One day till Hawaii!!!

Alright where are we in this world? We are starting to get into warmer waters since we are only 500 nautical miles until we reach Honolulu Hawaii, and we should see our first sight of land Oahu, Hawaii by breakfast after seven days at sea.
Well two nights ago we had our Ambassadors ball that dinner started at 5:15 pm so we had an early start at it. Everyone was dressed up in their new clothing that they had bought or had made from around the world. We had an interesting group sitting at our dinner table which included AJ and I one of the girls who went with us to Kyoto, Japan and her roommate (whom she also knew from high school) and one of the sets of twins. We had gotten to know the twins a little in S. Africa because they still dress alike after all these years. It was funny because they had taken the Empress of the Seas from Puerto Rico not too long ago on the great itinerary that some of us had talked about doing on the 12 night cruise with a different southern Caribbean port every day. They had cruised quit frequently so it was fun sharing experiences and talking about the future. Dinner was amazing, we started off with a jumbo shrimp cocktail, French onion soup, Caesar salad, and for an entrée choice of Chicken, vegetable lasagna, or filet with a peppercorn gravy. I bet it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to guess which one I order. The Ambassadors Ball Committee made a nice speech and we had a champagne toast.
We had a few friends over to hang out before the rest of the evenings festivities began. Like formal photos with the captain and dean etc. They also did a preview of the video that the videographer who previously works with MSNBC in New York and Chris the photographer (who we have become really good friends with and has done photo shoots with the Olsen Twins and the Pope). I got to give credit we weren’t expecting much out of the impressions that we got from the videographer, but it was really good all though some how through video it never seems like it is truly your trip. And Chris’s photo CD with the soundtrack was amazing, I got to admit it really did touch me and almost brought tears to my eyes. I don’t know I mean there were photos of me and my friends but more so it emotionally put on film the feelings towards the 9 countries that we have visited in the past 90 plus days. We later went back and hung out in our room for a little longer until the dance started.
This dance was a lot of fun, playing the typical SAS pub night party music as usual. We had an interesting performance from the crazy religion of all worlds professor that I had told you about that had spoken a couple of times in the Global Studies exam that always wears the sunglasses and rings the bell. Anyways it was obvious that she had a little too much wine (or so it seemed) and was dancing all over the place with different male students. Not to say that being an adult and dancing with students was bad I mean the Captain and other senior officers were out there too. But during the course of this formal evening where everyone is in formal attire she proceeds to wear a long skirt and a string bikini top to start dancing and putting on a show. So much so that our Academic Dean and her boss had to come up to her and ask her to go and put more clothes on. This was all very interesting and the stories and photos that are on the ships public folders on the computers get quit interesting. This leads to the problem of the SAS policy of treating students like babies, which may or may not be justified. But at the same time, there need to be times where students as a group can congregate and enjoy themselves without having the faculty and adult passengers around. I mean at the very least I understand having the ships security officers present and the conduct officer present. But really there becomes a time when you have to live 24 hours with the faculty staff and adult passengers should leave the students alone and vis versa. Which their private time as a group is highly coveted in the faculty staff lounge. Anyhow I think that this situation could have been avoided if they would of thought of these issues early on. But then again SAS is known for not making the wisest of decisions. One quote from and adult passenger this morning speaking of the dance said there sure was a lot of estrogen and testosterone around that night. Pretty funny and accurate quote if you ask me.
Oh another interesting thing that we happened. So the past two or three days we have been talking about globalization (and overall commitment for those less developed nations and our responsibility or lack there of to provide for these nations although the later of the two aren’t as stressed as much). To break this down the first day we watched a film how globalization is good, the second how it is bad, and then on each day after the films were done there was a panel discussion between six students lead by the courses professor. Then the third day the professor and another guest professor went back and forth on the issue of weather or not we have a responsibility to help relieve the extreme poverty that exists mainly in Africa but in the rest of the world as well. They said what if you saw a headline on the newspaper that said 20,000 dead for terrorism everyday for three days. You would be upset, and would investigate. If it read the same thing but the reason you read was from starvation you probably wouldn’t have the same feelings. One side choose to explain the view of an author who believed by doing so not only used up our financial resources but also the impact of saving these people from death that would happen on the environmental factors that would undoubtedly occur.
