11.28.09 The 2nd One

Yesterday was 11.28.09 and today is 11.28.09 as well. We crossed the international dateline. It is pretty cool to live the same day twice. On the 1^st 11/28 it was a normal day of class. That night there was pub trivia in the piano lounge. I ended up on a team with Claire, Ed, and Byron with help from Jay and Kelsey. I stole Uncle Chip’s name from the Olympics a couple years ago and we were team Fairly Awesome. The first categories were movie sequels, wacky laws, video games and movie quotes. Wacky laws were stupid. You couldn’t even guess what state. Apparently, its illegal to bring a live skunk into the state of Tennessee. Who knew? Considering I was on a team with all adults, I thought we faired pretty well in the video game category. Next we had to identify men from their pictures. We got 8 out of the 10. Then I was thankful to be on the team with adults because I wouldn’t have known any of them. The last category was list 10. We had to list the Midwest states, the school of the UC system and the largest beer drinking countries per capita. In the end team Fairly Awesome was fairly awesome by placing 4^th out of 29.

Today (11/28 part 2) was a reading day as well as auction day. Katie and I got up and worked out and then I met up for a group project. We took a sneak peak at the things in the silent auction. There is some really good stuff: The flags flown on the ship from all the countries, a signed map by Captain Jeremy, Bermuda, Puerto Rico, Czech Republic and Mozabique homestays, a bunch of houses in Colorado, Hershey park tickets, massages, a Louisville Sluger bat engraved with “Semester at Sea 100^th Voyage” (donated by the Strenecky’s), artwork, sporting event tickets and about a million other things. After doing some homework and eating dinner. I went to an explorer sminar and then to the live auction. I had thought about bidding on a couple of things, but I knew I was in trouble when the first item went for $1000. The list is as follows:

- Steer the Ship (!0 Minutes) $1,000

- Colorado Week Stay at Summit Mtn. $630

- Breakfast in bed from the Deans $125

- 4 Anaheim Angels Tickets $200

- Beach House in NC for 1 Week $1700

o This item was auctioned off twice

- Blast the Ships Horn in San Diego $700

- Christmas in Manhattan Apartment

Above Central Park $1200

- Character in Prof. Farkas’ Novel $550

- Blue Ridge Mountain Stay 1 week $325

- 2 Stagecoach Festival Tickets $485

- Minnesota Fishing Trip $350

- 5-Course dinner with the Orris family $750

- 6 Days in Paris Homestay $1900

- Chance to be the Captain $50

- Extended weekend in Bailey, CO $275

- Derby Tickets and stay with the Streneckys $725

- Condo in Northstar, CO – 10 People $2150

- Duke Basketball Package $900

- Week stay at rustic CO cabin $2200

- Private Balcony dinning with Dean Eddie

And violin by Prof. Skokan $425

- Extended weekend homestay in Puerto Rico $475

- Two Backstage passes to SNL $2600

GRAND TOTAL FOR LIVE AUCTION $21,590

And all of that was just from the live auction. In the end, we raised over $33,000. All of that from the ship community! We raised the most money of any voyage to date, which is pretty cool. I couldn’t believe some of the money that was being thrown around, but a lot of these are really good deals. The only thing I ended up with was our Arabian Sea banner from the Sea Olympics for $10. Katie bought Batter Blasters, which is apparently pancake batter in a can. I had never heard of it before, but she was really excited about it. Mackenzie got the Lacadive Sea banner and a personalized children’s song for $110. It was by the award winning Kalidescope group and they usually charge $3200 for that. The auction was really exciting. It makes me want to go to more auctions. After the excitement of the auction, we ended the night with pish-posh.