Feb 19th, Day Two – At Sea: Working onboard is a cultural shock

Three sleep-deprived nights in a row and what do you get? A 40-min tardiness to a training session to start your day. Yup, my supervisor called my cabin attwenty past eightto wake me up and asked why I wasn’t at my scheduled training. Oh, fuck; just the way I wanted to start my work term! Quickly I got dressed (good thing I had the foresight to get my outfit ready the night before) and dashed to the training room. The Asian lady who was teaching the session refused to let me in since she was more than halfway in to her lecture and told me to come back on the hour. So in that respect I was lucky, because I had about twenty minutes to indulge in some tasty breakfast.

Let me tell you a little bit about the crew on the ship: they are from all over the world. Rarely do you find people from the same city as you. If you think Vancouver is diverse, think again… EVERYONE here knows at least two languages; one being English and the other their mother tongue. In that respect it is very similar to a cultural shock. I’ve never seen so many nationalities being represented in one place at once – I think the number is something like 60 nationalities on board! I’ve met three other Canadians: Soura from Toronto and works as a youth staff (and the boyfriend of another youth staff, Irena, from Macedonia, who is in the same training session as me), Shandell from Ottawa and is also a youth staff, and Ghislain (Ghis for short) from Quebec and is an experienced light tech who will be working with me a lot. (Yeah, the other thing about diversity is it takes double the time to learn their names because they’re all so unique). There seems to be a majority of Filipino and Chinese people. And by majority, I only mean like 3 out of 10. But that’s just from observation. There are about 1200 crew members on board and approximately 3500 guests.

Ghis looks about early-to-late-30s. He has a tattoo on his neck and left calf. He comes from 10+ years of working in the industry, including the 2010 Olympics inVancouver, Christie Lights, Epic, and most recently came off of programming lights for the NHL All-Star games. I believe he has taken it on himself to look after me. He would pick my stuff up when he’s picking up his own stuff at the HR office; he knocks on my door to see if I’m doing all right; and he volunteered to give me a morning call when I was late this morning. Seems like he’s doing above and beyond ‘friend duties’ – and as such has been dubbed ‘my boyfriend’ in my roommate’s books, and she suspects that he’s “in love with me”. (Great, just what I wanted…) But all joking aside, I am very lucky to have met such a knowledgeable technician – and I will make the most of it because I would like to learn how to fix a moving light!

I want to tell you about my roommate, too. Though that would probably make this already long post longer… I’ll just list some facts: she’s an ice dancer (cool eh?) fromPolandwho has been on this ship for five months (which means she’ll be ending her term in three weeks, and I’ll get a new roomie). She is a curly redhead and a smoker. I am her third roommate, and she has a lot of stuff in the room… 70% of shelving and cabinet space is filled with her stuff. She’s particular about some things and knows what she’s doing. She isn’t one to hold back her thoughts either. When I asked if she would mind if I took a shower after my shift had ended at half-past-midnight yesterday, she replied, “no, I’d appreciate it actually.” Then she said something about ‘smell’. I didn’t quite catch it with her accent. I’m sure I didn’t smell too terribly last night! I mean, sure, my deodorant was worn off, but I didn’t stink! Anyway… from our conversations thus far, we get along all right. She told me her secrets, and I’m keeping my mouth shut, but we’re not best friends. Last night she told me she was going out for a couple of drinks and was gone by the time I got out of the shower. Then she didn’t come back to the cabin until 4 in the morning (with her drunk friend in tow)! At this point I am still getting to know her and trying to find out her boundaries.

dorky me at the forward of the ship

Lastly, allow me to end on a light note and tell you an inside joke: how do you know if someone’s drunk on board? Answer: if they’re walking straight, they’re drunk. (Why? The ship rolls subtly when it’s sailing, so ‘wobbling’ is normal. Sometimes it would be hard to stay standing in one spot because the ship is swaying so much that you lose your balance. They call it ‘the sea legs’.)