Ready, set, sail!

Well, I'm hired!  The Disney Cruise Line (DCL) wants me to become a Youth Activities Counselor (YAC) on board one of their ships!  I am in the middle of the hiring process which takes some time.  I had to do a drug screening Friday as well as fax off a few documents and reapply for a passport (my old passport is lost in Africa).  But after they receive the results from my background check and drug screening I then will move on and do the Medical Screening, assuming my background check and drug screen comes back clean - which they should.  My position as a Youth Activities Counselor will be filled with a variety of activities & duties - but all in all making the ship a fun and safe environment for the kids on board.  Have a pirate training camp where Captain Hook comes to interrupt one day and dressing up like a mad scientist and making flubber the next...I think there are somewhere around 150 activities they do.  So I will also living on board obviously in a room no bigger than my closet...oh, and having a roomate in that space too, and a bathroom/shower.  I'm not sure how that is possible, but I'll find out.  I won't mind too much because as far as I am concerned you spend 95% of your time working and then just sleeping...oh, or at the Crew bar or crew pool.  It's a 70 hour work week as well.  I am definitely excited though to also meet the other crew members aboard the ship.  After reading blogs, forums and facebook profiles about the ship I've learned that their may be days when work isn't as fun or you may be stressed for whatever reason, tired as hell, and sick of the repetition of the food menu, but it's the people you work with who become your new family and support you in ways you won't believe. 

I'm looking forward to all of it and wish I could leave tomorrow!  It'll be a nice change of pace from Bend....don't get me wrong, Bend is a great place but it seems to be black-hole that sucks you in.  I don't know if anyone should live here between the ages of 19 and 28.  If you do you should have a kid and be married.  As for being a single 25 year old male here...eh, it's kind of not what I was expecting.  It's as if no one can find anything else to do other than go to the same bar every weekend.  I totally got sucked in for a bit, but now I am tired of it.  Bend is a great city with a lot of fun and unique opportunities that occur every weekend if you just look for them and are willing to step out of the "normal" routine of The Summit or Boondocks or wherever else you find yourself every Friday and/or Saturday nights.  I was talking to my buddy T  yesterday about all of this and he agreed - so him and I are on a new mission to find something fun/crazy and different to do every weekend rather than always end up at the Summit.  I mean, there is more to life to enjoy than just drinking and hitting up the bar scene.  While I was in Corvallis the last few years I finally realized that and I loved it, but Bend (the black-hole) sucked me back into it damnit because it seems like that's the only thing people my age do here.  So if any Bendonians are reading this that I know and want to join me in my revolt to repititive weekends send me a message and join the crusade!  And just to clarify, I know that not everyone my age is in this black-hole, just the majority of people I have met thus far living here.  Ok, I'm done with my rant about the Bend scene...

So if all goes well with my hiring process it looks like I will be leaving within the next 3 months.  The nice guy who interviewed me mentioned January.  I'll be sure to post an official date when I receive one myself.  But I really can't explain how excited I am to be doing this.  *Warning, Cheesy stuff coming up.*  So when I worked at DisneyWorld I always got a huge smile from seeing a little boy or girls face light up when they saw Mickey, Goofy, Jasmin, Chip & Dale, or whoever.  Kids enjoy the little things in life and I think a lot of people lose focus of that.  I want to help put the smiles on their face and create those everlasting memories.  Put quite simplistically - I want to create happiness.  That is what makes me happy.  Anyone who knows me knows that I am one to very rarely get mad or upset - life is too short for that.  So I'll just spread my cheesy happiness across the globe, haha.  This will also be a crash-course training as well for when I finally have a kid or two...if I can handle a room of 160 kids I should be able to handle raising one or two...right? 

So to sum this post all up - I got a job on a cruise ship in the bahamas/carribean, there are parts to Bend I will miss but also will not miss, and I want to put a smile on everyones face.  Cheers!