Saturday, June 19, 2010

June 19, 2010

And then five months go by and I don't write a thing...

Truth be told a lot has happened since my last update here, but to a degree where I wouldn't know what to write about.

I quit my job on the cruise ship and spent my last day there on April 11th. My last few months were a lot of the same with the added bonus of a lot of man-drama, which wasn't the point of this blog anyway.

Since then I spent about five weeks travelling around Europe and meeting a lot of exciting new people, as well as spending a fair amount of time with a guy I dated on my last ship for about three months.

I might use this blog to write about those travels, but it will be less blog and more stories since it's already over. I'd meant to write on the road, but while I was running around Paris with a group of Australians I didn't actually want to sit down for an hour or so and write about it. I preferred using that half hour to do more running around.

Either way I'll have to figure out something to do with this bog.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

January 27, 2010

Not a month goes by and I'm writing again. See, I knew I could do it! Unfortunately there's no promise as to when I finally get this up for anyone else to read, since today was my internet day and instead of write I spent it chatting with pals and sipping an iced latte. My current relaxed state assures me it was worth it.

The reality of my situation right now is that my contract is quickly coming to an end. Three more months turns into ten more cruises, or six more days in Long Beach, or five more times I'm likely to do my laundry. And, although there's still a whisper in the back of my mind saying "maybe just one more," I'm mostly sure this will be my last few months working on a cruise ship. Maybe this is premature, but I'm already thinking: will it have been enough? Is there anything more this job has to teach me? Which, naturally, makes me reflect on what I've learned so far.

The first and foremost lesson, which I'm sure anyone I've spent any amount of time with since coming home from my first contract away can attest to, is how to be social when I'd rather not. An introvert by nature, I've figured out how to pretend I'm not. Throw me in a room with a group of strangers and give me a hint of authority, and not only can I organize that group into some activity where I'm forcing THEM to be social, but I'm in there among them making small talk and becoming their best friend, or at least favorite adult-person, for the next week. And that's something to help me through both my social and career lives.

The second point I'm going to touch on here comes more from the general situation than any specific thing I've done, but in the course of moving rather far away from anyone I felt I could lean on into a new job where not only did I know no one, but I also had very little grasp of what I was actually getting myself into, I've figured out that I thrive in exactly that sort of situation. Throw me in the deep end, and I know that not only will I come out fine but I'll thrive in it. I've done better with challenges being thrown at me than I have with any task I already knew I could do. Unfortunately this has had the downside where I'm not sure I'm thriving as much as I used to here. I already proved I can kick butt here, so I don't need to prove it anymore. At least, I'm pretty sure that's the case.

The last idea I'll post right now is more a result of growing up and out from under mom and dad's wing than any job, but since it's something from the past year I'll include it anyway. And that is: the value of a dollar. Sure, I got some idea of it when mom and dad cut off funding to my beanie babie collection and I was suddenly scrambling for cash to buy the newest Patsy or Pokey or whatever those things were named, but it's one thing to find a way to come up with that $7.99 and entirely another to watch $150 leave my checking account as I purchase my own contacts for the first time. Saving money feels a lot harder when I think about every bill to come, and $150 feels like a lot more after getting my W-2 form and realizing exactly how little I made last year. It's a good thing I've had the idea of a budget drilled into my head since grade school.

I'm sure there's plenty else, but I'd rather read right now ($14.99 I spent last weekend) and I intend to do just that.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

January 5, 2010

I've gotten a lot of complaints, especially lately, that I have yet to write here while on my new ship. There's plenty of reasons why (I use internet a lot less, I'm busier than I was on the other ship) but mainly I've just been kind of bored. I can't write anything interesting if the subject itself bores even me. Because although in the grand scheme of things this ship is quite different from the last, my job and my life are essentially the same. Nothing major has changed, just my location and the people in it.

Except, lately things have gotten shaken up a bit, and that's because of the holidays.

Christmas wasn't half as bad as I expected it would be. On Christmas Eve I volunteered to stay on the ship as an orphanage from Mazatlan came on board. We took them to the ship's lobby for some sodas, gave them lunch on Lido Deck, and performed the ship's Christmas Show for them. The best part of the day was when Santa Claus appeared at the end of the show and gave each kid a backpack full of gifts. It was the only gift each kid would be getting this year, but despite having nothing personal for them there wasn't a disappointed face among them. The Christmas spirit finally caught up with me that day.

Christmas day wasn't half as exciting, but it was still nice. I woke up in the morning and went to a friend's cabin with M (my latest romantic interest, as of two months ago), where we exchanged gifts, drank champagne, and listened to Christmas Carols. Then M and I got off the ship to grab lunch, as we were docked in Cabo san Lucas that day, and spent some time just relaxing until we both had to go to work.

