Sorry I'm going to hold off on a Cambodia blog for a day or two and tell you about the sea olympics which happened TODAY.
So last night we had the opening ceremonies for the sea olympics where all of the halls or seas got together and showed off their banners and cheers. My sea, the Baltic, was not really the best in terms of organization nor team spirit. Our color was orange, which fortunately for me was U.Va colors, but unfortunately for me, I guess I didn't feel like packing any orange T-shirts so I had to buy one. More than a few people though in our sea didn't even bother to buy orange or show up for that matter. We had our first sea meeting the night before, so we were not really prepared for the cheer either, but all things considered we looked alright. I DO have a pair of blue shorts which are reversable to make orange, so I had a full orange outfit going on that people seemed to approve of.
This morning I woke up at 8:30 to catch the end of breakfast, then headed up to a "secret" sea meeting at 9 where we were going to "paint up". I got some war paint on my cheeks and tiger stripes going on my arms. I didn't look as legit as I just made it sound though, it wasn't that exciting. My first and only real event of the day was at 9:30 and it was family feud. When our sea had the opportunity to go I volunteered to go first, and in a competition to hit the buzzer with four other people, I hit it in lightning fast time AND managed to get the #1 answer right. The question "What is the #1 misconception about SAS" my answer "It is a party ship". We ended up getting most of the right answers for that category and got the points, so we were off to a good start. After losing the next couple of rounds, it was time for the triple points final round. In a truly clutch performance, our team member on the buzzer got it first and again got the #1 answer to the question "Best Date spot on the MV Explorer" to which she replied "7th deck". We proceeded to dominate the question, getting 5 out of the 6 answers right, my personal contribution being "Lifeboat" as a good "Date" spot. That got a good collective laugh from the crowd AND was on the list in like 3rd place, so I considered it a success. We couldn't get the last answer, and Gogniat, the Global studies teacher and host made a mistake and said the next answer as the other teams were writing down theirs to steal. One of the other teams wrote it down after they heard him and so instead of us getting the points for the 5/6 we got which would have made us win and guaranteed us a place in the top 3, they threw out the entire question and we lost. It was disappointing, but we were not the most talented team as the day would prove, so it wasn't a great loss.
From then on I watched a number of events including crab soccer, pass the sponge, Dean White says, limbo, and Quiz Bowl. After seeing the questions in quiz bowl I regret not doing that instead of family feud since for whatever reason I knew quite a few of them, it would have been fun. The two big crowd pleaser events were the "Singing SASers" which was a choreographed lip sync competition, and synchronized swimming. The singing one was hilarious and I also regret not signing up to help our group do it. A bunch of seas did way better than ours, but we did "Beat It" by Michael Jackson and it would have been pretty fun and right up my alley. Synchronized swimming was pretty funny, with most groups making a mockery of it but having fun. We got good seats though, cheered hard, but again our sea wasn't as creative as some of the others.
In the middle of the day they did a man overboard drill, where the ship pretty much did a donut in the middle of the ocean to practice if someone falls off. I didn't know it was a drill at first and was honestly slightly scared. I thought there was no reason to turn around unless someone fell off, and they dropped a life ring in the water to practice. Soon after though they made an announcement about it and it was just a drill. Pretty amazing that a ship as big as this one can turn around so quickly though. We also found out that in order to pass by some islands tomorrow morning at prime sunrise time, that we would idle in the middle of the ocean for 3 hours. We cut the engines and sat there floating for a long time and it was really pretty neat to think about. We were just there in the middle of the water hanging out.
The last event of the day was the massive relay race where like 16 members of our sea took place. I was signed up to do the "Fruit Pass" which is where one person holds fruit between their chin and chest, and they pass it down a line without using hands. There were four of us who passed in down the line, and we did a very good job. In fact, we were fastest out of everyone, and got our sea off to a fantastic start. I followed our competitors around and the whole time we maintained a pretty solid lead. One of the stations wasn't set up, the whipped cream bubble gum station so when we got there confusion ensued. We ended up just running by and continuing, and finished the heat in FIRST. It was terrific, everyone celebrated and it was great. However, we find out that because the whipped cream station wasn't up, we had to do the whole thing over again and we were all pretty much deflated. We watched the 2nd heat take part, and got ready to redo ours again. I felt really bad for my roommate Jay who had to do the "Mystery Cocktail Chug" which he thinks was a giant glass of oatmeal, orange juice, potatoes, and more goodies. He had to do that TWICE, which must have sucked. We actually ended up with a better time the 2nd time around, won again, and ended up 2nd overall only 2 seconds behind the winner.
The best part of the day however was dinner which was BARBEQUE. We had to wait in line for about a half hour to get hamburgers, but they were amazing. We never get burgers and I was pretty stoked. The baked beans were good too and they had fruit punch, which is one of the rarer juices. On the whole it was good.
After dinner at least 75 people crammed into the 10 x 10 pool, I have pictures, and it looked pretty fun. I was in my swimsuit but decided I couldn't be bothered, I just took a couple of pictures and hung out instead. We finished off the night with the closing ceremonies where the winners were announced, the Red Sea. We never found out what place we got, I could find out easily but am in no hurry. We were dead last for most of the day though, but getting 2nd in the relay and 3rd in the banner contest might have raised us to only like 8th or 9th :) We did dreadful results wise but everyone had a lot of fun I would say. The prize was getting off the ship first, and honestly that sounds stupid anyways. I am in no hurry and will be in no hurry to get off come May.
Tonight Slumdog Millionaire was on and everyone watched that while I sat out in the hall typing this. I also paid my deposit for a 2 day safari in South Africa where we will be horseback riding and seeing all kinds of awesome animals so I am super pumped for that. Finally, I am planning on possibly golfing in Mauritius so that is exciting too.
Finally I will say that today was really a fun day overall and I appreciated it. It was the first day where if you were passing by us on a ship you would look on board and think that this was a legitimate cruise and not an educational venture. While many of you might thing that is a bad thing, it felt like a one day vacation of sorts away from class and stress of planning travel. Also for those of you who think SAS is a joke and/or a cruise all the time, take it from me that it isn't. Most of the time people are reading, writing, working on projects, watching movies, sleeping, or eating just like on any campus back home. Today was the exception.
I hope this finds everyone well and I will try to get my Cambodia stuff done as soon as possible. We will be in India in 4 days I believe, though I'm not entirely sure. I will certainly have all my Vietnam/Cambodia stuff done by the time we arrive. I'm going to try my best to get pictures up by the end of India which should be 10 days from now or so, so keep an eye out.
Thomas
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