So about that....

I'm late packing yet again... It's 4:54 am, I have 6 minutes before I leave my house and I have yet to finish packing.

So yeah follow our ship at http://www.sea.edu/voyages/index.aspx .

They're updating the page so if it doesnt work, go to sea.edu , click on the voyages tab, then the Robert C Seamans.  If I get internet access i''l try to update this blog, but until then, cya!

Papers.Papers.Papers.

So not so much time is left here on shore... I'm pretty swamped with work and really feeling the pressure of the imminent doom..  deadlines of these papers. The weather here has been quite wild here as well, ranging  from -16 degree mornings to fluffy snow and icy rain and slush all in one week.  Looking back over the past four weeks here at SEA, I really don't understand where the time went. Its cliche but time has literally flown by. I've gotten a pretty intense introduction to Polynesia and the Pacific as a whole, and  had some pretty sweet times along the way. I'm quite sure my professor/captain is quite possibly the most frequently quoted person I now know, and I can say that i have genuinely learned a fair amount in about everything Polynesia. I've been researching/reading up on the economy, colonial history, whaling, celestial navigation, western navigation, anthropology, culture, sustainability, waste management, life at sea, sailing, food, ecology, and religion of french polynesia and hawaii. The classes have been progressively been getting a little longer each day, and therefore I am more than ready to be done with these papers.

Aside from the craziness of the shore component though, I suppose the academic pressures have really helped to get to know the other students and professors. Our house has hosted all our profs over for a dinner so far and all gotten to know them better. In the past week I've gotten a BEHIND the scenes tour of Harvard's peabody museum storage area and have spent a day roaming around harvard square. I've also somehow managed to get my hands on my first SLR camera through the help of my brother, which I bought from an awesome house-mate Jackie C. from BU. Besides that excursion though, every waking moment has been spent reading papers, sitting in lecture, writing papers, eating, and sleeping (in that order too). ahh ah ahh TWO DAYS. i gotta go finish my ten page papers.

That's it for now, I'll update sometime later and add pics when i'm not in the process of dying writing...
FIVE DAYS until Tahiti! 

o yeah shout out to nick m. from northeastern u. ! <--- (he made me)
and ariane from carleton/ Nepal!

Busy.Busy..Busy.....

So, it's been a while, but it's really been pretty hectic as the deadlines are quickly approaching..
Last weekend was basically a frenzy of getting our outlines completed for monday and I presented a
powerpoint for my individual project on Polynesian Conservation on Wednesday. Recent lectures have included Celestial Navigation, Western Navigation,  Biological Productivity in the Tropical Pacific, as well as guess lectures presented by  Sheila Walsh from Stanford/Scripps/Brown and Sam Low (former professor at Harvard and Bowdoin, producer/writer/director of several documentaries including NOVA ones...!)
I was really impressed with each presenter's personal experiences and enthusiasm for their respective fields.
We even had a blow up planetarium set up in our common area yesterday to study constellations.

Our introduction to traditional Polynesian navigation was particularly interesting. Sam Low, who has written a book on the subject as well as producing a documentary, was especially attached to the matter and his descriptions of the Polynesian connection with nature in navigating the pacific was so intense, he almost cried.
It is quite inspirational to know that people were once so connected to their natural environment that they could solely navigate thousands of nautical miles based on observations of the oceans and celestial guidance...

Free time is pretty restricted after classes, making dinner, and reading a million articles. We had two of our professors over for dinner the other night and we made an epic amount of sushi as well as curried butternut soup. Another professor is also supposed to come tomorrow night, so making dinner with the house has eaten a lot of my time in the house after classes... (literally)

The more I read research papers, the more I am beginning to understand how integral a part human society is with the health of the ecological environment. A lot of people try to understand the environment unintentionally  removing themselves as part of the picture. But from my understanding so far,  I've come to personally define sustainability as a delicate balance between environment and society achieved through conservation...

It's pretty hard to believe it's already thursday night for me, and today was also busy.... We got a behind the scenes look at Harvard's Peabody Museum and their collection of Polynesian artifacts in the storage area, not on display (the perks of having a harvard prof?) and spent the rest of the day roaming around Harvard square. I have the drafts of my four papers due on monday, so still a TON of papers to go through and alot more to write! Despite some  frustrations of being in the first SPICE program SEA has conducted, our professor's enthusiasm and awesome attitude has really made up for some of the minor program disorganization. Really really excited to get on the boat though!!!

I'll add some pictures of the past week  when I get some free time later.. haha sorry for rambling along..

"I'm a Celestial Badass!!!"

