we had this long, awful all day orientation thing which was not exactly the way I would have preferred to spend my day but part of it was informative and we met more people. Many different people spoke about various honor codes and what “integrated learning” is. Our captain, Capt’n Jeremy, spoke and seems cool but every time he gets up to speak I want to cry because he takes forever to read his speech shindig and obviously is a way better captain than public speaker. He is also, unfortunately, not Norwegian (such a let down) but British. So I will attribute his lack of stage presence to said British roots.

But back to the more important things that I’m sure everyone is dying to hear about…..the people, since port is still a week away. Everyone seems very nice and friendly. My roommate’s name is Allison and she is from Oregon and goes to UO. Definitely seems like she is from Oregon lol. She likes hiking and is kind of hippie ish, very chill but just a very Oregon type person but I think we will get along just fine. She’s a senior studying psychology and environmental studies and no, I don’t know what her dad does for a living, DAD, so I’ll stop you now. We’ve been trying to be very social but we just aren’t really obnoxious, in your face, BE MY FRIEND type of people, but we have met some nice people and hopefully will continue to do so as the trip progresses. I believe it will be much easier once we start going to class and see certain people every other day as well as once we make port and do our field excursions. Allison (the roommate for those of you who have already forgot, shame!) and I have Marine Bio together and will also both be camel trekking and nomad camping in Morocco and hiking on the Great Wall in China.

We are both on the outside of deck 4, aka we have a window. Our cabin is nice, just barely has enough space for all of our crap but we somehow managed to put everything away and can still see the floor, which is always a bonus! They crank the AC so it gets a little chilly at night in our cabin so I fully intend to purchase a blanket at the store once I find the time. Although they keep the ship relatively cool, the decks are wonderful! I was laying in a lounge chair on the deck as we started our trek out of Canada thinking about how life really could be worse. Everyone was crowded around the railings watching as we pulled away from the dock and heading toward the channel so we snagged lounge chairs and just basked in the sun and watched the scenery go by. Quite the nice start ☺ Today at lunch was a bit colder but the sun was still shining and warmed us up. As I said before, it took a while to get out of the channel (channel? I don’t know what the correct term for it is but I’m going to call it a channel) but I believe sometime in the night we finally hit bigger water. There is still land in sight on our side of the ship, doesn’t seem too far away form where I am sitting now on my bed but we should be in totally open water by tomorrow, which is also apparently when the rocking really starts. Haven’t been hit by any seasickness yet (knock on wood) but I guess we will see tomorrow!

Heading to dinner in a bit, then there is an “involvement symposium” which I think just tells about clubs and other ways for people to “get involved”. I want to see if there is a Greek club because I’m missing my SigKaps like craazzyyy. I’ve seen a couple sorority shirts and it just makes me want to wear my stuff all day long! We had a “sea meeting” (they split up the decks into Seas, basically the equivalent of a floor meeting in the dorms, I am on the Bering Sea) and everyone had to stand up and say who they are, what school they are from and what they hope to get out of the trip and after each person spoke we all clapped and I had the strongest urge to snap. I don’t even like snapping but wow, thanks guys, you have officially converted me :P

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And email me! At cejaeger@semesteratsea.net!