“For those of you from Nebraska, visiting the beach can be a cultural experience.” -Executive Dean

Hilo, Hawaii

The day started with my morning coffee on deck 7 watching as the big island of Hawaii came into view. All in all, a pretty great way to start the day. As we filed through customs, I also got a rather enthusiastic high five from the Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who is sailing with us to South Africa. Upon disembarking, my dear friend Katie Curtiss from my second year in NCCC met me at the port in a much coveted rental car and we set off on our grand adventure in Hilo.

I find Hawaii to be a remarkable place. American, but with a distinct flavor all its own. I feel very fortunate that Katie, who has been living and working in Oahu for the past several months, knows just about everything there is to know about Hawaiian culture and customs, despite her status as a native Texan. Our first stop was Hawai’i Volcanoes National Park. We had this grand idea that we’d see lava overflowing. We found that there were two things wrong with that assumption: 1. They’re not dumb enough to let tourists get close enough to anything that could literally melt their faces off. 2. It was super foggy and rainy so there wasn’t much to see anyway. It was cool to climb over mountains of lava rocks throughout some of the area damaged by lava flow not too long ago. Fun fact: it’s illegal to take lava rocks from the park or even from the island itself. In Hawaii, everything has a spirit and by stealing the lava rock, you then steal the spirit which can then result in some pretty bad juju. And if there’s any juju I don’t want, it’s bad juju from a goddess who deals in volcanoes.  

Anything is Possible

I woke up in a weird mood today. My mind races with all the shoulda, woulda, couldas that might have been had I not put real life on hold and signed on for this crazy adventure again. My mind fast forwarded to Baltimore –to  a school I’d never been to filled with students I’d never met. Should I have put those kids on hold for a year while I pursued my own crazy dreams? A part of me feels guilty about that, that I should have stuck to my teaching commitment and been half way through my first year of teaching instead of on a ship on the way to Hawaii. But later that day I had this moment where I thought, “Anything is possible.” Those are great moments, when you realize that anything is in fact possible. We’re told that as kids and for the most part, the general consensus is that anything is possible, but to actively feel it coursing through your veins is pretty incredible. So the plan moving forward is to see how I can use this experience to better serve those students I’ve never met in a classroom I’ve never been to this fall in New Orleans. 

“The sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli.”

Since we last spoke, quite a lot has happened. Staff and faculty had a quick day and a half of training on the ship before 623 excited, over packed undergrads joined our happy little ship family on Wednesday. Imagine over 1000 people playing “Sardines” on a relatively small cruise ship and you can get an idea of the situation we’re in.

We set sail from Ensenada, Mexico Wednesday night, heading west towards Hawaii. I kind of want to put one of those signs on the back of the ship that says “Hilo or bust!” like you do on a long road trip.

Since then, the motion of the ocean has been non-stop. Imagine going through your first few days of college, feeling like you’re constantly failing a sobriety test, unable to control your ability to walk in a straight line. In addition to textbooks, pens, and notebooks, students also added motion sickness bags to their school supply list, like the ones located in the seat pocket in front of you on an airplane. Reminds me of that quote from Seinfeld, “The sea was angry that day my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli.” That George Constanza was a wise man. Days like this it makes me wish Semester on a Plane was a real thing.

And So It Begins...

So here’s how the journey of a lifetime began…

Approximately 4:42am

My Dad (after helping me load my luggage into the car and almost herniating a disk in the process): I think I’m going to come in with you and make sure you get your bags checked in ok.

Me: Are you implying that I might be over the weight limit?

Dad: Er, um… 

Approximately 5:09am

Gate Agent: Ma’am your bag weighs 54 pounds…

But jokes on them, the extra carryon I shoved those extra four pounds into was checked at the gate. J

It was also pretty adorable that my dad helped me check in then walked me up to the security checkpoint and stood there and waited until I made it through security, much like he had done when I left the country for the first time 15 years ago. J Dads can be pretty adorable sometimes.

After making it onto the plane (and feeling pretty satisfied with myself, I might add, for cheating the system a bit), the guy next to me pulls out a Crown Royal bag. (Sir, you do know this flight is going to Utah?) But alas, the bag was only to hold his approved electronic devices so our binge drinking at 6am on the way to Salt Lake would have to wait another day.

The next flight started off relatively uneventful until, as I was making my way to my seat, a tiny Asian man carrying a suitcase twice his size sprinted up the aisle, like a crazed salmon swimming upstream, forcing me into the lap of the nearest passenger seated in the aisle. I’d like to think that she and I bonded a bit over the experience, but I’m sure this is the last we’ll see of each other.

In other news, Kevin and I checked into our hotel. It’s in a classy part of town, right down the street from Les Girls strip club (which I believe is “The Girls” in French).  We then set out to explore Old Town San Diego, which looks much like the “Old Towns” of the rest of the major cities in California then had dinner at the Gas Lamp District before 5pm. If only they offered a senior citizen special, we would have been set. 

