Day 71 – At Sea

Busy B day with the long block of classes, but I was able to get some stuff done outside the classroom. As far as my journal, I finished my India post. You’re all welcome, people living vicariously through my blog (though, in all honesty, I doubt that there are many).

At my SeaTV production meeting, I pitched what I thought was my funniest segment idea yet: Don as Hugh Hefner. See, Don is our Global Studies professor, and, despite being in his 60s or 70s, he has this incredible vitality. He’s in fantastic shape and is just unbelievably enthusiastic. Because of his unique personality, many of the female students have this weird crush on him. So I thought it would be hilarious to allude to him as Hef. My team absolutely loved it, but I ran into him that evening and, sadly, big Don shut me down.

For dinner, I went to the ship’s Passover Seder. Aren’t ya proud, Mom? I even read a small portion of a prayer. The food was actually quite good, despite the lack of bread. They had some fantastic chicken. It was the best I’d eaten on the ship. But the matzo ball soup, unfortunately, was underwhelming.

After dinner I did some investigating, trying to figure out if peanuts had somehow triggered my allergic reaction the previous day. It turns out that the chicken served at lunch, about which I had raved and with which I stuffed my face (Editor’s note: that is so pretentiously worded, but I’m tired and not changing it), had peanut butter in the sauce. I must have missed the label. The weird part is how long it took my body to react; it took well over two hours. And while my reactions typically take place exclusively inside my mouth, this reaction was mostly felt in my scalp, face, and hands (though my whole body was somewhat itchy). So I guess the mystery is somewhat solved, but my reaction was still highly atypical.

After dinner was the Crew Talent Show, which promised to be a blast. I wanted to get there early to make sure I had good seats. When I arrived in the Union, I found the place virtually empty, though people had saved the best seats with sweatshirts. I am a firm believer that a person needs to be physically present to save a seat, so I just moved a shirt and took a seat.

A half hour a later, a student came back and berated me for taking “his” seat. He was a Chinese exchange student, and he had the nerve to accuse me of being racist and targeting him for being Chinese. When he said that, I actually laughed in his face. Once I got a hold of myself, I hit him with the following: “so you’re implying that I’m targeting you for being Chinese? How on earth could I know by your sweatshirt that you are a Chinese exchange student? That’s all I had to go by, you know, a sweatshirt. Because you weren’t here. So no, I’m not targeting you for being Chinese. On the contrary, I’m targeting you for being a self-righteous asshole who thinks he has the right to reserve one of the best seats in the house with an article of clothing while everyone else does it by physically sitting in a chair and waiting around. Because that’s what you do if you believe in fairness.” Game, set, match, buddy. He ended up sitting pretty close to me during the Talent Show, and he was stewing hardcore.

The Talent Show itself was awesome. There were some very impressive acts, but mostly they were the endearing variety. Our crew is just so cool, it was great to see them living up the spotlight.