There's No Place Like Home
My first day on ship was a bit disorienting. I was pretty much thrown on the ship like a piece of cattle. Everyone else around me seemed to know where they were going except for me. After a spending a few hours on board I had a general idea of where everything was located.
I’m still trying to get used to the time difference. My biological clock has yet to make the proper adjustments. To make matters worse, my cabin mate has a big snoring problem. I thought my dad was bad, but wait to you hear this guy. He’s from St. Martin, a little country in the Caribbean. I’ll be staying with him for about two weeks and then I’ll move into a new cabin.
One thing I did notice, whenever I would ask a question to anyone they would usually end with; “don’t worry you will see.” I think I’ve heard that phrase three or four times already. I have to say that I’m disappointed in the fact that we no longer film the tours. I was really looking forward to doing that. Hopefully they’ll restart doing them since I arrived and we have an extra person aboard the ship.
I’m still trying to get used to living the ship life. I had lunch with my manager and he was telling me that one year on sea feels like three years living on land. It’s funny that he said that, because I totally had the opposite problem. One year for me on land, felt like just a few months. I think the slower lifestyle will be a good change for me. Working in L.A., made it feel like my life was going by in a blink of an eye. Over here things slow down to a much slower pace. Living and working on a ship, there really isn’t any place to escape. For some I know that can be a bad thing. But for me, seeing that I can be really shy around people it forces me to interact and open up with people. A crazy coincidence, one day as I was in the elevator I ran into a guy that worked in the spa. I noticed on this guy’s nametag it said California. So we started to talk a little bit and I found out he was from Venice Beach, California.
Living on a ship, one has to find ways to the kill time. There will be free blocks of time where there is nothing to do. Just the other day, the guys in my department had a two on two basketball game. One of the guy’s I worked with wanted me to play with him against these young Indian kids. I felt kind of sorry for them. I could tell they didn’t want to play with us because once we finished they scurried off the court like little rats. Unfortunately I was way out of shape and got tired very easily, which reminds me, I need to start working out again.
As far as my department goes, I am the only American. I’ll be working with a man from Nepal and two guys from Romania. These guys love to joke hard and bust each others balls all the time. I’m already learning bad words in Romanian from the Nepalese guy. The work that goes on in my department is pretty laid back. The atmosphere I have to admit is a little different. In a way it feels like I’m working out of home. I do a few hours of work in the morning then relax a bit in the afternoon. Later in the evening I’ll usually film an event followed up with some editing work. It feels nothing like a 9-5 job.
July 14, 2009