Day 22

Trip Start Sep 02, 2007

Trip End Dec 25, 2007

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Flag of Puerto Rico The Atlantic Ocean. Aaarrggh., Puerto Rico
Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Back to class today. We had a guest speaker in my Politics of Terrorism class (actually he spoke last Blue Day but I'm going to write about it today because it was way more interesting than what we talked about today) who works for the United Nations. He had a lot of really interesting things to say and stories to share. Unfortunately I couldn't really hear him so I had trouble following, but he talked a lot about terrorism in Central America and how it really is coming from and being targeted to just about everywhere, and that America is just part of that. We all think Terrorism started with the World Trade Center tragedy, but it's been going on since way before that and will keep going on unless somebody finally does something constructive to start ending it.

We also talked about terrorism as a strategic choice rather than the spontaneous whims of a "kook in a room" as one article claimed and how the media is what has created the issue and not the terrorists themselves. It's because of the media that terrorism becomes legendary; another article claimed, probably accurately, that without such devout media attention, Osama Bin Laden would just be a cranky guy in a cave. The class has really humanized the whole issue, putting everybody involved on a more equal plane. It's starting to sink in that terrorists aren't nuts who sit locked away plotting to destroy the world but rational thinking people who come to the decision to use terrorist tactics for a particular reason. We've been struggling to come to a definition and haven't managed to do so; all we've succeeded in doing is compiling a list of criteria that keep shifting and rearranging themselves every time we read a new article.

Well I'm sure you all really wanted to know all about my terrorism class. It's just that there's not much else to talk about. What else happened yesterday? (I'm writing this from the 27th). I got up super early to get online while no one else was around, but ended up having some trouble with the internet and blogged instead. I keep saying after this no more getting behind, but then I do it anyway. I walked out on Lido deck and it was raining - water all over the decks and every drop visible on the ocean as it churned by, chopped up by the wind that we could hear but not feel thanks to the half-enclosed nature of Lido. Vanessa and her roommate Becky sat with me, and Vanessa had discovered a way around the blocks TSS has on instant messenger through another website and her boyfriend was online at home in Sidney. And of course I haven't been able to figure it out or you would all know it by now!

We did an interesting activity in my afternoon class where we split up into groups and designed our own culture with its own creation story and language and world map made out of random construction materials and then had to send a representative to the other cultures to learn about them. Ours was pretty funny; we'd all been on a coffee ship (there was a little packet of coffee in the packet and the others couldn't get out of the box thinking) that sank into the ocean and we'd found a giant air bubble at the bottom of the sea and survived inside with only the coffee to sustain us. Having built a structure of absolute gender equality, the males and females lived separately. Our only light was reflected from a mirror that enabled the light to reach where it ordinarily wouldn't, and because of the mirror our language was simply English backwards. We had five men and six women (because of the number of red and green counters provided in the packet) and because we were an uneven number could not mate because it would not be perfectly equal and fair. Therefore the "rapture" of our society would be the finding of a sixth man to make our society complete and enable us to procreate. Cool, huh?

There was really very little sunset this particular night; there were too many clouds. Then we had a meeting with our Residential Communities. It was a meeting just for announcements, mainly, and then some time for just hanging out with each other all together. We played "never have I ever" where you share things you've never done and everyone else raises their hand if they've done it. Then we shared things we had done that we didn't think anyone else had ever done, and it turns out I'm on a ship full of really accomplished and really crazy people. I was trying to think of ways to share the things I considered really important in my life, but apparently everybody and their dog has had a conversation in complete silence, so that didn't really pass. But people had been robbed at gunpoint, been strip-searched in an airport, flown air force fighter jets and all kinds of other really insane things that nobody else had never done. I felt really boring!

After that I was feeling a little mopey so I hung out in the contemplation room (that's where our meetings are) and worked for a little while. I'm trying to come up with some sort of routine that I can work on just in case the theatre club really does have a talent showcase one night. Then I came back and went to bed early. Really early, like 10:30. Aren't you proud? :D