67
10-23-11
Sunday
Today I had Global Studies early in the morning. They extended breakfast until 9am, so it was excting that it was actually worth it to go. In Global Studies, we discussed the Vietnam War. It was pretty boring because it was mostly just history. The end was really intense though because two former war vets who are professors on the ship discussed their time while serving in the army. It was really sad and hard to listen to. I even started tearing up. In Ethics, Professor Molloy took over for the day. We discussed Blowing the Whistle. It was kind of weird because it was more lecture today than discussion. After class, I ate lunch with the student interport lecturer from Vietnam. Shes so adorable and told us shed take us around Ho Chi Minh on the first day. After lunch I went to the gym for a little, showered, and then decided to take a nap. I was so tired that I didnt even care that Brooke was making noise organizing the room or something. I slept all the way until dinner. At dinner, I ate with some girls Ive been hanging out with lately. I should really try and figure their names out. Hah. After dinner, I went to the piano bar to work on my blogs and readings for a little bit. Serafina, the adorable 3 yrd old, was there. Im not quite sure how it happened, but we ended up playing Hide and Seek together. It was so cute because when she would count she would count to 10 super fast. I would literally have to run and jump into a hiding spot. At one point I told her to count to 20. She counted super fast like normal but said 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 20. Haha. It was so cute! Shes so smart. At first, we only played in the piano lounge where there are limited hiding spots. One of the prime hiding spots was behind some curtains. Whenever she found me there, she would just say toes cause my toes were peeking out underneath. After a while, some other people joined us. We extended the playing field to by the elevators on the 6th and 5th deck. We would hide together and try and find each other. Fina wanted to hide in the bathroom at one point, so we hid in there and wouldnt let anybody else in. One of the funniest things ever was when one of the other girls was hiding by some trashcans by the bathroom. Fina kept walking right past her but didnt see her. We were all dying cracking up. Soon though, it was time for Serafina to go to bed. I cant wait to babysit her tomorrow!
After that, it was time for the student interport lecturers presentation. Her name is pronounced like Minh, but Im not sure how to spell it. She just presented some of the culture in Vietnam. I was really impressed by how thorough her presentation was. At the end, she even had a quiz on quirky things in Vietnam like its bad luck to see a girl first thing in the morning. She gave away prizes. I thought that was so thoughtful! I got some durian fruit candies. Durian fruit is the fruit that smells really bad but is popular in Malaysia and Vietnam. I thought the candies were terrible. It was so funny to give them out to people and see their reactions. After Minhs presentation, I had to rush over to the 5th floor dining hall so people could sign up for the different Global Citizens junkboats for Vietnam. It was not as crazy as the ones for Mauritius because there are only around 50 people going. I think my boat will be good. After the singups, I went to the piano bar to finish up a few emails before going to sleep.
68
10-24-11
Monday
Today I got to sleep in a little. It was nice even though I got woken up three trillion times from phone calls, alarms going off, and my steward trying to clean the room. I ate lunch before going to finance. In finance, we had a pop quiz on the chapter. The question was really easy, so that was exciting. After finance, I had Sustainable Development. It was chill like always. I really love that class. After class, I did some laundry in my sink. It took a while, but I desperately needed to wash some clothes. After laundry, I went to go babysit Serafina and Jack. When I got to their room, they were watching a movie with two other children on an iphone. Connie came to babysit with me, and we tried to convince the kids to watch Tangled on my computer instead of watching the movie on the phone because the screen was so small, but they wanted to finish the movie they were already watching. We just hung out and watched it with them. Connie braided Serafinas hair. It was so cute, but then Fina wouldnt let Connie fix it. It looked a little ridiculous because it was off center. When the movie ended, the other children left. As we were trying to play Tangled, it wouldnt work right. It was kept freezing and messing up. It was so funny because we were saying Hold on a few minutes. The computers not working and then Fina would pout and say I hate when the computer wont work. Fina finally agreed to let Connie braid her hair again and was saying things like I loved getting my hair braided while watching Tangled. It was sooooo funny because Tangled is a fairly new movie, so how many times has she really gotten her hair braided while watching it? She just has so many cute one-liners. We eventually couldnt get the movie to work, so we started watching Finding Nemo. When their parents came back, they invited Connie and me to eat dinner with them. Their table was kind of full, so we sat at a table near them. Fina came and sat with us. She called us her best friends, but then later clarified that everyone is her best friend. Haha. She was so cute the whole time. She made us talk in cat language for a while. After dinner, Dave and Sarah (Finas parents) invited us to join them for cake, which was sweet of them. They had gotten a cake for their father (Finas grandpa) who was leaving the ship in Vietnam. After dinner, Connie helped me out up a clothes line in my room. I already had one, but it was more in the center of our room than on my side. It took a while because we had to string the rope through a tiny whole in the air vent, but the mission was successful. Soon, it was already time for preport. It was so freaking long! I dont know why they didnt have the cultural and logistical preports on different nights. We were sitting in the same room for like 2 hours straight. I found the logistical preport more interesting like always. I would have left early, but Connie and I were trying to convince Minh to show us around, so we had to stay the whole time. When the preport ended, we talked to Minh about hanging out tomorrow. She said that was fine but that she told other people shed hang out with them too, so our group would just be really big. Im glad we got that figured out. I watched The Hills for a little while with Connie before going to sleep. Vietnam tomorrow!! OMG! So exciting! I cant wait. I have no clue what to expect.
