Log 15

While on this ship, there have been many adaptations among students and staculty that has taken place. As you know, while at sea, internet and cell reception are inconceivably beyond our reach. To work around this problem, when people want to communicate with someone on the ship, but can’t find them, they leave a sticky note on their cabin door. Usually, each sticky note contains the “sender’s” cabin number so that the second person can reply. It is sort of like the pre-cell phone era where there would be a messenger to run letters from one place to another. The only different is that it doesn’t take days to get the letter between locations.

Another adaptation many students have reverted to is doing their own laundry. Now back home, the idea of a young adult doing their own laundry consists of them taking their laundry to the washer, throwing their clothes in and pressing a button. Here on the ship, doing your own laundry means filling your bathroom sink with water, getting either laundry detergent or a bar of soap, and scrubbing your clothes, rinsing them, and hanging them to dry for the next three days, all in your bathroom. Think of it as washing clothes in the old days with a washboard, but without the washboard. The reason a lot of students have reverted to doing their own laundry is because you have to pay six dollars a bag to have the ship’s crew do it for you. They wash, dry, and fold it, but to pay six dollars every week to have someone do your laundry gets expensive after a while.

On a different note, the ship’s students have had a turn in their attitudes. Naturally, this occurrence was expected, but I didn’t expect it to be so significant. In the beginning of the semester, the kaisersaal, during our global studies class, was so packed that people had to sit on the floor, because there weren’t enough seats to go around. But today in class I noticed some people sitting on the floor, but I also noticed some seats open around the room. They could have easily found a seat with space to spare. Then in my art class, normally a class where all seats are filled, about half the class seemed to be missing. Like I said, this was expected. We have been to three ports, and the ports are very close together now. People are giving up on their studies and are focusing on the next port and their plans for the few days we are there.

Similar to the note above, many students have been very reckless while in port. Many are getting drunk, stumbling back to the ship while their weight is supported by two friends on either side of them. In Japan, two students managed to make their way back to the terminal. One past out on the ground, unconscious by the door of the terminal. The other crawling out of the taxi vomiting due to over intoxication. Well by this time, the terminal had closed and we were to use a side entrance to get back to the ship. This poor taxi driver is trying to figure out where to take them, when my cabinmate had approached the terminal. The taxi driver held out his phone with google translate on it trying to figure out if they knew who this student was. After looking at him, my cabinmate noticed they were students on the ship. They ended up calling one of the deans and they had to get wheelchair in order to get them back to the ship. Another kid in Japan got so drunk that he threw a bench at a train. He was arrested. Had to pay $9000 to get out of jail. Then had to pay additional fees to repair the damaged to the train. And to top the ice cream with a cherry, he was expelled from the program. When we docked in china, he was banned from the ship and left to his own devices. I had also gathered some of the story to what had happened on the home front for this kid. His parents removed themselves financially from his college life. From now on he is to pay his own way through school. He is also to pay his parents back for the $40,000+ that he wasted. He wasn’t the only one to get expelled from the program though. There was a girl who was apparently snorting Adderall. She got really sick and was taken to the medical center. They treated her and in the process took a drug test. Well, the drug test came back positive, but for meth, not Adderall. So she too was left in China to make her way home. I did not hear anything about what happened to the girl concerning affairs back home, but I am sure that the situation is not going to be in her favor.