Spring 2015 - Day 15
Today was a busy day!
I woke up to an announcement that we all had to go to Glazer lounge between 8 and 10 or 12 and 2 to get our temperature taken. Japan requires a temperature check for us to be able to enter the country. I don't know if it is ebola related or if they have always had that rule. It scared me because usually our first announcement isn't until noon and woke up thinking I was very late.
But I wasn't so I had a lazy morning. Jessi and I were going to have lunch with Michael Segal, the chair of the board of trustees. We met him on our first voyage. Actually, I had lunch with him on the very first day in Russia before I really knew who he was. Dylan and I ran into him on the street and he gave us a recommendation of a place to eat. As soon as we were seated he and his wife appeared! They had decided to come to that place as well and they joined us. He even remembered what we had to eat.
Jessi and I said hi to him in the first few days of this voyage and he invited us to lunch. The day had finally arrived.
I took a shower and then went over to Jessi's room to get ready. We decided we probably should be more put together than our usual sweats.
Oh, and lunch was going to be tacos! They announced it during dinner announcements last night. I thought it was very strange that we were having tacos for lunch. Usually we have the special meals for dinner. Well, then I got the inside scoop from Stephanie. Kevin, one of the deans and the guy that does our announcements, gets to choose when those special dinners are. He is also her shipboard dad so this is how she knows this. He chose tacos for today because today is his birthday! And he made it lunch because he already had plans for dinner. Lucky him. Actually, lucky all of us, tacos is a big deal!
Jessi and I got to lunch pretty early. We thought we were going to be the only ones there but Micheal was there waiting for us. We got our tacos and sat down. We were the first students there so we talked to him about our first voyage and about how often he sails and for how long.
Eventually other students joined us and once we were all there an all had food he talked to us about the board of trustees, what his role is on the board, and what the board has been doing with the changes to the program. It was all very interesting and while I didn't learn anything new about the new ship and new school they will be partnering wt, hearing information from a person who is directly involved in the situation made it feel more concrete and real. He allowed us to ask questions and I asked whether enrollment has been good and if he thinks, after all of the large issues are sorted out, that the program will continue to grow. He said definitely yes, and that is a factor that is going into the ship they choose. It needs to be able to have a capacity that can keep the program running and growing.
We got ice cream for dessert because we were eating with Michael! It was a nice treat but I was a little disappointed because the normal dessert was fruit cobbler. The fruit cobbler was my absolute favorite food that was on the ship last time. So I didn't get to eat it but I know they will have it again and I got ice cream instead!
Our lunch lasted until almost 2pm and we needed to leave in hurry to go get our temperature taken. Mine was normal, and so was Jessi's. We are clear for Japan.
I spent the first half of the afternoon doing my drawing homework. I had to draw four every day objects with different mediums using the contouring method we had been working on. It went pretty well. I am bad at contouring but am getting the hang of it the more I practice.
In class we did more still life drawings. We created a frame out of two L-shaped pieces of paper. We had to choose a frame size and then draw just the things within the frame. We are learning about organizing our drawing and how to keep it dynamic and surprising so that someone would want to look at it. In my frame the items were around the edges and the negative space was in the middle. I really liked the way it turned out. Then she had us just focus on our drawing and ignore the still life set up in front of us. We had t completely erase what we had just done. Which, when you erase charcoal it still leaves ghost lines so the entire drawing isn't completely gone. We then had to change some aspects of our drawing to make it better. Either change the scale of something or shift the frame slightly. It was hard to do because I liked what I had done original so much.
The third step was to use your charcoal to add different shades to the drawing. Have some parts be very black and others be almost white. You needed to create contrast but also have similar shades throughout because the eye looks for things that are similar within a drawing. It helps the eye move through the piece.
Dinner was disappointing because it wasn't tacos. But they changed the peanut butter back to real peanut butter so I took advantage of that and had PB&J. They have been making the peanut butter and it was weird. It was too thick and had a weird texture. I am glad it's gone.
