Saturday, October 18, 2008

First Day

Well, my first day on the ship was pretty easy and nice. I was very glad to have been met onboard by the current English teacher that I was taking over for. I was so uninformed when I took this job, that I wasn't really even sure of anything. I wasn't sure if there would be a teacher here to hand-over to me. Luckily there was. I am so glad of that. Becauase, even though this seems that this will be a pretty "easy" job, there is still a lot to learn and a lot to take in all at once, both from the teaching side and from the shiplife side. So, the current teacher was a big help in telling me the ropes, but there is still so much that I need to learn about everything (teaching, shiplife, etc.). The first day, I just sat-in on her first class and she introduced me. After that I had dinner at the Officer's Mess (Officer's Dining Room) with her. The food was pretty good. You can order off the menu or get food from the buffet line. The menu items tend to be small portions and gourmet-type food. While the food is gourmet-y, most of it hasn't knocked my socks off. However, I had an EXCELLENT gorgonzola cream pasta. I can truly only say that I've really only had maybe one or two dishes that have really been very excellent. But, don't get me wrong the food is pretty good and I am thankful that I have the privilege to eat in the Officer's Mess. They even have vegetarian options, which are usually quite interesting. (Maybe that's why not too much of the food has knocked my socks off--kind of bland; maybe if you were a meat-eater you would find things more flavorful.) Anyway, I think I lived a fairly cultured life, but a huge majority of the things on the menu I have never even heard of. There is always salad to get at the buffet, which is good because if you order one it is usually a bit strange and only like 4 bites. Unfortunately, sometimes the salad bar is just iceberg lettuce (ugh). There is always fresh fruit and at least a few fresh vegetables, decadent desserts, and there is even wine for the officers and staff. In case you are wondering, my position is equivalent to a two-stripe officer, which is very nice. So, this means that I even have most of the passenger privileges, but I haven't even really eaten in a passenger area yet. I can also eat in the staff mess or the crew mess, but I've only so far eaten in the crew mess once for breakfast because the other two were closed. That food was mediocre, maybe better, but at leat they have your basics for breakfast: eggs, potatoes, fruit, cereal, pastries, etc. So, I will definitely eat in a passenger restaurant soon.
So, after dinner I watched a stand-up comedian. And I even got my trivia on later--twice! I played a guess the movie poster trivia game (and I got close to winning, but I wouldn't actually have stepped forward if I won, becasue I don't think that would be very fun for the passengers). Then I played a What Country Are You Looking at trivia. They would show us a country from the map (but with no surrounding countries or anything) and you had to guess which country it was. A team of older folks asked me to join their team, and the customer is always right and I can't let them down, so how could I say no :) And, actually, I don't wear a uniform and I didn't have a name tag yet, so they didn't know I was a crew member until I told them. My team did pretty well, but we didn't come close to winning. But we probably got about 70-80% correct. The older lady on my team was impressed with my geography knowledge and asked where I went to school. I told her SDSU, but I chuckled and told her that had nothing to do with it--I just like maps.
Soon after I went to bed...

1 comment:

Jeremy said...

Hey, Kristina. That's cool that you're able to play a little trivia while on the ship. If you can't be a part of the onshore activities, there's plenty of things to do on the ship.
I have this story to tell you about tonight. Bring Back Robin finished 1st tonight. I was it on nearly every music question they threw at us. And I got one of the sports questions correct. We were in 2nd going into the final round. It was Sarah Palin's Glass in front 100 to our 98. Eventually SPG fell back to 4th, Below Average Joe's had 3rd (they were a first a few times early on) Team Ampho or Ringo Ate My Baby got 2nd with 137 points, and we closed the deal with 148 pts! I took home a case of Jellylube and a can of Liquid Blow. Kevin took the porno dvd called The Clansmen, Shannon took the Indian scented candle, Craig took the Oozing Eyes candy which he later gave to Shannon, which she then gave to me. I had a sucky day. The Job fair I went to earlier didn't meet my expectations. Business companies, a securty company, and Wells Fargo Bank. I didn't get anything out of it. To walk into Winston's in second round and pull away winning it all with Bring Back Robin really cheered me up. It was an awesome feeling.
Well, sorry to go off topic. I just wanted to mention this great moment tonight, and that everyone in the sends their regards.
Ciao,
Jeremy