So classes are pretty much in full swing and I had my annotated bibliographies due last Wednesday. I can't believe this week is basically over...We've had a ton of lectures so far from tropical fisheries, contemporary polynesia, European voyages in the age of enlightenment, western celestial navigation, surface circulation and ocean currents, etc.....We also had a guess lecturer Dr. Graham Forrester from URI give a lecture on Marine Protected Areas in the Caribbean......

As I've sat through more and more of the lectures, I've grown amazed at my professors accomplishments. One of my professors is a professor at both Harvard  (where she wont the 2010 Shattuck Award for Excellence in Teaching) and Stanford and has written several books and has over 20 publications... one was the former Minister of Fisheries serving on the Tahitian government from 2004-2008...Besides all the academic/politcal accomplishments of my profs though, my favorite thing about them are their hilarious senses of humor and enthusiasm. They know they're overloading us on information from almost every point of discipline, but at least they make us laugh. They try to start every day off with a joke and they also spontaneously break into song during lectures.. I mean I couldn't really ask for more than that. I have yet to get bored during any of Dr. Malloy's lectures..

Despite the fact  that I'm only on shore  for four weeks, it really is nothing short of a semesters worth of work...Reading up on the current news headlines about the floods in Brisbane, southern Africa, and Brazil, the role of water and the oceans is only emphasized. So far, SEA has yet to disappoint in any aspect. but yeah....ahhh... back to work..

As my friends resume classes at Rhodes, I think its time I buckle down and get my work down. only ELEVEN days of classes left...I'll have to start living at my desk and library now if I want to get everything done.....

First Weekend

So new week already, and only THREE weeks away before we set sail.. Friday night consisted of breakfast for dinner and an ice cream social followed by some basement activities...

On saturday, I woke up and went for a bike ride to the Nobska Lighthouse on one of  SEA's new bikes. After that we went for a field trip off to New Bedford and the whaling museum. It was pretty cool as there was a Moby Dick three-day reading event commemorating Melville's departure from New Bedford to the Pacific  Ocean. I then spent the remaining part of my weekend back at home in Norwell  where I just hung out with my dog, and got back just in time for an awesome A House dinner of Nepalese Momos on Sunday night?


So yeah, pretty fun/busy weekend, hopefully this week will be the same.

7:00 AM, 21°

So things are finally falling into a semi normal routine. Classes 9-5 with a lunch break and small 5-15 min breaks between lectures...Finally starting to remember everyone's names and the fact I'm actually going to sail from Tahiti to Moorea to Rangiroa to Nuka Hiva to Kiritimati (Christmas Island) to Hawaii has finally sunk in.

We went over our packing list yesterday and had a pretty intense discussion about the definition of sustainability. They used our ship as a metaphor case-study for the term and was pretty amazed when everybody in our class (24) all had different definitions/ components of sustainability. Our class has students of very diverse backgrounds ranging everywhere from women studies, polysci, and to marine biology and hailing from various colleges like Colgate, Brown, and UC San Diego...
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So I guess I never really went over what exactly I'm doing.. but if you're wondering, the program I'm enrolled in is called the:

"Sustainability in Polynesian Island Cultures and Ecosystems (SPICE)"  it's described as:

"An environmental studies semester which takes an interdisciplinary look at the people and islands of Polynesia in an effort to learn what they can tell us about the global issues of environmental sustainability and cultural continuity."  -http://www.sea.edu/academics/spice.aspx

So we basically take a month of classes at Woods Hole, MA, fly to Tahiti board the ship, and sail from port to port for 7weeks , ultimately making our way to Hawaii, where we'll conclude with a week of classes at the University of Hawaii.. Its for 17 credits and its definitely writing/science intensive, so it's not your typical study abroad semester roaming in Europe. It's very hands on and I'm pretty sure my experiences I will get should be pretty irreplaceable...
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But yeah.. I also signed up for my four major papers/projects today. I will be writing papers/researching on:
 1.) the demographics, political systems, imports/exports, economics of agriculture and fisheries, and tourism on the Island of Rangiroa. 2.) Geology,Biology, Zoology, influences of the climate and surrounding waters on the Kiritimati (Christmas Island) 3.) Ocean Acidification!!!!!!!!!! :) 4.) Conservation/ Ethics/Management of terrestrial/aquatic ecosystems in French Polynesia.

Overall though,I'm pretty stoked.. I got all 4 topics I wanted. can't wait to actually get some real research data collected on the ship..

