C1- By the Numbers

74- percentage of the passengers that are female. Mind boggling, right? Though I shouldn't be surprised by the statistic. A female friend of mine I met at Señor Frog's (Adrian meets people at bars?!) signed me up to be part of her Amazing Race team (I don't know, it's some sort of activity we're doing on Wednesday), and out of 8 people, I'm the only guy. That said, I feel like I'm meeting women left and right, and having dinner with a different set every evening, and unfortunately their names are flying by me, and women wave hello and a quarter of the time I have no idea who they are to begin with. But who knows what will happen? There's a lot of fish in the sea. A whole lot of fish. And somehow this ship has caught some of the finest. Gotta enjoy it.

One more thing, actual fish for dinner isn't bad. Doesn't look nearly as scary as it does at the UMD diner.

65- percentage of the crew that is Filipino. Again, their presence on the ship is ever prevalent, whether I greet my steward cleaning the cabin, the bartenders at the outdoor grill or the piano bar, the busboys in the Main Dining Room (Sidenote: If you decide to join an SAS voyage, always eat at the Main Dining. It's much less crowded than the Garden Lounge, it's much quieter, and the busboys are more than happy to carry out a conversation.) They are a friendly bunch and I'm meeting more of them each day. Safe to say, I feel right at home.

While playing basketball in the evening, I had a brief chat with a bartender. Apparently there's a league among the crew that play basketball. It's made of the ship's five departments, and there's a cash prize for the league winner. When I commented that Filipinos love basketball, he elaborated that we're not very tall, but we can jump. Point taken. We also briefly chatted about the PBA basketball, and I mentioned I knew of the Alaska Aces from reading about them (in the book "Pacific Rims." I have a copy sitting in the kitchen. Great funny sports read. Also, side note, I want an Aces jersey. ) I then proceeded to whoop the white boys. See below. But anyway, hopefully I can catch the crew in the act of playing on of their league games. It would be a priceless addition to the blog. (This blog could become an interesting journalistic study on Filipinos on the ship... we'll see how far I get.)

26- percentage of guys on the ship. They range from Jersey shore too-much-time-in-the-gym sized, to high school quarterback why-isn't-he-playing-NCAA size, to just plain gigantic gigantic, to super scrawny. It isn't too racially diverse, I can count the number of Asian males I've seen with two hands, but there are a number of black and Hispanic students to round out the roster. It's easy to dislike them from simply their looks, after being taught to dislike breaus these past two years. But one way or another, some have earned my respect.

Side note, I also met a dude from Olney. Small boat.

3- Number of clubs I signed up to join today. I signed up to join a Musician's Group, a Dancer's Group, and Intramural Sports. Knowing the boat, there will be ample opportunities to meet people through these groups. Who knows? Maybe by the time I get home I'll have enough hip hop understanding to join FCA Modern in the fall or spring. We'll see how it all pans out.

1- Spaniard I had dinner with. He's a student from Barcelona. We met last night at this book discussion everyone had to attend, where we talked about the importance of cities in human society, and their rises and falls. Thank goodness we didn't talk about the book tonight, because I'm done dealing with that material.

As a linguist, I enjoyed our conversation. I asked him about the uses of Catalan and Spanish in Barcelona, and he explained that it was based on what family you're from that. Somewhat vague, but I hope to dissect the divide while I'm there. He also enlightened us a bit in terms of traveling within the city, and what places we could go. He seemed a little intimidated, probably because he felt a linguistic divide, but the girls around us were very attentive and listened to what he had to say. He seemed like a good guy.  Maybe the conquistadors aren't so bad after all, or well, some of them. Or maybe the actual conquistadors were from Madrid, explaining why the world should hate their soccer team? Eh, doubt it.

2- Games of basketball played in the afternoon (2v2, and 4v4 full court). 2v2 was a very chill game, though I felt like I could improve my finishing (though the shabby backboard doesn't help my cause). The 4v4 was exhausting, we set up a (much shabbier) rim on the other side of the court. Most of the guys were my size or slightly bigger, and also just as quick, so I couldn't pull a fast one on them and drive left and drop 5 points like I did the first day.

1- Game of Knockout (the basketball variant) that I won today. I hadn't played that since I was at Edison Elementary, and back then, I sucked. Not to say I didn't stink it up when I played the three or four other games tonight. I took great delight in showboating around the white boys, saying "Ako ay Pilipino! We play basketball!" It may have also helped that I was trying to impress the Filipino workers observing that one game.

It's only been 3 days on the ship, but I feel like I've been here for at least two weeks. I'm definitely getting my time's worth of activities here.

Oh, and happy Father's Day!