New Year's was fun as well, but that was to be expected. I had to work past midnight, but as soon as we'd finished shouting "happy new year!" my boss showed up with jello shots, M called, and I ran off to a crew party. I got my New Year's kiss at California's midnight and danced the rest of the night away, maybe with a little help from Jack Daniel's.

Now tomorrow is my birthday, but other matters have become more pressing. My roommate (also coworker and designated ship galpal) learned a few hours ago that her father had a heart attack last night and has been in the ICU ever since. As soon as I heard I told her to go home asap, and it didn't take much for the staff and our boss to start arranging for her to go home this Sunday. In the meantime the friend I spent Christmas morning with might also be going hom Sunday to take care of an injured shoulder and without any plans to return to this ship, and everyone else has visiting relatives or port manning. My birthday plans currently end at getting coffee, going to a bakery, and then relaxing on the ship all day watching movies... but at the rate things are going I wouldn't mind a day of relaxation.

And there's my update, just over three months into my contract. I'll try and get more in before I leave.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

September 27, 2009

September 27, 2009

My last post was when I had six days left on my last ship. Now I have six days until I board my next ship.

The time between has been spent trying to relax for the most part. Right now I'm in New York City, sitting in the upper east-side apartment belonging to a friend from the ship. This vacation has actually been full of encounters with people I met on the ship. I went to San Francisco with a trombone player, stayed for five days in Brooklyn with a guitarist, and have hung out with a musical director, drummer, and my old roommate in New York - all from the ship. I'm glad I'm getting to cash in on having friends in cool places so soon. I expect to do so again after this next ship, only in Europe that time.

Until I'm back on board and have things to say, I leave you with some travel wisdom I've picked up:
1. Always pack vitamin c and medicine. Every new place I visit seems to have a new cold virus for my immune system to check out. Rather than hope you're lucky and finding it at a corner drug store somewhere (like I did today), just carry it with you.
2. If it gets cold at night where you are, bring a sweater when you leave in the morning. You'll thank me when you stay out later than you meant to and have a sweater handy.
3. Carry mints! They're much more accessible and compact than a toothbrush, and you never know when you'll go back to your hotel room/hostel/what-have-you
4. Keep a list of phone numbers you'll need, for when your cell phone dies.
5. Always have at least $50 in cash on you in mostly $10s. You never know when they won't take visa.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

August 18, 2009

I've gotten pretty horrible at this blog thing. I've been writing, just not really posting anything. I couldn't tell you why.

I've been here over six and a half months now. I wasn't expecting to be here this long and, quite frankly, I wish I'd left three weeks ago. But now I have six more days and this will mark day four of training my replacement.

On ships, training the person taking over for you is called "handover". I don't know why, or if that's a term used off ships, but I'm going to call it handover here since... well, that's what it's called. I've been given nine days to teach this new guy everything he needs to know about the job and the ship to not completely sink when I'm gone. Since this was my first contract I haven't given one before, but I was GIVEN one and this one is nothing like what I remember.

Everyone's first week on a ship is rough. There's a lot of extra trainings that everyone has to go through and that probably don't make any sense to over half those people, there's the ship to get used to in every sense of the word, there's a new job you're being trained for, new people, new food, new lifestyle. It's all just so new and you're getting so little sleep that it's impossible to really relax that first week.

But other than getting lost a lot at first, I don't remember it being that difficult for me as a whole. If anything it was just the lifestyle and being tired that was rough, but I've never had much issue doing the job itself. For my handover, my trainer would explain things once, have me do them the second time, and after that could just supervise as I did my thing. I didn't need to ask a lot of questions, and I actually got a little annoyed with my trainer for going into such mundane and obvious details as "push the power button to turn this on".

For this NEW guy, it's kind of the opposite. I've actually NEEDED to tell him that he needs to push the power button to turn something on. I've needed to tell him half a dozen times and I'm still not confident that, when it comes down to it, he'll remember to push that power button. He also has this habit of getting some idea in his head that he needs to know how to do something RIGHT THEN and won't drop the topic, even after I've told him multiple times that whatever it is isn't something he needs to know right now and I'll show him later when we're actually doing it. Yesterday he got to work at 3:30 after a training he was at, and spent fourty-five minutes asking such questions that I kept telling him he didn't need to know yet and, don't worry, I'd be showing him tomorrow, and it got to a point where he wasn't doing the job at all in lieu of asking me questions. I ended up leaving him there by himself with instructions of what to do and how to run things (the kids were just playing video games, it was as easy a job as he's going to get) and went off to the office to get some work done there just so he could try and focus on the job for a minute.

