So This Was Christmas

And what have I done? (Yes, that was corny. Shush and keep reading.) Well, we should really go back to Tuesday first. I was woken up at 9 by a call from my manager, asking me to come in for our assignor. Okay, 11 hour shift on about 5 hours of sleep. It actually went very smoothly. I was rather proud of myself. And - OHMYGODPUPPIES! Sorry. Christmas Day Parade. There are puppies on TV.

Wednesday I pretty much did nothing all day. I did go to EPCOT that night, though, to meet up with a family friend in possession of my shiny Christmas gift from my family. Yay!

Christmas Eve I worked 12-7 as a seater. Honestly, it was WEIRD. We were expecting to be bombarded with people all day like we were for Thanksgiving, but we took a ton of walk-ins at lunch, and dinner didn't get bad until time for me to leave, so I didn't really have to deal with it. I covered greeter for a while, and it kinda shocked me that I could've done a stupid dance in the middle of the promenade and not disturbed any traffic at all. But, as Sam (I think) had pointed out, EPCOT is a last resort park for a lot of people, when they realize how incredibly nuts Magic Kingdom is. So we had a pretty good day. Then I came home and had nothing to do. Jen was having a potluck, but that was all the way over at Patterson, and I had nothing to bring. Plus I'd taken chicken thighs out to thaw, so I had to cook those. As I started making those, Keiko was making sushi to bring to a friend's place, but she did cut up a roll for my Norwegian roommate (Marian? I'm not sure how to spell it because I've never seen her nametag, but that's how it's pronounced) and I to share. While my curry was in the oven, after Keiko had left, Marian decided she wanted pizza. So she put in an order to Domino's, and we had a bit of chicken curry as an appetizer. I turned the TV on, but there were surprisingly fewer Christmas specials on than I thought there would be. However, it WAS Thursday, which is Supernatural night, and they were airing the Christmas episode from season 3, so we watched that. We're both big fans. Then there wasn't much else on, so it was Phineas & Ferb and Hannah Montana for us. Eventually I went to bed, after clicking around online, upgrading to Windows 7 (YAY! Though I mourn the loss of my stock market desktop gadget), and opening one of my Christmas presents.

This morning I dragged my butt out of bed, put on my present from Ros (Yes, I wore it; no, I don't have pictures), and got out the stuff I'd been shipped so that I could skype with my family and open my presents. Thanks, everyone! After video calling my family, I turned on the TV to watch the DisneyParks Christmas Day Parade (SO wasn't missing that). And that's where I am now. Yay Celine Dion!

(The rest of this was written on the Feast of Fools. For those of you who don't speak Hunchback of Notre Dame, that's January 6th.)

Okay, so after the parade I finally got into the shower and grabbed my cookies to take to the contest at work. Yeah, we were having a cookie contest. I made white cake mix-based cookies with crushed candy cane and red and green m&ms. I won for taste! Yay me! Mel and Ali won for presentation, because Mel was crazy enough to make sugar cookies in the shape of ornaments, decorate them, and then stick them on a small tree. Like, actually. I rode to work in the back of Ali's car, holding the tree steady so that it didn't fall over on me. After that, Mel and I went to her place to cook Christmas dinner. She already had the turkey stuffed and in the oven, so we made a game plan for cook times and then stuck on Love Actually for a while. Then it was time to start the potatoes, which was a mildly grueling ordeal because those things just did not want to peel! Eventually we got them, though (okay, Mel got them and I was put on jell-o duty because I fail just that epically, but whatever), and we put them on the stove to boil. We got the Pilsbury biscuits ready to bake, took out the non-turkey-stuffed turkey (made without chicken stock so that our vegetarians could eat it!), and started the veggies (microwavable bags - surprisingly very good). We also put on the cranberry sauce that Craig had donated to Mel's cause (which he'd had around since Thanksgiving when nobody ate it). By this time, people had started to show up, but since dinner wasn't going to be ready for a little bit, Mel had set up a cookie decorating station on the coffee table for them. She still had a few undecorated cookies from her massive sugar cookie bake, and some icing, so they had fun with that. Eventually the bird was done and we transferred it creatively to the cutting boards on the counter so that we could start on the gravy (my specialty!). I taught her to make gravy, and then she got down to carving the turkey, Commons style. Which means we totally didn't have a long serrated knife at all so it was mostly done with a fork and table knife. She did an amazing job, though. All in all, it was a great turnout, great food, and good drinks (unless you were Craig, in which case you were drinking eggnog instead of sparkling grape juice). Cookies were for dessert, as well as little pumpkin tarts that Desiree had brought, and ice cream! Unfortunately (or just humourously, depending on how you look at it) the ice cream also had to be consumed Commons style. See, we'd used almost all the bowls and spoons earlier for serving dinner. So ice cream was served in cups, and you had your choice of measuring spoon sizes to eat with. Allison claimed the smallest one, so she got to eat hers with a 1/8 tsp. We sang a few Christmas songs - like, the pop ones. Not the traditional ones. Mariah Carey, which was followed by NSync, and then somehow morphed into Sister Act (not quite sure how the transition happened there). I helped clean up as people began to disperse, pulling the rest of the meat off the turkey and removing the wish bone for Mel, which was much easier said than done (speaking of, I should ask her what happened with that...). We sent a couple people out the door with garbage bags, began a load of dish towels, and then kinda collapsed. Eventually Ali and I, the last ones there, decided we should probably go home. About ten or fifteen minutes later we actually made it up off the couch.

Saturday and Sunday were nothing particularly fascinating. I was seater, the parks were nuts, we move on. Monday and Tuesday (I'd been asked to come in again) I was assignor, and still nothing particularly fascinating happened. I missed Celine Dion using our break trailer washroom twice, and Toby Keith decided not to grace us with his party of 16 because the only time we could fit them in was too close to his dinner reservations at Italy. Thank god. I've managed to avoid assigning for major celebrities so far, and I'd like to keep it that way. Too much craziness to deal with.

Wednesday was fun because earlier in the week (Sunday?) I'd found out that Mel's French roommate had left, and there was a bed free in her apartment. I'd applied, and on Wednesday the lady called me to ask how soon I could move. Thanks to being called in on Tuesday, I now had Saturday off, so I told her so and everything was approved. Yay!!!! Only afterwards did I realize that phone calls would become a lot more confusing now, especially when one of us picked up the phone ("Is this Mel?" "...Well, it's one of them.") or if people were talking to us while we were both in the living room (this was bad enough on Christmas). That night, Selina and I went to see Avatar, which was SO awesome! Such a great movie! I mean, okay, the plot was like some strange hybrid child of Pocahontas and Dinotopia, but in away that made it even more entertaining. In other news, Sigourney Weaver is totally looking her age. She also kinda looks like Carrie Fisher. Whatever.

Thursday was kinda sorta Hell on Earth. My family may recall me mentioning over and over how much I'd love to be here at Walt Disney World for Christmas and New Years. I would like to amend that now, particularly with regards to the 31st. On New Years, I would like to be at the geographical furthest possible point from Walt Disney World. It is SO many levels of insane! The people! It's just madness! Originally I was scheduled to open popcorn that day, but Kari wanted to trade shifts to have the evening off, so I jumped at the chance to be PM greeter. I mean, New Years kinda stopped being a big deal to me after I started staying up til midnight regularly. Plus it meant that my shift didn't start at 9:30 in the morning. I got up to remote podium to start my shift and just kinda stared at the freaky sea of people. Surprisingly, though, I don't think I turned away any more people than usual (which is still a lot, really). I think people must've figured we were crazy-booked. Which we were. Just before midnight we all got to run up to the promenade to watch the special New Years fireworks, which was BEYOND awesome. After the normal IllumiNations run, the voiceover comes up and talks about how different countries are in different time zones, so they rang in the new year at different times. They start with when Japan and China celebrated it, and then fireworks started going off right above the Japan pavilion, when those were done, China started. And so on and so forth, until just before midnight, when Canada, the US, and Mexico "all celebrate the New Year" (despite the fact that we have how many time zones over here?), when the ten second countdown began. So there's 88,000 people plus cast members gathered around World Showcase all shouting numbers together, and then everything goes nuts. Fireworks are EVERYWHERE. It was crazy. Gorgeous, but still something I'd like to avoid in the future.

Friday I was really tired, but I dragged my butt to work anyway for a popcorn floater shift. In the cold and rain. Yippee. I probably should have started packing that night, but I didn't. I left it all for Saturday, after I'd gone to housing at 9 in the morning to pick up my new key. Having been driven here rather than flying, I didn't have rolling suitcases I could load up a few times and cart back and forth. No, I had to load all my hoarded stuff (I really should consider being less of a packrat) into a few travel bags I'd picked up at throwouts (Thanks Chantal and Greg) and my boxes, and walk back and forth for a really long time. Between noon and 1, Mel got back from horseback riding at Fort Wilderness, so we borrowed Ali's car to make life easier. It still took two trips. After all I'd already carried. We're SO gonna need the van to bring me home. I'll miss all of my housemates there, because they were fantastic, but I like having a smaller apartment with less people. Plus my bathroom in this apartment is gargantuan. After about three times of me saying, "Okay, that's it. ...No, wait! I forgot!" we finally got me all moved in and I could start UNpacking. Which took a lot of the rest of the day. What I was really uber-happy about, though, was that I could finally hook my system up to the TV and play video games. Yay Final Fantasy! ...No, seriously. It'd been almost four months. I was going through withdrawal.

