Diabetes questions? I can help.

Well it's been a long week. Since I stepped on the ship I've put in over 90 hours of work because of this diabetes charter. However, now that that's over with we go back to a normal schedule: this means I get to wake up at noon instead of 6:30am. Wooooo. Just left Miami where I went to Hooter's with the Tech guys and I never thought a group of 6 could devour that much chicken, and I remember the marathon eating at thursday wing nights.

A lot of the crew is finally starting to warm up to me, especially the women. Now I don't imply anything by that, it's just that there are 200 women crew, and 1300 males. As you might imagine, girls get hounded quite a bit and so aren't exactly open to being social. Hell, I wouldn't either.

So far everywhere we've been has been beautiful, but then again that's why people pay the big bucks to go there. Thankfully, we get MASSIVE crew discounts on a lot of things in port. Or so I'm told, I was on duty last week so today was the first day I got off the ship.

So I've been looking at what my normal schedule will be throughout the week. I will typically work from 11-3pm until 11-3am. So twelve hours a day. However, I get massibe two, three, four hour breaks in between twenty-thirty minutes of work. Which I'm totally okay with; however doing this seven days a week, I can see how it's easy to burn out. I think that's why our HR is so awesome: it has to be. So far I've only been here a week and we've had two parties, free ice cream day, free donuts, port passes, etc. They sem to do quite a bit around here to keep the crew happy, which is much appreciated.

Blue suited Philpinos. They are everywhere. And without them this ship wouldn't function at all. I mean these guys work *hard*. I feel bad that despite they work harder than most on the ship, they still only get to use the crew mess, the crew bar, the crew workout room etc. instead of being able to go up to the promenade and enjoy things there, or use the Staff + Officer's Mess. The reasoning (besides rank) is that if you don't speak English very well, you're not allowed in public/officer areas. 87% or more of the guests at any given time have English as their primary language and as such the company only wants to put forward those people who can Speak it. As an American, I get special privaledges above and beyond the other staff, as most of our guests also happen to be American (shocking right?) So I get to use the sports center, the higher level bars (read: Black Tie) etc.

Last night, as I was closing up Studio B (Our ice skating rink) I happened to find keys on the floor. Now, our Production manager Charlies has a serious obsession for roosters (his cock, as he puts it.) And with that said, the keys had a rooster on it. I called Charlie (who, by the way, is the best boss I've ever had) and told him I had his keys, I was wrong and they belonged to the light tech. However, he told me it was good to call him first as Tenessee (our light tech) can get Fired (seriously, Fired) for losing his keys in a public area. Therefore Charlie felt it only appropriate to milk it for all it was worth. Therefore, tonight Tenessee owes me my weight in beer, thanks to me saving his ass yesterday with our Head SnL tech, AND finding his keys. Since I don't have call tomorrow until Rock wall at noon, I may just take him up on that.

Anyway, hope all's well with you all, I'll catch you later.