Finals Week

This week was the first week of finals. Tell me if any of this rings a bell: cramming, worrying, all-nighters, black coffee, ponytails, pajamas, glasses instead of contacts, sniffles & coughs, just making the deadline, professor conferences and basic irritability. Made me so happy to have passed on taking classes ; )

We decided to have a little study break for our extended family of 7. We invited them all up to deck 7 for what we thought would be a small surprise. When we told each if them that we had arranged for a Taco dinner by the pool, you would have thought we'd just handed each of them a million dollars. I forgot how much the simple things matter to kids under academic stress ; ) To our surprise, they inhaled every morsel of food in a matter of minutes. When the ice cream cake came out, they may as well have cried tears of joy. They were so grateful making me feel guilty that we'd simply purchased the meal instead of made it with our own hands ; )

And if they weren't busy enough, the SAS Talent Show was the day before. None of our family was in the show but it was definitely something you wanted to plan on attending. I think there were 20 acts all together ranging from groups to individuals, singing, dancing, hula hopping, poetry reciting, pianos, guitars, violins, HARPS, and a saxophone. Chinese and Indian traditional dances as well as hip-hop and ballroom. Theater is right up my alley and I was thoroughly impressed!

And if all that wasn't enough of a distraction, they held the first ever SAS Drag Show. Ok...this is where the reigns got pulled in a bit for the Smith Boys. Fortunately, the planning committee was sensitive to the fact that young children were on the ship who would want to see this show. We've been traveling together for almost 4 months now and if you don't know everyone on the ship, you know most of the people in the ship. We are all friends for the most part and interact with each other on a daily basis whether it is to sit down at a meal, attend classes, pass each other in the hall, workout side by side on the treadmills, watch a movie, play cards, or a pickup dodgeball game. So they provided a "family friendly" first act. And that was probably enough. Ben sat next to me and asked about 127 very valid questions. I answered them as best I could under the circumstances. After only 2 numbers, he was done and went to find someone who might want to play ping pong ; ) Chris and I planned to have a family meeting prior to our re-entry into normal life but the topic of Drag Show wasn't on the original agenda. It is now and it's pretty close to the top ; )

So while their college friends are busy this week studying, the little kids have been causing a raucous entertaining themselves. Jeremy and Ben hangout with a handful of kids their age on a consistent basis. Jordi, Julia, Sabrina, Imani and Jack. They started playing pranks on each other a few days ago and got really riled up about it. I caught Ben one day in a hurry because they'd somehow gotten access to the girls' cabin. I slowed him down and said, "Do not hurt anyone, do not break anything, do not make anyone cry." He threw back, "We won't!" and bolted down the hallway.

They rearranged their cabin one day, removed all their pictures and things that decorated their walls and put them on the ceiling on another day. They've painted the toilet seat with something they can't remember and put toothpaste in shampoo bottles. All were successful in thoroughly annoying the girls. Mission accomplished. Ben came to my room one night just as I'd fallen asleep to tell me that he'd brushed his teeth and now his mouth felt numb. "Did your toothpaste taste funny? I think they just got you back." Convinced that it didn't taste different or just refusing to believe he'd fallen for a girl's prank, he went to bed saying he felt fine.

The next day at lunch, Jeremy told me that he spit out the toothpaste because hit tasted different to him right away. He fouls out that the girls had put Ambesol in their toothpaste! ; ) He one upped them by telling them he had an allergic reaction and had to spend the night in the ship's clinic. He had them going until Ben ratted him out. Jeremy's plan, foiled by his own team mate! But somehow, the news got to Imani who was not at the original discussion and did not hear Ben's reveal. I had gotten a call from her mom, Faith, earlier asking if I could talk with her. I had to put her off for an hour as I was just rushing off to do something for Jeremy. When I caught up with her later on that day, she told me that everything was ok, over and done with. I thought I'd missed out on helping her with a problem and felt bad that I couldn't help her when she called. She said she called because she'd found Imani crying in her cabin, upset that the girls' prank had gone too far and caused Jeremy a visit to the clinic! She told me that she let Imani "have it" and the pranks were to stop. OMG...I felt so bad for Imani. Anyway, Faith was so understanding. She'd already heard that Jeremy's prank became a full on misunderstanding. But we decided there and then on a Cease Prank for the remainder of the voyage ; )

We are in Morocco today, on a bus headed to the Sahara Desert to ride a camel. More later.