|

My Blog

I'll be the one in black....I thought I would be silly and call this I'll be the one in black...The one of nearly 2000 people total graduating from MTSU on Saturday. (and we all wear black) If your reading my blog, chances are you know about this already as this is all I have been talking about for the past month. I have taken a look at the seating and think it would be best to try and consolidate my visitors into one specific area so no one is lost. The ceremony starts at 9 a.m. If you plan on attending and I haven't already talked to you, you can look for my family (Jason, my girls, my dad, mom, etc. ) in section P. (see below) After the ceremony, I will come to this area to look for everyone. If you cannot attend, but have internet access you can watch this on live streaming video. http://www.mtsu.edu/~proffice/gradlist/grad_video_streaming.htmHope to see ya Saturday!

One big juggling actOnly 16 days to go until I graduate! I now realize that it isn't necessarily what you learn in college its the completion that sets you apart from the rest. A lot of people go to college but never make it through because it is too long of a haul. They can't work and go to school. They have childrenand that takes up a lot of their time. I can honestly say I feel your pain. But, in hind sight, after I had reached a certain point, it would have been reallysilly to quit. I have learned that I can do just about anything if I really want to. However, its like one big juggling act. I swear I could join the circus! My last couple of weeks will be the most trying I do believe. I have severalgroup projects to work on outside of class. The kicker is most people in my classes are just as busy as I am. So getting together to work onthose group projects is somewhat of a challenge. The hardest part is working with these people who you really don't know and presentinga presentation as if you have known them for a while. I guess I have started sort of a fad around my workplace. I know several co-workers who have decided to go back to school and finish their degree. I helped a friend at work pick her classes for the summer and fall. The whole time I was looking up the classes, I thought wow, I really have been through a lot! Most people require only 120 credits to graduate. That is if you have the "right" 120 credits. Part of the reason I have gone to school forever is I started out as a Mass Communications major (my interest was Graphic Design). I earned several credits in that field before I was able to clearly see that graphic design was not for me. In all, I will graduate with 144 credit hours. A lot, I know! Especially when you think about that as 3 hours makes up 1 class. I have been taking 4 classes at a time, 3 in the summer so I could get some "rest". I believe the greatest satisfaction I could get from the whole process is having my children as bystanders. I hope I have taught them the ultimate lesson in life -- that they can persevere or overcome any obstacle they encounter. I hope my friends and family also realize the same thing, you can overcome anything -- if you really want to. My vacation... and what I learned.Wow! I didn't realize people were actually reading my blog until I didn't blog for a while. Yes, I am still alive. Just trying to get back into the swing of things after vacationing. As I mentioned, I took a cruise from San Diego to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico and then to Ensenada, Mexico, back to San Diego and then home. It was a whirl wind kind of trip. I traveled a lot of ground in a short period of time. I flew in to San Diego day of the cruise from Nashville (yes, amazing I know) My plane landed at 1:10 and I had my luggage and took a cab to the port of San Diego. I was through the line and on the ship by 2:30. Embarkation was a breeeze.
The cruise began and I was a little disappointed that I was at the muster drill instead of up on deck to watch out. After the muster drill I went up on deck to check things out.

It was a little cool but not terribly uncomfortable. After this, my family and I decided to walk around the ship and explore, there were so many places to see. But I learned my way around pretty quick. We unpacked all of our stuff and spent a few hours wandering the ship.
We had the 8:00 p.m. dinner at the Inspiration dining room. The first night I wasn't feeling so well. I was a little motion sick. My food at dinner looked great but I was afraid to eat because I might get sick in the dining room so I left early. The family at our table was pretty friendly (I believe they were from Oregon)
Friday -- Fun Day at Sea?
I woke up pretty early as I was still on my Central time zone schedule. I managed to wake Jason and Mackenzie and go up for breakfast on "Lido Deck". The breakfast was good. Lots of long lines despite my early rise. After breakfast, I walked around for a long time, played bingo in the Mikado Lounge. Afterwards, I decided I would go outside as the sun was warm and it looked nice outside. I quickly found all the chairs/loungers on the decks were completely full with the only space to put a chair was in the cool shady areas. I found 1 chair on the back of the boat and asked the lady next to me if anyone was sitting there. She said no. After I sat down, this rude fellow (on the other side) said yes this seat is taken. This kind of made me mad because there was no indication of this and there was not a seat to be had anywhere else. A little miffed I went to my room and decided to take a nap. At this point, I was a little homesick as I had found the people on the cruise so far to be not as friendly as I am used to in Tennessee. After I woke up, Mackenzie decided she was ready to try the Camp Carnival (kids program) so I took her up to the room to sign in. After trudging up deck 12, I was told the kids were on the sports deck. We found the group and I signed her in. She was a little uncomfortable as she was expected to play dodge ball and wasn't ready to be slammed with balls the second she walked in. After I dropped her off, I went to the casino to play a while. She played around 30 minutes and then it was time to pick her up because the camp carnival was closing for the break. (this was a frequent occurrence and became somewhat difficult to time our activities)
After this we went back to our room and showered and dressed for elegant night. We enjoyed the captain's cocktail and dinner (lobster tails).

