Pre-Board Musings

Hello Hello~
So this is my first attempt at blogging. I've always wanted to journal regularly but have never committed to it beyond the random entry here and there. But as I am going on a new adventure, I feel I should challenge myself to take on new endeavors. Not sure that I will be any good at this blogging thing but I'm thinking of it as an extended Facebook status update. :)

So my goal in establishing the blog is to create a space where I can catalogue my experiences and reactions to them as I go on this once in a lifetime journey. I look forward to reading the blog years after I return from this Semester at Sea experience and reflecting back on times gone by. My other purpose for creating this blog is to have a dedicated space to provide updates to you, my friends and family about what is going on with me while I am so far from your loving embrace. I know that I will undoubtedly forget to tell you about all of my adventures in phone calls or regular email communication so I hope the blog will capture what i may leave out.

Today, I woke up to the sounds of the contractors wrapping up the sidewalk project. I was excited to hear them outside because I thought for sure that I had abandoned the task. But finally, I have a completed sidewalk. This was my major home makeover project I wanted to complete prior to my departure. So I can now check it off my list. Some other things on the home makeover project list will simply have to wait until the Fall. It's so weird to me that I know speak of so much of my life tasks needing to be put hold until the Fall. THAT's three months from now! That is one of the weird and scary things about this Semester at Sea thing: You essentially put your (real) life on hold for a specified period of time. There is so much in that last sentence to unpack. Not to say that Semester at Sea (hence forth S@S- haha I said henceforth:)) is not part of my real life and that I won't enjoy it but it sort of like a break from reality--- or my current version of reality, which includes the many tasks of home ownership and schoolwork. Oh well more on that another time.

I started to think yesterday about the job component of my S@S experience. I will be serving as the Intercultural Affairs Specialist while on the ship. For those of you who are thinking, what the heck is a Intercultural Affairs Specialist, this means I will be primarily working in the same capacity as a Multi-cultural Affairs officer or Diversity person would on a land based campus. So I will be advising student groups for students who have been historically marginalized and underrepresented on college campuses: ethnic and racial minorities, LGBTQ students, students of lower socio-economic status, religious minorities, and students with disabilities---really any students who is part of a historically or currently oppressed group. I am really excited to be working with students from under represented backgrounds. (What does the term under represented really mean? I struggle with the underlying meaning and assumptions tied to that phrase whenever I use it). Well do you use other language I'm excited about working with students of color, LGBT students, religious minorities or any other student which does not fit the dominant white, heterosexual, christian, etc. categories. particularly on the S@S experience which has so few of those "underrepresented" groups. I look forward to serving as a mentor and advocate! should be fun and enlightening!!! Since S@S draws students from all over the country and yes even the world, that should be doubly fascinating experience. so I need to give some more serious thought about how I will reach out to my target populations. I may have more on that later.

So final thing, I realize that I have been talking about all these things with the assumption that you know exactly what I'm referring to when I say S@S. I am so excited to be spending my summer months working for Semester at Sea. Semester at Sea is an innovative, one of a kind experiential learning experience for college students. Students from colleges and universities all over the country apply to be a member of the shipboard community for a specified period of time (a summer or a full semester). during that time their "campus" is aboard the MV Explorer (a HUGE ship) equipped with everything a campus would have- classrooms, library, computer labs, student union, campus store, gym and recreation, dining hall, etc. You can find more info on the S@S website about the MV Explorer. So, the students take classes which they get academic credit for on their home institutions (like study abroad). the major difference is that their coursework is linked directly to the destinations the ship docks throughout the voyage. So students taking a oceanography class on the ship will have field trips to coastal locations along the voyage route to examine the different ocean conditions. Students studying urban poverty will have a chance to witness the conditions of the urban environment in multiple locations. Pretty cool huh! So in addition to the classroom component, no college campus is complete without a dedicated and well developed student life component. that is where I come in and my amazing job as the Intercultural Affairs Specialist. There are other great Student Life folks on the ship but I haven't really met them yet so can't tell you too much about that now.

One final thing, I thought I would share my itinerary:

Destination	Arrive Depart	Day	Date	Time
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada	Depart	Tuesday	June 15	1700
Barcelona, Spain	Arrive Depart	Thursday Sunday	June 24  June 27	0800 2000
Civitavecchia / Naples, Italy	Arrive Depart	Tuesday Monday	June 29  July 05	0800 2000
Dubrovnik, Croatia	Arrive Depart	Thursday Sunday	July 08  July 11	0800 2000
Piraeus (Athens), Greece	Arrive Depart	Wednesday Sunday	July 14  July 18	0800 2000
Istanbul, Turkey	Arrive Depart	Tuesday Saturday	July 20  July 24	0800 2000
Alexandria , Egypt	Arrive Depart	Tuesday Saturday	July 27  July 31	0800 2000
Casablanca, Morocco	Arrive Depart	Saturday Tuesday	August 07  August 10	0800 2000
Norfolk, VA USA	Arrive	Saturday	August 21	0800

Sort of exciting, right!?!?!?! Anyway, I must go. I have a million things to do. My mom and I are going to see Shrek! Not on the to do list but a necessary task all the same. Thanks for reading!
Sg