Friday the 13th

Today was definitely not the typical Friday the 13th. In fact, we had the most beautiful day at sea so far! The weather was almost balmy and the sun was out the whole day. I sat outside for a good 30 minutes without a jacket - first time this cruise. The seas were calm. The wind was gentle, relatively speaking. And the sunset was a gorgeous red with a purple and pink sky. So serene! And to top it all off, a couple of whales off the starboard side of the ship were spraying every few minutes. Totally cool!

This evening, just before sunset, Dinah Bowman, our resident illustrator, showed us how to make do gyotaku, or fish printing. For this, she got a milk fish and a tiger prawn from the kitchen, thawed them out a little then painted a thin layer of block paint on them. Then she gently pressed rice paper, a cheap and very common paper in Japan, onto the fish and massaged the paint onto the paper. Very fun and very zen! Teachers, this can also be done with fabric paint and t-shirts with kids as young as 1st grade. Totally fun! Here's how my print turned out.













Yesterday, Jackie (an outreach officer) and I got to play with Legos designing a molecular biology lesson for her high schoolers. Lots of fun and even me, the "microbiologist" learned a lot about fluorescent microscopy and how to teach complicated lessons in an easy way. I will definitely look for more opportunities like this in the future. It was a blast!

I'm working on getting pictures from everyone so that I can share them with you. For once, I'm not the one on behind the camera. :)