Monday, July 5, 2010

4th of July weekend

I was on duty this past weekend; Saturday was crazy, Sunday was great.

7:30am - wake up, scarf down breakfast
8am - help Kathy and one of the Chaplains set up refreshments for a women's session (put to use all that pumpkin bread, lemon poppyseed loaves, and banana nut bread we made last week)
9am - gave a tour to one of our new electricians. I totally forgot we had an arrival Friday night so that meant a tour Saturday morning. I wasn't in uniform at 8:50 when Kathy reminded me about the tour, so I gave the tour as I was... at least I was wearing something cute to help serve refreshments!
10am - pager goes off. 2 roommates checking out. Gather their linens and sign off their disembarkation forms.
10:30am - set up a table in the dining room for a new arrival couple. They flew in at 2am and stayed at the Sarakowa hotel for the night. Mercy Ships picked them up on the noon shuttle route.
11:30am - realize that on the weekends no lunch is served. Ran through the galley and dining room to prepare a cold cuts tray, yogurt, and fruit for the arrivals
12:15pm - crew arrives. Help them through embarkation, sit with them at lunch, and take them to their cabin. (They're from Australia and we chat about life there and my one-time trip to Perth, Australia)
1:30pm - pager goes off. Another crew member check out.
2pm - scramble to clean 2 cabins and make beds for the evening arrivals. I hate turning over rooms in the same day.
3pm - start my 2 loads of laundry, realize I haven't eaten lunch yet
3:30pm - sandwich up on deck 8... love taking 15 minutes to relax before heading back to work
5pm - dinner. Tell dining room to save 3 plates of food for the evening arrivals.
6pm - set up table in the dining room
8:15pm - crew arrives. Reheat their dinners, help them through embarkation, sit with them at dinner, take them to their cabins. (A surgeon and his daughter who will be working in the dining room, and an anesthesiologist)
8:45pm - in the middle of dinner, pager goes off. Another crew checkout.
9:30pm - head up to the midships lounge to watch "Bride Wars" with some of the girls. Fall asleep and finally decide to head back to my cabin about 10pm


Sunday
8am - wake up and eat breakfast, forget to pack a lunch
9am - tour for the 5 arrivals from Saturday
11am - make up cookie baskets and cards for the 3 birthdays
1pm - head up to the crew galley to make Kraft mac n' cheese. Decide to supplement it with stewed apples with a few apples I snitched from the dining room on Friday.
1:30pm - eat up on Deck 8 with Abi. Mac n' cheese is an epic failure. Something about boxed milk... how long til dinner time?
3pm - head back to the cabin and finish moving my stuff to the cubicle farther back. I'm now rooming with  Julie S. who is on the dental team and we have the same day/night schedule. It's been a challenge to not wake Julie V. up during the day after she's worked the night shift.
4pm - decide to do some GRE studying. Fall asleep.
5pm - dinner is a BBQ on the dock. A few American crew members were in charge of the grill and the grilled chicken was actually pretty good. Potato salad, corn, and baked beans. Sat out on the benches usually in the admissions tent used for patients waiting for surgery. Someone's iPod was hooked up to the speakers and it was playing patriotic music. For a second I felt like I was back in the States.
6pm - catch up on emails and read some. Can't find a quiet place, so after 3 different locations I end up in the corner of the dining room.
8pm - decide to go outside for a "few minutes." (Stayed 3 hours) Standing at the rail with the evening ocean breeze blowing in, the port's lights lit up the sky and I enjoy watching the clouds roll by. It was overcast all day so I couldn't see any stars.
11pm - collapse into bed... and didn't wake up til 10:15 this morning... ah, blessed sleep!

So yeah, it was an interesting weekend! I don't think I sat down on Saturday for more than like 15 minutes all day!

*I'm so excited to have Monday and Tuesday off!!!! :-)*

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