Room and Roommate

I took all my things to my cabin, #2054, and found both of my large luggage bags waiting for me in front of the door. My name and my roommates name were posted on the wall outside the cabin too. On entering the cabin I felt that this would be a cramped semester because the room felt small, especially when I brought in all of my luggage. Then I began to put things away. My red duffel fit under the bed even when it was full. My black bag fit under the bed once I got the carry-on out. For I now I have left that suitcase out at the foot of my bed (It has all the yummy snacks!).  Once my bags were shoved under the bed I ran into a fun and friendly person in the hall who joined me for lunch. After lunch we went around together and toured the ship. As we went along, we slowly gathered more and more people. After a few hours our expedition of two had become two large groups of about ten people each.

At four the whole ship was to perform an emergency drill. At this time everyone would go to their cabins and grab their life jackets, then follow the instructions given over the loudspeaker. I had still not met my roommate. I figured I would meet her when we performed this drill, so I went to my room about ten minutes early. Sure enough, when I entered the room, there was my new roommate for the next three and a half months.

We introduced ourselves, and right off the bat I knew this was going to be a good match. Her name is Elena and she is originally from Bulgaria. Now she lives in Chicago with her family as she attends Harper College to get her associates in Art. She takes showers at night and I take showers in the morning. She has a somewhat spacey disposition, where some things come a little slowly, but she can think of things in ways that would never occur to me. She is a true artist who has the ability to look at the world with a fresh perspective.

We talked for a while and then heard a very loud and annoying alarm. This was it. We put on our life jackets and filed into the hall with everyone else. Up on an outside deck the staff organized us by our letters and numbers on our life jackets. Basically, once lined up, the drill was for everyone to be quite so a roll of about 600 students could be called and confirmed. If anyone were missing, we would wait on the deck until they were found. In total we did very well and this whole process took only about half an hour. I learned the term “muster” while doing this drill to. From the context, “to muster” is the equivalent of “to gather” or “assemble”. The captain and crew used this term a lot while the drill was going on. I had not heard “muster” used in conversation before.  

The rest of the evening was spent getting to know my wonderful roommate and unpacking our things into the closet and drawers provided in the room. While unpacking I was pleasantly surprised at the amount of space available in the room.
We have a large closet with shoe racks, a refrigerator, five shelves and a little safe, three large drawers, two rolling baskets in the shelf closet, and six little drawers in the nightstands. Each of us has split the space evenly. Both of us are relatively clean too. This is a good thing because we also get spoiled and have a crewmember that makes our beds, vacuums the room, and provides us with fresh towels every day (unless we leave out towels hung up as a signal that they are to be reused – we are trying to be sustainable). But it is good if we keep the place clean and make the work as light as possible for the crew who have been nothing but amazing so far.