Neptune Day: head shaving!

The day after India was Neptune day on the ship. Neptune day is a navy tradition that says when a ship crosses the equator you have to shave your head! Then you are supposed to get fish guts dumped on your head, jump in water, and then get out and kiss a fish. Very random but it actually turned out to be a lot of fun!

We got woken up by our crew banging pots and pans at 7 am and then we had Neptune Day festivities until around 11 am then we had group pictures!

I woke up not having any intention of shaving my head at all! I had considered it last semester and talked about it with a few people and got bad reactions so I figured I wouldn't do it. I definitely didn't want to do it unless they were going to donate my hair to locks of love or some similar organization. So when my friend Meghan and I found out that they would donate our hair, we considered doing it for about 2 minutes and then let it go. Then I thought about all the people my mom works with who have lost their hair because of chemo therapy and of one of Odette's good friends Linda who lost her hair when she was undergoing chemo therapy as well and I thought why not do it for all of those people! Besides its just hair and there are tons of people who need it more than me.

I also figured that if I was ever going to shave my head, now was the time to do it while I was studying abroad and have time for it to grow back before I start interviewing for jobs and such after graduation.

So far I haven't regretted it at all and I have been getting really awesome reactions from people on the ship! I don't look as bad as I thought I would either but I have been trying to figure out a way to make myself look a little more feminine with the help of two of my friends from Pitt who also shaved their heads. A total of 4/8 girls from Pitt shaved their heads! And a total of 19 girls on the ship shaved their heads and 20 boys. It was pretty cool! Having no hair makes you pretty cold too!