Ship Life, Denouement; or Happy Easter!

These past few days have been a whirlwind. Days on the ship used to drag on, now they fly by before I can register they happened. Two days until Morocco, our final port.

Tonight I finished one of my courses, tomorrow I will finish another. I have reached that "road block" point with school work, where I am 110% done with homework.

I've had multiple conversations with people today where we decided that although we will be sad to leave the ship, we are ready to move on. To move on to what's next, ready to not be constantly in a state of planning. I've said I will be incredibly grateful to be in the same place for more than a couple weeks- and realizing that next place will be Ontario Pioneer Camp makes me incredibly joyful.

But for now, as a study break for myself, I'll share some ship life moments that have brought me joy.

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You can sign up for something on the ship called a bridge tour, where a crew member leads you to the bridge, normally off-limit to students.

I was geeking out, asking questions about how the ship works, what that button does, what if there were pirates, what does that button do, what do the flags mean, and how about that button? All the GPS systems and controls were fascinating. When we were up there the ship was on autopilot so the officers just joked with us.

One of my favourite things is that there is always one guy who stands at the front and looks out with binoculars. That's his job. He told us he's seen a lot of whales.



They also let us put on a Captain's hat.



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You can purchase something on the ship called "fine dining", although a lot of students call it "fancy dinner". Normally its for if someone wants to celebrate a birthday or special occasion, but a group of my friends and I decided that even though we haven't celebrated a birthday on the ship, we still want to dress up fancy and drink champagne.



We giggled and put make-up on and took pictures and then stuffed ourselves on amazing food.

We toasted to "new Facebook friends".

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The stress of finals week, on any campus, makes students act in strange ways, including on our own floating campus. We blew off a study session and instead had a silly photo shoot. At one point I was laughing so hard I was crying, curled up on the deck.



This is another in the series of boy band photos... refer back to Japan. We have plans to find Abbey Road in England.

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The sunset was beautiful tonight. The sun reflected on the mirror in my cabin into my eyes, so I abandoned my work and headed up to the 7th deck. I listened to calming music and watching the large golden disk lower itself into the ocean.



This morning was also the sunrise Easter service. It was beautiful. I was reminded of God's grace and love like never before, and I think that's the first time I've teared up while receiving communion.

Somehow, the stress of everything else faded away with both the sunrise and sunset today.

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At dinner today they put out Skippy peanut butter, and as soon as word got around students swarmed. We rarely get "good" peanut butter, so when it's offered, it's a big deal.

I ended up licking peanut butter off a spoon for an hour, like a peanut butter Popsicle, while a couple friends and I discussed our cats back home.

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Wrote my final exam for my Religions of the World class. Our professor, as students began to hand in their papers, made a comment how in 25 years in teaching he's never enjoyed a class so much, and how he's very grateful for getting to know us. There was a collective "awww" before he shushed us and told us to keep writing.

I paused before writing my conclusion paragraph, not wanting to finish the course just yet.

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It's night now. I'm exhausted, it's been a full day, and there's another one tomorrow.