Since then I've pretty much just been working and chilling out at my cozy new place (and I love that this bed doesn't creak so loud I wake up every time my foot twitches). Sunday's movie night had a population total of four (me, Dan, Jeremy, and Heather), so the boys had ordered pizzas and we sat and watched a couple episodes of the British 'The Office.' Monday night's game was The Simpsons Scene It. Craig is officially the equivalent of Heather and I with the Disney version. Tuesday was Heather's (attractions Heather, with the musicals, not aforementioned Heather) last day off before her last day of work today, so she wanted to go see the Welcome show at the Magic Kingdom one last time. I love Heather dearly, plus I'd never seen the Welcome show (ever, actually, that I can recall), so this was a great idea! Key word: was. I didn't think it was so great when I was trying to take pictures and couldn't because my finger was too cold to put enough pressure on the button! We had an absolute blast, though. Heather and I bought tiaras from the glass and crystal place, and all the cast members called us princesses all day. Mother, stop rolling your eyes at me. I can hear your "Oh Lord" from here. We also managed to get into VIP seating for the 3 o'clock parade, which was awesome because all the characters face us the whole time (since we're on one side of a bridge and there's no one on the other side), and I was bowed to and kissed by so many characters! Heather and I were like five-year-olds. Eventually it was time to go, especially since Heather was practically hacking up a lung by this point.

Today was another day in Magic Kingdom with Jess, one of the newest arrivals. I'd trained her on greeter. She's fantastic. Anyway, other than briefly with her arrival group, she'd never been here before, so once again I got to play tour guide. And I'd made reservations at Tony's again. Have I mentioned that I love that place? Sadly, mint cheesecake was gone, but the new flavour was chocolate raspberry, which was also pretty good. Jess and I had so much fun! Lines were surprisingly long, though, considering these are supposed to be our deadest weeks. So we fastpassed some stuff, waited in line for the stuff that wasn't that bad, walked onto yet other rides. And we finished the day off with Wishes. I love Wishes. And yes, I had my tiara back on. Don't judge. It's sparkly.

So now I'm sitting here, kinda freezing in my pjs. I think I'm gonna go get my flannel blanket.

3 Days Til Christmas

So Wednesday Selina and I headed over to Magic Kingdom to have lunch at Tony's Town Square Restaurant. Entrees were really good, service was passable (not exactly the most personable server ever), but the dessert was fantastic! We both ordered the chef's cheesecake, which was mint flavoured. That intrigued me, because I'd never had mint cheesecake before. It wasn't a heavy cheesecake at all, and the crust was a chocolate cookie crumb crust, so that just made it more fantastic. Mom, seriously, you have to try this stuff. We ran around like small children and did a bunch of rides after that, including Space Mountain. It probably would have been more fun if Selina hadn't been threatening my death. ...She doesn't like roller coasters. We did Buzz Lightyear and I got 999,999 (max. score!). So take that, Mom! You can't beat me with your eyes closed anymore! And we rode Astro Orbiter, both of us for the first time ever. Let me say right now: for two grown people sharing one rocket, this is THE MOST AWKWARD RIDE EVER. Make sure you know your partner really well. I think we're over the awkward factor now. It was hilarious when we were up there, though. I got my picture taken with Peter Pan, who complimented my purse. ... Not touching that one. We stayed for Wishes, since Selina'd never seen it before, and then headed out with the massive hordes. The massive hordes all headed for the ferry and the express monorail, so we were smart people and hopped the much less crowded resort monorail, which stops at the Ticket & Transportation Center anyway. Except by this point we were already thinking of going to Downtown Disney, because I wanted to pick up The Princess and the Frog soundtrack and she wanted to see New Moon (to clarify: she was going alone. I wasn't going with her to that. Nasty, terrible thing that it is). So we got off at the Polynesian, because it's fantastic and I love it, plus I knew how to get to the bus depot. Well, it took at least a half hour for the bus to show up. When it did, it was full. The bus driver assured us another bus was coming right behind him, so we could hop that one, and off he went. There were actually quite a few people heading to Downtown Disney. So we waited. And we waited. It is now between 9:30 and 10 PM. Finally, after a half hour, that second bus shows up. Guess what he tells us? ...Yeah. We decided to say screw it and cram on the already full bus. We were NOT taking our chances. Still, by the time we got there, the Marketplace was pretty much closed down and she'd missed the last showing of her movie. So we turned right around and hopped the bus home.

Fast forward a few days because nothing interesting happened on them. I assigned my first Candlelight, and I lived to tell the tale, but there wasn't much of a tale to tell. No guests killed me, no servers killed me, life goes on. Anyways, we're fast forwarding to Saturday night, after I get off work. I'd been extended for a bit, because people called in sick, so as soon as I could I went backstage to change, went out the front gate (that bus appeared before the one that goes around World Showcase, which I could've just hopped to the UK, went out at International Gateway, and walked to the Yacht & Beach Club bus depot), and hopped a bus to Port Orleans so that I could transfer and get on a Downtown Disney bus. I was going to get that CD I'd missed out on the other night. Funny thing was, though, that World of Disney was sold out of them. So was Once Upon A Toy. Those are pretty much the only places to get stuff like that at Downtown Disney. Okay, fine. I get off work early yesterday and decide to head over to Magic Kingdom, because they'll totally have some at the Emporium (gargantuan shop on Main Street). Plus, the Once Upon a Christmastime parade has become the afternoon parade for the next week, so I can get some better pictures of that (I shot, like, the whole parade frame by frame, I swear. I have enough pictures to almost make a flip book of the parade). I get a spot on Main Street right outside the Emporium so that I can duck in as soon as it's done and avoid the hordes of people that inevitably come at the end of a parade. No dice. They don't have it either. PhilharMagic has a lot of CDs, though; I've bought some there in the past. Let's check there! The castle entrance to Fantasyland is closed at this point for the castle forecourt stage show, so I have to fight the masses through Liberty Square. All in vain, though, because PhilharMagic doesn't have it either. FINE. I'll go to Hollywood Studios. I know I saw it there before, in the Animation Courtyard. So I hop the resort monorail (again, express line was ridiculous), and decide to get off at the Contemporary on the off chance that they have it there. They don't. They did have a shirt that I'd been looking for, so that was awesome, but beside the point. I head down to their bus depot, and board the bus to the Studios. Briefly stop in Villains Vogue, mostly because I love that store, and then move on. Over to Voyage of the Little Mermaid, because that's where all the Princess and the Frog stuff had been before (don't question these things). Well, they were carrying it at one point, but they're all out. I should try Mickey's of Hollywood. Zilch. The nice people there direct me to Guest Services, because apparently they can call this central merchandise place or something and find out all the places that still have some. Awesome. So after standing in the Guest Services lobby like a moron for a while, during which time the GS dude had to clarify with the woman on the phone which CD I wanted, because there's also one that was released that's Princess Tiana and other princesses and is totally not what I'm looking for, Dude comes back. Emporium in Magic Kingdom has a couple (that's a lie). Contemporary has some, too (also a lie). But where they have the most is the Mercantile at Fort Wilderness. I clarify with Dude that it is Fort Wilderness, NOT Wilderness Lodge. He says yeah, it'll be to the right of where you go for the Hoop De Doo Revue. Okay, SO. I board the bus that goes to Wilderness Lodge and Fort Wilderness. The bus stops at Wilderness Lodge, I stay on. The bus stops at Fort Wilderness, I get off. But see, the thing about Fort Wilderness is that it's a campground, so it's mega huge and really confusing and a gargantuan pain in the butt to navigate. They have three buses that run different routes to the main areas of this place, so I ask the guy driving one if he'll take me to the Mercantile. He's not sure what I'm talking about, but he's going up to the Settlement, where the dining and Hoop De Doo and stuff are. So I get on that bus, and away we go, through deepest darkest Africa. I get off, walk past the hall with the dinner show, and on my right is a Trading Post merchandise shop. This has got to be it. I go in, and ask the nice lady at the counter. The nice lady at the counter doesn't know what I'm talking about, because they've never carried that CD. Joy. She gets her manager involved, and then calls the lovely people over at Wilderness Lodge, who say that they have some, and are kind enough to put one aside for me. Wish I'd known that before, because then I wouldn't have had to walk through the cold to get to the furthest point in the campground (and yes, it was cold; for Florida, anyway). But there's a boat launch there, and there's a boat that goes to Wilderness Lodge. I'm gonna freeze to death on the water, but it's better than waiting for the bus, taking the bus back to the main Fort Wilderness depot, and then taking a bus to a park and transferring back to Wilderness Lodge. That would just be silly. So I go freeze. We pull up at Wilderness Lodge, I get a little lost, but eventually I make it to their merchandise shop which, funnily enough, is called the Mercantile. Huh. Imagine that. I go in, ask for Jenny as I've been instructed to do, and she presents to me the Tiana and her Princess Friends CD. Greeeeeeat. Thankfully, a guy happens to be walking by with a stack of the soundtrack just as I'm saying that's the wrong CD. So FINALLY I have my CD. YAY!!! ...And that is actually the end of the story. Like, it works and everything. And I didn't get stranded on the way home. (Though I did have to board the boat to the Magic Kingdom, and then take the ferry back to the TTC so that I could get on my bus.)

