Let's talk about the job.

So...you may think that this gig is all fun and games but let me recap on what has gone down over the past couple of weeks and what we, as a student life team, have gotten to deal with thus far. The ship and voyage purely a vacation? Not really. Now, I'm not complaining, but do want to give you an idea as to what this "voyage of discovery" can hold. Please don't get me wrong, it's still a lot of fun and extremely worthwhile, but dang, we're getting to do quite a bit of educating this fall. =)

In order of appearance - post the Japan adventures I've already blogged about.

- We discovered that one student came on board to de-tox from his heroine addiction, without help or telling anyone. He is now back in the states in rehab.

- A cabin steward had a stroke in one of the cabins he was cleaning and wasn't found for 2 hours - he is doing ok now, but no longer with us on the ship. =(

- A student found herself so drunk in Beijing that she couldn't make it back to the hotel and ended up sleeping on a bench, with her purse sitting there unguarded. She held up more than 40 others on her trip the next morning that finally had to leave without her. She managed to catch them at the airport and was lucky that nothing (i.e. her passport) had not been stolen. Seriously? China + no passport=not good.

- Our staff doctor and his wife got caught in the typhoon in Vietnam and we had to sail without them. (The crew has a doc as well, so there was one on board) however, we had 10 serious cases of TD after Vietnam, so the 2 nurses stayed really busy.

- Two students were bitten by monkeys (not kidding)

- Four other students were expelled from the program and ship due to positive drug tests (and in Myanmar of all places).

- A student had a seizure on the streets of Yangon because her prescription for larium said to "take daily." This drug is actually supposed to be taken weekly. Larium toxicity - NOT GOOD. We've learned that it has some serious, long term, damaging effects. An (unnamed) University's Student Health Department is not going to like that lawsuit. This student couldn't have had this happen at a better time during her stay though. Not only did she happen to be right outside a very nice hotel which had an English speaking doctor employed, but also, another student's father (a physician) was there, as were two Red Cross workers who happened to be walking down the street at the time. She was lucky to be so well cared for and got decent assistance at the local hospital. Her tests results were sent back to the states for further readings.

- One female student punched a male student in the lobby of the fancy hotel.... twice. He was teasing her about a mistake she'd made early on in the voyage and she couldn't control her temper. A great thing to do in Myanmar, a country with a military regime and very non-confrontational people. No one at the hotel really knew what to do - just watched the embarrassing ugly American behavior. (Yes, she's mine. The aftermath of this is oh so fun). According to the guy from the embassy, she's really lucky they (the hotel) didn't call the police as she'd probably be stuck in Myanmar prison right now.

- I'm dealing with a huge roommate conflict between the girl who did the punching and her roommate (a friend of the punchee). Oh boy.

- Two students were bit by "jumping cats" (one of whom was also bitten by a monkey) (no, not kidding) and had to get rabies shots.

- Two passports were lost/stolen and not recovered. (Shocking... one of the passports lost belonged to the young woman who had been bitten by a monkey and a cat - not a good port for her). The students are pretty darn lucky that the Myanmar government let them out without passports.

- Another student was flown (with one of our nurses) to Bangkok, Thailand for (what they think) is appendicitis. (Lucky we weren't at sea at the time). The plan is for them to meet us in India.

This and more...seriously, I think I could write a book of student affairs case studies from this voyage.