The second was that they gave the argument that if we America would give .7% of our GNP to this cause that we could elevate this problem. Then they went on to try and make us understand by some would say make us feel bad others would say give facts. Such as countries such as Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, etc give up to 2% of GNP and there were a list of other countries that were giving much more then us and I believe the number they showed for the US was around .15% of GNP. The argument continued to say that people who buy a 150,000 Mercedes or starbucks coffee or anything that may be considered a luxury good compared to the bare necessities every dollar you spend over that is virtually killing someone. And that a dollar a day could save someone. But since a lot of times the numbers are so great and we are so poor in the grand scheme of things that we say we can’t help all so we decide to help none.
With this said latter on I and friends were sitting in the piano lounge a public room on a main thorough fair on one of the two main decks. We were having a discussion on this issue. I started out by saying that the discussions over the last several days in global studies were very enlightening and that all the people presenting did a very good job presenting a hard subject in a seemingly close to unbiased way. Although I thought that this is supposed to be an educated setting to educated people presented by highly educated professionals and that I didn’t like the fact that they make uneducated completely stupid comments like one solution is that the US should put an extra 5% income tax on everyone that makes 200K or more a year. Or we should just forgive the debt of the developing nations to the tune of close to a billion dollars (I mean if we are just forgetting some debt I have a small credit card bill considering that we should also just forget if we are doing such which I didn’t say out loud but I was thinking). Anyways out of the corner of my eye I notice a faculty member trout slowly (maybe it was my deer hunting skills) like she was slowing down to be able to hear the discussion in progress. So anways….
She approaches our group and asks me. If I really believed what I was saying. I responded yes. Then she asked me if I had attended the professors global studies lecture today. I responded saying yes. Then politely she said that ok everyone is entitled to their own opinion. And as she turns to walk away she makes several profane derogatory remarks to me. I mean can you believe it…this made my friends who were having this intellectual conversation with me very made. To the point that they were screaming back remarks to her. Not that it made it right, but I was so shocked at her choice of confrontation of this matter. I mean honestly a member of the ships faculty, I am sure you are all wondering what class she teaches which makes it even more interesting she is the onboard communications professor. Unbelievable really in fact one of the students sitting with us had her, as a professor.
With this said I mean could she have really of thought that I had gone on this voyage to 9 countries all of which besides one who were developing nations with tons of extreme poverty in each and not have a huge compassion and concern to these people. I know that everyone on the trip is tired and has been touched and pulled in soo many ways, and the attitude that has been presented to them by the deans. In the sense to treat the students on board as children. But either way I found her remarks to be totally unacceptable, friends sitting with me said that I should have reported her to the dean. Honestly the fact is it is not going to change anything. Personally I have been blessed with three great professors, but there are some on here that have these egos and definitely interesting personalities to say the least that after six or soo days at sea sure do come out.
In our final day or regular classes for global studies we did several things looking back over the course of the class and the voyage. We again as we did on the first day watched a video that a lot of you have seen that is titled if the world was made up of 100 people (which is where the numbers of the worlds population are divided down into 100 people). A few interesting facts that touched me were…2 of those have a life expectancy of 80 years, 23% are white, 33% are Christian, 20% live on $1 a day, 14% of adults are unable to read, 1 in 5 have internet access, 51% have never made a phone call or turned on a light.

The question was then poised to us. During the course of this voyage changed my life but how? In my mind the true answer to that question has yet to be decided. But Professor Murphy said: we have to be….bigger, stronger, do something different, be someone different…….we can’t afford to be retched or flimsy.

Which brings be back to the song that Archbishop Desmond Tutu sang to us…..We got to find peace..We can’t stop until we find it…We have got to find happiness….We can’t stop until we find it.

Tomorrow I have a presentation at 8am for Strategic Management, a final in global studies, and a quiz at 11 in Biology. The rest of the afternoon I will be enjoying the Hawaiian coast line by the pool as we arrive in Honolulu at 5 pm. I can’t wait to get to Waikiki beach it has been too long. God Bless.

Chad

PS – Evan that excursion sounds interesting, but we will have to talk about it when I get back. Maybe you can take December 9th off and we can all get together and go to La Roma or something email me and let me know!