Our assistant waitress was new from Romaina (it was actually her first cruise) she really took to my daughter and they became fast friends. Saturday - Cabo San Lucas
After Friday's not so fun day at sea, my family decided we were going to make up for it on Saturday. We booked the Cabo Land & Sea excursion. This was pretty cool. The first part of the tour took us on a larger boat to the lands end to look. Wow! this was beautiful! I

can hardly

describe this so I'm posting a few pictures here. The next part took us back to Cabo and we took a bus tour to San Jose. Here we visited a Catholic church, a cactus garden, and then went to a blown glass factory. These were really cool. We got a little sunburned. Before heading back to the ship, we stopped at a little outdoor eatery to taste the fish tacos. They were great! While eating, a little Mexican boy came up and wanted us to buy some clay made turtles he said

his mama made for him and told him to go sell. He was only 10 years old. I bought two of them. But I sorta felt sorry for him. Saturday was one of the better days on the cruise. When I got back to the ship, I was exhausted. We all took naps and ended up sleeping all night.

Sunday - Another fun day at sea?
Well my plan for Sunday was to get up REALLY early and go grab three seats to be able to lay out in the sun and enjoy the weather. No need it was cold and not even warm enough to stay outside. We finally did make it early enough to get to the omelet line before it was crazy. The omelets were really good. We spent most of the day in the casino, at different little events on the ship.

Sunday was relatively uneventful except Jason did win $175 playing the video poker.

We had dinner in the dining room. We met a different group at our dinner table some nice guys from San Diego. In the afternoon, I forgot to mention the person who was helicoptered off the board due to illness. I said a prayer for this person as I still wonder if this person is okay or not.
Monday - Ensenada
Monday was interesting. I woke up to feel the boat trudging to the port. It really bugged me to not have a window in my room so I'll know next time not to do this. I had no concept of time the whole cruise.

We got off relatively early for our excursion, La Bufadora and Winery Tour. We first went to La Bufadora (the blow hole). On the way there we passed through some VERY poor areas. Places that would be condemned in our country. I began to reflect on how lucky and I am, but also thought how selfish I

felt to ride on a luxurious cruise ship while may of the people in this area were begging for sales in their shops to feed their children. I enjoyed seeing the blow hole and shopping at the markets on the way back to the bus. I ate some of the best tacos I've ever tasted on this excursion. Jason really enjoyed the $1.50 Coronas. Mackenzie got her hair braided and she was really happy with the result.

After the blow hole, we went to Ensenada to a downtown winery. I was pretty disappointed in this. The tour was MAYBE 15 minutes. We didn't see them bottling wine or anything. It was pretty much a waste. I would have rather spent more time in LaBufadora. The wine wasn't the best I ever tasted either. We did meet some people on this excursion who were from Georgia so I felt more at home on this trip. The people from Georgia also reiterated how they were asked by many of the cruisers, why did you come all the way to San Diego to cruise when you could have gone out of Florida....
Well it was cheaper for the airline and the dates just worked for my family so we went for it. Monday night was a good dinner but I was a little taken back by my waiter. He talked about the importance of the tips and how it would greatly help him if we made positive remarks on our comment cards. Up until now, our waiter wasn't overly friendly but he did do his job. I felt like he gave more of his attention to the sexy women at the table next to us. But whatever... He did tell us that he only makes $45 a day and that the tips are crucial. I am not sure if this was directed at us or what. I didn't remove the standard tips but he didn't go out of his way to help us so I didn't tip extra. It bothered me a little that he told us this because then I felt bad that he made so little.
Tuesday - back to San Diego
Tuesday morning I woke really early as the boat was slowing down and making a lot of racket in my room. I went to Lido deck and watched the ship go into port with a really nice older man from Arizona. He was super friendly and we enjoyed the sun coming up while watching the ship arrive in San Diego. I went back to my room and woke my family to get up to eat breakfast. We gathered all of our stuff and then ate breakfast. I thought we would be off the ship fast but it was a super slow debarkation in my opinion. I thought we would be off sooner but we were #23 on the list. I was a little anxious to be home.
All in all, I liked the experience. The weather was a little cold. I felt like the staff was worn out and did their job but nothing more. They didn't make me feel warm and fuzzy. They never called us by name, they just were average in my opinion. I did give a really nice comment on my comment card to the assistant waitress, Mia who quickly became friends with Mackenzie. The food was good. The room service was the best. I felt like the ship was too crowded for my taste. Lots of lines and people not really overly friendly probably because you had to wait to do a lot of stuff.
I did some research online about salaries for Carnival waiters as this bothered me all the way home. The articles I read were kind of upsetting. The people on the ship are mostly foreigners who have permission to work on the ships but work 7 or 10 months at a time and get paid very little. I can now understand why they probably weren't excited to do their job. I wouldn't get excited either. I believe Carnival probably makes a lot of money but doesn't pay their people nearly what they should make. Thats disappointing to me.
The Elation was nice. Nothing spectacular. I did realize that I should be really thankful for all I have after seeing the deplorable conditions in Ensenada. I may cruise again but during a less crowded season (i'm told there were 2554 people on board, 900 of these were children) and probably on a Carribbean iternary.

On my return to Nashville, American Airlines left us in Chicago. I had to cough up $80 to spend the night because of their awful customer service. I am so glad this didn't happen on the way there as I would have missed the cruise. Lesson learned about the flying a day early/taking an extra day on the other end. I made it home a day later but happy to be back. I would not recommend American to ANYONE!

What I Learned....

I learned that I don't know that I would ever be happy anywhere but in the Nashville area. The people are so nice and I have so much there to be thankful for. My family, my home, my freedom. This trip made me understand exactly why people in Mexico are going to great measures to get into our country. They have so little opportunity because of their government. Nothing compares to the lavish lifestyle we live here in America.