Eeeeeee

My computer thinks it’s Sept. 7. How cute. cause no one on this ship does.

What happened was, there was a storm last night. no, there wasn’t really a storm last night, but there was rough water. yeah. that’s what there was. i woke up in the middle of the night when my side table drawers slammed shut, and then of course i couldn’t fall asleep - what was really scary, though, was knowing that it could get worse. i tried to get back to sleep, but just couldn’t, so i decided to go looking for my previously missing benadryl. i felt all around in the dark and couldn’t find it, but then curled up in bed and tried really hard to sleep, which i finally did, about an hour later - and proceeded to have such a vivid dream about finding my benadryl and taking it that, when i woke up this morning, i couldn’t remember whether or not i’d actually taken it. it was WEIRD.

classes are becoming increasingly difficult, not because the classes themselves are hard, but because telling myself that it’s ok, we’ll get through this, wave by wave, is a full-time job, and so i can’t concentrate on normal things, like school. it takes all day to finish a project that should take about an hour. grrrr. it’s really frustrating to not be able to concentrate.

but what DID happen today is that one of my groups of friends, Lindsay, Mike, Ben, Carrie, Zack and co., ordered a chocolate ice cream for me that said “Sept. 7th was RETARDED, Happy Birthday Emily”, and then when i tired to cut it the R fell off, so it said “RETA DED”, which is obviously perfect, my being from Boston and all. i had a wonderful evening running around and trying to find lots of people to serve my giant ice cream cake to before it melted. it was such an adventure. and RD Laura, who also missed her birthday once due to the international date line, made me a certificate of my membership in the BGM, or Birthdays Gone Missing Society. and someone put up birthday post its all over my door, and i asked everyone and they said that they didn’t do it, and then Tal finally was like “oh, i saw some old lady putting those up earlier.”

So Nancy’s pretty much my new mommy. she sang me an unbirthday song. and she and Jim are taking me to lunch tomorrow, as much as one can take one to lunch on a small ship.

also tonight i did a workshop on language with most of the RDs - Paul, Meghan, Michele, Laura, and Akirah, and their boss, Anna, who’s really sweet - and that was really interesting too. i’m afraid that Akirah is going to make Paul shave his head for the Students of Service auction and the end of the voyage, which we makes me sad, because i’m pretty much in love with Paul and his hair. he’s gay, among other things, so don’t get too excited.

i think i’m going to go star-gazing soon. they turned off our overhead string of lights, so that means it’s happening.
WE’RE ALMOST HALFWAY TO JAPAN!! how excited am i?! so excited. SOOO excited.