This life upon the cruise ship stage
Got me enraged, everyone’s always tryin’ to keep me caged
Am I playin’ the music or is the music playing me?
We’re rockin’ and rollin’ upon the stormy sea
Every day’s a struggle when you’re living down below, and your worth is measured by whether or not you’ve got a window
It’s all good though, the contract ain’t much longer and I know that that which does not kill us only makes us stronger
This contract is by far one of the most amazing I’ve ever worked, but even it has its valleys. It has its hard times. For one thing we have the hardest management team in the fleet. This place has higher standards than the flagship, and that’s saying something considering how high my beloved floating home holds itself. Here, even the vets like my brother and I who know exactly what we’re doing and know the score inside out can get called up on basically not having their uniforms buttoned straight. Not that that’s a bad thing, it does mean we present an excellent product, but it does lead to a certain amount of low-lying stress that puts everyone on edge. And in some ways it hits our department the hardest because we’re one of the most on show.
This is one of those contracts that I use to remind people that my job is actually work, not merely a paid vacation (though, because of Shadow, there are times when this has absolutely felt like a paid vacation – but I lose Shadow to her own ship at the end of this cruise, so those 11 hour days are going to be all mine all over again). It’s a lot of work to have a lot of fun out here. I wish I could say its all days lounging about in Italy eating pizza and gelato with my brother, but there is a lot of business behind-the-scenes stuff that goes on behind the blog.
As I’m sure you’ve figured out by this point of course. Thing is most of it’s not mine to discuss though so if you want all the boring mundane details you’ll have to go elsewhere than here to find them 
suffice it to say we’re still noses-to-the-grindstone out here, and as Amras said to me last night:
It doesn’t matter what any of us have done before, we’re here now, and that means these are the rules we have to play by, that’s just the way the game works.
But life goes on as quickly as ever. At long last Alasse boards today so my little ship-side family is complete. I was supposed to join her for breakfast at her hotel this morning but the morning off didn’t fall in my favour, besides, nights off are more fun. And Alasse’s presence means I have a dancing partner again, and I won’t be the only one hanging out in the mid-ship lounge for the late-night set (seriously I can only clap so loud!)
I have acquired a new roommate, which is not really a problem in this case as she and I were already friends and our schedules mesh decently. She pretty much keeps herself to herself and she actually likes sleeping on the top bunk which means that I’ve been able to move to the bottom; this is a bonus for me since I keep not only library hours but musician hours as well (which means that yes, I’m not running on a lot of sleep these days) so I’m coming and going a lot.
I continue to slowly make progress on my embroidery, though the fact that I actually seem to have acquired a social life on this contract (what a shock!) has slowed me down somewhat on that, I still have hope that I’ll have gotten the quarter at least partially finished by the time I go home.