Tonight was our Gift Exchange at Games Night. In fact, the exchange WAS our game. It was Santa Steal or whatever it's called, where people go in a predetermined order and can either unwrap a present from the pile or steal what someone else has unwrapped. We had to wait for servers who got sat late, though, so we all crowded into Craig's apartment and sang Christmas carols and were generally rowdy in a holiday-ish way. So much fun! I went home with a really nice leather-cover photo album, which is good for me since I still believe in printing off pictures every now and again.

That should be it for now. Next update will probably come just after Christmas!

10 Days Til Christmas

So I never did find out what they played at that games night, because I took a nap after that post and didn't wake up until the next morning. Oops.

On December 1st, I did groceries in a tank top. Yeah. That was pretty awesome. Also a little on the strange side, but whatever. It was kinda rainy and cold on those days, but I headed out anyways because I was determined to buy my Christmas cards and start sending them off. Which I did. I may have also gone to the Studios at some point in there... Yeah, I think I did. That night, Selina came over and we watched anime together! I got her started on Death Note, which was awesome. And some other things that I'm pretty sure she didn't think were nearly as awesome, but whatever. I still think Hetalia is awesome. On the 2nd, I was in Magic Kingdom and saw that they had the extra stage pieces and stuff up for the Christmas Day parade taping, so I was uber-excited about that. I found out it was happening on that Saturday. So I went to work on Thursday and Friday, and then on Friday I asked to have an ADO on the Saturday. I probably shouldn't have, what with expenses and whatever, but this was the Christmas Day parade. Everyone who knows me well enough knows that I watch this every year without fail, and have a tendency to build our Christmas morning activities around it. WELL. So I get my ADO approved, and then head to my 'I Can Make a Difference' class, which was a lot of fun. Except that I was asking the woman teaching the class about the parade, and exactly what time they did it at and whatever, so she fired off an quick email to a friend of hers at Magic Kingdom for me. The message came back saying that because the sky wasn't supposed to be clear and blue that day, but rather grey and kinda rainy, the taping was postponed. WAS NOT HAPPY. So I spent the whole of Saturday in my pjs, doing absolutely nothing. I don't even think I showered. I was that depressed. (Kidding. I don't think I left the apartment, though.)

Oh, I forgot. The other kicker in there was that after I'd had my days off, I found out that Trans-Siberian Orchestra was playing Orlando and Tampa that weekend. If I'd known beforehand, I would have switched shifts with someone in order to go. And getting my ADO the day before for Saturday didn't exactly give me time to plan a trip off property. Of course, I heard their music more than usual at work that weekend (Christmas radio station), just out of spite, I think. Blah.

After that, another few days of work. We were getting a new housemate on the Tuesday (she's from France, and I keep forgetting her name because she says it with such a thick accent), so because we had beds open in two rooms Keiko moved into my room with me. So now I have a Japanese roommate again. I kinda miss having the room to myself, but Keiko's fantastic, so it's all good. I'm pretty sure my random Japanese knowledge amuses her as much as it did Sayaka. Then ... Oh! I remember now. On Wednesday the 9th we had our Winter Formal for all the CPs, ICPs, and CRPs (I'm one of the last group). It was at one of the ballrooms in the Contemporary, and involved fantastic food, generic dance music, and characters. I got my picture taken with Sorcerer Mickey and Belle and Beast (and Belle was in her Christmas dress, which I absolutely love). We hung out, had fun, etc. Thursday night was a blast because a bunch of us went to the midnight opening of The Princess and the Frog. I'm just going to say right now that it was the best Disney movie I've seen in a long time. I loved the art, I loved the characters, I loved the music... I don't think there was one aspect of it that I didn't love. Except maybe the snakes. Could have done without those. But seriously, I would put this one right up there with all the classics. It was THAT good. Everyone should see it.

On Friday I worked my first Extra Magic Hours since I've been here. It was okay, though, because the park was kinda dead and we weren't doing much business, so we closed pretty much when we normally do anyway. I did get to see the holiday extension of IllumiNations, though, which was SO COOL. Even when the fireworks were so intense that I could feel the ground shake underneath me. That was cool too.

On Sunday I worked until 6, and Selina was working until 6:30, so when Taryn did a random search on the reservation system and found some stuff at Restaurant Marrakesh in Morrocco, we jumped on the opportunity and headed there after work. It was SO fantastic. Amazing food, the service wasn't extraordinary, but they have a belly dancer, so that makes up for it. At least in my mind. So that's one more place I've tried that I can now personally recommend to people rather than saying, "I've heard it's good." Because that's not as reliable. And since we turn people away so often I think it's important to really be able to tell guests about their other options. (Yes, Mother, I am trying to justify my spending. Is it working? ...Didn't think so.)

Yesterday was so bland that I don't even remember it. I was a seater again. I think. No, wait! I was closing popcorn! Right. Gotcha. It was REEEEEEALLY dead yesterday. Opening the container of butter to switch it out was kind of interesting though, because Kelly, who was my stocker, cut herself trying to do it. So while she was down getting a bandaid, I picked up where she left off. And by the time she got back, we needed to switch off so that I could get a bandaid. Popcorn cart has now managed to scar both of my index fingers.

Today I went to FedEx, Magic Kingdom, and Downtown Disney with David and Dan. We had fun. David wanted to go visit Belle, so we did, and then Dan wanted to do Space Mountain, so we did that twice (and I'm still alive, despite how I feel the whole time I'm on that ride; the track is so close!), and I wanted to do Haunted Mansion, so we did that. We also did Jungle Cruise because we could, and we tried to do Pirates but it was closed for technical difficulties. In my mind, this means that what Malcolm in Jurassic Park said is coming true, and the pirates are about to eat the tourists, but whatever. No one got eaten by an animatronic. And now I'm back home, typing this. I am tired. I should get sleep.

Update

I know I haven't updated lately, but that's because really there's only so many times I can tell you I was a seater. I mean, really. Seating is not that fascinating. And on my days off, I always do the same thing: groceries, and a park. Usually Magic Kingdom. I can tell you, though, that if I ever have to assign on a Friday the 13th again, I'm probably going to cry. And then possibly run screaming in the opposite direction. It was an absolute nightmare. Saturday was normal, and I talked to Janice about spieling the menu to her the next week. (We have to memorize the menu and then spiel it to two different managers before we can be put on the list to go into food running and service.)

I spent most of that week studying, so I don't remember a lot of it. Pretty sure groceries still weren't involved this week, unless we're at the three week mark, because then I finally did do groceries. On Saturday I spieled to Janice, and not-quite-passed, but I was oddly okay with that. Not sure why. It was a rather un-Mel-ish reaction. Anyway, I ran into Heather and (server) Melanie when they were on their way out to walk around EPCOT for a while, so I joined them. Mel bought a ton of tree decorations, without having a tree to put them on. Heather went off to join Jeremy for dinner, so Mel and I had a Mel-date for dinner at Tutto Italia. It was fantastic! And it was the first time there for both of us, so it was a really neat experience. They have really good canneloni.

Oh, wait! Somewhere in there was the Verry Merry Christmas Party at Magic Kingdom. SO much fun. Not quite as much fun as Halloween, and the parade wasn't as cool, but it was still great. I saw the castle lighting ceremony (yeah, I'm not kidding. CASTLE lighting), they made it snow on Main Street, and then the group of us beelined it for Tomorrowland because the soft opening of Space Mountain was going on. The ride's been closed for refurbishment since I got here, so that was kind of a big deal. It was so much fun! And, okay, there were a lot of times when I was ducking, and I was shorter than all the other people with me. Except Trina. We're the same height. After that we went over to Cosmic Ray's for the free hot chocolate and sugar cookies they were giving out, and stopped by the dance party that was going on there for a while with Chip and Dale. Dan got challenged to a dance off (he kinda started it) with a chipmunk, and we all did Thriller. Then we did a few more rides, including Peter Pan, which was shockingly pretty much a walk-on, and then headed to Main Street once again for the Holiday Wishes fireworks. They were really neat, but in my pictures they're mostly indistinguishable from regular Wishes. It was time to get our spot for the parade then, so we trekked over to Frontierland and sat near the Country Bear Jamboree (which I still have yet to do since I've been here). I think the best thing about the parade was seeing a lot of things I'm used to seeing on TV in the Christmas Day parade, like the soldiers and reindeer. Right at the end of the night, I caught the show at the castle forecourt stage. I was standing really close to the front, too, so I got some great shots.

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled Mel. I spent more time studying, because I was spieling to Linda on Wednesday. I passed that, and also got my re-spiel done from the not-quite-passed one. A cupcake contest had been declared at work, and it was taking place the next day, on Thanksgiving. So I spent the rest of that night working on my cupcakes: strawberry ice cream cupcakes with white chocolate cream cheese icing, and a strawberry slice and mint leaf for garnish on top. Yeah, I was pretty proud of myself. So naturally I was slightly disappointed when I lost. I mean, I knew I wouldn't win for presentation, because that was clearly going to the girls who had used candy corn to make their cupcakes look like turkeys and corn on the cob. But I figured I'd at least win for taste! But no, that went to them too. I lost to a Betty Crocker cake mix. I am slightly ashamed. Otherwise, Thanksgiving was a disaster and I have no desire to work one at Walt Disney World ever again, lest I go on a murderous rampage. Or at least seriously freak out on someone.

Friday was the first day of the Candlelight Processional show at EPCOT for the holidays, and it honestly wasn't as crowded in the parks as I thought it would be. I worked popcorn, so nothing particularly fascinating there. The other day, Selina and I went to Magic Kingdom and had a lot of fun. I rode the Tomorrowland Speedway for the first time in my life. I wasn't missing much. It was reeeeeally busy that day, though, so we didn't get to do a lot.

