Dreams come true

Yep. It’s three in the morning. I found a spot in the apartment where I can upload pictures, so I am trying to upload pictures like crazy. Unfortunately, it seems that my uploading keeps failing, so I’ll probably just go to bed soon.
My parents were here this previous week. Thanks to all my friends who helped make this an extremely magical vacation! I’m so glad that Patrick, Rian, Nicole, Abby, Sarah, Laura, Chad, Becky, Becky’s parents, Zuck, Ashlea, Grace, Hope, Anthony, and a bunch of my coordinators and managers got to meet my parents. LoL. We lucked out in seeing all of you, and my parents had nothing but nice things to say about everyone. They thought I really had a great network of friends down here – which I clearly do! 
SO proud of all my friends who went to auditions and PASSED! Lauara, Patrick, and Becca, you three flawless diddy doos. And doubly proud of Patrick for passing puppetry and Becca passing parade/show auditions. You two rock my socks. Nervous for my Nov. 20th auditions. We’ll see what happens!
This weekend is Soap Weekends and let me tell you – I’m having the time of my life. Hahaha. So many crazy people are here. I did end up buying a green dress that I have a whole story about. I feel like the story should be vlogged rather than blogged – not going to lie. It requires voices and emotion…Hahaha. I’m glad that everyone who works in DHS got a kick out of my long, involved saga…
I finally got to see the Christmas parade in person. Did I cry? Actually, not really – until the Toy Soldiers came on! Can you say they rock my socks? Because they absolutely do! They were my mom’s favorite, too. I love them.
And the castle lighting is truly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I watched it for the first time with my parents – we staked out our spots 30 minutes in advance – and we all got teary eyed. When the Fairy Godmother lights the castle, everyone gasps. It’s magnificent – and if you’ve never seen it, please go. I have a video, but it will NEVER do it justice! I’m going to try and see it as many times as I can. It happens every day, regardless of the party or not.
PS SCROOGE McDUCK has meet and greets during the Christmas party. Can you say DuckTales and childhood? Because I can! I miss Disney Afternoons! Anyone else? Anyone? Darkwing Duck? Can someone just put a scarf on him and drag him from St.Canard or wherever the hell he is from so I can meet him again? Seriously. I miss him…
We had backstage parking today so I got to drive in back of the Fant Mountain. I was so excited. It was actually smaller than I thought, but still MAGNIFICIENT!
The Kim Possible World Showcase logo is up in Innoventions. I got so excited – yet sad that I probably won’t play it. That depressed me.
We only have, like, a month and a half left. That really depresses me…
IRON CHEF is well underway…well, kind of. Rules and pairings are still up in the air. All I know is that it’s going to be amazing, and I’m not sure if I’ll actually survive. Hahaha. But we’ll tape it, and I’ll make up fun stories about our dishes.
OK. It’s 3:15 AM. I need to wake up at nine, so I should probably get going. Lots of things to look forward to – Auditions, ROCK BAND II, the Christmas Story: Annie’s Secret Club’s Halloween Party, Thanksgiving CP Party, Thanksgiving Party at Steven’s, hopefully more Studio News things. I did Studio News this week with Max. Look for it in more than 100 backstage locations. Channel 95, baby!
I’ll talk to you soon!

Faith, trust, and pixie dust

Patrick made a comment the other night that I’ve been thinking about the whole time I’ve been here. We were on the monorail over-looking the MK and it was just like, “Wow. I work here. This is my life. It’s magical”.

But it’s not as magical as it seems down here. It’s a life. It’s a struggle. Yes, you get the free access to the park and the 50% holiday discount, but I can’t tell you how many people tell you to break free from the Mouse. I can’t begin to tell you how many people I’ve met who are living from paycheck to paycheck or who just came to work here to find work. Especially in today’s work world with the crazy economy, it’s getting tougher, and this is just one way to make money.

In a perfect world, I would love to stay down here. I’ve met amazing people, I have a lot of fun running around in the parks, I’m doing shows with STAGE (Look for A Christmas Story posters and info!), and I’m getting a lot of exercise running around; yet I feel the pain when paychecks come around because we’re college programmers ~ but it’s not like many Full Time positions make that much more than we do – which is awful. I’ve learned valuable work ethics and experiences which I will take with me in the future – ie the Basics and to stay in the “green zone”. LoL. I’ve learned about Corporate Communications and Guest Service the Disney Way, which is so valuable. I really feel prepared for NYC and the real world. Let it be known.

But at the same time, I feel like I’m going to be giving up part of who I am by leaving here. I won’t have this magic, and I hope to God I won’t be swept up in the harsh reality of living a “normal” life with a “normal” job in a “normal” apartment. As I said the other night, I’m leaving now, but it doesn’t mean I won’t come back in the future. I’m contemplating seasonal status, but not sure if I’d be able to get down here often enough to honor that decision.

