shoutout

To the best husband/friend in the world haha the wonderful Michelle who booked 2 plane tickets, 3 train tickets and a bus ticket for me. Hello!

I don't think I've ever mentioned that despite this blessed, removed life, one of the easiest joys on SAS is the notification of new email, from people back home. It's really nice to be kept checked in about people you care about as we sail on this intense, all-consuming journey, to be reminded that life is being run on parallel planes to yours, and to look forward to having your planes intersect again sometime in the future.

And as Jivas was commenting that day, we've all been 'cured' from Facebook and other social media sites. There's no real desire to be bombarded with a stream from everyone you know, when you are given the privilege of the consideration and time that goes into constructing an email, and its easy again to sieve out the important ones.

It's something I hope to continue when back in 'real life', although to be very honest I know it'll be way easier to revert to the distractions of before.

Back to the mountain of work and end of voyage angst…. booze cruise my ass haha the count stands at an attempted all-nighter and a full out one in the past 3 days.

Decisions

Literally teared up reading the Reed Spring 2013 course catalog…… we can take max 4 classes each semester, and there are literally 4 Econ classes I am dying to take. Pretty much reached a whole new level of dorkiness wtf.

So tempted to go back now, although I still also want to learn Portuguese/Spanish somewhere…. don't think I can get an internship though since its so impossible to apply for anything on this ship zz.

Been quite troubled about what's up with my life next spring but I also realized last night that either of the 4 paths I choose, it's gonna be an awesome one?? Its hard to have faith that things will work out in the long run, but this is definitely a happy problem to have, I guess.

In terms of right now, WE ARE GOING TO BE IN THE RAINFOREST IN LESS THAN 24 HOURS!!!!!!!!

SAS life

A million things on my mind right now… Papers for every class, an extended research paper to write without internet access or any legit books in the library, a video for global studies to make, what I'm doing with my life after SAS to worry about and limited time with my family on the ship.

Doesn't help that we have spent 10 hours in the last 4 days on Bollywood practice for the talent show.

But we had the US ambassador to Brazil talk to us in class today and we are sailing down the Amazon River - it is the most surreal thing ever, to see lush rainforest on both sides of the murky greenish brown water instead of an endless expanse of clear blue sea. And we will actually get to be AMONG those trees in 48 hours. I just want to do some crazy shit and hopefully with peace of mind that I've settled everything by then!!!

Crunchtime

Its ridiculous how quickly this semester has flown past, and of course work is piling up since its nearing the end. As much as we want to spend time with everyone, its getting apparent that its going to be a toss up, and I've learnt that for me, the few gems always outshine the crystals. I'm lucky to have found them. And no matter how much we profess or actually do not care about a grade or a class, people like Steph and I cannot turn in shitty, half-baked work even if it means having to do a lot more.

Hoping for these last 3 weeks to go smoothly and for our memories to make for some lasting relationships! Cannot believe we will be in the Amazon in 24 hours, and Manaus in 3 days.

Hola! Favorito comer muy bien?

The 5 most important Spanish words to know and use. In the land of Dulce de Leche, that was the go to line when we got into cabs - directly translated, atrocious grammar and all, as hello! Favorite eat very good? Accompanied with the hand signal for money and waving your palm around to indicate an average price, it worked wonders, and we were driven to a spectrum of a fancy, award winning restaurant but that didn't rip us off (and here the taxi driver chops his neck to indicate that it was reasonable), and the neighborhood family grill where the owner was the chef and didn't speak a word of English.

It was almost surreal, to be in South America, a continent I had wanted to visit for so long. It felt so markedly different from everywhere else we had been, which sounds like a silly statement, but this is considering that Ghana and South Africa actually had similar vibes to places in Asia. Argentina and Uruguay made me so determined to learn Spanish, and then we hit Brazil and of course now I know I need to learn Portuguese. This is a disastrous situation, considering the limits of time constraint and personal discipline, and ironic, considering that many of the nicest, most memorable moments were borne out of serendipity and the vulnerability that arises out of a language barrier. Someone needs to stage an intervention and cure me of this travel bug.

I'd like to do a detailed post of my thoughts regarding my experiences in each country, but for now I'll just say that while riding around the Montevideo promenade, it was crazy to think of how we had travelled by ship, train, taxi, bus, buggy (as in golf cart), bike, horse, ferry and car in just 5 days. The car is significant because it has been ages since we have actually been in someone's personal car instead of just a taxi, and if we had extended the time to Rio, I would have added in cable car. The varied experiences we can fit into a mere 3 or 4 days in port still astounds me. Time warps, with things that happened a few days back feeling like a generation ago, while things that happened months ago feeling like just yesterday.

23 days left. Time to make the best of our time on SAS.