A Momentous Day

Today during one of the 8 or so hour-long orientation sessions, Professor Schoener said it best; you measure your life by these moments. And Professor McCabe also made a great point; when you remember these moments in the years to come, you always remember the place. I was sailing the Atlantic Ocean on the day Obama was sworn in and I’ll always remember that.
Orientation in itself was boring and to be honest, common sense. The only upside of today was that the AV & IT staff were able to broadcast the Inauguration live for us. Not surprisingly, I cried. I can’t help it; it was just such a beautiful and uplifting speech and it’s such a pivotal moment in history. Today I was proud to associate myself with Americans because I feel like America has embraced its identity just a little more. It seems that, surprisingly, a large majority of the students and faculty are Obama fans – or at least faking to be.
I worked a little today, lending a hand in the computer lab whenever I wasn’t feeling deathly ill or in a session. I had to leave the morning session because I thought I was going to throw up again – yes it does seem that I suffer severely from seasickness. It’s horrid. Every time I move I feel the acid in my stomach churning. I’m light-headed, nauseous, and all I want to do is sleep. And the front of the ship – where the majority of my classes are held – is the absolute worst. I haven’t been able to keep food down for the past two days and all I’ve had is bread and water. So I’m going to go get the seasickness patch tomorrow. I tried the pills but they just made me feel worst. The ship’s phone is also a problem; it’s as unreliable as they said. I bought 13 minutes for $20 yesterday but Meredith couldn’t hear me at all when I called. AND because of the limited broadband usage, there’s no internet calling or video. The limited broadband is also going to make it hard for me to post pictures. It stinks hardcore. But there’s nothing I can do. Tomorrow I start classes and work my first real shift in the computer lab. I’m anxious for the semi-scheduled life to begin that way I can plan the rest of my life around it. Oh and we found out today that we’ll be changing clocks ahead one hour every day for the next few days – talk about cruddy. The other thing that’s weird is that they keep the entire ship air conditioned wayyy too cold; so when we go outside it’s like 75 degrees and humid but then we freeze when we come back in. Oh well, just something else to get used to. I’m heading to bed soon; I’ve found that the easiest way to cope with seasickness is to sleep it away.