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.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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