How International Travel is Prejudice Against Middle America

So many of my colleagues are starting blogs for their upcoming Semester at Sea voyages. My friend Dave did a blog when he sailed a couple of years ago and wrote every day. Every day. Considering all of the communication challenges that arise when sailing on an oceanliner around the world, it's really something of a technological miracle. Looking back at my first sad attempts to blog about my last voyage (I believe I posted about our first day on the ship which is before we even left Florida which I'm pretty sure is cheating.), I am a bit disappointed that I don't have the narratives to go along with the pictures. (I did, however, post a handful of my favorite pictures from each port from my last voyage. Oh, who am I kidding? That is still a sad attempt at blogging.) This time I am optimistic that I will keep up with it. At least a little bit. But instead of making empty promises about something that may or may not happen, let's begin with the voyage to the voyage thus far...

And for my first official Spring 2013 post, I'd like to make a case for how international travel is prejudice against middle America. I'll prove it to you. While I was preparing for my upcoming voyage, I was living in the booming metropolis of Monticello, Iowa. (They pronounce it Montisello not Montichello like that of presidential homestead fame if that gives you any indication of the level of culture we're dealing with here.) In order to submit my visas for China, India, and Ghana, I needed to print PDF copies of the applications to mail to the company submitting the paperwork on our behalf. So I went up to the camp staff office, dusted off one of the old Macs, and went to work. Or tried to. You see, the very first Mac desktops aren't compatible with Adobe. And apparently neither are the computer's security settings. Red lights started flashing and sirens started going off when I attempted to download said Adobe so I quickly aborted the mission. Instead, I had to coerce the lovely nurses into letting me use the computers in their office on two separate occasions in order to print said PDFs. By this time, printing a PDF was something of a miracle. 

The preferred method of submitting these important international PDF documents along with my passport was FedEx. Do you know how many FedEx drop boxes there are within a 25 mile radius of Monticello? None. There are no FedEx drop boxes anywhere near Monticello. According to the map, I would have had to drive over 30 miles to a supposed drop box on a dirt road even more in the middle of nowhere than I already was. And pay $26 to boot to overnight it. I'd have to pay just as much in gas to get it to said drop box. No thank you. The US Post Office (which, thank goodness, every tiny town has) with delivery confirmation will suffice just fine. 

Now onto immunizations...The laundry list for the immunizations required for the countries we are going to is long and involved. And in order to get them I had to drive about an hour away. (Why would there be a doctor in Monticello who knows anything about Japanese Encephalitis? That's just ridiculous.) So I scheduled my appointment with the travel clinic in the closest big city-big being a relative term. The travel nurse went through all of the precautions for all of the vaccinations and, as she was administering one of the immunizations, said something along the lines of, "I don't know much about polio but I sure hope you don't get it." Oh geez. That's comforting. So hopefully I have all of the correct immunizations shot into my blood stream. Fingers crossed. 

So, in summation, I think I have justly proven my point that international travel is prejudice against middle America, against those with computers older than they are, against those with no FedEx boxes in a driveable distance, and against those with travel clinics whose clientele visit exotic destinations such as...North Dakota. 

Maybe Christmas Doesn't Come from a Store

So after yet another holiday season working retail, I feel that all of that personal growth I've done over the past however many months is long gone. It only took seven weeks to flush the 12 weeks of challenge, learning, growing, and reflecting  I did at camp out the window. That must be a new personal record. Who knew a mall could suck your soul that quickly? I'm convinced that working retail during the holiday season makes you a worse person: less patient, less tolerant of messy people, more irritable, and the list goes on. I suppose a less pessimistic view would suggest that working retail during the holidays could, in fact, make you a better person: more efficient, better able to duke it out for a good parking space, a faster folder, more appreciate of other poor saps in your same position, and better able to color code one's own closet. These are all important skills in life. So I'm going to stick with the latter. That working in retail has, in fact, made me a better person. Happy holidays, y'all.

Work Like You're Worth More than Minimum Wage

So it has been a few weeks since the end of camp and here I am, back at the same mall I was at when I was 14, working retail for the holidays. Since I have worked for Gap Inc. for I don't know 14 years off and on, I was expected to be compensated somewhat accordingly. I was a manager at my old store and while I knew I wasn't going to make the same amount, I expected to at least start where I left off when I was a sales associate. That line of thinking pretty much set me up for disappointment. Minimum wage in Nebraska is $7.75 and I am not making too much more than that. Honestly, after walking out of that meeting, I was pretty shocked, appalled, and offended. I felt like I was in some kind of social experiment, like Barbara Ehrenreich in Nickel and Dimed where she attempts to live off minimum wage and make ends meet in a few different cities around the U.S. Here I was, with a master's degree, getting paid only a few peanuts more to fold pants than I did when I was 16. But after listening to the general manager talk to her supervisor about how bad business is, how much is it appropriate to complain? After all, I am there only 6 weeks and there are folks who are there for the long haul probably making less than I am and getting less hours. I thought I was going to get at least 15-20 hours a week, but when I only got 8 my first week, I went into panic mode. I started shamelessly promoting myself. I was willing to take any shift for anyone. (A huge thank you to a girl named Ali. I've never met you, but you have graciously sent 15 hours my way!) And once the big bosses saw that I wasn't dumb, that I did know stuff, and that I did work hard, I started getting scheduled even more than the 15-20 hours I was hoping for. My strategy? Work my ass off. Work like I'm worth more than (barely above) minimum wage and work like I'm being paid more (even though I'm not). I guess that is a good strategy for any job. I hope.