Update! Still not to Ghana! Get us off this shippp!

Everyone is getting a little restless because this is officially the longest time we've been on this ship at sea. Today is day number 8! Just one more than it's Ghana! =] Since my last post, the ocean has been very nice to all of us. The sun even came out for a bit today and a lot of people were out on the pool deck. Finally, I was able to lie out in the sun for a little bit before sadly going to work. I just tried going back out after work, but now it's very cloudy and foggy. Sad Miho ----> =[ We've had very interesting inter-port visitors with us. One being Mohammad Sheriff Ghale who is a popular Ghanaian musician. Google him! He did a Bob Marley tribute a few nights ago which was amazing! Josh, Ana, and Sara. You guys would've loved it! I recorded it so I'll post it up on Facebook when I can, if not, when I get back. He also did a collaboration performance with Suse and Gabriel (our Brazilian students) because there are many ties between Brazil and Ghana. They did AMAZING! Again, I recorded it so I'll post it sometime when I can.

I have a new family! Haha sorry old one. Nah nah nah. I signed up (along with 100s and 100s of other SAS students) for the Extended Family Program. Fellow students are your "brothers" or "sisters" and your "parents" are one or two of the life long learners, faculty or staff. My family is pretty cool. I have Jim, Marie, Yun Shu, Stephen, Brianna, and Gabby. Our "parents" are Ko (an RD for Deck 2) and Sarah (one of the ship's psychologists). She's actually a social worker but her title on the ship is psychologist. Everyone is pretty cool and we're planning to meet up at least once after each port, and meet up for "family game nights." I'm happy with my family even though my "parents" are a lot younger than I expected. I was expecting life long learners, but its totally fine cause I think we'll have a lot more fun with younger "parents." Ko is full Japanese and I think they planned this >_< I'm pretty sure we're 2 out of a handful of full Japanese people on the ship. They had to have planned it. It was pretty cool though.

Classes have been going well as usual. I got my exam questions for Cultural Anthropology and our professor is letting us write the essays for the exam and just turn it in on "exam day." Which is pretty much taking a take-home exam. He's also giving us 2 weeks to do it! My other classes I hope will be fairly easy as well. My professors stated that there won't be any surprises and one of them is even giving us a study sheet. It's mostly matching, multiple choice, and shower answer. So thankful that my professors are so nice and lenient. They understand how hard it is to focus on a ship, especially if it's test time.

Other than that, I've still been meeting new people everyday and getting to know more about people everyday. =]

Silly comment of the day: "Why do I need an India visa when I have my MasterCard?" -Some girl O_o

^^^^hahaha yes, someone ACTUALLY said that.

I forgot to mention a comment that someone said the first day on the ship. "Is toilet paper a foreign object?" WTH!? The thing with the ship is that it can't take any "foreign objects" through it's plumbing and since the start of the voyage, 3 hand towels have been flushed and stopped entire plumbing system for that deck on 3 separate occasions. Don't ask me why people have flushed hand towels down the toilet... It's beyond me >_<

I'll try and write before Ghana but if not, I'll write about everything I've done throughout Ghana or after all of it!


Miho =]

"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes" - Marcel Proust