This is not a regular missions update, but something I wanted to share and keep in a more accessible (and more easily readable) place. It’s a Norwegian article about a gamer and his gaming community (guild) in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) called World of Warcraft.

As a guild master myself and regular player of an MMORPG called Guild Wars 2, I often find it difficult to share why this game is so engaging and important to people who don’t game regularly. I think this article does a really good job of trying to explain the positive community aspects of gaming and that the depth of these online friendships can be as deep as those that we have with real-life friends, even if you’ve only met up in a virtual world. 

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I honestly don’t have as much deep stuff to talk about this week. This is mostly a slice of ship life post of things that happened this week that are pretty telling of what life is like on board. Things people get passionate about like donating blood or the militant nature of laundry, Valentine’s Day celebrations, and an inside look to our fire drills and emergency response. Hope you all enjoy! :) 

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We’ve made it to double digits! We’ve made it through week ten together and I’m grateful that you’re here with me to share this journey. This week, we celebrated Chinese New Year with ANOTHER dumpling night and karaoke on Deck 8, I went to a local English school that was originally established poor and orphaned children, we took selfies with the captain on the bow, watched pilot boats deal with some containers that fell into port, ate a “million dollar” meal to say farewell to some friends, and found some more exciting parasites! 

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Time flies when you’re busy! I’m on call again this week, so there wasn’t as much venturing out, but there’s been a flurry of activity anyway! I went to a local church service and experienced African style praise, which was absolutely uh-maaaaaaaay-jing! I started attending a weekly Tuesday night jam session with people on the praise team on the ship (I finally got around to signing up to help out), and am attending a class on how to do Ukrainian egg decorating called pysanky. I found out there’s a CHINA TOWN IN CONAKRY! Lab on call has been full of excitement with big cases and projects, and I made a new patient friend on the ward! It was also fire drill week but then it turned into the most interesting social experiment there was… 

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Can you believe I’m halfway done with my term on the ship?? I almost can’t. It feels like a long time yet a short time. I still remember the days leading up to my departure, and how emotionally tumultuous it was to fly out straight from a memorial service, trying to grieve the close of a chapter of my life and the loss of a family friend while still being open to what new chapter was awaiting me on the ship. Ship life is my new normal, and I almost forget what it’s like to be around the people I’ve lived with in community for the last seven years in Chapel Hill. I’m faced with new struggles on a physical and spiritual level as a result of being here, but if I weren’t being challenged I think it would be easy to coast and let life and lesson pass me by. 

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I got an app that lets me make gifs so now my posts will have at minimum 1000% more animated gifs for when videos are too much but still photos aren’t quite enough. This week, we had some cool boat-related activity going on, we got some new lab toys, Mercy Ships founder Don Stephens came to visit, and I went to a fancy hotel with a Chinese restaurant inside for some Chinese food. We officially said bye to Betsy (for real this time), Sarah from the lab is leaving tonight, and Monce leaves tomorrow. I have pictures from the HOPE center visit a couple weeks ago, also! 

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Last week, I went out every day to explore Guinea. This week, I’m on call so I’m ball-and-chained to the ship. Things are picking up now that we’re through the holiday season and the “typical” medical season is ramping up again. The ship is full again! We had over 100 people come to the ship over the last week, both people returning from Christmas PTO and new arrivals. I also say bye to two dear friends, Miriam and Melissa. Harmattan is here, I got to see the dive team in action, the finance team served ice cream from a color-coded bowl tower, and I found some funny notes here and there on the ship light switches. I still snuck off ship (thanks to Caitlin for taking the pager!) for yet another Filipino party at the US Ambassador’s house(!!), which was awesome as always.  

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I had this entire week off from work because the lab is still closed and I wasn’t on call at all. While it wasn’t my plan, I ended up going out into the city or somewhere off ship every day. It was exhausting to be around so many people and so many activities ALL. THE. TIME. But I made it, it was an incredible week, and I’m so glad that I did it! Since there are so many days of exciting things, this post is, per usual, very long. The writing gets a bit lazy towards the end because I’m a bit squeezed of words, but there are lots of pictures to tell the story for me. :)  

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Man, Christmas with the ship is one heck of a ride. I had a very strange and exciting and ultimately super fun and filling experience at a Filipino Christmas house party in the city, and discovered that one of the Filipina mommas on the ship is one of the most amazing cake baker-and-decorators I’ve ever met. I saw the heavy machines that keep the ship running (or sailing), and I worked my first on-call stint ALllLlLl byyYyYyy mYyyYYSEeellLLLlLfFfFfFFF!!!!1111!!1one  

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It’s been another week and it’s gone by even faster than the last. It’s week 3, and I’ve made some pretty close friends, a few of which are already leaving the ship to go home. :( I’ve gotten to see and interact with the people of Guinea at the HOPE Center Sunday service, and I went to this day-long training called Equipping to Serve which taught about the culture on the ship, the culture of Guinea, and we even got basic language phrases to learn in a few of the local languages.  

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