Friday, September 4, 2009

Land At Last at Dawn


An incredible first week at sea with over 500 students from 200 colleges and universities along with a fascinating bunch of professors, staff, and assorted kinder, including a darling set of "no fear" twin eighteen month old baby girls--all of us getting our sea legs and adjusting to shipboard food that does not remind us of home but is filling none the less.

Here's the scoop. Alicia and I are like newly weds sharing a cabin that is probably ten by eight feet but it does have a window on the sea. We spent the first couple of days learning to navigate around each other and figuring out how to use our micro shower and store our belongings so that when the ship rocked and rolled everything more or less stayed in place.

I'm teaching three classes and the students appear to be genuinely engaged or are doing a great job of projecting interest. My favorite class is the "hot of the press and make it up as you do it" course on Sustainable Development. Its my smallest class with nineteen students but it also has drawn a group of five life-long learners, including a couple of "real" experts and advocates who live and breathe sustainable development. The other two classes are "International Marketing" and "Operations Management" and I have refocused both classes on all of the nations we are visiting. Today the first four student teams for these two classes did a magnificent job of telling us about GDP/per capita, wind and solar energy initiatives, cultural norms for business dealings, corruption, and all manner of other information that will prime the students before each port visit. I don't think I've worked this hard since I first began teaching but it's a trip and I'm actually learning how to learn again about new stuff that matters. Also, the photo at upper left was taken on "Mismatch" day which was the first dance for the students and the guys with me are definitely "studs".

Now, here's Alicia.

It has been a fascinating and exciting week. We have attended many meetings, watched some great films about Casablanca and Spain and grown tired of the food and worked out too. Tomorrow we arrive in Cadiz and we are off on our various excursions, can't wait!

Please check my shutterfly site for pictures of our trip.

OK buds, time for us to check our prep list for tomorrow's adventures--including which Spanish vino we should taste and where to get some great cheese.

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