Aloha Land!

Sorry I’ve been slacking. Life is a mixture of good, great, and awesome lately. It’s 11:35 am here. I’m sitting on deck 6 in the sun, staring out at the brilliant blue water, waiting to see Hawaii. All students on the ship took the Global Studies final exam this morning at 10, and the general consensus was that there is no general consensus. Some thought it was easy, but it seems most thought the study guide wasn’t much of a help. Deck 7 is now like college spring break on steroids. Nonetheless, it’s one exam down, two to go. Right on.

April 12th #2 was just another day. We’re now 6 hours behind home, 3 behind San Diego. There were a couple April 12th birthdays, which is cool. How many people can say they had two birthday days in a row? Then again, how many people get to say they’ve sailed all the way around the world? We truly are blessed to be doing this.

Two nights ago, we decided it would be a good idea to sleep on the deck. So at midnight, which turned quickly into 1 am with a time change, we “disguised” our pillows with t-shirts so they wouldn’t make us take them back to our cabins (we’re not allowed to take them out of our rooms) and made our way to the backside of the basketball court, which our LLC told us was the most prime spot for sleeping on deck. We brought with us a computer and speakers and watched Pirates of the Caribbean, pointing out the places in the movie where we had swum and explored in Dominica. People came and went, but the best part was around 3 am, right after the security guard came out and told us we had an hour before they started washing the decks. Four of our friends decided to relocate to deck 5, and as they walked back across the basketball court, one person smacked the other with their pillow, and 30 seconds later they had picked teams and were lined up on opposite sides of the court, counting to 3 and charging at each other with their pillows swinging wildly over their heads. It’s the simple things in life nowadays that bring us the most joy. This wasn’t a college frat party, where people had to be naked or wrestling in jello or drunk. It was just a couple college kids acting like 5 year olds and having the absolute time of their lives.

Five minutes after we turned off the movie, it started to rain. And not just regular rain, but soak-everything-in-under-2-minutes rain. We grabbed all of our things and made our way back to our cabins. I think we’ll try again tonight, although when we pull into Hilo tomorrow morning, it’ll be a miracle if it’s not raining. Something about it being the rainiest city in the United States has me thinking we’ll be running for cover again. Or maybe dancing in it. We’ll see.

We pull into Honolulu in a couple hours (but it’s only a fuel stop, we won’t be getting off until Hilo the next day), and talk on the ship is all about getting to use our phones again. I charged mine last night, and am planning to knock out a couple phone calls before we pull out again later tonight. While in Hawaii, I’ll have my phone on me for texting locations to one another, or texting pictures to people back home, but it’s been so good to learn to be social again. No one texts at dinner, or has to call their boyfriend/girlfriend every night. I’ve noticed that when I get internet, I’ll log onto Facebook and then think “Hmm, now what do I do?” It seems my only use for the internet now is to do research, look up things to do in port, book plane tickets. I’m sure it’ll be a main procrastination tool as soon as school starts again, but this summer I’m sure I’ll be doing much more exploring and much less vegging out. I’ve caught the travel bug, and I can’t wait to see everything.