29 March 2009

South Carolina

I did make it safely to South Carolina with minor delays. I'm overjoyed to say that I didn't make the same first impression as the one 2 years ago (when I first started with American Cruise Lines) Refer to post "2007 June, A Trip to Bangor Maine" for more details.

Thankfully that's not the story I'm remembered by, but it seems as though I've gone down in ACL history as "The girl who changed the light bulb in the middle of the night." I don't know, I guess that's not a bad reputation to have. Ha

I love sailing (in the blue ocean), but brown river water isn't much for excitement. I also love sleep, and the two simply do not go hand-in-hand. Maybe if I weren't on the 0000-0400 watch as I write this, I would say I liked to sail more. But at this point, sleep is way more important to me than any amount of adventure... Remind me of this when I consider running off to get another job at sea again...

Being an officer is much to stressful (in my opinion) for enjoyment and I'm not much for being just a regular deckhand with no authority. Plus, I don't even like being a helmsman anymore. The first 200 times may have been exciting, but now, I find it actually rather boring... I'm kind of tired of doing a mans job. You know, I think I'd really like to be an esthetician.

Sleep is about to take over now, and thankfully my watch has nearly reached it's end. I'm going to go get some sleep for the night, but I'll be getting a call in about an hour and it's time to get up again to cast off lines. 1 down and only 83 days left to go. All this for Australia, I hope it's worth it.

20 March 2009

The Next Leg of My Journey

(Photo by Danette Bjornstad -Edited by Daniel Hudson)

Well, I generally start running my mouth (out of excitement) before things are actually set in concrete and then find that I have to deviate some from my original plans. Everyone is then left wondering what it is I'm actually doing or where I'm going...

There's been a bit of a lull for the past couple of months so I've not had many things to write about. I thought I would be long out to sea by this time, but as usual things didn't go quite as planned. I've been in Arkansas for several months now and am definitely ready for some change.

I kept thinking I would get the job I applied for with Cruise West, but I made the mistake of telling them I couldn't work the whole season. I guess that was a problem... But the whole point of the job was to save money to go to YWAMs (Youth With A Mission) Waves DTS (Discipleship Training School) in Australia. So, I guess if I had to work past the starting date of the DTS, it really wouldn't have been worth it. (And I really want to go to this Waves DTS.)

I worked for American Cruise Lines two years ago and swore I would never return... Unless it was near the end of the world and nothing else seemed to be working out. I was thinking more like 10-15 years down the road, not 2... Well, I am again employed by ACL and start in exactly one week. I wouldn't say I'm exactly thrilled to be going back, but I am pretty happy to have a job that will allow me to hopefully save most of the tuition for YWAM. I figure, I did it once, I can do it again. And a person can do practically anything for three months... We'll see how all that goes; I'm sure I'll have lots to write about.

And now that I have a job (other than Mossy Creek) I can finally send in my application to YWAM. It's been quite a process filling it all out, but I'm finally finished with it; for the most part anyway. I have to get a physical on Monday and then I really will be able to send it off.

So, just to clarify, it's not definite that I will get to go to Australia this fall. I have to wait and see if they accept me and also what the price of airfare does...