be interesting…especially if all the sea-sick people don’t enjoy the meal and still “love to party” (bring a mop).  And don’t even get me started about the dancing.  Can you picture 700+ kids dancing on the *small* 7th deck?? Ok now include the rocking of the boat to that picture…ya it’s gonna be ugly. 

With any luck we’ll be able to pack up all the little treasures we bought throughout the summer.  The real miracle will be making the 50 pound weight limit (not happening).  We’ll be getting off the ship around 12:30EST on the 21st.  This means of course that the water works will begin promptly at 9:30 in the morning and shouldn’t stop until mid-afternoon.

It’s a lot harder sailing west then it was sailing east.  We had all of the Mediterranean to look forward to…Europe was at our disposal!  But now all we have to look forward to is a day off before starting up another semester.  I know, I know…all the violins in Beethoven’s symphony are playing the saddest song just for us.  But you have to give us a break!  It’s not easy being young, vibrant students with minds like sponges!  Ok maybe not sponges…  

Love always!

John and Mally