We spent the evening sitting in Jessi and Annie's room planning our time in Tokyo. Jessi's dad sent her some hotel options and we went back and forth on which one we should choose. I put in one opinion and then just let them debate it out. It's really funny to hear them go through all the different options and over think every scenario. Jessi and I don't think we need to put that much thought into it, we know that if we go there and pick one it will be fine. It's just a place to sleep, we don't need to over think it. These girls have never experienced traveling in this way so they are going over the prices with a fine tooth comb and thinking about how far from the train station it will be vs. how far from downtown. All valid things to consider, of course. But if you can't have both then you just pick one. They also worried about whether we would fit all of us into one room or if we needed two rooms. Everyone had different opinions and some started getting passive aggressive about the one they wanted. Compromising between 6 people is challenging. They all desperately wished we had internet so they could do more research and I just chuckled to myself. The guidebooks gave plenty of information and it will be fine, no matter what happens.
We finally chose and Jessi's dad booked it for us. It is a hotel that a lot of other SASers are staying at and is fairly close to downtown. Seemed like a good choice to me. And it has free wifi!
My sea was having a cookie social at 9 but by the time I got there at 9:06 all the cookies were gone. Oh well. Stephanie gave me a tiny piece of an oatmeal one and that was satisfying. Jen, Annie, Andi, Maddie, and Tori were going to steal cookies from my sea but since they were gone we went upstairs and they all bought cookies and we sat outside on deck while they ate them.
It is finally getting cold out. Probably tomorrow it will be cold enough that being outside will not be comfortable. How depressing. Japan will be cold which means I will wear my winter coat and it will be annoying to lug around but I guess I would rather do that than be freezing cold. All the other ladies, besides Maddie, are from cold places and so will only wear a light jacket. They made fun of me for having a heavy winter jacket until I reminded them that I am from Florida and so don't like the cold. Ugh, I am not looking forward to the weather.
We get to go another hour back tonight. We will now be 15 hours ahead of the east coast.
The good news is that we are getting farther away from the storm so the rocking is less and less. Hopefully tomorrow it will be almost be back to normal. We are three days away from Japan!
I woke up to an announcement that we all had to go to Glazer lounge between 8 and 10 or 12 and 2 to get our temperature taken. Japan requires a temperature check for us to be able to enter the country. I don't know if it is ebola related or if they have always had that rule. It scared me because usually our first announcement isn't until noon and woke up thinking I was very late.
But I wasn't so I had a lazy morning. Jessi and I were going to have lunch with Michael Segal, the chair of the board of trustees. We met him on our first voyage. Actually, I had lunch with him on the very first day in Russia before I really knew who he was. Dylan and I ran into him on the street and he gave us a recommendation of a place to eat. As soon as we were seated he and his wife appeared! They had decided to come to that place as well and they joined us. He even remembered what we had to eat.
Jessi and I said hi to him in the first few days of this voyage and he invited us to lunch. The day had finally arrived.
I took a shower and then went over to Jessi's room to get ready. We decided we probably should be more put together than our usual sweats.
Oh, and lunch was going to be tacos! They announced it during dinner announcements last night. I thought it was very strange that we were having tacos for lunch. Usually we have the special meals for dinner. Well, then I got the inside scoop from Stephanie. Kevin, one of the deans and the guy that does our announcements, gets to choose when those special dinners are. He is also her shipboard dad so this is how she knows this. He chose tacos for today because today is his birthday! And he made it lunch because he already had plans for dinner. Lucky him. Actually, lucky all of us, tacos is a big deal!
Jessi and I got to lunch pretty early. We thought we were going to be the only ones there but Micheal was there waiting for us. We got our tacos and sat down. We were the first students there so we talked to him about our first voyage and about how often he sails and for how long.
Eventually other students joined us and once we were all there an all had food he talked to us about the board of trustees, what his role is on the board, and what the board has been doing with the changes to the program. It was all very interesting and while I didn't learn anything new about the new ship and new school they will be partnering wt, hearing information from a person who is directly involved in the situation made it feel more concrete and real. He allowed us to ask questions and I asked whether enrollment has been good and if he thinks, after all of the large issues are sorted out, that the program will continue to grow. He said definitely yes, and that is a factor that is going into the ship they choose. It needs to be able to have a capacity that can keep the program running and growing.
