Days 5-6

Days 5-6
Weather/Ocean Update: Gorgeous! The ocean is still calm, a little more gray(hi Hill!) then yesterday. We have slowed down to 14 knots which is also making the sea look calmer. The sky is full of these gorgeous long low clouds. Beautiful :)

Yesterday was a really great day, between getting used to the movement almost completely (its both getting smoother and I’m getting more used to it) and my Digital Art class. They have these really cool non-credit classes called Seminars where they have a professor or staff member talk about a subject. The night before last I convinced my friend Laura to come with me to a Digital Camera Seminar. We learned SO much, dad-you would have loved it! Between that seminar and my Digital Arts class I feel like I am getting so much better at photography. I have been practicing with all the settings.

So, back to yesterday. Last night after turning in our forms for our next ports (for our SAS trips), Brittany convinced us (Perry and I), to go to swing dancing. It was actually really fun. We did a basic ‘sentence’. They had a line of girls and boys and after every song we switched.

After that, we decided we had so much reading to do that we should probably call it an early night. However, the internet tends to be MUCH stronger outside the room then inside so we sat in the hallway. For those of you who don’t know, we only get 120 minutes of non-sas approved websites (those for research) the whole voyage. If we exceed that, it is 40 cents minute, not horrible but not so great. My whole life adults have told me that cell phones and the internet (particularly facebook as of late) are the demise of society because they take us out of the present. I never believed them, until this voyage. The absence of escape makes people really come out of their shells and conversations are our best form of entertainment on the ship. Soon after we went to the hallway we found ourselves immersed in conversation with others who had similar plans. We laughed as we decided that the lack of internet makes us all come out of our rooms, rather then look each other up on facebook all the time. Obviously, we ended up quite distracted but still got a lot of work done.

Today I had Global Studies, Military Force and Intro to Art. I am loving the military force class, the guy teaches at UCLA and is amazing. We talked about the Spanish-American War (since we’re going to Spain) and it all seemed to come alive. We actually will have our first quiz the day after tomorrow since there are so few school days. I am mastering working out on the elliptical while reading. LOL. I am also thoroughly enjoying my Intro to Art Class. The professor seems to really value art in the everyday world and is really focused on the beauty of the sea and what not.

Ok, enough for now!

Happy Sailing,
Elyssa