No Classes

No Classes

From Twin Perspectives - Semester at Sea:

October 5, 2005
No Class

Excerpt from Megans Journal:

When the announcement on the system declares another hour advancement of the clocks by one hour on October 4, 2005 and the calendar boldly reports in large capital block letters NO CLASS you can be sure not one student will be awake be noon, or not many. Heather I and woke at seven oclock to a day of study, study, study or so we thought. Now we are the equivalent of seven hours before Maryland.

The morning, of course, was devoted entirely to this task for the Global Studies Exam on October 8, 2005. The material will include lectures and readings on South Africa and Kenya. So far we have managed to really commit to memory about 1/3, maybe slightly more.

Heather writes, We are on our way to Mauritius and the weather is certainly getting warmer! Things have been pretty routine and I do not think that I have really stopped to take in the beautiful sunsets. We have worked very hard on downloading, organizing, and captioning photos, and were very surprised by the response to our latest batch of pictures on the blog. How impressive, and it made us very happy. We even went to Chris Bolins website to find our photo, but were unsuccessful, only finding one of our bags as we boarded under the Bahamas/Departure heading, photo number one sixteen. We asked him about the photo and he said that it was under South Africa, so check it out at www.37thframe.ca/sas and click on South Africa. Dont forget to tell us which one it is. We are still working on obtaining our lost Internet hours though we had some success today.

Around eleven forty-five we found ourselves in our shipshape cabin with two students from Sea TV, a student produced program that will in the near future be televising on the system onboard interesting news both on and off the ship and making feature-like broadcasts, as was our case. Not sure whether the segment will actually air, it was fun nevertheless. Their mission was to speak to us about how being a twin has made the experience at Semester at Sea different. While at this time I am still contemplating such a dense idea the most general response is that we will always, always have someone directly and prominently positioned in our life that has witnessed and made this journey with together. On a more humorous response we do have a built in photographer so to speak which some people have mentioned to us as being a great perk to having a twin. The session was only about twenty minutes and I would be both apprehensive and excited to see ourselves on the screen talking about us.

Heather writes, Today was our No Class day, if you have a calendar, then you are probably very confused that it was not yesterday, but because of our extended stay in Cape Town there have been some minor changes to the academic calendar and some to the arrival and departures to our various ports, but nothing to worry about. This morning Amanda interviewed us for SeaTV about being twins and how that has affected us on this trip, and how being a twin brings a whole new perspective and scope to our adventures. It made me think about how most of the students do not know each other before they board, and how they do not know these people and how they have changed over the course of our voyage. Megan and I can see the changes in each other and no matter what happens when we get home, or who wants to listen to all one hundred days of this fabulous story, we will always have someone that knew what it was like that one time in Brazil at the Candomble House, or the day the giraffes were mere feet away, and the almost stalking demeanor of the taxi drivers in Cape Town at the pier as they said, Oh, youre the twins, as if they had discussed us between the intervals of getting on and off the ship.

Excerpt from Heathers Journal:

Yesterday we got a note saying that we had logged on October 28th at ten oclock until eighteen hundred; which was a loss of seventy-three minutes. Now if you do the math this is more like seven hours, not to mention that there is no way that someone could lose seven hours when we only had four to start with, and of course it is not October yet. After talking with someone from the IT Team we found out that the loss occurred on September 28th at sixteen hundred to eighteen hundred, which we informed them was most assuredly impossible that we could have forgotten to log off because we were at the Amy Biehl Foundation stuck on a broken down bus and could not be logged on when we were not on the ship. Anyway, Amy, who helped us out and checked the logs said that she was noticing large time gaps the entire week that we were in Cape Town and we can only come to the conclusion that perhaps someone else has obtained our log account information. Thus we have changed the account and will be credited the two hours sometime very soon. Problem solved.

Megan writes, Around two thirty I went to see Amy at the IT desk in the computer lab about my Internet minutes. She went through them and I pointed out the major mistakes in the letter they sent me yesterday. The letter went something like this

Dear Megan,
We have checked into you request and see that you logged in 10/28 at 10:56am and logged out at 18:51 pm. You also logged in again on 10/28 at 18:53 and logged out 19:02. (The times I approximated but this was the idea). The time you were logged in equaled seventy-three minutes. We cannot credit your account with the two hours you requested, as it is not our fault if you do not log out

Do we see as many discrepancies in this letter as I do? First it is not October. Secondly I only had about four hours of time left on my account. The time difference of about seven hours from 10-6 is way more time than I even have available and they only calculated the time as being seventy-three minutes. Lastly, I was not even here at those times on September 28, 2005, which was the correct date as I left the ship around eight in the morning for the Amy Biehl Foundation trip which did not return until seven or eight. Anyway after talking with her she has agreed to credit me two hours and change my password on the account so that if indeed someone had managed to get or see my information they will not be able to access it anymore. In a day or so I will have to try the new password. Problem avertedyou may all continue reading.