Yesterday Michelle came to movie night for the first time. Kind of. She's leaving this week, so she wanted to come to a movie night before she left. This being her first and last, she was given the pick for the week. We watched Beerfest. However, she's overbooked herself so much for stuff in her last week that she left not quite halfway into the movie. Which she'd never seen. Oh well. Such is life.

No idea what we're playing at games night tonight.

Showboat, Teppanyaki, and Blisters, Oh My!

So Wicked was a blast and a half. I went over to Heather's early and we geeked about the show while Bryce sat at the kitchen table, probably wondering what kind of crack we were on. We looked at a couple different illegal recordings before deciding to watch the London cast. They were British, which was weird, and their Glinda wasn't particularly awesome, but we got over it. The Elphaba was good, and their Wizard was actually very good. Then, being the nerds that we are, we found a recording of a 30-minute condensed production that ran at Universal Japan. Being a theme park show, it had its own theatre, built around the green and clockwork themes of the production. ...Well, it looked like someone had spilled green paint all over 'it's a small world,' to be honest. It was fun to see bits of the show in another language, especially one in which I can pick up a few (completely useless outside context) words.



Wednesday I headed back to the Magic Kingdom, determined to see Tiana's Showboat Jubilee. I haven't talked about this before, have I? ....Well, working under the assumption that I haven't, it's a new show that debuted here at the Magic Kingdom featuring characters and songs from The Princess and the Frog, which comes out next month. They've decorated the Liberty Belle Riverboat, and three times a day it goes around the Rivers of America with Princess Tiana and crew on board singing and dancing. It's so cool! And the music isn't half bad, either. Totally can't wait for the movie now. I did some shopping (being November, I've started picking up a few Christmas presents here and there, so that I can be done by early December as usual and then start shipping them out), and walked around aimlessly for a while. Then, as I was walking out of the Emporium at the end of the night, the strap on one of my brown flats snapped! I was SO not happy about that. I still have to see if I can't get them fixed somewhere, because I seriously love those shoes.



On Thursday there were about fifty bajillion people on podium so I got an ER after a half hour of work. ...Yeah. So, it being Thursday, I called Heather up to see if she had plans. She didn't, so she made her way over to EPCOT so that she could try some of Food & Wine before it ended on Sunday. While waiting for her, I walked around, feeling acutely uncomfortable in my undershirt-tank top and polyester work pants. So I stopped in a store and used my awesome holiday cast discount to buy a really cute skort, as well as a new pair of slip-on shoes (they're black and white Mickey skimmers). Joy of joys, though, my new shoes ripped my feet open, as all of my new shoes tend to do, so half way through our day I had to switch back to socks and work shoes. But that was okay, because once we'd gotten a drink or two in Heather, she decided that we should check out Teppan Edo in the Japan pavilion. This is a teppanyaki-style restaurant (translation for the Asian Culture Challenged: there's a gigantic stainless steel grill built into your table, and the chefs cook your meal in front of you), and the chefs do tricks and stuff so it's like dinner and a show. The food was SO good! It's been a while since I've had good Japanese. ...Or any Japanese that wasn't quick sushi from the grocery store or Food & Wine booth. Ros and Carol, do you guys remember the last time we were at Sushiman? Yeah, that would've been it. Then we did a Kim Possible mission (they give you a cell phone thing that guides you through a specific pavilion as you "help Team Possible catch -insert villain here-"), which was more fun than it should be, and then it was time for fireworks. Being Canadians, we watched them from the Canada pavilion.



Friday we were going to go to the cast preview of the Christmas party parade (I worked a morning seating shift), but the directions were a little sketchy and vague, so as non-Magic Kingdom cast members, Heather, Ali, Lindsay and I elected to not go. Instead we went out for a late dinner at the Outback. Having never been to an Outback before, it was interesting. After having worked in a Disney restaurant, though, you definitely notice a difference in the level of service. The food was good, though. Three words: peanut butter pie. They give you, like, a double slice though (seriously, the thing is huge), so I got most of mine boxed up and brought it home. Good thing, too, because I needed it after Saturday. I was assigning again, and the numbers were nuts. It was fairly slow, and the numbers at the end were rather on the sad side, but the party sizes were kinda ridiculous. So many parties of 8!

Sunday.... to be honest, I don't really remember Sunday, which means it wasn't particularly interesting. I think I was seating.... Ah! Yes, I was seating. 2-9. Nothing fascinating happened. Movie night was Rachel's pick, so we watched The Wedding Singer. A LOT of people showed up for that one. I actually brought Sayaka along with me, since she's leaving and when I told her what we were watching she said she liked Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. She thinks my group of friends is highly entertaining, which I suppose is always a good thing.

Monday night I had decided I was going to Canadian Girls, since they were partying with other girls and the theme was Pajama Party. I didn't last too long there, though. They're a great bunch, but parties really aren't my thing. So I went running back to Craig's apartment and begged the games night crew to take me back. I took David's place on a team for Scene It when he had to leave. The amount of non-Disney movies I've seen is kind of pathetic. I need to work on that. Oh, and at some point before that I was cleaning my drawers on my bedside table because I thought I'd lost a book. Turns out it's at home, but at least I got some cleaning done. Not that you can tell. The drawers look exactly the same as they did before.

Tuesday was a lot of fun, because I got to play tour guide. Melissa from my arrival group hadn't been to the Magic Kingdom since she was little, and didn't remember it (how someone goes about working for Disney for two months without stepping into the Magic Kingdom is beyond me), and she knows I'm beyond freakish about these things, so off we headed in the early afternoon for a tour. It closed at 7 for the first night of Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party, so we had about 6 hours to explore. We did all the major classic rides that don't majorly suck (coughDumbocough), and I told her enough useless information to probably last a lifetime. It's been a long time since I saw someone jump in the Haunted Mansion, so that was fun, and her reactions to PhilharMagic were fantastic! We had a really terrible skipper on Jungle Cruise, though, so hopefully she'll go back again sometime and have someone better. Like, seriously, who ACTUALLY explains how to identify an African elephant?! Everyone knows the proper way is to say, "That's an elephant and we're in Africa." But yeah. Then I called home, and clicked around on the internet for a while, I think.

Yesterday I woke up and thought, "Screw groceries and laundry. I feel like going to the Studios!" So I did. First, though, I had to go to EPCOT and pick up a going-away present for my roommate from the Canada pavilion. Then I heard someone mention Everest while I was walking through the park, taking pictures of all the Christmas stuff they have up now, so I got it into my head that I really kinda wanted to ride Everest again, too. So I did. But there isn't a direct bus from EPCOT to Animal Kingdom, apparently, so I took the bus to the All-Star resorts (I needed something there anyway), and then headed over. There was a long wait, even for the single rider line (not sure how that one happened, but whatever), so I grabbed a fastpass and went DeVine hunting. For those of you who haven't been to Animal Kingdom, and for my family members who probably don't remember, she's an Animal Kingdom character-type thing with stilts on her hands and feet, painted green, and draped entirely in vines to blend in with her surroundings and every once in a while she moves. I got some great pictures of her, and then went over to see who was at Camp Minnie-Mickey. In with the usual crowd were Thumper and Miss Bunny, so I got my picture taken with them. Trekked back to Everest, rode that, and then hopped the Hollywood Studios bus. I spent most of my time walking around this time. I stopped in at Tattooine Traders to pick up Wicket's Christmas present, and then went in circles over and over and over again, taking pictures of aaaaaaall the Christmas decorations up around the park. It's actually kind of ridiculous. I also added Prince Caspian to my character photo list. I stopped for dinner because I was kind of hungry and extremely bored at this point, and I didn't want to do rides anymore, but I wanted to wait until 6 for the Christmas stuff they have going on there. Then it was close enough to 6 that I headed over to where the crowd was gathering on the Streets of America. Oh. My. God. So, the Studios houses what is known as The Osborne Family Spectacle of Dancing Lights. The ENTIRE Streets of America section of the Studios is draped top to bottom and end to end in Christmas lights. And they blink on and off. To music. And they have fake snow. SO FREAKIN' COOL! I have so many pictures from that, my camera actually ended up full at the end of the night.

Today, I assigned. Tomorrow, I assign. Saturday, I assign. Wait until about Monday before asking how I am.

Update. No originality whatsoever.

Long seater shift is long. Just thought I'd throw that out there. It was really boring, too, and my feet kinda hurt by the end of it. I sat some people from Woodstock, though, so that was really cool! My ear also started twinging occasionally. Almost fell asleep during movie night, so I decided to head home and hit the hay. Monday was popcorn cart day, and my ear was starting to bother me a little more than the previous day. Whatever, I did cash, counted out, and went to games night. We had a blast playing Things in a Box, and then I went home to sleep again. Tuesday was a Wal-Mart day, because I was running out of pretty much everything. I have now vowed that if I ever run out of milk and orange juice at the same time, I will only buy ONE at the store and suffer without the other for a week. I don't like carrying both, along with everything else I need, aaaaaaall the way back to my place. By dinnertime on Tuesday, I was in a lot of pain. So I called the clinic with the free transportation, only to find out that without a claims form for my insurance, it was going to cost me over $200 just for the visit, nevermind any medicine I might need. So there were lots of phone calls with Mom, a lot of stress, and me crying for a while from a mix of pain and stress and probably tiredness too. Because, see, I could get a claims form easily online, but I don't have a printer, and the ones in the computer lab and the clubhouse don't work. Then I took some advil and played The Sims and life was okay again. I stayed home from musicals night, though. Wednesday, more pain, so I eventually sucked it up and spent a couple hours in the clinic. I found out I had an ear infection in my inner ear AND my canal, so that was tons of fun and required two prescriptions. Joy. Thursday I called in sick to work because I was still in too much pain. I also ran out of advil that day, which was totally not cool.

