Back at Sea On My Way to Brazil

Hey Dad! Guess what! Grandma bought a house!

I'm settling in to shipboard life. I think I have the food situation worked out by eating smaller meals like I'm used to and then being a little more hungry between meals. I do much better being hungry than over-full, so it has worked well. The sleep thing is also getting better. Since I can rarely sleep in, I've been going to bed embarrassingly early so I have good energy during the day. I even managed to get close to 12 hours of sleep with this strategy! Seasickness is not a huge problem. I tend to get a bit woozy in the afternoons, but only some days. I am a complete mess when trying to walk aroudn the ship with the rocking and it is really fun! When I had a stroke I said if felt like I was on a rocking boat. Now that I am on a ship, I say it feels like the fun kind of stroke. haha Luckily this time, other people feel the rocking too. :0P

Yesterday was a little rough for me because the excitement of everything has worn down and a bit of homesickness set in. It's that difficult part of any new thing where I don't REALLY know people or have a group of friends yet. Meeting new people constantly is really fun and exciting but also exhausting. It's all part of the adventure though. :0)

In my melancholy mood I did some thinking about what I want to do with my life and what kind of person I want to become and then wrote it off as a waste of time because the answer is always "I don't know." I just worry that having a chronic illness forces me to live too much in the moment without thinking of the big picture. Whatever, I'm only 23. I'm not supposed to have it all figured out yet. I decided to watch Doctor Who instead of continuing that internal dialog.

Since I am learning so many new things about the world, I wanted to add a "Fun Fact" section on my blog to summarize what I found most interesting in the past few days. So here goes.

Fun Facts
-Remember that powder I had a picture of in my last post? The one that is from a cassava root and used to make bread? Well I tried some that was unprocessed figuring since no one told me not to, it would be ok. And today I found out it contains cyanide. Good thing I only had a little! haha Maybe I'll ask before I taste next time.
-Dominica has 365 rivers!
-Many cultures that practice animism dance to invite communication with the spirits. The spirits love to dance so when they see people dancing and having a good time, they can't bear to miss out on the fun.
-Brazil is one of a very few countries that was named after an export. It was named after Brazilwood which is a firey red color and used to make many musical instruments.
-Next time you are relaxing in a hammock, you can thank the Tupi, a native group in Brazil
-1 in 10 species (I think of just animals, but maybe animals and plants) lives in the Amazon
-My Grandma did not actually buy a house. It's an inside joke with my dad.