Neptune Day and My Partially Shaved Head!

Picture 1 - Dean of Students (Lisa) and Executive Dean (John Tymitz) as Queen Minerva and King Neptune.

Picture 2 - All the students beginning to gather around for Neptune Day festivities.

Picture 3 - Katie and I post-fish guts and pool jumping

Picture 4 - Bronwyn, Dan, me, and Jack with the King and Queen.

Picture 5 - ME GETTING MY HEAD SHAAAAVED.

Picture 6 - Katie and I celebrating 0'0.

Picture 7 - Andrew, Max, and I doing the same with some new hair-dos.

Picture 8 - Me, Katie, and Bronwyn celebrating more.

Picture 9 - Katie and I made it to the Center of the World. Easy to understand since it revolves around us

Picture 10 - Tucker, me, and Max with new hair-dos and more proof that we made it to the intersection of the Equator and the Prime Meridian

Picture 11 - A better picture of my new 'do. 

(As you can see, it was a liiittle windy that day.)

Neptune Day was definitely one of the coolest things I've ever done, mostly because of the concept behind it. 

When you cross the Equator on a ship of some sort you celebrate your transformation from a slimy Pollywog into a trusty Shellback! You can Google it. It was even cooler in our case because not only did we cross the Equator, but we crossed the exact meeting place of the Equator and the Prime Meridian. Very few people in world get to cross at that exact location! It was momentous. And we have pictures and signs to prove it. Crossing at 0'0 means that we also get the title of Emerald Shellbacks!

You can also find out even more about it on Wikipedia about the more extreme ones. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line-crossing_ceremony) 

But in order to be a shellback, there's a biiit of a ceremony. To say the least.

At 7:00 in the morning, a large parade of workers and previous shellbacks walk around the ship and halls with noise makers, pots and pans, and anything else that could possibly make noise. They bang on ALL the doors and wake up anyone and everyone for the big ceremony to begin!

After all the people of importance file up to their chairs, the cool stuff begins!

First, you must have fish guts dumped on your head. Lucky for us, we had a slime substance mixed in with some bones and scales. Less guts, more green slime.

Second, you leap into the pool. Easy peasy, but absolutely freezing!

Third, you get out of the pool and must kiss 2 fish. They were kinda cooked, but they were DEFINITELY gross.

Fourth, you must bow to the King and Queen in their throwns. You then kiss the ring of King Neptune.

Last, you have sea salt sprinkled on your head and a little saying is said!

It was hilarious to watch, and so much fun to do! Water consumption went up a bit that day between cleaning the decks, refilling the pool, and everyone showering profusely.

Another large portion (although entirely optional) is to shave your head! I'd say that at LEAST 3/4 of my guys friends did it! Many people got designs or funky hair dos. A lot of girls did what I did and just shaved some of the side!

Why did I do it? If you can't read the sign in the picture, it says: "Congratulations Mom & Namma on your 8 & 1 year anniversaries." This October holds meaning because it's Mom's 8-year anniversary of beating Breast Cancer and Namma's first anniversary of MANY more to come! I love you both dearly and I'm sending positive thoughts y'alls way.