Day #3

Thursday January 13, 2011

Today was the day orientation had the chance to fully consume my day along with everyone else’s! As most of you are either in college now or have graduated from college, you might remember that orientation is not the most amazing thing in the world! Ha ha! Lets just say, I was thankful when it finally ended! One more surprise that I wasn’t expecting was the mandatory writing assignment that all the students on board were required to complete. Never in my life did I think I would have to complete what looked like a small section of the reading comprehension and writing prompt from an SAT test. I was also extremely excited when that was over! I mean as much as I love writing! :)

The later it got the better the night became because we got to meet with our common reading discussion groups, which I hadn’t been able to attend yet because I was sick the first time they met. The funny story behind these groups is that some people received an email suggesting to read Three Cups of Tea before our voyage began in order to attend an optional discussion group while at sea. However, some people never received this email and the people who did get the email saw that it wasn’t required, therefore they decided not to read it. Even though the majority of the people in my group haven’t read the book, we still had a great discussion that somewhat involved talking about Three Cups of Tea.

The next and final event of the night was fun as we walked around the ship signing up for different groups/clubs we want to participate in. The first room I went to was the religious & spirituality group. This was really great because I was able to meet several people who follow Christ and many of them are interested in starting a Bible study/worship service/church service. Hopefully in the next few days we’ll start to meet regardless if the Hindu leader of the religious/spirituality group or myself organizes it. I am so grateful that God has already allowed me to meet other fellow believers, considering I haven’t even been gone for a week yet. Please keep me and the people in this religious group in your prayers as many of these students also vocalized their desire to stay firm in their walk with Christ while traveling this semester.

I also signed up to be placed in a family group. There are several families on board whether they are the families of some of the professors, older couples, or parents traveling with their children. These specific individuals are called lifelong learners and are traveling on the ship with us just for fun. So within the next week I will find out which family or couple on the ship I will be paired up with, which I’m really excited about. So after a long day that came with all sorts of surprises and involved a lot of sitting and listening, I have to admit that I was once again ready to hit my pillow. Hopefully with classes starting tomorrow I’ll have more interesting things to share with y’all!