The Final Post from the MV Explorer

Here in the bowels of purgatory of the MV Explorer, I await my floor's departure. The wait is made to feel longer by the fact that we aren't really doing anything on the ship by watching other people leave. It also feels longer by the fact that I am running on 6 hours of sleep for the past 50 some odd hours. Sleep has been one of the most lacking activities in this adventure and finally on the last day I hit the wall pretty hard.
Lots of enjoyable and not so enjoyable activites have taken place over the last couple of weeks including prom... i mean the ambaasador's ball. Which is really more of an ambassador's dinner because the dance was awful. Would it really have been so hard to set up a lesson of teaching everyone how to ballroom dance. This contemplation of SAS dropping the ball on a great opportunity had me thinking about the many times SAS has definately suffered from a lack of leadership and direction.


I came on this trip with key personal goals in mind, learn to get closer with people, improve my diction, and find confidence. I think my discoveries in lack of leadership ties in alot with finding confidence. Only in hindsight do I realize the faults in leadership and someday I hope to let kids know about them. One example of this is the administration. I've seen sloths, and I've seen this administration team and I am not quite sure which one moves faster. The number of faculty that actually interacted with the students was increidbly dissapointing. Only the voice Tom Jelke and Scott Sherman seemed to really interact with the students and try and challenge them about the world. Not all, but majority of the faculty really seemed to only be on the ship for their extended vacation.
There's lots I will have to reflect on like this after I return to home. I will miss alot of things on the ship, including the sunsets at dinner, playing guitar out into the ocean everyday and listening to stupid, stupid questions. Like... while we were in Hiroshima... no joke... someone asked "Who bombed these guys?"

Seeing San Diego today was an amazing sight and it was weloming to be back in the United States.


Closing my eyes outside and opening to them to a beautiful mountainous backdrop and we all began to realize, we were home. For now... hope you enjoy all the ambassadors dinner pictures.