So I am still in a constant state of stress, and I still really want to go home, but with only six days it'll be coming up here pretty fast. In the meantime there's a cute new photographer on board from London, England whom I'm hoping can cheer me up.
July 28, 2009

In two days, I will have left California six months ago. It's a little overwhelming for me to think about. I'll have spent more time living on a ship in the past year than I have on land. I'm left wondering how much I'll miss the constant travel, or if I'll be able to sleep without the sound of engines. Cars are going to be a new adventure for me when I get back.

I don't know when I'm going home yet, but I know it will be soon. I'll be surprised if I'm still here in two weeks. And although this job has had some very low points, and I've had some dark days of wanting to do anything just to leave the ship, I'm going to miss it. I'll miss meeting all of these amazing people, and I'll miss getting to relax outside at night and just watch the stars while listening to the waves sloshing against the side of the ship, and I'll even miss living in such cramped corridors with all of my friends just down the hall.

I have some excitement planned for when I get home though. I'm going to visit some friends in Canada, and see a variety of friends from the ship in New York City. I've found someone to live with back on land, though I'm unsure of where we'll live right now. I get to reenter the dating-on-land scene, which is drastically different than the dating-on-ships scene. I get to buy real groceries. It's all going to be amazing, I know it already.

Current events on the ship boil down to a few main things.
Thing the First: I have a new boss these days, and she so far strikes me as a pretty cool Canadian woman.
Thing the Second: K got a promotion and is stressed to his limits, but I try and help the man out.
Thing the Third: C is leaving in four, count them FOUR days. I am a mix of jealousy and sadness right now. Her replacement can't possibly be as cool.

And that's really all there is to it.
July 10, 2009

Today is an epic occasion that comes without precedent, because today... I have the day off.

...Saddly, it is not under happy circumstances. In fact, it's by doctor's orders, because I am just that sick.

Every other time I've been sick on this ship I just work through it. It probably isn't the wisest decision, since I ought to be resting, but there's no one else on this ship who can quite do my job. And my job isn't about me, it's about the kids, so I know that if I don't go to work it will negatively effect some poor kid's vacation. There's just too much guilt that comes along with that, so it's never been an option to me before.

Last night I was having similar thoughts. A few hours into the evening I was feeling pretty low, but I knew I wanted to go watch a movie with K later. It's like when I was little, and my parents told me that if I didn't go to school I couldn't do anything fun later and would just have to stay in bed all day. I told myself that if I gave into feeling sick last night, even to the extent of getting grumpy or not doing my job properly, I couldn't go out and watch a movie with K. So I took some non-aspirin, worked my way through it, actually finished LATER than I was scheduled for, and even felt pretty alright by then so that I could crash at K's cabin in good conscience. I figured we'd watch a movie and hang out for a bit, and I'd still be back in my own bed in time to get a full night's sleep. And then I'd feel all better. I thought I only felt sick because I'd only been getting 2-5 hours of sleep a night that whole cruise. Right?

Not so right.

I woke up this morning feeling worse. I still intended to go to work, but I thought about my track record with recovery and decided that I should go to the infirmary. At the very least they could give me some medicine to make me feel better faster. Plus, I thought all I had was an aching body. I was freezing cold, so I couldn't have a fever or anything. Only I walked into the infirmary, had a nurse shove a thermometer under my tongue, and was just as surprised as she was that I had a fever of 101.

I feel like I'm already rambling on quite a bit, but there is one other thing about this whole experience that I want to bring into light: my doctor didn't know how to type. I sat across his desk from him and watched him hunt and peck each key. Am I the only one who finds this worrying? How does anyone get through medical school without knowing how to type? I learned when I was eleven, and it wasn't that hard. Even if I didn't learn then I wouldn't have been able to make it through high school, let alone university, without knowing how. The fact that someone supposedly made it through medical school and can't even manage to type more than three words per minute is frightening.

So long story short, I'm sick and signed off. I get to lay in bed all day taking non-aspirin and vitamin C. ...and watch movies, and maybe get some writing done, and sleep a whole lot more. I have a feeling I'll be bored in about an hour. I also feel very guilty for not being at work since the girl covering for me has no idea what she's doing. I should've started work fifteen minutes ago and I've already gotten two calls with questions on how to do things in my club. Nnnngh.

And the real kicker is, I fell asleep about half an hour into the movie last night. When it was only half over we both gave up watching and went to bed.