Underway (Vancouver)

MV Explorer

Wow, this is going to be an adventure! The ship, although not very large, is full of things to do and people to meet. Roughly 650 students, 50 professors and 100 crew members live aboard. With classes being conducted daily until we get into Japan, we are all getting settled in. The waters are a little rough but everyone seems to be adjusting fine.

Classes so far have been interesting. I'm taking Psychology of Personality, Chinese History, World History and Abnormal Psychology. The World History course is a required class to take while on board while the others were electives I chose. The Chinese history class is a little dry but I really enjoy both of my psyc classes. The professor for my psyc class is pretty cool too. She is animated and isn't afraid to talk about things that aren't traditional. I am enjoying learning about human tendencies and theories by thinkers of years gone by.

The ship is a modified cruise ship so you have your typical cruise ship rooms, some inner rooms with no port windows, lower decks have small port windows while I live on the 4th deck in room 428. I have a decent sided window and occasionally while we were still close to port in Vancouver I could see dolphins. The top decks have a few small pools, a gym, hamburger joint, shuffleboard and ping pong areas. Daily we even have a steward come in and make our beds, clean our bathrooms and get us new towels....not expecting that at all.

It's started to get a little more choppy, ship is starting to rock fore and aft, port and starboard almost all at the same time. Sometimes I wake up as the bow of the ship comes out of the water and crashes down into the next wave making the entire ship shudder.