Orientation

The past two days have been super busy, but I wanted to make sure I got some sort of update posted before we head to the ship. I think I'm still in disbelief that this is all happening, so I'm hoping when I actually see the ship tomorrow afternoon that I will finally realize that I'm not dreaming and I'm actually heading on this voyage. As you all know, I left London on Friday afternoon and came down to Southampton. I arrived here around 3pm on Friday and pretty much dove right into everything.

We started Friday night out with a social for all the faculty, staff and families who will be sailing together this summer. I FINALLY got to meet all of the RDs and Student Life Staff in person which was amazing! We've all been talking over conference calls the entire spring, so it was great to finally meet in real life rather than just listening to each other talk over the phone. We have an absolutely great group with staff from different backgrounds and experiences. Per usual, I am the baby. I think 3 years separate me and the next youngest RD. We all click really well though and I can already see the great strengths everyone brings to our team. After the social our team headed to the mall for dinner where I finally had some Nandos. If you are ever in the UK, you need to make sure you have Nandos because it is DELICIOUS!!! I ended the night running over to ASDA for some last minute items and more snacks for the voyage and then settled into my hotel room so thankful to not be staying in a hostel any more.

 I'm Official!

One of the other RDs, Tiffany!

Today was jam packed with orientation sessions where we learned more about the mission and values of SAS. We also heard more about what the community will be like and what our specific roles will be. We also had some great time interacting with faculty and other staff. I especially enjoyed sitting down with faculty members and telling them what it is that RDs do, both on the ship and in real life. Several of them were worried about having to interact with students in their "homes" and responding to crisis situations so I think they were very happy when I let them know that the seven RDs do this every day and know how to handle students after hours. It truly seems as though we are going to have a great community on the ship, so I can't wait to finally get there! We also got to spend some time as just the RD staff and I'm really glad we got that time before we get on the ship.

We have more orientation tomorrow and then we go to the ship in the afternoon. Students arrived on Monday and then we set sail for Morocco Monday night! There might be a chance that we won't get to Istanbul because of everything that is going on over there, so as you might imagine, I am anxiously sitting waiting to find out what will happen and where we might end up instead. I will be really sad if we don't end up going because it was the port I was most looking forward to and because several of us had planned a big trip to Cappadocia. The most important thing though is our safety and the safety of our students. I'll post more if we get updates on the situation.

I would write more, but I really need to get some sleep before our long long day tomorrow. But at least I know when I wake up, it will be the day that I move into my new home for the summer!!!