Friday went okay, I guess. I was assigning on my own for the first time, so that was really nerve-wracking. Lunch was almost dead at points, despite that I kept taking walk-ins. Dinner was pretty much business as usual, with the lack of walk-ins, full dining room, and long wait list. I wasn't too late getting all-in, though, so no one was screaming at me at the end. I'll get better with practice, I hope. Saturday was a seating shift, and consisted of the normal mix of awesome people and crabby people. Also a lot of people in costume, considering it was Halloween. There was a group of adults at the end of the night with really awesome Disney costumes, and they were a lot of fun.

Sunday I was a trainer for the first time ever, which was really scary. It was worse because I was training on restaurant stocker, which you'll note I've done, like, twice since being trained. Thankfully my trainee was a re-hire, so she didn't require a lot of explanation for things. Hopefully I didn't screw up too badly. I mean, I totally would've been okay for training pretty much anything else because I've done everything else often enough (except greeter.... I never seem to be greeter, either). I wish I could've traded training shifts with Craig, since he was training seaters and that's what I do more than anything else I think. Movie night was Heather's pick, so we watched Evil Dead 2. So much fun! So much blood. So much cheesiness. I probably shouldn't have gone, since I had a service training class at 8 the next morning, but I wasn't tired at all and knew I wouldn't sleep anyway, so I sat there and watched bad 80s horror.

Service class was ....well, it was really boring and I kind of wanted to die. That may be a slight exaggeration. We sat there and got talked at by a very American old man about things that were really bloody obvious, and then watched videos that I think came from the 70s. And then he talked at us some more. In the afternoon, he talked at us about wine, and we peeled and ate grapes. No word of a lie. I think the only saving grace was that Craig (arrival group), Melissa, and Rob (not arrival group Rob, the other one) and I sat at the table together and kept each other awake. Mostly I think it was me being kept awake by watching Craig and Melissa torment each other in that awesome, best-friend way. I was still a little wired after class from the coffee I'd had, so Rob and I hopped over to do a few rides at Magic Kingdom. For some strange reason, it was really crowded. Then we came home and I pretty much collapsed on my bed. Eventually I was coherent enough to send a quick text to Craig to tell him I wasn't coming to games night, and then it was back to the collapsage.

And that brings me to now. My ear still feels a little off, but I'm not really in pain anymore, so that's good. I'm going to kick around for a while, do the laundry I haven't done for a week and a half, and then head over to Heather's place for Wicked tonight. I'm SO excited for this one! Anyone who knows me knows how much I love Wicked, and Heather loves it even more than I do, so I imagine we'll scare everyone else sitting there.

Long Freakin' Update

Okay, so it's been 11 days. I'm forgiven, right? ...Right? In my defense, a lot has been going on. ...Okay, that's kind of a lie, and I'm just lazy and addicted to video games, but it all works out to a lack of updates.

So after the last update, my phone was severely low on minutes, so I should've gone to Wal-Mart to pick up more. Should have, but didn't. Instead, I slept in and then walked around Magic Kingdom by myself. Don't look at me like that, it's not that weird. I got to spend time doing whatever I wanted to do without having to cater to anyone else's ride wishes or bathroom needs. Tiff said I would get tired of the parks after a while, but I don't think that's true. I mean, first of all, I'm me; second, there's always something that you didn't notice last time (which generally coincides with point the first because no one else cares). People at rides look at you a little funny when they ask how many your group is and you say one, but I've gotten over that. I'm proud to be strange enough to do a theme park by myself on a random weekday.

After that was another assignor training shift, wherein pretty much everything went according to plan, we were in at a decent time, and I think we only had to go semi-manual for a little while because the printer wouldn't print. Fun times. Then it was a popcorn shift, thrown in there for no real apparent reason, but it was opening, so I don't really care. I don't mind opening, except when people giggle because they see me on my milk crate rolling up the flaps because I'm too short to do it otherwise. THEN. Oh, then it was my last assignor training shift, which was basically me running the board and David escaping to where I could find him if I absolutely needed him. Well, we ended up manual for a while, and then severely backed up, and parties were sitting at tables for waaaaaay too long, so other parties were complaining because they weren't being sat even though I had nowhere to put them because of aforementioned parties.... And yeah. It was kind of a nightmare for me, because hardly anything had gone wrong during the rest of my training. I'm pretty sure every single one of the servers was mad at me by the end of the night. Except the ones who weren't working. But whatever. I can deal with that. I did the best I could, the managers said I did fine, and Frances said I did alright, so I'm happy enough.

The next week started off with another popcorn opening shift. That went fine, except for the little hiccup wherein we didn't have the keys for the gourmet ice machine, so we couldn't serve Torontopolitan or frozen lemonade until a locksmith came to get the locks off. That was a fun time. We didn't have movie night that night because Dan and Jeremy were both busy. The next day was kind of awful, though. According to the schedule I'd written down from online, I was supposed to be seating in the restaurant at noon. I checked online before I left to make sure I had the right times. Well, when I got there just after 11, the paper schedule said I was stocking popcorn at 3:30. So not only was I there about 4 hours early and totally not in the right frame of mind, but I was in the wrong costume. The manager said she'd talk to Craig (the one from my arrival group, not the one I usually hang out with) about switching the two of us because he was PM cash, so at least I'd get out at 9:30 instead of even later, and I told her not to because I know Craig hates popcorn even more than I do, but she did anyways and he was severely awesome and agreed (so I helped him as much as I could before cashing out, and then he gave me a ride home). But that still left the problem of what I did for 4 hours. At this point, I didn't know that Craig was switching positions with me, because he wasn't there yet, since his schedule didn't have issues, and all I had on under my restaurant shirt was one of the old undershirt tank tops that Ros left for me (by the way, Ros, thanks for those, I use them constantly), so it's not like I could go walk around the park. There was a sweater in the manager's office ( I think it was Sam's), so the manager handed it to me and told me to go walk for a while. Not being in a particularly awesome mood at that point, I shopped to make myself feel better. I bought a really cute purse (I only brought my black one with me, so I needed something a little funkier), a piece of cake, and a book on essential Japanese for tourists so that I can learn and get my little nametag thingy that says I speak another language. I also rode Test Track with a couple of ladies from the Church of Latter Day Saints or whatever. They'd never been on the ride before, so that was a lot of fun (they were sitting on the left; I love it when new people sit on the left). Then I went to costuming to pick up a special issue costume (because I already had the max. amount of costumes taken out), got changed, and went to actually start my shift. The shift was fine, because it wasn't really busy and Craig is a really interesting person to talk to. I didn't go to Games that night because the South African girls and French boys were partying at my place, and I don't trust anyone I don't know any farther than I can throw them, so I sat on my bed and guarded my stuff (read: played DS).

Somewhere in there Patrick and I both had our DS (DSes? What exactly is the plural of DS?) so when we were on break, we did a multiplayer mission (that I so totally won, but it was kind of no contest because I was about 12 levels ahead of him) and Heather walked in and shook her head at us. I think there may have been an "Oh my god" in there, too, but I don't quite remember. Either way it was funny. Everybody else just thought we were nuts. Admittedly, that's probably pretty close to the truth.

Tuesday was so So SO much fun! It was the day before Jeremy's birthday, so to celebrate that a bunch of us went to Not So Scary. With the exception of Jeremy, who was dressed as the Joker, Chantal, who was dressed in jewel tones with a really pretty carnival mask, and Cale, who was a hippie, we were all dressed up as Disney characters. Rob and Craig went as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and they were absolutely fantastic about it; Allison was Belle, Kelly was Ariel, I was Meg again, Desiree was Cinderella, David Gunn (not to be confused with the David who trained me) was the Mad Hatter, Jason was Aladdin, and David was Burt. I'd wanted to go to the costume store nearby, but that seemed to complicated when I google-mapped to figure out if it was closer to here or Vista Way, so I just went back to Wal-Mart. They had even less of the nothing they had the last time I was there, so I figured I'd just grab a brown wig so that my Meg costume looked a little better. Well, they didn't even have brown wigs, other than a child's Dorothy wig. So that's what I got. Yes, that's right; I bought a kid's Dorothy wig, took the braids out, and spent a good half hour or so trying to arrange the hair in a ponytail in a way that looked good that also didn't reveal the wig base. Was NOT easy, but I think I at least partially succeeded. You probably can't tell that I succeeded in the pictures people have of me, since most of them were taken after the parade, at which point the wig randomly started to slip even though it'd been on solid before that... Whatever. Anyway, it was an absolute blast! We all had a really great time, Allison should never be allowed near that much candy in one night ever again, and a bunch of them want to go again dressed as tourists. I think it would be fun, but I think I'm tapped out for Halloween. Plus I totally don't need any more candy. So I'm going to kick back until mid-November when the Christmas party starts.

