evening activities

Getting closer to India... this sail has felt very, very long though.  I can't believe there are still 2 more days of it.

Morgan reminded me that I didn't follow up on the Halfway Day Party.  Very sorry.  I braided half of my hair, and let the other half just hang there. I thought about getting more elaborate, but ran out of time.  At one point, one of my students was outside the lounge looking for me.  A co-worker told me he was out there, so I quickly unbraided my braid and talked to him.  And then re-braided.  The faculty/staff lounge is such a mystery to students already, I didn't need to add any weird stories.

Everybody was into it - 2 guys shaved half of their beards; 1 faculty and 1 of the psychologists painted half of their (bald) heads black; a few people wore sweaters with one arm hanging loose; there were many creative outfits.  My favorite thing was our bartender Mandy (who I adore): he was pouring half beers, half glasses of wine, and half glasses of water.  And he wasn't playing around.  A few of the officers actually came up for awhile, which was cool (but always makes me anxious... and they're all really tall, which adds to the anxiety).

Anyway, that was the halfway day party. 

The night after that (the 18th) I was part of a Career Panel for Student Affairs.  About 8 people came.  I told them all about the mistakes I had made and how not to make them :) 

Last night, I had some South African wine with a few friends.  After awhile we went upstairs to the lounge to watch people come back from the Captain's dinner.  It's just exciting to see everybody all dressed up. 

So, a story about my Captain's dinner last week (i wasn't going to tell it, but after last night I need to): After the Captain left, I took his name place setting (it was just paper).  The girl sitting beside him said "oh you took it! I was going to take it!" and then she said "let's rip it in half."  I had had a few glasses of wine, so I did what she told me to and ripped it in half.  Well, I wasn't aware of the fact that it was printed on both sides and so I had ripped it the short way (in between his first and last name).  She made some comment like "Oh... I wouldn't have done it that way..." and that's when I realized it was printed on both sides. Whatever.  We each had a side of it.  I didn't care and she laughed, and that was the end.  OR SO I THOUGHT!  Apparently, she's been telling everyone this story (completely unknown to me).  So last night, I'm walking into the lounge and I ran into the Academic Dean and his wife, just coming from the dinner.  The dean says "oh, we have something for you" and I knew. I just knew.  He pulls out the Captain's place setting from the dinner and proceeds to PRETEND to rip it in half the short way.  He then rips it in half the long way, gives me a half, and I was speechless.  I finally said "How did you hear about that?!" and he said "everyone has heard about that.  I EVEN TOLD THE CAPTAIN ABOUT IT AND ASKED FOR THIS PLACE SETTING."  Mortified. 

On that note, I'm out.  I woke up really early today and would like to try to go back to sleep.  Probably won't happen, but I'll try.  Tomorrow's the Olympics - think Yellow!