Dreaming of Japan

Today marks one month exactly until our ship sets sail! And even though Japan doesn't come until the end of our voyage, I am already looking forward to all the things I have missed since my last visit there. I cannot wait to be sitting in a little hole-in-the-wall ramen shop, with a steaming bowl of noodles the size of my head, tears streaming down my face from the heat, and a little old Japanese lady peeking out from behind the giant cooking vat to ask, dou desu ka?

Side Note: You Can Follow Me Via Email!

For those of you who wish to follow me but are too lazy to type in a url, or perhaps my design skills are making you seasick and you'd rather have the comfort of looking at a blank screen, there is a cool little function that will send all my updates to your email! For aesthetic purposes I hid it way down at the bottom of the page, so you have to scroll all the way past my posts, type your email address into the text box, and click submit.

If for some reason it doesn't work please leave a comment so I can fix it. I haven't actually tried it yet.

Is This Really Happening?

Here she is, the M. V. Explorer. So this will be my home away from home for the next four months:

(Photo courtesy of semesteratsea.org)

What Exactly Will I Be Doing on a Boat for an Entire Semester?

Attending class of course! I just realized I never mentioned anything about the excitement that was registering for classes about a month ago! I wanted this blog to be about my travels but now in retrospect I wish I had written more about the preparation process. Anyway...

Dear SAS,
You should seriously consider not opening registration to every single student at once. Or perhaps updating your servers so as to be able to handle that amount of traffic. Just a suggestion.

Much love regardless,
Lexi

I'm sure they thought they were being clever by having registration at 6:00 AM Mountain time. Surely no one is doing anything but sleeping at that hour, right? Wrong. I was a coxswain for the CU crew team all semester (apparently I was just born to be on the water) and had the pleasure of waking up for practice at 5:00 AM every morning. That morning for registration was the first practice I had to miss all semester and no one was very happy about it. Why couldn't I just register after practice at 7:30? Well, you tell 600+ students that they all get to sign up for classes at the same moment and chaos is bound to arise. I'm honestly amazed I managed to get all the classes I wanted with the number of times the site threatened to crash. Everyone was on at the same time and after 30 minutes I'm sure every class was full. But I got the schedule I wanted!

A 1045 - 1200 Ethics and Human Rights in World Politics
A 1300 - 1415 Language and Globalization
B 0920 - 1035 Global Studies
B 1045 - 1200 Anthropology of Food

We are only allowed to register for 12 credit hours initially, but can sign up for another 3 once aboard the ship. I am still debating whether to add another class or not; I don't want to overwhelm myself with schoolwork but at the same time there are so many incredible professors who come from top universities all over the country (My Anthropology of Food professor is from MIT) and I feel like I should take advantage of the opportunity.

How classes work is we have A days and B days. Since we get so much time off of class while in port, we basically have to attend classes everyday we are at sea, regardless of if it is a holiday or a weekend. Since we don't have the distinction of weekdays and weekends then, we have A days and B days. So if you are wondering what I am up to and it is not a day that we are ashore (see my itinerary on the right), there you have my schedule.

I also received a work study position which means that I have a job aboard the ship and in return I get another $4000 scholarship towards my tuition. My job will be in the Field Office! This is the office that all the Semester at Sea-organized trips go through. And as with classes, I only work on days when we're at sea.

So there you have it, I'm not just sailing the world; I still have to attend classes and work, but I'm not complaining in the least. How could I? This semester is going to be the experience of a lifetime!

Map

40 Songs To Travel Around the World To

Finals week, horror of horrors. I've been averaging two hours of sleep per night for over a week now and finally the end is in sight. But instead of pushing through to the end I got distracted and found myself building a playlist full of songs about sailing and traveling and all the countries we're going to. So if I fail all of my classes you will know why and this will be all I have to show for it.

