On the MV Explorer somewhere in the Pacific

Sorry, my first posting since beginning my Voyage of Discovery with Semester at Sea has been so slow in coming. The ship's Internet is unpredictable and slow. I only get a limited amount of hours free as part of my staff position, so I am saving most of them for my law school applications. If you want to be in touch with me, feel free to email at our joint Student Life staff account and put "for Laura" in the subject line. That account is studentlife@semesteratsea.net. I don't pay to receive email at this account. I haven't been on my Hotmail account but once since I left Madison.

What to tell...the Student Life Team is fantastic. We are all fairly different, but seem to get along well. I live on Deck 4 aft and am responsible for the 90 student participants living in the aft region of Deck 4. We are named the "Red Sea", which is wonderful as we will actually be cruising through this body of water. I have learned most of their names, some I still only know by photo because I haven't seen them since the day they moved onto the ship. For those of you who know the UW-Madison Housing system, my main responsibilities involve being a House Fellow and a Program Advisor with a little bit of RLC thrown in from time to time.

Thus far I haven't been sea sick. This leg of the voyage is suppose to be the roughest, but it has not been bad at all. From what I can tell everyone is beginning to get their sea legs.

We stopped in Honolulu, Hawaii on September 2nd. It was our first port of call and something of a practice run for everyone. I spent the entire day with Peace Corps friends from Micronesia. Theresa picked me up at the pier and wisked me off to complete the "Student Life Amazing Race" segment for Hawaii. Thanks to Theresa's inability to focus on anything else until we'd accomplished this mission, I believe I earned more points in Hawaii than anyone else on our staff. Met up with two Micro 65's (Suzanne and John) who came in during our second year of service, and also Weston, a fellow Micro 64er, for lunch. Then Theresa took me out to the North Shore where we watched the most amazing performance of about a dozen kite boarders. It was as if they were dancing with each other out on the ocean's surface. The colors of their kites twisting and twirling among each other so gracefully. It was much better than going to the ballet (sorry ballet lovers). It was not all island paradise, though, as I learned about the homelessness of native Hawaiian populations and observed the rememberance of the last Queen of the Kingdom of Hawaii held under house arrest by the United States government, not all that long ago. Still it was a wonderful day, and I am so thankful to have been able to spend it mostly catching up with Theresa.

Now we are on our way to Japan. We are to arrive in Yokohama in about a week's time. That's probably the next time I will be blogging to you all.