pop, lock, and drop it

Wednesday, December 7, 2011 (11:13pm) - Caribbean Sea

hi friends! lots to say today. so yesterday i had my three hardest finals. i woke up at like 7 and got breakfast and did some last minute studying for my ethics & the making of US foreign policy class. then i had lunch, followed by my international organizations final, then global music final. was pretty much brain dead at the end of that day. so i spent the rest of the night watching friends before i had to go to work. then last night alyssa put on an explorer's seminar about all the research she's been doing this semester at the health clinic. it was really interesting... and fun going to support her. then we all met up after and planned to meet up on deck 7 at 11. why? because us geniuses decided what could be better than sleeping on deck 7 before the panama canal?? i mean it's been super hot lately, so why not? so it was me, maddy, bri, courtney, brooke, alyssa, brandy, and brenna. we all grabbed the lounge chairs and set up camp by the pool. not only was the going to be fun to wake up to the sunset and panama canal, but this was strategic too cus we'd be reserving our seats to lay out all day. winners. we didn't fall asleep until like 3:30 cus that's what slumber parties are all about. but holy shit was it windy. we all literally had to make cocoons with our blankets to make sure they wouldn't go flying overboard. so that was kinda a struggle and made sleeping a little difficult.

we were woken up at like 5:30 this morning by people taking our pictures. not great. but then we were all up and watched the sunset. it was SO pretty... but super early. it took us a while to actually get to the canal. it's kind of like a parking lot of giant ships outside, just waiting their turn to get in. so we got breakfast and sat in our chairs until we got to the first locks. it was SO crazy. i can't even explain how cool it was going through the locks in the canal. i was really impressed by the technology and stuff. and it was cool because we saw all the expansion stuff their working on. we all took turns after we went through the first locks to go downstairs and put our bathing suits on. my game plan was to just lay out by the pool all day since i only have one more final and it should be pretty easy. oh wait... like 20 minutes after i come up from changing they kick us all off the deck because we were having a bbq for lunch and they needed to set up all the tables. wah. so courtney, alyssa, maddy & i went down and found lounge chairs on deck 5 to lay on. then like 30 minutes later, it starts POURING. sooo annoying. i tried to hold out, but it wouldn't stop. so i called it quits and went inside. brewer & i each took showers, then it was nap time since we didn't sleep at all the night before. we set an alarm to wake up for lunch. i was glad i got up because we were going through the next set of locks. then i came back and woke maddy up to watch us leave the last set of locks. it was so so so cool. i'm so glad we got to see it and go through it. and my dad saw us go through the locks on the webcams! so much fun. then i went and grabbed my book and laid in bed and read for a little bit. but the voice made afternoon announcements and said that maddy's group project was having a last minute explorer's seminar so i got out of bed and went to that. it's really cool cus they're trying to plan a blood drive for for ghana on future voyages. but after that i went back to the room and crashed! maddy came and woke me up at 6 to go to dinner. i told her i'd meet her there in a second, and had every intention of getting up. i turned on all my lights and everything. but i definitely passed out again. woops. but i woke up by myself before dinner ended, so that was good. then i was walking back down to my room to go read or sleep, but as i was walking past the piano lounge, i stumbled upon christmas caroling! how could i say no to that? anybody who wanted to sing could, and dr. phil played the piano. i sat with alyssa, courtney, brandy, and bri... and the caroling just made us want to be in sweats next to the fireplace with our dogs. (only 6 daysss!!) after caroling was over, i went to work for an hour. pretty boring cus everything is pretty much done. but afterwards, pure magic happened.

so in hawaii, i bought a gingerbread house kit. cus really, why not? and i couldn't do it because i was so busy studying up til now. but i'm pretty mentally done at this point, so i was like "10pm, garden lounge, see you there." and it was game on. you should see how ridiculously awesome this gingerbread house is. it's sitting in my room right now, but we're going to try to put it in one of the display cases on the deck 6 walkway. so hopefully the housekeeper guy approves it tomorrow! me, alden, maddy, bri, and brooke all made it. it was SO fun! that needs to start being a tradition or something. and we walked it through the ship trying to find someone to help us put it in the display case, and everybody was so jealous. sorry i'm awesome! don't hate me cus i'm beautiful.

and now maddy & i are laying in bed blobbing, listening to christmas music. today was a wonderful day. we move our clocks back an hour tonight, because some dumbass made us move the clocks ahead last night even though honduras is on central time just like costa rica. so today we lived on eastern time for funsies. i think they're doing it just to screw with us at this point. alright well i'm gonna go to bed or something cus i need to study tomorrow before my last final! only 6 days until home! i can't believe it. i cannot even begin to tell you how excited i am. today at dinner, this lifelong learner nola asked me if i could visualize home... and i was like "that's kind of all i do these days." haha so exciteddddd! okay well good night. love you all!!