Hi everyone, and welcome to the blog! This is like the first day of school for me: I want to make a good impression, set some goals, and get settled into a new routine.

Overview
This blog is a way for all of us to communicate while I’m at sea. I’ll be showing you what it means to be a scientist at sea and working with your teachers so that you can be part of our science team. That means you’ll be analyzing data, making hypothesis, explaining results, and maybe even designing some experiments.

My goals while at sea
1. Post to the blog at least five days per week. I know that some posts will be longer than others, and some posts will be better than others, but I want to be posting nearly every day. Some days will probably have more than one post so that I can write different things for each grade, so I’m setting this goal around days that I post, not the number of posts.

2. Finish at least 80% of the changes that I need to make to the paper that I’m writing. I recently completed a goal that I set earlier this year, which was to have a research paper of mine accepted to a scientific journal. I worked very hard towards that goal and now I’m feeling happy and proud of myself for achieving it. But I need to make some changes before the paper can published, so that’s my new goal.

3. Work well with all of you at DLMS! Just like you, I have planner where I write down all of the work I have to do. I like being very organized and knowing what is expected of me. For me, working on this project is taking a risk because nobody can tell me how it will turn out or what the finished product will look like. Since this is something new, I’ll probably make some mistakes along the way. It will be your job to tell me when that happens and help me fix any problems. At the same time, it will be my job to listen to what you have to say.

Right now, I’m still at home, packing. I leave for the airport in a few hours and then I’ll fly to Manila. My next post probably won’t be until Wednesday, when I get to the ship. Until then, please tell me in the comments: what would you like to see in this blog?

This is a picture of the route I'll take from New York (United States to Seoul (Korea), to Manila (the Philippines). Look how close we go to the north pole! Is this the shortest route the plane can fly?