Almost to Brazil!!!

Tomorrow we port in Salvador, Brazil, and according to our inter-port lecturers from Brazil who have been on the voyage from Puerto Rico, it is a country to fall in love with. Something great about this “Voyage of Discovery,” is I actually have time, well I wouldn’t call it “time” because I also need to be reading my class-assigned books, but I have the opportunity to read books of my choice and enjoy them! Not to say I haven’t enjoyed the books I’ve read for class thus far, but for probably the first time in my life I am reading multiple books I want to read and look forward to doing this for the next three months. I have already finished one James Patterson novel (not his typical novels, but a love story), complements of Lauren, I guess she thought a sappy romance novel would be good for me to read only days after sailing away from Ryan… it wasn’t, but it did make me cry (because it was so good, not because I was sad- I think) while laying on the beach in San Juan.
After finishing that book, I was swamped with assigned readings for class- being at sea for seven straight days= seven straight days to read a lot for class, with a day off to catch up on what you have already put off until the last minute! For my Women’s Studies class, we are reading Violence in the City of Women, a book following terribly sad stories of women and their abusive relationships with their husbands in Bahia, Brazil. The book is written by an anthropologist who sits in on these court cases of women finally having the opportunity in rural Brazil to press charges against these wife- beaters. I read horribly frightening statistics in stories of battery and then stop and read it aloud to Jess… she is probably getting annoyed with me, and finally after the last horribly graphic story she says, “I don’t know how you’re reading that.” So far the book just makes me sad, it has opened my eyes to a new culture, and made me REALLY glad I don’t live in rural Brazil, or anywhere that viewing women as a possession is OK. The next book I have to read for the same class is When She was White… I haven’t started it yet, but the title alone interests me. Yesterday, in the same class, we discussed sex trafficking in Brazil, and sex tourism- now I’ve heard of “trafficking,” but not “sex tourism.” I won’t go into details, but it was extremely disturbing and all it made me ask was, “What the hell are these governments letting people get away with!!!???” Let’s just say, I really like this class, and I’ve only had it three times! Today, I had my group presentation for my other humanities class, Human Unity and Diversity. My group, as I said in previous posts, was assigned the topic of globalization, and from what I could gather from the teacher, she seemed to think we did a good job- so hopefully that means a good grade. I can’t remember if I said this in previous posts, but I’m only taking 12 hours—so every grade REALLY counts, all four of them! Either way, that’s 20% of my grade over with in the first week of class!
So, back to me loving this whole reading thing- I am currently LOVING the book I started yesterday- Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert. And yes, it was featured on Oprah, and no, that is not why I bought it… it was recommended by many people, so I gave it a try, and it was at Costco for half the price before I left! After class today, I laid out on the deck with my new best friend, and now sadly, I am half way through it. I made myself stop so I’d have some to read on my trip to Rio. Anyways, the book is great- it’s about a woman who has what I’d call a mid-life crisis and her life falls to pieces and so she decides to travel to Italy, India and Indonesia to find herself again- well I’ve been to Italy, I’m going to India, and I’m going really close to Indonesia by traveling to Malaysia, so I was instantly intrigued. She calls it her “Voyage of Discovery,” exactly what Semester at Sea refers to this whole adventure as… and as my Dad has already said, he can’t wait to find out what it is I am going to discover! Anyway, at one point, while in Italy, she explains that she is on a “No Carb Left Behind” tour (probably because she is in Italy, where aside from Paris’ croissants, they have the most wonderful food, not to mention, gelato!!), and the great food she is eating, which made me decide that I, too, am going on that tour, and I guess if I come off this ship looking a little different, than well, my family still has to love me anyway, and Ryan promises to do the same, then I guess I’ll see you all in 20 pounds!! (Not really, I actually hope this doesn’t happen… but I’ve decided that I’m at the point of no return on this “Voyage of Discovery” and what’s the point of doing it “half-assed” (sorry, as one of my teachers has said, there’s just no other word that means quite the same thing and is as appropriate), if you don’t mind me saying so.) Well, until next time! xoxo Marissa.