yesterday was the Sea Olympics, a big event around here. All the students are divided into “seas” by the halls/decks that they live on (like dorms). They have names such as the Arabian Sea, the Aegaen Sea, the Mediterranean Sea, etc., etc. The faculty/staff/dependents/lifelong-learners were the Pacific Ocean and our team color was purple. Wore my crocs, of course. There were activities all day long, such as basketball, relay races, juice pong, ping pong, lip syncing, trivia, etc. The Sea who wins the day overall gets the honor of getting off the ship almost-first in San Diego. (The faculty/staff actually get off very first). The day started with “opening ceremonies” where the Pacific Ocean sang a song & had a banner & tried to set our tone. We didn’t place in that first event. Then I was on the tug-of-war team next. Originally our team strategy had been to LOSE QUICKLY, but as the day got closer our competitive streak started to come out. At the last minute, we decided to try & win. But, we were trampled quickly enough anyway so there was pretty much no outward evidence that we were actually trying. Julie claims that the boat lurched, but I’m not convinced we had any chance to begin with. Bob, one of the business professors, ended up flat on his back & Dean Larry fell right on top of him. Then, I passed on the next series of activities because it was a thousand degrees outside & you couldn’t really get close enough to see anything anyway. After lunch was supposed to be synchronized swimming, but the seas were really rough and they had to drain the pool to keep the water from coming out. One couple was having breakfast on the 6th deck when the pool water splashed onto them from up on the 7th deck. So, they decided to do synchronized swimming on the stage in the Union. It was pretty funny actually. Students trying to pretend they were swimming on land. Some in bikinis, some who rethought their costumes after the location change. The choreography was set to all sorts of odd music: Thriller, Madonna’s Like a Virgin, several songs from the Little Mermaid including an all-male team “swimming” to Ariel’s solo, A Whole New World. That team was the best, in my opinion. The Pacific Ocean had 2 teams in the competition, one with all the children and the second with several of the life-long-learners led by Missy, the bookstore-lady. We placed 3rd. We also placed 3rd in trivia, which had very complicated rules & was very disorganized. After the final tallies, however, we didn’t place overall for the day. We didn’t come in last either and so long as we weren’t humiliated, I guess it was a success. I was lazy for a good bit of the day and watched a few events and took a nap and filled out customs/immigration forms for our next series of ports and enjoyed the no-class day. Sherri & I opened the library for the evening, splitting the shift, and we did get substantial business. Students studying for exams for today, last-minute of course …
No photos of the day because we are having Internet woes. I can't get them uploaded. Something's wrong with our satellite connection & the Internet Service Provider is working on it. Everything has been painfully slow here the last day or do. "Painfully" being in contrast, of course, to the normal speed pain we normally feel ...
