Log 34

Yesterday was Sea Olympics. It was fun for the most part, but there were certain aspects of it that I just couldn’t enjoy. I grew up with sportsmanship being a priority in sports. But in college, and during the Sea Olympics, everyone was so hostile to each other. Now, some seas got points deducted due to unsportsmanlike behavior. But I just could not enjoy the day when people were booing and downing other teams.

Anyway. The day started off with an early lunch. Then each sea gathered at their meeting places around the ship, and when prompted, marched into Kaisersaal hooting and hollering. There were at least fifteen events in progress around the ship, throughout the day. I did not compete in any of the myself. My sea was so disorganized and the sign-ups were not logically conducted. I supported my sea, but I really didn’t want intimate part in the games. I did however watch a few of the events. I also recording some of them either through pictures or through video. And man, were some of them funny. I think my favorite event to watch was the lip sync battle. Each sea had to mix some songs together and choreograph a routine to that mix. It was very amusing to witness what was born out of five days of preparation.

Then at the very end we all came back to kaisersaal. During this time, we watched the lip sync battle, the memes, and the 10 second video submissions. This is where the night took a turn for the worst. Between these events, during the waiting time a transition, the entire student body, including some of the other professors, would chant “move that test”. Now, the student body was both just joking around, and trying to at least make the professor in charge of the test to consider our request. But let me explain why. You all know that Neptune days was three days ago. The exam I am referring to is for the one class everyone on the ship is required to take, and that we all take at the same time in the same place. Originally, the schedule was as follows:

March 12th – Sea Olympics (the day after crossing the equator)

March 13th – class

March 14th – class

March 15th – study day

March 16th – exam day

After south Africa – Neptune day (our second crossing of the equator)

Well the students who had been on this voyage before said that we should get the full experience of what Neptune day is all about. We should, just as every other trip, get to experience Neptune day, the first time we pass the equator. Well instead of just switching Neptune day and Sea Olympics, they moved Neptune day to where Sea Olympics was, and pushed Sea Olympics to the study day before the exam. This made a lot of people mad, because the exams for the class are not easy. They contain a lot of information, and they have a lot of names and dates. So everyone who had planned their entire day for studying, now can’t do that. Well, they could, be what college kid wouldn’t want to experience Sea Olympics. For most people on this ship, this will be the only time this event will ever happen in our lives. Most of those people don’t want to miss it. Me included. So most of everyone I talked to just decided to accept the idea of failing the exam, because they didn’t have time to student due to Sea Olympics being from 1100 to 2100. That is about ten to eleven hours out of the day. Honestly, I probably would have studied for most of that time, had it still have been a study day. But I wasn’t going to miss the games. So due to this series of events, we wanted to see if we could get the exam pushed to two days later, and I am sure a lot of the students would even be okay with one day. So as I said, between events, and at the very end after the Adriatic Sea was announced as the champions, we chanted “move that test”. In my opinion there are at least three different ways to address the situation, being a staculty member in charge of the test. One would be to just ignore us, sit quietly, and wait for us to give up. No answer is a no. The second is to joke around with us and say Sorry it sucks, but good luck on the exam tomorrow. And the third way is to totally lash out and reprimand us for disrespect. Well, I am sure you can guess which one actually took place. First, the professor got up and left the room, going to the only place on the ship where students are not allowed. Which by itself would have in my opinion been the equivalent of option one. But then, one of the other staculty members that is associated with the test got up in front of us and started yelling. She was saying that we ambushed our professor with one hundred percent disrespect. That congregating together and shouting at a faculty member is outrageous and unacceptable. She made it sound like we were vicious college students trying to bury them alive. Ask any student and they will say that it was a peaceful protest to attempt to get the test moved. We weren’t shouting at him; we were chanting in unison. There is a difference. Also, to say that it is unacceptable to band together and work together to try and get something passed that the entire community wants is just ridiculous. That is how it works. If a community isn’t happy about something, and if the government doesn’t listen, they protest. I don’t know, I could have a skewed view and opinion on the matter, but I just thought that the situation could have been handled differently. Especially because even some of the other staculty were clapping and chanting with us. So she can’t even say that it is disrespectful for the students to “attack” the professor, because it was not just the students getting involved. Some of the professor’s colleagues were joining in. Anyway, that happened, and so everyone’s nights were ruined. No one even talked about that the Olympics for the rest of the night. All talk was about the chastising we received. Luckily, the talk about the games continued the next day, today, without allusion to the reprimand.

My essay for my ethics class was however pushed to the next class meeting. Not that it matters since I was finishing that last night instead of studying, because I didn’t find out it was postponed until this morning. It has been really rough for a lot of people on the ship this past week and a half. This leg from India to South Africa is pack with a lot of assignments for a lot of the courses on the ship. So everyone pretty much has five essays, three posts, and two exams spread out in this short timeframe. I myself have a lot to do. Not quite as extensive as the example I just used, but close enough. After South Africa, the work load for everyone seems to pretty much dissipate into nothing, but until then, everyone is on edge and panicking. I am not panicking. I am just rolling with the punches and accepting what happens. Like a said, my situation is not as bad as other have it. But I still feel the pressure of having an exam and three assignments all due on the same day. It is stressful. Lucky for me, since being in college, I have come to not stress out as much about my assignments and exams as I had in high school. I have learned that there are some things I just will not be able to control and that I am going to have to work with what I got. Sometimes, there will be concepts I am unable to grasp no matter how hard I try and I have come to terms with this in my first year of college. One test does not destroy a class grade. I definitely experienced that last semester in chemistry when I failed a test, literally, but ended with a B in the class. So stressing so hard over this situation just isn’t me anymore. I also don’t need this class, so not understanding everything that is taught to me is not a big problem in my eye. I just memorize it for the exam and forget it later.

The food in the restaurants have been getting worse by the day. I think it was because we were supposed to restock a bunch of stuff in Mauritius, which we never went to. Today’s lunch was okay, there was southern fried chicken and steak fries, but dinners are terribly consistent with the same foods every day.

I just can’t wait until we get to South Africa. I think everyone on the ship just needs some time off.