The next day I looked at my park schedule and saw that the Studios were closing at 7, which was perfect, because then I could still head home and do laundry, which was severely piling up. So I hopped on a bus some time after 11, and wandered in and out of shops again (by this point, I knew that our holiday discount was kicking on the 25th, so now I'm starting to plot out Christmas presents and such). I made my way to Tower of Terror, and got in line. I ended up in line with a woman and her daughter, and the woman was taking the chicken route because she'd been on before and never wanted to go again. So she made me promise to keep her baby safe, and off the girl (probably around Steph's age) and I went. She had a lot of fun, which made me happy (I love talking to random people when I'm in the parks as a guest), and then we parted ways as they headed off to Animal Kingdom and I beelined it to the Rock'n Roller Coaster. Can I just say right now that I love Single Rider lines? Because I totally do. I pretty much walked right onto the ride, bypassing the 20 minute line. Mwahaha! *cough* Anyway. Then I wandered some more, did Star Tours (of course; you can't just walk past that ride), Muppetvision 3D, and... I don't really remember what else. Then I went and did Tower of Terror again, and rode Rock'n Roller Coaster 3 times in about 10 minutes. It was about 6:30, and I decided to hop back over to Magic Kingdom. Yeah, laundry totally went out the window there. I did stuff that I'd already done three billion times, like The Haunted Mansion. Words cannot describe how much I love this ride. It's classic, it's fantastic, and ...just... yeah. And yet I can remember the trip we took at my sixth birthday when I waited outside with Aunt Bonnie, who was holding baby Steph, because I was too scared to go on it. Three-year old Tiff went on with my parents, and got stuck in the ballroom for, like, forever. Then again, I also hated Alice in Wonderland as a kid... and onions... Not the point. Oh, I also saw a guy propose to his girlfriend, which was so totally awesome. I mean, you hear about couples getting engaged at WDW all the time, and some of them eat at the restaurant after so I've talked to them, but seeing it is a whole other story. It gave me warm fuzzies! There's a photopass dude set up on the walkway into Tomorrowland at this little niche with a Minnie topiary, so people can get a picture with the castle in the background without the hordes of people on Main Street. So this couple was in line for this photopass thing, they get up there and the photopass dude tells them where to stand and is about to take the picture when the guy goes down on one knee and asks her! And of course the photopass dude is going flash-happy with this, so they probably have some really awesome pictures of the whole thing. With the castle in the background, which just makes it better. Then when the parade was on, I knew the lines for things would be shorter, except Peter Pan, so I did Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain. To clarify, I did Splash, then Thunder, and then Splash twice again. I was in line behind a couple of guys in their late teens at Thunder, and ended up behind them again at Splash, so we got to talking about stuff and whatever, and they asked why I was here by myself, so I was talking about the program and whatever, and then one of them asked how old I was, because they thought it was weird that I'd come down by myself to work here. They totally couldn't believe that I was 22, and then the one that asked said it was probably because I was short. SO did not appreciate that. But whatever. We then moved onto video games and theme parks, and then I hopped in line for Peter Pan, because it was down to a 20 minute wait. Except the ride wasn't actually moving at that point because a lady's dress had gotten caught in the conveyer belt, apparently. Fun times. Anyway, during that time and the bus ride home after it, I decided that never again will I do Splash Mountain again that many times when it's no longer sunny. I was wet, cold, and so not comfortable with the air conditioning levels.

I was seating the next day, but that didn't last long because there were so many of us on podium that I took an ER (early release). I knew Heather had the day off, and Jeremy was working, so they clearly didn't have plans, so I called her up and we went to Downtown Disney. We ate at Raglan Road, which was fantastic because it was good food combined with Irish music and dancing. Plus it had been a while since Heather and I hung out together, so it was nice to just talk for a while without running back and forth and limited by break times. She'd bought a Disneyland Imagineering DVD, so we headed back to her place to geek out and watch it. So cool! Also, her place is so much cleaner than mine! ...Okay, whining over. And we're going back at some point to do the DIY Mickey ears. I just wish the pink base wasn't the only one that had the snaps for the tiara. Laundry still didn't get done.

Yesterday .... Oh, right. Yesterday I opened popcorn again. A lot of things went wrong, but most of it went wrong after I had actual help that didn't involve me panicking into a radio to get, so it didn't really bother me. Then I came home and actually did that laundry. After Sayaka came home, I educated her in her own culture. ...That means we watched anime, which she hasn't really watched since she was a kid, so she doesn't know much about the stuff popular with our age group in Japan and America. I'm pretty sure I've got her hooked on Death Note (Ros, you never did finish that, did you? Good thing you deal with younger kids...). We'll probably watch more tonight, if she's not too tired from work.

Today I was seating again. People need to learn that I do not control how long it takes someone else to eat a steak! Other than that, work was good and people were mostly nice. Then I came home and made KD, and here I am, listening to a mix of classical and Lady Gaga as I type this. Tomorrow I have a marathon seater shift, which is totally going to suck, but I just need to remind myself that I only have one more shift after that before my days off.

The Sims

Le gasp! An update in only three days?! Can it be?! ....Yes, yes it can, apparently. Because I have just that much of a life. Or I'm just bored. Take your pick.

Anyway, so my last popcorn shift that week kinda sorta sucked because it turned out I was stocker when I wasn't originally scheduled to be. Stocker requires a specific mindset, and I wasn't prepared to be in that mindset, so that threw me off. But I made it through the night, and the PM cash trainees stayed to help me clean instead of going to cash out, because they were re-hires, so they just needed that quick refresher. I was still out roughly on time, and that was that.

Sunday was my first day as Assignor. Oh my god I love it so much! First of all, it's kind of a little bit of a power trip, because you're basically controlling the floor of the restaurant. Secondly, all I have to do is click buttons and people go where I tell them to. I compare it to The Sims, really, because it's that same point-click-do idea. Except that my Sims had a tendency to wash their dishes in the bathroom sink, which guests don't do, nor do I really get the urge to put them in the pool and remove the ladders. ...Normally. But then, I don't have much interaction with the guests as an assignor. I'm sure the servers would like to do it sometimes, though. Also, Frances is fantastic. She's been around for a while, so she knows everything there is to know, really, and she's tiny, French, and has attitude. Sunday night was movie night again, and I'm pretty sure I'm now banned from ever picking the movie ever again. I made them watch the old Adam West Batman, which apparently only David has an appreciation for. DeAnna left before it started, Rachel fell asleep and then left, Craig just left, and then Jeremy fell asleep and then left. And everybody else just decided not to show up at all. I'm pretty sure the only reason Dan made it through the movie was because he had to, since it was his apartment. No one appreciates B-movies anymore. They're just lucky I didn't make them watch Killer Tomatoes or Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter.

Yesterday I pretty much ran the place on my own, with her looking over my shoulder occasionally, and she kinda took over when the system briefly crashed and we had to go manual for a while. I was proud of me. Patrick found a plastic cockroach under one of his tables, so he thought it'd be a fantastic idea to put it in a napkin, bring it over to me, and say, "Look what I found under my table!" as he threw it at me. Thankfully, I didn't shriek in the restaurant. I just spazzed and flailed a little bit (read: a lot).

Last night was really fantastic, though. Being Thanksgiving in Canada, we celebrated with a potluck in the restaurant. Everyone in the pavilion was invited, and the kitchen made us the turkey and potatoes and gravy and stuffing and what have you, and then we brought the side dishes and desserts and stuff. It was really great to spend a holiday with everyone there, even if it is kind of a pointless holiday that wasn't established permanently in October until the '50s. And Frances made sugar pie, which made me incredibly happy, since I haven't had any since we were in Quebec for the ski trip in Grade 11.

Today was my day off, and I did nothing. I sat at my computer and caught up on my emails. And then one of my Norwegian roommates came home and is going back to Norway because her sister died. I feel really awkward, because I know that nothing I say or do will really do anything, y'know? The most I could do is offer her a cup of tea, which I did, but she didn't want any. I also grovelled to Ros for missing her birthday, and cooked spaghetti and meatballs.

Mostly Popcorn and Movies

Well October 3rd was my first solo popcorn shift, and it didn't do too well. Basically, in the hour and a half that I was alone up there on the cart, the only things that didn't go wrong were that the kegs didn't blow, and the butter didn't run out. That was about it. It was not a fun day. Rachel invited me along to go see Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3-D, and even though I'm not a huge Toy Story fan, I decided it was necessary in order to have a better ending to the day. So I traipsed off to Downtown Disney alone (because everybody else was still working, or, in DeAnna's case, has a phone that my phone hates and refuses to call....), looked around, spent a ton of time in the Christmas store, and bought myself a peanut butter hot fudge sundae at Ghirardelli's (I found out we get cast discount there; yay!). Then I headed over to the theatre, where DeAnna was already waiting because she'd been there for hours already, too (which I would have known and we could've hung out if my phone wasn't being a snob about her phone). We watched the movies, which I can appreciate more now than I did back then, even though I'm still not gung-ho about them (but I never realized before that Buzz does the Star Trek hand thing when he leaves), and headed home.

The next day was my popcorn stocker shift, and that was an even worse day than the previous one. It was nothing major, just a lot of little things that built up for a very frustrating day. Patrick made it a bit better, though. I'd given him a copy of the Evil Dead: The Musical soundtrack, and we geek about things in the GT office a lot. Anyway, so I'm cleaning out the popcorn kettle, silently cursing my life (because I was onstage, and therefore can't loudly curse my life, which I might've done otherwise), not paying attention to my surroundings. All of a sudden from behind me comes a creepy voice that says, "Join us." Clearly, since this is one of the major phrases from Evil Dead, this is Patrick. However, since my mind doesn't quite work that fast, I shriek like a small child and whip around, nearly falling off the milk crate I need to stand on to clean in the process. I think he found it amusing. Anyway, so that made my night slightly better, and then I was late to movie night when it was supposed to be my pick, so I ended up running in partway through Anchorman, and we're watching my pick this week. Whatever.

