Classes and Such

We will be at sea from Tuesday to Sunday.  The waves yesterday (Tuesday) were pretty intense.   The boat was making about 26mph through 10-15ft seas, which made for a very bumpy ride.  It was tough sleeping at night because some of the larger waves rattled the whole ship and could be pretty loud.  I had to excuse myself from one class yesterday to go lie down, but I was able to attend an alternate section today to make up the information.  After a 2 hour nap, I felt a hundred times better and was able to eat a good dinner and sleep really well through the night (with the help of Dramamine.)  Today, the sea is a little calmer and I haven’t felt nauseous except for a little while this morning while I was working.  Sipping ginger ale has seemed to be an okay relief from the seasickness and I might try to buy some ginger pills at a store in Manaus if I have the chance.  We are finally getting into the routine of classes and such and thought I would take the time to describe what courses I am taking (yes, I am earning college credit).

Global Studies: This is a class that is required for all students.  The professor is British and looks exactly like Elijah Wood’'s character'’s brother in-law in Green Street Hooligans.  It looks like the class will be a lot of guest lecturers and presentations that have been interesting so far.  Everyone was assigned a group and has to do a group power point presentation on globalization and how it has affected a certain country.  I, of course, am the only male in my group, which means that all the girls can easily recognize me and remember my name, while I can’t tell any of them apart.  At the same time, I can’t complain too much about being the only guy in a group of six girls.  We are planning on doing our research in Ghana, which should work out great considering I don’t have too many plans for that country.  The other neat thing about global studies is that although I am scheduled to attend on A days, I am also scheduled to run the mics, projectors, speakers, etc… on B days during the other section of Global Studies.  I am pretty sure I will be able to skip on A days and get the information I need on B days while I am “working.”

World Short Stories:  This class basically involves reading short stories from around the world and discussing them.  I needed to take an English CORE class and this one counted, otherwise I would have stayed as far away as possible from any literature class.  The professor is pretty nice and the biggest assignment is only a 2-4 pg paper so I don’t think the class will be too bad.  Of course I have been completely lost in “analyzing” the stories so far, and don’t really get how a three page story about a basement in Argentina can be so interesting, but Ill try to make the most of the class.

World Religions:  The professor for this class is an ordained Christian minister from Winchester, VA who teaches at Shenandoah University.  He is very knowledgeable and so far his classes have been entertaining and informative.  He has also reached out to me after finding out that I was a Christian and offered to help lead bible studies and/or Christian services on the ship.  I don’t expect this class to be much work either, but the topics truly interest me and I think ill get a lot out of it.

Social Justice and Altruism:  The professor for this class is pretty interesting.  He has written over 80 books on therapy and “transformative” social justice projects and is very passionate about his work, particularly an organization he runs that helps educate Nepali women.  He has already cried several times during class, and is very much into “sharing” emotions and things about ourselves.  Surprisingly, I don’t think he is a crazy person (yet) and think he is pretty legit when it comes to serving others.  Today in class we got partners and had to share with them about a time we felt “oppressed” by someone in a position of power.  My partner was a recovering alcoholic with an abusive father.  I complained about my lacrosse coaches not being supportive.  I’ll have to really “dig into myself” and “find out who I am” (whatever that means) if I want the professor to think I’m growing.  With that said, it has been a cool experience of self-evaluation and I look forward to spending four days in the jungle with the professor working on a service project in the Amazon.

I think that’s all for now, I have to read and do some other work this afternoon and might work on uploading some pictures.  Tomorrow (Thursday) we are set to enter the mouth of the Amazon River and the water will be much calmer. 

Until next time,
-Ben