Both our crew and our student/staff talent shows happened and let me tell you, people (myself included) were sitting outside the Union about two hours before the start of each event to ensure that we would get good seats and when the doors opened it was a mad-dash like you have never seen before. Think black Friday at MOA where people get trampled. They had to let the little kids in ten minutes early so that they wouldn’t get hurt in the stampede of students. In the end every seat was filled and people were crammed on the floor in front of the stage and standing all across the back. In addition they were showing a video feed on the TV’s in the cabins for those who did not want to deal with the craziness of the Union.
Let’s start with the Crew. First it is important for you to know that we fricken LOVE our crew—seriously! They are some of the best people you will ever meet and despite the fact that they work on the ship up to eleven months straight without being able to see their families they are always enthusiastic and excited and friendly and we love love love them. For those of you who have gone on a cruise before and have had a chance to talk to your cabin steward or one of the dining staff you have a tiny idea of how we feel but after three months we love them like family as we do most of the people on the ship. Therefore we were all stoked to see them perform and have some fun :)
I can’t remember how many crew members participated but we had people from almost every department: bar staff, dining, pursers, wellness center, stewards, security, engine/IT, you name it and let me tell you these people are talented. They have a band that practices down by the crew cabins on deck two who performed a few songs for us, they did stand-up comedy, the cabin stewards did a rendition of “In the Navy”, two of the people who work the snack bar did a sweet bollywood dance that everyone loved, the members of the crew from the Philippines performed a traditional dance, some of our favorite guys from dining danced to a pop number, and many more beyond amazing acts.
There was one sad moment in the show however. There was a crew member named Vick who has been sailing with this ship for over 20 years who was due to sail with us this fall but two weeks before he was due to board he passed away in his sleep. He was a very beloved crew member and for the talent show he always sang for the students, usually something Elvis or Frank Sinatra and he loved doing it for the community almost as much as they loved watching him. Thanks to our videographer we were able to watch a tape of one of his performances. I think the hardest part was watching the faces of those who had sailed with him and had known him well. It was clear that he was a friendly and loyal man and that he was missed very much by all who had sailed with him.
The best performance, however, had to be the last one and this one had me crying a little bit—but in a good way. The entire cast of crew performers marched out onto the stage, each carrying a small flag from a different country. Standing shoulder to shoulder they started to sway and began to sing “We are the World” and when they got to the chorus they raised the flags above their heads and waved them slowly back and forth in time with the swaying. As the song continued we slowly started to join in, first we started clapping along, then the pulled up the little girls sitting in the front row and it just started getting louder and louder until every single student, staff, faculty, life-long learner, dependent child, and crew member was on their feet clapping and swaying and singing and it just kept growing until you could barely even hear the song playing through the speakers. At the risk of sounding super sappy, that moment meant everything that SAS is, everything that our voyage was, it was the reason that we were all there in that room together. WE are the world, WE are the children of that world and WE are out in it, right now, making a difference and a change and bettering ourselves and others because of it and to be in that room with everyone singing and celebrating was indescribable.
Then, of course, when the song was over the crew exited the stage to resounding cries of, “we love the crew, we love the crew!” It was a great night and everyone was super excited and we have spent the rest of the voyage congratulating all of them on their great performance.
Now onto the student/staff talent show……
But before I get there I want to quickly inform you that the morning of the talent show we stopped at the mouth of the Amazon at Macapa. There we picked up the US Ambassador to Brazil along with his wife and some members of his council. This is a huge honor for us to have him aboard and consequently, he came to the talent show……which was cool but well you’ll see. The talent show started with one of the students who has a really good voice singing “Climb Every Mountain” from Sound of Music which was amazing. Then the “Dancing Diva’s” aka the five little girls on the ship who are all around 5-8 years old did a really cute dance to Katy Perry’s “Firework” which had even the Ambassador smiling and clapping. There were a lot of singers who were all really good and my friend Megan Drew who I believe I have mentioned before did this really cool song that blended a few radically different musical styles and totally nailed it! One of the life-long learners did some yo-yo tricks for us and one of the girls mothers did a clogging number with a student that was great—thankfully the ship isn’t rocking too much now otherwise that would have been a lot harder. The ship’s a capella group, Soundwave, did a number and the lead soloist was fricken amazing—she could belt it out! There was a band called Deck 7 because they always practice on Deck 7 and some piano, guitar, uke players who performed as well and were also really awesome. One of the boys did some beat boxing and another did a really sweet light show with this light-toy-thing on a string. And…Ali Sara and I did a parody of “Baby Got Back” entitled Baby Got Ship and yes I have a video of it and no it will not be going on youtube lol but I will post the lyrics below. We borrowed one of the LLL’s hats (a capitan’s hat, and two sailors hats) and laughed through the entire thing but people thought it was funny so that’s what counts right? It was kind of fun to go up there and just act like idiots (and probably look like idiots too) but everyone enjoyed it (or they didn’t enjoy it and were nice enough to lie to us). I actually have videos of both talent shows because they were just so awesome! But yeah, not going on youtube—sorry :)
More cool things…..Barry Lubin (a professional clown on our ship) taught a physical comedy class and they performed a show for us the other night which was awesome. It was comprised mostly of short skits making fun of professors or the ship’s food or how SASers act when they are drunk and lots of other little ‘inside jokes’ which was awesome. The best part was the imitation of our Global Studies professor :)
….please excuse me while I look through pictures so I can remember the other things I wanted to tell you……oh yeah. After the student/staff talent show they started to play the “Cha-cha Slide” so a bunch of us went up to the “stage” and started dancing, then we did the Cupid Shuffle and then the Electric Slide and the Wobble. We were acting like idiots and having fun and it was great……and then we learned that no one had turned off the video feed so everyone watching in their cabins had seen us dancing….including most of the crew who commented on it the next morning……yeah..it was fun though!
We are currently sailing right up the Amazon River which is really cool, as we do so we are equator hopping and I think our total number of times crossing over the equator for this voyage is like 6 which is really sweet. The water is brown because of all the silt and we have to cover all the windows so the bugs aren’t attracted to the light but it’s cool. We can see the forest and little villages on the shore as we pass as well as the occasional ship.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving but we will be in port so tonight we are having Thanksgiving Dinner and I’m starving so I am going to go get some sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie :)
~Colleen
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