2-14-08 NEPTUNE DAY!

There’s no school today, and as Semester at Sea tradition dictates, Neptune Day is that crazy day when kids shave their heads! It’s supposed to be the day we cross the equator, but we already had that event before Brazil. It’s more about the ceremony than actual timing, I guess. The crew went around the entire ship at about 7:30am with pots and pans, banging on doors and waking everyone up (complete with costumes). Then there was the official ceremony to request King Neptune and Queen Minerva’s permission to continue our sailing. It feels appropriate that today is also the rockiest day we’ve had so far. Drawers are constantly slamming open and shut, everything keeps sliding off the tables, and everyone is walking in an awkward straddle-type position with their arms out or grabbing onto rails for any sort of possible balance. It’s actually a lot of fun and really amusing to watch. Back to the “ceremony,” however, if kids wanted they could get real fish guts poured on their heads (it reeked!), jump in the pool, climb out and kiss a real-live fish, and then kiss King Neptune’s ring (who was played by Ken, one of our Deans. Queen Minerva was my Econ and the Arts professor). I was surprised how many kids actually did it. I opted to watch; no fish guts for me, thanks. Then the “Shaving of the Heads” began. Don’t worry; I still have a full head of long, curly hair! There were a lot of people who did shave their heads! I think there were about 30 girls who shaved their heads. Props to them, but I have a feeling half of them will wake up tomorrow morning and say: what the hell was I thinking? A lot of guys just went with the Mohawk look, though a decent number did shave the whole works. I couldn’t imagine doing anything like that; the most outrageous thing I would do to my hair would be to dye it (which I’m actually thinking about doing when we get to the next port. Not anything too crazy, but maybe a crazy color on just the tips. That’s fun, different, and a hell of a lot tamer than cutting it all off! I was thinking either purple or blue. It really depends on what the local supermarket has though…) It’s been a really entertaining morning: watching kids kiss fish, shave their heads. Definitely the best Valentine’s Day I’ve had. There was also a “Party Animals” Dance last night—safari style. My roommate, Christine, went as a fish. Tea and Nikki (our good friends who are also roommates) went respectively as a parrot and an elephant (Nikki had a kick ass elephant mask). I went as a monkey. We got pretty creative with construction paper; I created some kick-ass bananas. It wasn’t that great of a dance, but it was still fun dressing up and seeing what other kids came up with. One kid was completely zipped up in his sleeping bag and made an awesome penguin; another boy had an all-white suit and nice unicorn horn; a few girls had a creative way to make turtle costumes by wearing big green shirts over their backpacks. I definitely spotted next year’s Halloween costume for me, but I won’t ruin the surprise. We get into Cape Town on Tuesday. Until then, however, it’s classes and tests. I have my second rehearsal tonight for Overruled, a play by George Bernard Shaw. It’s a four person cast (but only about eight girls auditioned, so it’s not like I had intense competition), and actually one guy from Bucknell (Kadero) is in the show with me. It’s a fun show, only one act, and even though the other guy who is in the show isn’t the most intelligent I like the lady who is directing it. We perform it after Cape Town during one of the Community College events (a nightly event that usually has different speakers, certain movies, lecturers, etc). Of course, I play my expected role as a “dumb blonde.” A few other kids and I from our theatre class also have a sort of “acting troupe” put together (courtesy of our professor). We may do scenes from future plays we’ll read in class, or help out the Documentary Theatre class she teaches and perform their shows for them in front of the entire ship during Global Studies at the end of the semester. I couldn’t pass up that opportunity, so hopefully, that will pull through. It’s nice to be able to do acting since I really haven’t had the chance to dance much. Sea Olympics are also coming up! All of the students are divided up into seas by room number, and we each have a different resident director (similar to an RA). Sea Olympics is a full-day competition between all of the seas. I’m in the Arabian Sea. We can sign up to compete in two events. I signed up for “Slippery Twister” and lip-sync. I’ve got some good ideas for lip-syncs, and I figure any song from Aladdin would be appropriate for the Arabian Sea. Other events include a full-day scavenger hunt, dodge ball, mashed-potato sculpting, swimming relays, synchronized swimming, and flip cup. The winners get to leave the ship first the day we dock in Miami. The 2nd place sea gets an extra 100 minutes of free internet access each. I would prefer 2nd place, personally. The tech-lab was really nice though, and fought the dean to get every student an additional 100 minutes of free internet access because there have been so many problems with speed, logging onto the system, and disconnections. I think that’s about it from here. ~~~~~~~~~~ xoxo