The Students are Here - May 21

So, we had our last orientation session this morning at 8:15 and the students started to arrive at 9:30.  OMG!  We were so not ready!!  Anne and I hurried into the library to get materials together for all of the many details we needed to get done but then we started to get visited by many of the professors who were also scrambling to get last minute details taken care of.  In the midst of that, the students who have been assigned to work in the library started to arrive and we tried our best to welcome them while not ignoring the faculty members standing in our library.  It was pretty crazy in our little corner of the universe for a while.  The crush eventually settled down enough for us to grab some lunch and then we both retreated to our cabins for a few minutes of desperately needed quiet time.

The chaos continued for a little while after that until the orientation for the students started and we were required to attend that too.  Jeesh!  I’m an orientation specialist now.  Ask me anything.  I dare you.  During one of the sessions, Anne and I had five minutes to impart all of our hard-won wisdom about the library to the students and then we were free to go back to our haven and get some much needed work done.  It was great because all of the students were occupied and the faculty members were off doing their own thing too so we had some quality time to accomplish our very long to-do lists.  Ahhh - the things that bring us joy.

After dinner, we had our first life-boat drill.  It was very organized, very hot and very boring.  But it was successfully accomplished and we were released from this necessity soon enough.  Fifteen minutes later we pushed away from the dock and we were off at 7:15 pm.  Many people, including Anne, missed it because it had been advertised that we would be leaving at 8:00.  I was one of the fortunate ones to witness our departure and got some pretty good photos given that it was dark out.  It was kind of odd to be leaving our first port with so few students on the deck but the old thrill of leaving a port for the first time was still there.

 Later in the evening, Anne and I gathered in the Faculty Lounge for a rousing game of “Catch Phrase” with four other faculty and staff members.  We split into two teams and had several rousing games.  It was a lot of fun and we ended the evening with a tie between the two teams to be settled at a later date.  I discovered that I’m sailing with quite the competitive group of people!  I'm looking forward to more evenings of cut-throat games.