Bermuda

Just a quick photo of me and my ship in Bermuda on June 4.

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Life is Grand

… especially when you’re living on a “grand class” ship. I joined the Caribbean Princess about 2 weeks ago and feel like I’ve been walking around with a goofy grin on my face ever since. I’m so happy to be back on a ship. The crew and staff members I’ve met so far have generally been friendly and helpful (and some of my old students AND the captain from last summer are on this ship – so I’ve even seen a few familiar faces). The food is delectable. The gym is gorgeous and I can work out most evenings watching the sun set over the ocean. It looks like the ship offers a lot of activities for crew members – including salsa dancing! And I just found out that the spa is starting to offer hip hop classes, which I can join for free! (I wouldn’t want to lose all the moves I learned at Cornell, now, would I?) I have my own training room for classes (with my own work space! and windows! and real desks instead of bar stools!). Students have been approaching me about voluntarily taking classes. And, because I was already familiar with how things work, I was able to jump right in to organizing my classes and now have about 45 students spread between 4 different sections.

I’ve found some crew members to help me practice my Spanish. Unfortunately, the Indonesians I’ve found are mostly my students, and they REALLY need help with their English, so I can’t really practice my Indonesian with them. But other than that, life is good. Sometimes I almost squeal because I’m so excited to be here.

I haven’t had much time to get off the ship yet since I was so busy in the first cruise assessing students and organizing classes, but now that my schedule is pretty set I’ll start exploring the ports and going on some tours. Will try to post photos when I have a faster internet connection…

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