[postlink]https://beenaroundtheworld.blogspot.com/2010/04/life-on-ship-post-vietnam.html[/postlink]endofvid
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A lot has happened on the ship since we left Vietnam. A couple days after the ship set sail, the entire ship took part in Sea Olympics. Sea Olympics is a Semester at Sea tradition dating back to...a really long time ago. The residential cabins are divided into 7 sections, or “seas” and all of the seas compete in various events throughout the day. Aside from ‘bragging rights’, the winning sea gets to be the first sea to disembark from the ship when we reach Fort. Lauderdale in May. I live in the Caribbean Sea and our sea’s color was purple. Our theme for this voyage was “Pirates of the Caribbean” and our chant was to the tune of Sponge Bob Square Pants. I personally took part in 2 Sea Olympic events, the Singing SAS’ers, a lip-syncing/dance competition and Dean White Says, similar to Simon Says. My group danced to Eye of the Tiger. Even though we didn’t place, I was proud of the fact that we were able to choreograph a pretty solid routine with just a few hours of preparation. We placed 3rd in Dean White Says. Overall, our sea didn’t have much of a showing in the Olympics—we placed 2nd to last. Initially, Neha and I thought that plan to show the crew our appreciation was an original one. But we later learned that the ship has a crew appreciation day every voyage to thank the crew for all they do. So we’ll be helping to develop crew appreciation day through the students of service committee.
I also took part in a Global Studies student panel with other first-generation students/children of immigrants. The conversation centered around globalization and our parents generation v. our generation. I have clips from the discussion but the ship’s limited bandwidth doesn’t support uploads. I also met our inter-port students for India—Sneha and Vikram. Sneha is a 20 year old college student from Chennai and Vikram is a 24 year old medical student from Chennai. Essentially, inter-port students are students from each of the countries we visit that join us on the ship for part of the voyage. The onboard inter-port students change with each new port. The goal of the inter-port student program seems to be to foster a mutually beneficial academic exchange between Semester at Sea students and inter-port students. However, I feel as though this goal would be better reached if inter-port students actually sailed with us for the entire voyage and not just for a week leading up to the next port. The system as it currently stands makes for a somewhat uneven exchange. Aside from only getting to visit one port outside of their home country, inter-port students are essentially subjected to a week filled with giving presentations/talks about their country and answering questions about trip-planning from SASers. Despite my personal reservations about the equitability and one-sided nature of the program, it’s been cool to meet and talk to actual college students from the countries we visit. I really enjoyed getting to know Sneha and Vikram. It was sad to see them go when it came time for pre-port prior to India. I will always have the memory of our Bollywood performance during pre-port. I, Kareem (my dance partner) and 6 other students learned an entire Bollywood routine that was choreographed by Sneha and Neha in 2 nights. It was so much fun! I’m obsessed with Bollywood dance and music. And should my memory faulter, I have the videos to remind me ;)
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[starttext]
A lot has happened on the ship since we left Vietnam. A couple days after the ship set sail, the entire ship took part in Sea Olympics. Sea Olympics is a Semester at Sea tradition dating back to...a really long time ago. The residential cabins are divided into 7 sections, or “seas” and all of the seas compete in various events throughout the day. Aside from ‘bragging rights’, the winning sea gets to be the first sea to disembark from the ship when we reach Fort. Lauderdale in May. I live in the Caribbean Sea and our sea’s color was purple. Our theme for this voyage was “Pirates of the Caribbean” and our chant was to the tune of Sponge Bob Square Pants. I personally took part in 2 Sea Olympic events, the Singing SAS’ers, a lip-syncing/dance competition and Dean White Says, similar to Simon Says. My group danced to Eye of the Tiger. Even though we didn’t place, I was proud of the fact that we were able to choreograph a pretty solid routine with just a few hours of preparation. We placed 3rd in Dean White Says. Overall, our sea didn’t have much of a showing in the Olympics—we placed 2nd to last. Initially, Neha and I thought that plan to show the crew our appreciation was an original one. But we later learned that the ship has a crew appreciation day every voyage to thank the crew for all they do. So we’ll be helping to develop crew appreciation day through the students of service committee.
I also took part in a Global Studies student panel with other first-generation students/children of immigrants. The conversation centered around globalization and our parents generation v. our generation. I have clips from the discussion but the ship’s limited bandwidth doesn’t support uploads. I also met our inter-port students for India—Sneha and Vikram. Sneha is a 20 year old college student from Chennai and Vikram is a 24 year old medical student from Chennai. Essentially, inter-port students are students from each of the countries we visit that join us on the ship for part of the voyage. The onboard inter-port students change with each new port. The goal of the inter-port student program seems to be to foster a mutually beneficial academic exchange between Semester at Sea students and inter-port students. However, I feel as though this goal would be better reached if inter-port students actually sailed with us for the entire voyage and not just for a week leading up to the next port. The system as it currently stands makes for a somewhat uneven exchange. Aside from only getting to visit one port outside of their home country, inter-port students are essentially subjected to a week filled with giving presentations/talks about their country and answering questions about trip-planning from SASers. Despite my personal reservations about the equitability and one-sided nature of the program, it’s been cool to meet and talk to actual college students from the countries we visit. I really enjoyed getting to know Sneha and Vikram. It was sad to see them go when it came time for pre-port prior to India. I will always have the memory of our Bollywood performance during pre-port. I, Kareem (my dance partner) and 6 other students learned an entire Bollywood routine that was choreographed by Sneha and Neha in 2 nights. It was so much fun! I’m obsessed with Bollywood dance and music. And should my memory faulter, I have the videos to remind me ;)
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