Argh, I don’t even know how many mosquito bites I have… But they’re all very very iritating. Bah. All from a whole day spent at the harbour of course.. flies were everywhere. But other than that, the day was pretty fun.
Or wait, acutally it did start off pretty bad… or well, it started of incredibly uncomfortably at least. Our very first module was the life boat module… Which meant we had to put on them “key-hole life jackets” and get in a life raft. Uhm. Yah, life jackets – very restrictive, and uncomfortable. Life rafts – very wobbly and nauseating. I think it messed me up for the whole day, cause everytime I was on a boat, I felt really sick.
Anyway, I can’t remember in what order we did the modules but they were… EMS, Emergency Procedures, Security, Life Raft, Life Preservers/Rings, and my personal favourite the Fire module.
Hmm.. So The Life Raft and Life Preserver/Ring modules were essentially the same. Learn how to put on the life jackets/learn how to put it on someone. But the addition to the Life Preserve/Ring module is throwing the floating ring out… That was cool, I did it twice. The EMS one was pretty much useless to me since I’ve got my First Aid already – note to self, I gotta renew that – and the Emergency Procedure module was basically just talking about the different emergencies that we might come across … mainly man over board – because of aparently all of the idiots/drunks who decide they want to jump out of the boat and swim to shore or something (illegal by the way, they get arrested and are sent to 52 division). I already talked about the Life raft one.. But anyway, my favourites were the Security one, and the Fire one…
Post 9-11 of course, we got a little lecture on what to do in a violent situation like a terrorist threat. But the cool part – it was basically cool cause we weren’t expecting it, and it was actually a really good excercise – was this memory/recognition exercise that we did. Basically, we were told that we have about 30 yards to identify people who “do not belong” (aparently, we can identify people we know well, like family from 100 yards away). So we did this exercise where he partnered us with someone we didn’t know (ie, someone from another crew) and then told us to introduce ourselves to that person. Well smart aleck that I was, I realized that he was doing some kind of memory thing so I committed what the guy told me about himself to memory – he’s in the kitchen staff with Yankee Lady charters… LOL I forgot his name though. But anyway. So we then faced away form the person, and he changed things up on us. Instead of asking us the information I thought he was gonna ask us, he instead asked us to identify what the person looked like… Well I sucked at that. Although I actually did pretty good… I got the Red Hat, Black Sweater, Jean shorts, and his height – which he was about 2 inches taller than me. But then I mistakenly thought he had a goatee somehow.
Anyway, I just thought it was a cool exercise… Our last module was the fire one, which was what I was really looking forward to the whole day. We put out a real fire (controlled, of course, inside a pot) with a fire extinguisher, and we got to use a real fire hose (which I found out later wasn’t running on full power, though). But yeah, it was good way to finish the day off (oh we had an abandon ship drill afterward, but I was lucky enough not to have to get in to the life raft again).
Another good thing about today was how well I got to know my coworkers already.. From which I established who the bartenders are (there are 4 of us – 2 guys – though one of the guys is part time here and part time in another shipm and 2 girls… All of them have a ton more experience than I do). But yeah, I think it was good that we were all pretty much talking to each other quite a bit by the end of the day (although I still don’t know a few people’s names), which is a really big difference from waht I normally experience with the city. I think it’s cause here we were all brand new and didn’t know anyone, while with the city, there are typically cliques already that you need to break into to make “friends”.. lol.
I remember my first three years, I was pretty much a loner (first two were 2 different programs I trained for, and the third one was my first year as a coordinator). But my 4th and part of my 5th summer trainings were good. It’s amazing how many people you end up knowing after that many years working there. But anyway, the problem with my 5th summer training was that I switched programs again – into the worst one too in terms of pre-existing cliques, which was the Arts Staff training.
Eh, I don’t even know why I got into that. But yeah, I’m really really looking forward to the summer now. I think I mentioned that my first shift was on the 11th already, right? eh… It is… But I’m not bartending that day, I’ll be serving.. Plus I found out that it was a 21st Birthday Party… which is giving me doubts about tips, cause… well I’m 21, and I know how much I tip peoeple… But it was correctly pointed out to me that most likely, the people who would be at this party (ie, the kind of people who can throw a 21st birthday party on a charter boat), would probably have a little cash (cause the only reason I don’t tip well is cause I don’t have the money to tip well) to do it.
But yeah. whatever. yay. excited…