Sunrise! (June 24)

Late last night (at about 3 am), we decided that sunrise was a go for the morning. At 3:30 am, I set my alarm for 5:50…it was a lovely 3 1/2 hours of sleep. When I woke up, it was pitch black. I cracked open my window shade to peek out and make sure we hadn’t already missed sunrise. To my surprise, it was POURING outside. Like, POURING. Water RUSHING down my window. Seriously…the one day we picked? Well, I still had to go up to the meeting spot next to the coffee at 6 because some girls don’t have windows in their rooms and I didn’t want to just not show up. I got all my layers on- leggings, sweats, socks, shoes, tank top, t-shirt, jacket, and rain jacket. I was ready. I went up to the 6th deck and was curious as to how hard it was raining. The other girls arrived and the others with windows said the same thing about the rain. We walked over to the door and peeked out…it was completely clear and dry. There was no sign of rain. Our theory is that they were cleaning SOMEthing at 6 am- either our windows or the top decks, and water was rushing off the sides over the windows. We were all convinced. After feeling like idiots, we made our way outside. It was pretty cloudy. We ended up waiting 45 minutes until the sun came up. Unfortunately it was pretty cloudy so we couldn’t see much- bummer. At about 7:15, we were going to go inside and eat breakfast. Just as we were about to turn around, the sun came up just enough so that it was behind one cloud with beams BURSTING out down on the ocean. It was gorgeous. That was the end of the breakfast plan! We spent about 15 more minutes watching and taking pictures and fighting the crazy wind. I wish I could post pictures! Maybe I’ll get wifi in one of the ports.

Of course, I thoroughly enjoyed breakfast again. I went back to my room. I studied a little and got some work done, then got bored. I’m so productive when I wake up early! I ended up curling my hair because I was bored. Sometime during the morning, someone mentioned something about seeing a whale. I instantly remembered a dream I had last night! I had a dream that I saw a dolphin jump….dolphin!...two dolphins!...dol-that’s not a dolphin, it’s black. WHALE! IT’S SHAMU!! Yes, in my dream I saw a killer whale. It seemed so real that at first, I couldn’t remember if it was real life or a dream. Unfortunately it was the latter. :( I have yet to see a whale! The other day I did see a few dolphins, though.

Thanks to my 3 hours of sleep, I was exhausted. For the beginning of the day, I was energized because I’d gotten so much done and got to see the beautiful sunrise. At lunch, I hit a major wall. I couldn’t even stay away sitting there eating lunch. I knew Global Studies wasn’t happening for me that day, so I went to my room and set my alarm for 3 hours later. Someone while I was sleeping, it changed to 5 hours later. I went to sleep at 1 and woke up at 6. Now THAT is a successful nap. :) I woke up just in time for dinner and sleep-walked up the stairs. I was super out of it. After dinner, the ship started rocking worse than it has so far. We all (the entire ship) had a Global Studies midterm the next day, but nobody could study because everyone felt seasick. Some people were even throwing up. Of course, they didn’t postpone the test. We stayed up pretty late studying. As I was falling asleep, I heard some of my medicine bottles fall over. That got me thinking about friction and angles…so I fell asleep trying to determine coefficients of friction of different objects in my room. Nerdy, I know- but hey I had to! They’ve been trying to force history on me!

At dinner, we were all talking about blogging and how we’re all behind more than we’d like to be. The other girls are blogging every couple days and having trouble with that. When I said I was trying to every day, they were shocked. So many of you have asked me to, and I want to include you all in my journey! :) And thank you for emailing me! They said they noticed it seemed like all my relationships were really close- they were right! So I want to thank all of you for your prayers and emails! Seriously, every time I get an email it makes me SO happy. I often don’t have enough internet to respond right away, but I will!