Week One

Lucy Day
Lucy Day
Sep 3, 2018 · 6 min read

I was talking to my advisor a couple minutes ago at lunch about how best to do this blog, because I didn’t want it to just be a list of events I did throughout the week. He suggested that I choose a theme I want to focus on and then write about experiences pertaining to that. So, it being my first week here I think my theme for this post will be adapting and settling yourself in a new place. Part of the reason that I chose to come to the Island School was because I wanted to step out of my comfort zone and into new challenges somehow in my life. I can’t say it’s been difficult to adapt to the new climate, because I really don’t have any choice but to adapt but it’s definitley been an adjustment.

Beach House Beach

The first thing you notice about the Bahamas is how warm and humid it is. My hair is constantly frizzy and showers only make you feel not sticky for about three hours, if you shower at night. I’m getting used to the layer of sweat that is on me at all times, I don’t really recognize it anymore. It’s Saturday, September 1 and I’ve washed my hair twice so far, and I just really have to realize that it’s not going to last. We’re swimming early tomorrow morning, learning hot to efficiently kick with fins on, so there goes that cleanliness.

Living with 14 other girls is also something I’ve had to adjust to. There are 29 of us in one dorm, 14 in South Side (the best side) and 15 on North Side. Each wing has 3 showers and 3 toilettes. It gets messy. We have chores for the first time tomorrow so hopefully the bathrooms will be just a bit cleaner (but I doubt that’ll actually happen because the teachers always think everythign will take way less time then it really does). Everyone is really nice and I’m getting to know people, but I work best in smaller groups which makes it hard to place yourself in the middle of people to get to know them.

Every morning we wake up and have to be at a central place on campus at 6:30 am, from there we depart for our morning exercise. We did a run-swim the other day where we would run for five minutes then swim across a little cut, then run a couple hundred more meters, then swim a small length again with arms or abs workouts in between. While it was really fun, I didn’t really get any exercise because we had to wait for people the entire way, and I’m too passive to push my way to the front of a group and so when we swim I’m in the back getting someone else’s spray. It was really nice because we never got too hot and everyone was working together and having a blast. This morning we ran two miles to a rock where we participated in an old Island School tradition and then jumped off and ran back. It was great, except it was the first time I’ve run since I’ve been here and it like a million percent humidity and a bagillion degrees. I looked like I’d been swimming before I even jumped off the rock. But it was good exercise and running in your least attractive form is great for bonding.

Three nights ago I was minding my own business when the person I was talking to shrieks and points at my feet. There was a mouse just chilling between my legs so we all left our wing and retreated into the common room for a dorm meeting. There was also a rat on the other wing and when a friend of mine went back into our wing to look for her water bottle, she reported having seen four mice fall from the ceiling when she turned on the lights. After the meeting, we tried to smash a cockroach before it flew away. I turned in my Luna bars. All 8 pounds. I really want that chocolate though, we don’t get dessert here. Before I left, my dad said I would get used to bugs to I wouldn’t freak out (be such a baby) when I came home. I guess he’s right. I do have a million bites all over my body from who knows which insects and I’m not crying, so we are making progress. Yesterday at evening snack there was a moth flying around that could have covered up a grown man’s hand if it was laying flat. I stayed away from that, but I just wanted to share it with a special someone who needs to stop being a baby too.

The director of the Island School, Ashley, likes to say that here a day feels like a week and a week feels like a day. It’s entirely true, they pack our days full with as much as they can where the days seem to last a million years but it still feels like we got her two days ago. The high pace of everything is definitley something I can deal with, but after a while I need a day to sleep in and relax. I wonder how that will happen here. Yesterday, my seminar teacher who doubles as the dean of students took us outside when class started and led us to a beach. She told us to put our feet in the water and dig in the sand with our toes and just to appriciate where we are and where we’re going to live for the next three months. I still can’t quite believe that I’m here and will stay here until December. That’ll take some getting used to.

As for the place im in, my first thought when we flew from Nassau to Eleuthra was that the ocean looks fake. It looked like those colorful polished rocks you find in souvenir shops everywhere. Then I remembered what my grandma told me on Sunday before I left, that there are so many shades of blue I won’t even be able to describe it. We crawled over the ocean where the clouds looked thick like you could cut it like butter, like the clouds and the ocean were frozen in time and we were lucky enough to catch them just before they were blown away. People in the back were playing music that from the front I couldn’t hear, some people took photos, some of us were just blown away. The sand dunes looked like waved stuck in time under the candy-colored water. I couldn’t post the photos of it because they took our phones as soon as we landed, but if you look up Eleuthra on google, that’s exactly what it looks like. Not a “wow that singualr place is gorgous,” that’s how it is everywhere.

I’m not homesick, I don’t miss anything enough where it’s actively making me sad throughout the day, only when we have a moment to sit and think do I miss Harvey and chocolate, and I would love to hug probably everyone reading this a couple times. I wish we had more time on the phone, at the very least. I learned that letters can take up to 14 months to get out, but a group of researchers is leaving back to the states next week so I’ll ask them if them if they can take my letters and mail them when they reach the mainland. I leave on a three day kayaking expedition tomorrow which will require another couple days of adjusting and adapting to that lifestyle. I love all of you and I hope you’re all doing well, good luck in school and work and everything you do and don’t forget to cherish the moment you’re in with the people you’re with.

Written by

Lucy Day

My experiences at the Fall 2018 Island School semester away program.

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