PM cash went a lot more smoothly. I got out on time, nothing weird happened, and Craig was training a couple of the new girls on stocking, so not only did I never run out of anything, but I was never really alone, either. And they're both really nice girls, too, so it's not like we stand up there and don't talk to each other. At games night, we played Pictionary. Any of my family members will recall that Tiff and I are quite fantastic at Pictionary, and can leave others sitting choking on our proverbial dust. Well, apparently that ONLY applies to Tiff and I, because my team had only made it a quarter of the way around the board on pity points by the time one of the other teams won (and the other team wasn't far behind them). So it can be deduced that I'm incapable of playing Pictionary well with someone I don't share a freaky mind connection with, and that two years of expensive drawing lessons mean nothing when you have to try to get a group of Canadians to say 'North Dakota.'

I had Tuesday off, so I dragged Rob around Future World in EPCOT so that he could get an internal map going to be able to give guests directions when they're lost at our pavilion because they missed the turn for The Land or Imagination. We probably spent about 3 or 4 hours doing that, and then met up with Rachel and DeAnna when they got off work. We grabbed a quick snack from the bakery in France, and then wandered a little bit. Rob had never done the Maelstrom in Norway or the boat ride in Mexico, so we did both of those. By the way, the refurbishing of the Mexico ride is fantastic. It now features Donald, Jose, and Panchito instead of the Creepy Disembodied Voice. Then it was time to head over to Patterson (housing complex) for the Dragon Swing, a diversity celebration focused on China. It involved free food, so we were totally all for it. Characters were there, and Rachel had her camera, so there are pictures of us with Mulan and Chip and Dale somewhere on her SD card. There were Chinese acrobats there, too, who admittedly weren't so impressive with their tumbling after having seen as many acro routines as I have. So yeah, that was fun. Then, everyone had been talking for a while about a movie night at the apartment of the Heather who works in attractions. She was inviting people over for Rent. Most of you are aware that I'm none too fond of Rent (especially given my opinions on Adam Pascal), so I wasn't planning on going. But we were already at Patterson, and I didn't feel like going home, so I tagged along anyway. I think I might've regretted it for the rest of my life if I hadn't gone. It was SO much fun. First of all, I love Heather! She's so fantastic and sweet, and she loves musicals. Second, when other people arrived, it was declared that if you knew the words, you were expected to sing. Man, I haven't sung like that in a long time. It felt so awesome. And we had an absolute blast, though I think we might've scared Heather's boyfriend, Bryce, a little bit, and I think Rhonda managed to fall asleep for a few minutes somehow... This week we're doing Hairspray. Should be awesome.

Wednesday was Blizzard Beach day with Rob and Rachel. It was SO hot out, and we burnt our feet quite a few times on areas where the walkways weren't wet. We had a lot of fun on the racing slides, especially the toboggan-type ones. I think Rob won every race... I got a bit more sun, which made me very happy even if I do still feel like I glow in the dark compared to everyone else here. And it wasn't too crowded, either, which was really great.

Thursday I was back in the restaurant as a seater. Nothing too fascinating there. Yesterday kind of shocked me, though. I was restaurant stocker, and everyone on podium knows that this is the Worst Shift Ever. You'll remember my description from the last time, with the constant cutlery runs and bread stocks and everything. Well, nothing went wrong with this shift, and I was never really flying by the seat of my pants. In fact, that was slightly annoying, because I could accomplish everything I needed to in 15 minutes, even though it felt like it should've taken 40. Patrick attempted to scare me in the restaurant, but it totally didn't work because I'm a lot more aware there than I am at popcorn, in the dark, when no one else is supposed to be around. I barely had to do bread before the end of the night, the dining room never fully ran out of silverware, I always had time to do plates, there were lots of stacks of folded napkins, and the red wine room stayed fairly clean. I got out pretty much exactly on time! And Sean told me I was pretty much the best stocker ever (which I hope the managers didn't hear, because I want as few of those shifts as possible). The only thing that sucked was that the first bus was so crowded that I sat an extra 20 minutes at the bus stop so that I could potentially get a seat (which I only did because Nykki somehow got on before me and saved me a seat). Getting on the bus can be rather violent. It's like a slightly tamer version of a Black Friday at Wal-Mart, I think. I stepped on at least five people because I couldn't help it since I was being shoved into these people from all other sides. I barely even have to walk up to the bus itself because the crowd will just carry me up there by brute force. It's unpleasant, yes, but I'll get used to it after a while.

And that's about it for now. Popcorn this afternoon, and then next week I start training on Assigning, which is the job where you decide which parties get sat where and at exactly what time. I'm excited.

Last Week

Okay, this is now my third time typing this update. My computer likes to randomly delete everything I typed, and the internet doesn't come with an undo button. Yay. I blame Vista. So the water park was a ton of fun. Originally we were going to do both parks, but then Rob was a pansy and wanted more than 6 hours of sleep, so we left in the afternoon and only did one park. We did the one that made the most sense for us here at The Commons: Typhoon Lagoon (because the Blizzard Beach bus doesn't come here). The day was gorgeous, and we had a blast. We started out on the group raft ride, which is slightly evil because they make you portage your own raft and those things are heavier than they look. Thank heaven you can roll them! After that we did the single-rider tube slides, and then did the body slides that are NOT Humunga Kowabunga. None of us wanted to do that one. So we did that stuff, and then headed over to the wave pool where we were jostled about and knocked over and had a blast doing so. When we got tired of that, we decided to try out Crush'n Gusher, which is a water slide roller coaster. ....No, I'm serious. Really. There are almost ninety degree drops, and it jets you uphill. There are 3-rider tubes for that, so we all got to ride together, which was really awesome. Then we did the lazy river, went back to Crush'n Gusher, and lounged on chairs for a while. We hit the wave pool one last time, and then it was time to head home.

I kinda wanted to head out for dinner, since my kitchen was gross as usual, so Carolane and I headed over to the Studios for some Sci-Fi Dine-In. We had some extra time before Fantasmic, so we did Star Tours because she'd never done it before. What was really funny was the older British guy in the queue next to us who was actually rather worried about the ride. Apparently his son didn't even want to come on. So I was reassuring him (since I've lost count of the number of times I've been on that ride ....Anybody got an estimate?), and he laughed a bit, saying it was a bit funny that the woman had to reassure the man about the ride. Clearly he wasn't around when I dragged Rob on Tower of Terror. So then we lined up for Fantasmic, which was as awesome as it always is. And then it was time to head home to go to work the next day.

That next day happened to be my stocker shift at the restaurant, which was awful because we were running out of EVERYTHING. I spent the whole night running in circles: cutlery, plates, bread, cutlery, napkins, repeat cycle. And then when dinner came around, add glasses in somewhere around the second cutlery run. I was exhausted after that. But then on Sunday I was greeter, which was awesome (most of what I do is tell people that we're fully booked for the next two weeks) except when the tablet shut down and I had to use the computer in the often crowded lobby. But that was okay, and we eventually got the tablet working again so I could go back outside. Sunday night was movie night, so a bunch of us met up over at Dan's apartment to see what Craig had in store for us (it was his pick, and he was keeping it a secret). We sat in the living room at rocked out to A Very Brady Sequel. ...Yeah, he chose The Brady Bunch. Not even kidding. But it was a lot of fun, because we were all at least familiar with the Brady Bunch, so it's not like anybody didn't know what was going on (well, as much as anyone knew what was going on in the 70s).

Monday Rob and I started on popcorn cart, which was a blast. Craig trained us, and we were good and only sang The Brady Bunch once. Mostly we stood in front of the cart, talking to guests, and then just going behind the cart when someone was actually ordering something. Anyway, that was a lot of fun, and I was wearing pins, so a lot of people stopped to trade with me (totally don't get pin trading, because I'd only ever buy the pins I wanted, but whatever). Monday night is the party night around here, so I finally headed over to my first Games Night at Craig's place (I'd fallen asleep before the previous two), and we played Apples to Apples. It's a game where someone gives out two adjectives and you have cards with random stuff on them, and you give them a card based on those adjectives, and then they pick their favourite. It's hard to explain without actually having the game infront of you.

Tuesday and Wednesday were more training days on popcorn, PM cash with Peever and stocker with Craig again. Not much fascinating happened, except Tuesday night right after the fireworks when I had an interaction that went pretty much like this:
Kid: Is this Australia?
Peever: No, this is Canada.
Kid (who has a cast, by the way): Do you have a permanent marker here?
Peever: I think so... *starts looking*
Kid (turning to me): Can you write my name on my cast in French?
Me: ...Well, I can if you want, but it's going to be the same as in English.
Kid's Mom: Oh, really? His name is Alex.
Me: We could do 'Alexandre,' but the only difference is the 're' instead of 'er'.
Kid: No thanks, that sounds like a girl name.

Wednesday night I attended my first Throw Out. This is when the people who are leaving make speeches and give away ("throw out") the stuff they've amassed over the year that they don't want to bring home with them. It was kind of boring for me, since I barely knew the people who left, but it was still interesting to see. Then we headed over to DeAnna's to watch a movie. ...We watched Stardust until almost 3 in the morning. It was a really awesome movie, though, and I think I may have to acquire it at some point.