Also yesterday we turned our clocks ahead one more hour, making us ahead by seven. We spent most of our time the last two days in class, reading, and of course, photos. We still have more photos to take care of, but it is time for us to start the workload in preparation for Vietnam, since we have already finished up to India. We spent today studying, and still have much studying to do this evening and the next couple of days in preparation for our second Global Studies Exam on the eighth. Therefore, the pictures must be put to the side for a short while.

Excerpt from Megans Journal:

Around two oclock a lifeboat drill was announced and everyone, appropriately attired, gathered at their muster stations. I thought the weather was quite pleasant for the occasion as normally the muggy weather when cruise ships depart for vacation make the experience very trying. My only complaint, and perhaps Murphys Law, was to be placed in front of a girl who would not stop moving, facing toward the side and back, bumping me, removing and replacing her life vest, and talking constantly. I thought it a little jarring and rude to the fellow shipmates and the RD calling role. At one point she asked me if I could move forward six inches because she was sooooo hot and the drill was ridiculous. Well, I said no, I dont think so. I told her that if she faced forward and stopped talking she might not be so hot. You can imagine she began whispering to everyone around. Oh well, sometimes being brusque is appropriate and I felt this was such the case. And, in all likelihood, if she had listened to what I had said would easily have given herself those desired six inches by merely facing front like everyone else. A body facing sideways takes up much more space.

Heather writes, At around two oclock we had a scheduled lifeboat drill, which lasted for what seemed like forever. It was not hot like our first experience with our bright orange vests, but very cool. The girl behind Megan would not stop fidgeting with her vest, saying that it was hot, though if she had left the vest alone, stood facing the front instead of elbowing Megan every time she turned around to talk, talk, talk, then perhaps she would have been cooler. I guess we will never know. We had a barbeque on the pool deck for dinner, the sun sinking below the horizon with an orange-ish glow and our backs to the pool as we ate at the pool bistro on the swivel stools. We had angel food cake for dessert and some grapes, which were delicious, and grabbed a green apple for later.

Excerpt from Heathers Journal:

We had our school picture taken today with the four, including us, University of Maryland students. Chris set the picture up and we took one of our Terp blankets with Testudo on the front and the words, Go Terps! in bright red letters. We all wore Maryland colors, or Maryland shirts, Megan and I sporting a red Semester at Sea t-shirt. After taking the photo of the four of us, Chris joking that, At least the twins have it together for the Terps with their blanket, and then asking to take one of just the two of us. Brooke had her camera and Chris took a couple of the group and us on her camera that she will put on the public folder for us to put on our USB and transfer to our computers. The pictures looked so cute and I cannot wait to get a copy.

Megan writes, Our college photo was today and the four students from the University of Maryland College Park met on the pool deck at five fifteen for Chris, the photographer, to take our school picture. Heather and I brought one of our Terp blankets and we used it as a banner. After Chris took the four of us he just had to take the two of us alone. It was fun to have some other schools and people on the pool deck watching this miniature representation from our campus as the terrapin made an impression. After all Testudo is Hell in a Shell. Sorry, Ashley TERPS RULES!!

A barbecue was elaborately prepared on the pool deck and I made sure to take photos of the desserts and fruit display. Overall everything was fantastic and I will soon return to my studies this evening and classes tomorrow.

We received our trip confirmations this morning with everything but the Local Markets trip in Myanmar. Luckily there are four groups and because we will arrive one day ahead of schedule in Yangon, we would like to do the Group D, which meets the first day we are in port. We get to sign up for this tomorrow, and with luck everything will go as planned. Only three more days until heaven! Stay tuned!

Excerpt from Megans Journal:

On a side note, anyone with those yellow Fall 2005 Calendars should make these changes:

October 4, 2005 A9 Class Day
October 5, 2005 No Classes
October 6, 2005 B9 Class Day
October 7, 2005 A10 Class Day
October 8, 2005 B10 Class Day
October 9, 2005 Arrive in Mauritius 0800
October 9-11, 2005 Mauritius
October 11, 2005 Depart Mauritius 2300
October 12-18, 2005 Class schedule as normally printed
October 19, 2005 Arrive Chennai 0800
October 19-23, 2005 Chennai, India
October 23, 2005 Depart Chennai 1800 or 1900 (this is a change)
October 24, 2005 A14 Class
October 25, 2005 Arrive in Yangon 0800
October 25-30, 2005 Yangon, Myanmar
October 30, 2005 On ship time 2300
October 31, 2005 Docked in Yangon, B14 Class Day
November 1, 2005 Depart Yangon TBA, A15 Class Day
November 2, 2005 B15 Class Day
November 3-4, 2005 As normally printed
November 5, 2005 Arrive Ho Chi Minh 1200 (this is a change)
November 5-9, 2005 Ho Chi Minh, China
November 9, 2005 On ship time 2300 (this is a change)
November 10, 2005 Depart Ho Chi Minh 0600, A17 Class Day
Remainder of voyage as originally printed

Please be sure to check and mark each date on the calendar weve listed above.

From Twin Perspectives - Semester at Sea (feed)
See also links to this feed and more from this feed