I am, however, going to the Entertainment extension auditions no matter what. With the hold on hiring Entertainment, I know this is a slim to none chance – but I’m going to try anyway. This has been my dream since I was little, and I know I have enough energy to try and fulfill that one dream now.

I will never, ever, in my wildest dreams ever regret the decision of becoming one of the many Disney College Programmers. I am having a blast and plan on making the most of my next two months. I hope to blog a little more with indept entries during this time, so look for them – otherwise also look at my vlogs on Facebook. Some are…hilarious.

I really miss my family also. I hate having to call them every five seconds to tell them about an amazing experience or tidbit. I know my mom has told me I don’t need to call as much. Hahaha. My parents will be here in a week and I KNOW I’ll be an emotional wreck when they get here. I’ll hopefully be off when they’re here so I can spend as much time as possible with them.

I also really really miss my nutcase dog. :( My mom sends me pictures of her all the time.

All right, I should probably get started on my day. I’m off, but have A Christmas Story later on….

Talk to you later!

Boo To You...Happy Halloween

Ok. Not going to lie – I hear a lot about people transferring around when they work in Disney. Why stay in the same job the rest of your life when you can totally move around and gain valuable experience in other fields? When ONCE closed, I was NOT happy about being transferred to Hollywood Hills (aka Tower of Terror, Rock’n’Rollercoaster, and Fantasmic merchandise): Coaster was loud, we had to learn how to do pictures, Preview…, Tower’s edit and preview were boring, and you had to get to know new managers and new workers. Who knew when I would count money again, seeing as how we were getting there so late in the game. People thought we were new CPs – even though we’d been there since May. Grr. It was frustrating.

But my parents always told me to do my best no matter what the situation. Things would turn out all right in the end – and they really did. I became really fond of my managers – Walt, (Gus,) JT, Michael – who was in and out, Cheryl, Devon, DANA!!!!!!! – and my coordinators – Jennifer and Lauren. The other CPers and FTers rocked my socks and I had a great time fooling around with them all the time.

I felt a little out of touch with Rian and the Sunset people, so we continued doing backstage tours. We did the GREAT MOVIE STRIDE Tour and Rian and I finally fulfilled our dreams of doing the HAUNTED MANSION tour. They were so so SO amazing, let it be known.

I got to see Patrick a lot more because I was working in merch shops for attractions, which was a lot of fun. PS. Sometimes guests seem so much more pumped up – or pissed off - at attractions. I met some amazing guests who were waiting around for party members, and there was many a thank you note slipped in to package pick-ups. It’s the cool thing about working in Disney. I’ll never forget the Australian family that gave me the kangaroo key chain as a thanks for backdooring them or the magical gathering first visit family I kept bumping in to in the park. I hope I can have more experiences like this is in the future, even outside of WDW.

Pleasure Island closed at the end of September. I got to go to the Adventurers Club – once with Steven and again with Carly and Patrick. KUNGALOOSH! I also went to Comedy Warehouse a few times. That was a blast. RIP PI. We love you.

Patrick heard about Kim Possible testing on the Hub, so Rian and I rushed to sign up. The four of us met up that morning all dressed in Possible black and Khaki. We officially joined forces to become Team Black and Khaki (props to Michael? For thinking of the name…). We had a blast that morning, and Nicole and I went on to do one more round of testing. No further testing has been posted, so hoping I’ll get to do one more round before Jan. We tested China, Japan, Germany, and Mexico.

And thus brings us to October. SUNSET OLYMPICS. So it seemed wrong for me to be on the Coaster team for Sunset Olympics, but it’s me, and we were gonna win. We were asked questions, and we rocked that. We had no clue what the categories were, but we all did our best and had fun making fun of each other for not knowing answers to trivia questions (or giving the wrong answer even though we had a Tell-a-Cast in our pocket). Hahaha.

The night of the Olympics, a bunch of the Coaster people ran around. We met and went on Coaster, Tower, and then we broke a part to look in shops, met the Power Rangers, and take more pictures. As we were heading to Take 5 to wait for the ceremonies, I saw Darlene. She asked if I could represent Sunset since everyone there was scheduled until 11 PM – when the closing ceremonies would be over. Good job[insert manager name here]. I went to the Villains stock room to pick up the flag and ran to the Fant trailer to meet up with the other flag bearers.

That night I got to drive a Pargo – with Juan bearing our flag – and accepted the gold medal for Sunset’s flag. We met the 2008 WDW Ambassador – Kerry – and took tons of pictures with her. We got free ice cream and got to go on Tower with the lights (and sometimes music) on. That was amazing.

Food and Wine started up – and I even got to do my dress up Food and Wine day with Steven, Becca, and her Patrick. Lol. I also officially got to go to MICKEY’S NOT SO SCARY HALLOWEEN PARTY with Becky and Laura. That night was so much fun.