We got ice cream for dessert because we were eating with Michael! It was a nice treat but I was a little disappointed because the normal dessert was fruit cobbler. The fruit cobbler was my absolute favorite food that was on the ship last time. So I didn't get to eat it but I know they will have it again and I got ice cream instead!
Our lunch lasted until almost 2pm and we needed to leave in hurry to go get our temperature taken. Mine was normal, and so was Jessi's. We are clear for Japan.
I spent the first half of the afternoon doing my drawing homework. I had to draw four every day objects with different mediums using the contouring method we had been working on. It went pretty well. I am bad at contouring but am getting the hang of it the more I practice.
In class we did more still life drawings. We created a frame out of two L-shaped pieces of paper. We had to choose a frame size and then draw just the things within the frame. We are learning about organizing our drawing and how to keep it dynamic and surprising so that someone would want to look at it. In my frame the items were around the edges and the negative space was in the middle. I really liked the way it turned out. Then she had us just focus on our drawing and ignore the still life set up in front of us. We had t completely erase what we had just done. Which, when you erase charcoal it still leaves ghost lines so the entire drawing isn't completely gone. We then had to change some aspects of our drawing to make it better. Either change the scale of something or shift the frame slightly. It was hard to do because I liked what I had done original so much.
The third step was to use your charcoal to add different shades to the drawing. Have some parts be very black and others be almost white. You needed to create contrast but also have similar shades throughout because the eye looks for things that are similar within a drawing. It helps the eye move through the piece.
Dinner was disappointing because it wasn't tacos. But they changed the peanut butter back to real peanut butter so I took advantage of that and had PB&J. They have been making the peanut butter and it was weird. It was too thick and had a weird texture. I am glad it's gone.
We spent the evening sitting in Jessi and Annie's room planning our time in Tokyo. Jessi's dad sent her some hotel options and we went back and forth on which one we should choose. I put in one opinion and then just let them debate it out. It's really funny to hear them go through all the different options and over think every scenario. Jessi and I don't think we need to put that much thought into it, we know that if we go there and pick one it will be fine. It's just a place to sleep, we don't need to over think it. These girls have never experienced traveling in this way so they are going over the prices with a fine tooth comb and thinking about how far from the train station it will be vs. how far from downtown. All valid things to consider, of course. But if you can't have both then you just pick one. They also worried about whether we would fit all of us into one room or if we needed two rooms. Everyone had different opinions and some started getting passive aggressive about the one they wanted. Compromising between 6 people is challenging. They all desperately wished we had internet so they could do more research and I just chuckled to myself. The guidebooks gave plenty of information and it will be fine, no matter what happens.
We finally chose and Jessi's dad booked it for us. It is a hotel that a lot of other SASers are staying at and is fairly close to downtown. Seemed like a good choice to me. And it has free wifi!
My sea was having a cookie social at 9 but by the time I got there at 9:06 all the cookies were gone. Oh well. Stephanie gave me a tiny piece of an oatmeal one and that was satisfying. Jen, Annie, Andi, Maddie, and Tori were going to steal cookies from my sea but since they were gone we went upstairs and they all bought cookies and we sat outside on deck while they ate them.
It is finally getting cold out. Probably tomorrow it will be cold enough that being outside will not be comfortable. How depressing. Japan will be cold which means I will wear my winter coat and it will be annoying to lug around but I guess I would rather do that than be freezing cold. All the other ladies, besides Maddie, are from cold places and so will only wear a light jacket. They made fun of me for having a heavy winter jacket until I reminded them that I am from Florida and so don't like the cold. Ugh, I am not looking forward to the weather.
We get to go another hour back tonight. We will now be 15 hours ahead of the east coast.
The good news is that we are getting farther away from the storm so the rocking is less and less. Hopefully tomorrow it will be almost be back to normal. We are three days away from Japan!