With all the talk of the potential dangers of living on the ship being far far away from shore, I guess I'm going to try to get physically prepared for the sailing component. I decided to start running again as a result. haha...
I went for a run yesterday and again today at 7am at  21°... pretty cool seeing the beach & sunrise. Saw some cool swans.. Don't know if I actually will wake up on time every morning, but I'm going to try....
Since I still don't really no what I'm doing here yet... here are some pics!

And So It Begins..

So.. I live in a house with 7 other kids. 6 girls and 1 other guy... This house is pretty sweet...

On the first day someone said our housing situation is like the show jersey shore. I think not. Not that I have ever watched it, but unless its a house full of nerdy/busy college kids writing research papers, studying, and going to the library, it definitely can't be all too similar. Living on campus dorms at Rhodes have been fun, but living in this house is different. Our campus has one main building where lectures are given and the big common lounge. Other than that the 40 or so students on campus, theres 8 or so people to a house.I'm in the Anterra house or the A house. We're responsible for planning and cooking all our meals as well as cleaning the house. They're also big on composting and recycling, its pretty refreshing after coming from Rhodes. Nice rooms and big kitchen.. It was pretty interesting going to Shaw's yesterday and buying 325 dollars worth of groceries in one day..

The first two lectures were today, and it's almost an entire semesters worth of work all crammed into a month. As the syllabus revealed, we will basically be in classes from 9-12 and 1:30-5 everyday. We have to co-write/author? 30 pages of research papers, and another 10 pages on our own. Lot's of fun. It's not too bad, especially since I've had to write 30+ pages in one week at Rhodes, but it's not exactly as relaxing of an experience as I was expecting. So far though the class has been very similar to a class I took at Rhodes called Environment & Society. I definitely had a couple deja-vu moments today as the class was almost identical to my first E&S classes back at Rhodes.. we even had the same assigned readings for the night..

So far though, all the people I've met are very interesting, each person I've met all have their own unique backgrounds.  A couple are married, one is engaged, one grew up in Nepal, one has lived on a boat traveling around for a lot of her life. It's a really cool mix of people and its even cooler that we all have a common goal of learning more about the ocean. There's definitely an increased sense of community and inter-dependence here on campus, as well as responsibility and accountability of oneself. So far, so good, I'm really excited for this month, hopefully it won't be too bad...

hahaha... this post is yet another rambling... of nothing in particular.. still not sure what I should be doing.. sorry about that...

Lounge Area?

Kitchen Area

My Bed

The Room

From R->L Houses A, B, &C

Madden Center

• 
  

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute Library

Woods Hole

Memorial Thing

Woods Hole

Hmm.. So I don't really know what I'm doing....

So.. first blog post...and some fair warnings about my subsequent posts:

1.)) I tend to type the way I think in my head / how I speak.
->The  more caffeine I have the less commas, the less sleep I have the more commas..etc...

2.) I'm a student at Rhodes College in Memphis, TN and I'm quite honestly doing this blog for a scholarship/fellowship requirement, but I have no clue what I'm doing or what I'm suppose to be doing... so please cut me some slack...haha.... sooo yeahhhh...
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Its funny how things always work out. Two days ago I was just thinking about how this break was quite possibly the worse one yet, with my dog being lost for over a week, a broken laptop, no heat or electricity with the death of 50% of my reef tank and lost cellphone during an intense blizzard, both dentist & physical checkups (both of which required needles, which I have an INTENSE phobia of), and of course my dreaded wisdom teeth extraction.....but hey, its the last weekend, and I found my dog and cell phone (and I have a new one at that too, thanks to my brother...), my laptop is fixed and upgraded, witnessed Boston's tenth largest blizzard, I had an opportunity to redo my tank, I get fun? vicodin,  and I now get to start yet another adventure ( with another scholarship!).

So yeah  I guess I am quite lucky! I do have it pretty good, and I plan on trying to keep positive for the future. In the words of a crazy kid from the jersey shores, the sun always rises, so it's all good..haha..  And tomorrow I will embark on yet another journey. This time it will be a rather epic one, in which I will  literally sail upon the open pacific ocean. I'm supposed to be "blogging" to keep track of what I'm doing, and yet again its the night before I leave and I've yet to even start packing.... (and this time i don't have caffeine...) I've had a pretty awesome break so far, but I am more than ready to leave.

I really have no clue what the point of this post was, but I leave for Woods Hole, MA tomorrow.... I'm incredibly excited, I have yet to start packing, and I've got a lot to do, but I will try to blog atleast every other day.... I'll try to keep it not so cheesy.... but no guarantees.......

Let the adventures begin!

Here's some pics of the ship I will be sailing on later on, from: http://www.sea.edu/shipscrew/seamans.aspx