The MOUSETRAP, directed by Justin, was well underway. I was unsure if the cast would be very close, but we are all still very very close. The show went really well and we all really helped each other out. We had an amazing party at Ashby’s (Go Rock Band: Team MOUSETRAP), then all went to see Boyz II Men together (second row!), and then all saw one another on Halloween (because we went trick-or-treating to Ashby’s. Hahaha). I love them all and am so happy we all keep in touch.

A few other awesome experiences:

Going to Poly to watch Wishes and the water electric “I’m Patriotic” parade with Patrick. How we survived the hammock, I’ll never know.

Mickey’s Not So Scary – Round II. Yeah, Patrick and I went again on the 30th. It was an absolute blast and I finally met Minnie in her little outfit.

Stocking ONCE – hahaha. Yeah, we’re in the Ops building hanging and sizing shirts, pants, and…underwear? But we get to see the new stuff, listen to music all day, take “15 min” breaks, and go home a half hour earlier. Plus, we’re working with Diane and Liz – best stockers ever. It’s wonderful.

Downtown Disney with Laura. Yay for photo ops.

Meeting Jamie Deen (Paula Deen’s son). It was love at first sight

50% holiday discount…enough said

And that’s been my life in a nutshell through October. One post to go for today…

The End of an Era - Updating you on July-Early Sept

It’s weird knowing that we’ve been here 5 months and that yesterday marked 2 months until we leave. I hate this game. It reminds me of when I was studying abroad and had to leave all my friends there – and I still haven’t seen any of them (including Mary, who’s in DC right now) since 2006. I don’t like this game of really getting to know people and get really close to them, and then having to leave and never knowing if and when I’ll ever see them again…

But enough of that depressing stuff. I’m sorry my last blog was in July. Yeah, that’s right kids. July 18th to be exact. Obviously a LOT has happened since then. I survived STAR WARS WEEKENDS, which was pretty much me going every week to the motorcade and taking tons of pictures with as many characters as I had the patience to wait in line for. Never really got an official autograph, but I got copy autographs from everyone…? I think everyone. LoL. That was so much fun, and if I could get a job with helping the event planners for that I would totally stay down here – more on that in a bit.

P.S. WALL-E? AMAZING movie! Can’t wait to buy it at midnight at the end of the month.

August more people moved in – like Becca Lebson! So excited she’s here and SO proud of her driving skills on the Backlot Tour. August was also when we did TWISTED TALES, right? God, everything is just melting in to one another. I joined STAGE and met some amazing people. Steven, KatieQuinn, and Justin directed the three shows – and it’s also where I met Laura. Since then, Laura and I have been unofficially attached at the hip and Steven….no words. Hahaha. They are definitely two of my best friends down here and I trust them with my life and feel blessed to know them and their craziness.

PS During the summer I saw Kate Cassidy and her family (Kate and I went on TSM together) and SEAVY!!!!!!!!! Seavy and I went to EPCOT together and ran around in the rain – I mean, let’s be real. It’s WATER people! We also got a picture with the fabulous Lightning McQueen and Mater. : )

September - Joe Lezza was the next CPer to arrive! He’s over in MK doing the Jungle Cruise. If you haven’t gone, recommend him as a skipper ASAP. He was the only reason I laughed during the ride…that and the giant butterflies…

By September, I started to get to know Rian and Patrick a bit better. Let’s be real, I started talking to them through Facebook because I have no life. Rian is stuck with us at Sweet Spells, and Patrick is on DHS’s DreamSquad. I met the DreamSquad through Al because of pin trading. I was looking for a certain pin for a guest and I was told to speak to the Don of the Pin Mafia – Al. Hahaha. So we started talking and said he’d get the pin and to leave my number for him in the Dream Trailer.
From then on, I’d go every once in a while to talk to Al about Wall-E (because he WAS somewhere in DHS at SOME point!) or pins and each time I’d end up talking to the DSers. Somehow, I found Patrick on Facebook and we all planned to go to the BOO TO YOU preview.

That night Steven was supposed to go but he didn’t because he sucks. The group ended up bring Rian (and later Michael joined us), Patrick, Nicole, Laura, and Chad. We ran around DHS – doing the jump pose – and then ran around MK (It’s a Small World Party boat…) – also doing the jump pose. From there we snuck to the tunnels to wait for the parade, talked to Al (who had been doing his TA) and then was ushered to ToonTown. We made a run for it, got a great seat in front of the techie, and saw Tracy who was making sure the Headless Horseman’s Horse was doing well. Awesome!

By this time, ONCE UPON A TIME/MOUSE ABOUT TIME/SUNSET CLUB COUTURE had closed, and thus began a new era over in Hollywood Hills…