this is fun

we've had quite a bit of time on our hands lately, since the ship is on red level with noro virus. booooo. luckily, no-one in the cast, crew, or band caught it, and we're hoping they'll lift it to amber come southampton. unfortunately, that means that for the past week, our shore leave and passenger area privilidges were suspended. but i've been finding plenty of things to do...

tim, one of the pianists on board, heard some of my music and asked if he could get some musicians together to record it... i jumped at the opportunity, of course, and now i have a recording of 'new boots' with guitar, piano, drums, horns, and back-up vocals =). we did it at 1am after a show night; it was the only time we were all free and the space was available, and i had the best time ever (as soon as i have a copy, i'll try and put it up somewhere...myspace?). now that i have more free time, i'm writing a lot of music, and i'm also trying to work out some of the rust on my piano technique and sight reading.

cruise staff is going well; since our cruise director used to be a performer and has a good idea of how demanding six shows are, we only ever get duties (ceramics is my favourite) on sea days, which is fabulous because we always get shore leave in ports (before this week, anyway). we've had the opportunity to pick up extra jobs in addition to our cruise staff duties that we get paid for, so i'm now officially the resident seamstress, and i'm teaching a few people how to sew.

i'm also taking class almost every day... everyone in the cast takes turns teaching, so it changes all the time. it feels really good to concentrate on technique and work on choreography that people are passionate about, and to work through something for the sake of dancing it, rather than to get it show ready. we're planning a showcase around the holidays where we can all perform something we created, as well as bits and pieces of the princess shows that we like, for the rest of the staff and crew (they don't usually get a chance to come, because they're working when we're performing). paul and i are also trying to train for the silks as often as we can, and we're getting strong enough that we are trying new tricks that we couldn't do before.


once per cruise is the 'on deck walk for the cure', and even if it's not part of our duties for the day, some of us will usually go up to support everyone who's walking by cheerleading at the finish line every lap.

before we were on level red, i got to go on the bus trips to florence, pisa and rome, and we got off the ship in monte carlo and barcelona as well. rome blew my freakin' mind... it reminded me of being in greece, and feeling humbled to be in the presence of history of that magnitude. pisa was fun, but there's nothing much to see there but the tower. the picture is me refusing to do the cheesy "look, i'm holding up the tower of pisa!" pose. everyone around me looked like a weiner, it's a field full of people with their hands randomly in the air. in hindsight, i should have just taken a picture of that... florence was just as beautiful as i remember it being, and i bought a new journal there to add to my collection. i got a chance to practice my french in monte carlo (another task on the list of things to do while i'm here in order to not suffocate from boredom), and we went swimming in the ocean right off the pier next to the ship.

that's all for now, team... send me e-mails! i would love to know what's going on in your lives. take care of each other, i miss you!