1. "Come Sail Away" by Styx - Possibly the best song ever written. "I'm sailing away, Set an open course for the virgin sea, 'Cause I've got to be free, Free to face the life that's ahead of me," Theme song to the next four months of my life right there.
2. "Where the Boat Leaves From" by Zac Brown Band - Thank you to Marjorie for introducing me to this one!
3. "Sloop John B." by The Beach Boys - Hopefully I won't be singing "Why don't they let me go home, This is the worst trip I've ever been on," but still a great song about sailing regardless.
4. "Southern Cross" by Crosby, Stills & Nash - "Got out of town on a boat goin' to the southern islands. Sailing a reach before a followin' sea."
5. "Starlight" by Muse - "Far away, This ship has taken me far away"
6. "Sail Away" by David Gray - Why are so many sailing songs so somber? Beautiful but haunting.
7. "Sail" by AWOLNATION - Another set of melancholy lyrics but this song has a really cool sound to it.
8. "Spaceship" by Benny Benassi - "Sitting on top of the world, Watching the stars go by, I've got my head in a dream, Got my head in the clouds" Yes, my head has been in the clouds since this whole deal started.
9. "Ramble On" by Led Zeppelin - "Ramble On, And now's the time, the time is now, to sing my song. I'm goin' 'round the world." Boulder, it's been fun, but the world awaits!
10. "Come Fly Away " by Benny Benassi - "You are a dream that burns inside" Yes, I'm a fan of Benny Benassi. Can't resist a good dance beat. And it's about being high... on life... I don't know.
11. "Carry Me Away" by Chris Lake - More dance beats! Had to counteract those first few doleful songs somehow. Not that these lyrics are much better, but they talk about water and tides and being carried away.
12. "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan - staple song on any traveler's or wanderer's playlist.
13. "Around the World" by Red Hot Chili Peppers - "I know, I know for sure, That life is beautiful around the world."
14. "Around the World" by Aqua
15. "Wild World" by Cat Stevens - Maybe this isn't the most appropriate song as it's more about the tragedy and hardship of going out into the big, bad world on your own, but it's one of my all time favorite songs so I couldn't leave it out.
16. "Beautiful World" by Coldplay - "We live in a beautiful world."
17. "On Top Of The World" by Jem
18. "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong - Another classic.
19. "The World Is Mine" by David Guetta
20. "The World We Live In" by The Killers
21. "Whole New World" from Aladdin - I feel like I'm about to go on a magic carpet ride!
22. "Under the Sea" from The Little Mermaid - Gotta celebrate the sea! Going to be on it for the better part of an entire semester.
23. "Silent Sea" by KT Tunstall
24. "Life for Rent" by Dido - "I've always thought that I would love to live by the sea, To travel the world alone and live more simply."
25. "Into the Ocean" by Blue October - Such a beautiful song; I never get tired of this one.
26. "Orinoco Flow" by Enya
27. "Peace Train" by Cat Stevens - "Oh I've been smiling lately, Dreaming about the world as one, And I believe it could be, Someday it's going to come." Did I mention how much I love Cat Stevens?
28. "Where the Streets Have No Name" by U2 - This song reminds me of all those little off-the-map secret places you get to discover when traveling, those places you will never forget and probably never find again.
29. "America" by Simon & Garfunkel - A song about traveling without any real destination, just to find that spirit of discovery.
    
30. "Amazon" by M.I.A. - Hello Brazil!
31. "Africa" by Toto
32. "Waka Waka" by Shakira - Love this song! Pretty sure it's become an icon of South Africa for us Westerners. Or maybe just me.
33. "One Tribe" by The Black Eyed Peas
34. "I Just Can't Wait to Be King" from The Lion King - Can't go on Safari without thinking of Simba and Timon and Pumba!
35. "Hakuna Matata" from The Lion King - "It means no worries, for the rest of your days." I'm going to be scaring all the animals away singing this in Kruger.
36. "O...Saya" by A. R. Rahman & M.I.A.
37. "Jai Ho" by A. R. Rahman - Thanks to Slumdog Millionaire everyone knows this song as a piece of India.
38. "Break My Stride" by Blue Lagoon - "Last night I had the strangest dream, I sailed away to China, in a little rowboat to find you."
39. "Princess of China" by Coldplay & Rihanna - Okay this one really isn't about anything to do with China, but it has China in the name, and I've been obsessed with it since it was released.
40. "Wavin' Flag" by K'naan - This song will always be the theme song to Semester at Sea in my mind thanks to the awesome lipdub video that the fall '11 voyage filmed. And it's about freedom and celebrating your heritage and nationality, no matter where you come from.

Since I will have extremely limited access to any internet, and therefor will probably be unaware of any new music that is released for an entire semester, you now know what I will be listening to for four months straight.

12 Weeks To Go!

A fellow traveler informed us today that our ship sets sail exactly twelve weeks from today! Put in that perspective, I have so much less time than I had thought to prepare. I know these last few weeks are going to fly and I'll be sitting on a beach in the Bahamas in no time. In the mean time though, preparing for departure has been stressful to say the least. There have been so many occasions when I have asked myself what in the world I am thinking, or rather why I'm not thinking; I work two jobs just to pay my rent and keep myself in school, how the hell am I supposed to finance a $30,000 trip around the world? Such things are for rich kids who's parents can afford the luxury of spoiling them with fancy trips, not the kids who have to work their butts off just to stay in the game. I should just call this all off before I invest anymore. But I know in the end I would regret that way more then the massive debt I will inevitably put myself into, this has been my dream for as long as I can remember after all. Perseverance and determination are sometimes more valuable than anything though. I logged on to my financial aid page the other day to discover that the Institute for Shipboard Education awarded me with a scholarship far more generous than I ever could have hoped for. The relief of if left me stunned and staring utterly dumbfounded at the computer screen for an entire hour. Just another little reminder that this is actually happening. :)

Accepted!

I'm really glad no one was in the house when I got my acceptance letter because I literally had a minor breakdown I was so ecstatic. I was so overjoyed that I couldn't quite comprehend how to respond. This letter was one I'd wanted a million times more desperately then the Hogwarts letter we all waited for when we turned 11. After I managed to gain control of myself I ran over to our neighbor's house to share the exciting news. . My neighbor was the closest person as I was home alone that day and so he was awarded with my hyper frenzy. I've been dreaming about this trip for years; so long that I don't even remember when I first learned about it. I've just always know that THAT is going to be my college study abroad experience. I went to the study abroad office my first semester of college and told them that I was going on Semester at Sea in Spring 2012. They told me I was way to early to apply and so I was forced to twiddle my thumbs until early this year when I finally stared my application. Somehow I thought the application would be the end, I would either get rejected and be devastated, or get accepted and pick up my bags and be off! ...Not quite. Now I get to go through the joy of signing CU's million agreements, applying for visas, figuring out what immunizations I need, applying for scholarships, figuring out what other financial aid is available, deciding what in the world I am going to spend my time in 11 different countries doing! And as far away as six months seems, I honestly don't know how it will be enough time to get everything done!