Yesterday was the most fun I've had since I got here. Rachel, Rob, and I headed to the Magic Kingdom with Alicia, who'd never done Magic Kingdom before. So we jumped on the boat, headed through the gate, and into the massive throngs of people. It was actually Walt Disney World's birthday, so we all grabbed the 'Happy Birthday' buttons at Town Hall and had them write 'Walt Disney World' in the space. The reactions from cast members all day were varied, but amusing. We walked the whole park, and did rides in each of the lands. We didn't do too much in Fantasyland, though, because the lines are waaaay too long for that (and we caught the 1:10 bus over, so we had less than 6 hours before the park closed for the Halloween party). We managed to do small world, though. Yippee. I think that ride almost scares me as much as Dinosaur or Mission: Space.

I had tickets for Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween party with Ali (we were supposed to go with Heather and her parents, too, but Ali mixed up the days so it was just the two of us), which brings us to an interesting story in itself: my costume. I was going to go to Wal-Mart the other day and buy a costume, but when I got to the store I just couldn't bring myself to do it. The costumes weren't great, and I had no ideas as to how I could modify any of them to make anything good, so I went without. Then yesterday morning I decided that it actually really bothered me that I didn't have a costume, and I only had 2 hours before I was meeting everyone to head out, so I didn't have time to go to the store, so I just dug through my closet. I had my purple dress from my last cast party at York, and my pink bathrobe tie, so I started to put together a Megara costume (Hercules). But I needed another sash. Then Sayaka came home, so I asked her if she had anything (turned out she was going to Not So Scary that night, too) and she said she didn't, but she rooted around our closet for a while and found a pink curtain that she and the person who lived here before me used to have up between the bedroom and the sink area, so that was perfect. I packed all that up in my bag along with all the safety pins I owned and headed out the door. THEN (oh yeah, there's more to the NSS drama), throughout the day I was getting text messages from Ali, who was working an AM shift. First was that she was getting force-extended because they were short-staffed, so she wouldn't be able to come. So then we were scrambling to find someone to take her ticket so that a) I wasn't going alone, and b) I wouldn't have to leave Magic Kingdom to get the tickets from her at EPCOT. Then in the middle of her scrambling, she gets word that she'll be able to get off at 9:30, so she can come, she'll just be late. After that, when I'm prepared to leave Magic Kingdom at 6:30 to get my ticket from her, so I can get some pictures of characters and stuff while waiting for her, I get a text saying she's getting off earlier than she thought... well, what does that mean? Turns out, the managers did everything they could, and she was able to leave by 6:30, so she just had to drive home and change before coming over. So I ducked into a washroom and got Rachel to help me with pinning my costume, and then said good-bye to the group as I waited for Ali to arrive.

Can I just say that I love being here for holidays? Coolest celebrations ever! Turns out that Ali's just as camera-happy as I am, so neither of us minded stopping every few feet for a picture of something else. So first we went around the Partners statue, taking pictures of all the special Halloween statues they stuck in the gardens, and then took spots in front of the castle for the Villains Mix and Mingle show. It was pretty cool, especially because it featured Maleficent. Anything that has Maleficent gets automatic cool points. However, seeing Judge Frollo do hiphop kind of broke my brain. Members of the fourteenth century judicial system should not do hiphop. Ever. It just isn't right. So the villains came out after the show for pictures, which was really cool because some of them you don't normally see in the park at all. We got pictures with Maleficent, Frollo, Cruella DeVil, and the Wicked Queen. We skipped Jafar because neither of us really cared, and we also skipped Captain Hook and the Queen of Hearts because you can find them in the park from time to time. After that we took some time to trick-or-treat around the park and did the Haunted Mansion before heading back to Main Street to get a place for the special HalloWishes fireworks. I ended up buying the soundtrack at the end of the night. Then we did some more trick-or-treating on our way to a parade spot, which we then defended with our lives. ...Kidding. Actually our area wasn't too busy. And the Headless Horseman rode through the streets to Flight of the Valkyries!!!!! I was uber-uber-excited for this. Anyone who knew me when I was tiny knows how much I loved that cartoon. I knew pictures of him would turn out as a blur, so I got video of it, and I'll just screen capture later. Then the parade began (10 minutes later. They do the ride fairly early). It was pretty cool. The villains float (y'know, the one that's been around for a long time with Chernabog looking like the top of a particularly gothic snowglobe) was in it, along with a few special floats. And the groundskeeper from the Haunted Mansion walks in the parade with his puppy! I love the puppy! My pictures didn't turn out too fabulous, but they're better than they could've been. After the parade we finished up our trick-or-treating, did some shopping, and then hit the exit after the mass of people had gone and drove home.

That brings me to now, as I sit here at my computer, listening to Puccini's Turandot because I've already finished listening to my Not So Scary soundtrack.

PS. You don't want to know how many times this deleted everything on me while I was typing it. But I've learned from my extreme frustration and wanting to throw my computer at the hardest possible surface. Now I copy the whole thing after every few sentences, so that I can just paste it and keep going when that happens.

Food & Wine

So the day after that was more than slightly insane. We had a bunch of huge parties come in for dinner, so we got a little crowded and backed up, plus prep for the Food & Wine Festival was going on in the kitchen so THAT was crowded, too. But we survived, and yesterday I had a day off! Yay!

The bummer part of this was that I had the day off so that I could go on the trip to get a social security number. Joys. This meant that I was on a bus into Orlando at 6:15 AM. That was more than a little painful. I was mostly asleep the whole way there and the whole way back. The only reason I wasn't asleep during the actual process was because the building was Antarctic. And I was wearing a tank top and shorts. Anyway, so I came home, clicked around on the internet until early afternoon, and then I was meeting up with Rob and Rachel to go preview the Food & Wine Festival at EPCOT. This is where all the countries in World Showcase, plus a bunch of countries that aren't normally found in World Showcase, have a little booth where you can get a few different appetizers and beverages from that country. So that was a fun time. Before we hit the countries, though, we had to do a couple of rides. First stop was Soarin', since neither Rob nor I had ever done it before. It was a blast! It's like being in a hang-glider over California, and you get to see everything! I think my favourite part is when you're flying over an orange orchard and you can smell the oranges. Then we had to do Test Track, because Rob had never done that before. We put him on the wrong side of the car, though, so the ride didn't have quite the impact Rachel and I wanted... On to World Showcase! Our first stop was Greece for spinach puffs, which were amazing (sorry Ros, but theirs are better than yours), and then once we were in Canada (which is right next to Greece, didn't you know?) we met up with Rhonda and Deanna to head the rest of the way around the world. We stopped in Japan, Germany, Poland (Perogies!!!! Mom, yours are way better, and Rachel and I would both like some if you are indeed coming to visit me in March).... Deanna and Rhonda stopped in China, and Deanna stopped in Italy..... I don't quite remember where all else we stopped. And then when we were done and back in Canada, we felt all patriotic and decided to see the CircleVision movie. And we sang. Because we could. Then I made everyone traipse back to the UK because we'd passed the Ireland booth earlier and I seriously wanted the lava cake with Bailey's they had there. I was good with my drinks, though! I was jonesing for a margarita, so that was the only time I bought a drink from a booth, in Mexico.

After that we headed back home so that a bunch of them could watch Grey's Anatomy (and I was going to watch Supernatural, but one of my roommates was already using the living room, so I have to look up the episode online later tonight), and get ready for the Throw In to welcome the newest members of our group. That's right, I'm not one of the new people anymore! Yay! So that was a lot of fun, and merchandise is happy that they finally have a guy, because it is currently staffed entirely by females. Then it was 1:00 AM, I was dead tired, so everyone dispersed and I came home and crashed.

Today we're heading to a waterpark. Yay waterpark! I'll let you know how that goes.

Obligatory Update (even though there's not much going on)

So Peever (Dan) trained me on my last training session thingy. Not that there was much to say for that, anyway, since I'd already done AM seating, and the only difference is the removal of a wine glass for empty places and children, and the end of the night cleaning duties. I filled out paperwork, did a little quiz, and then we were good to go. Yesterday I was on my own, though I use that term very loosely because there were actually seven of us on seating at one point. I was only actually "alone" for the first half hour, and that's before we actually start seating, so it was just the cleaning duties I had to do. We had fun. I actually sat a lot of people from Canada that day, where previously it'd only been one or two people.

Last night I discovered something really interesting (read: annoying): I brought the original PS2 instead of the PS2 Slim because, even though it's bigger, it doesn't have a problem playing any of my games. I figured I'd either hook it up to the tv that we'd most likely have in our place, or I'd patch it to my computer, which I've seen done before so I know it works. Here's the interesting part: My tv doesn't HAVE the hookup for A/V cables, which was weird, so I pulled everything out in my room thinking, "Okay, I'll just play on my computer then." The real kicker, as I found out, is that the original PS2 doesn't have a port for a patch cable; that must've been a new feature on the slim, which was what John had when I saw him playing now that I think on it. So I have a PS2 and nowhere to play it. Yay. I am not a happy Mel.

Or at least I wasn't until this morning. I got a great sleep, and woke up and decided to make eggs and toast for breakfast. So that's exactly what I did. And now I'm sitting here finishing off a nice mug of Earl Grey debating the merits of a second cup.

Parks and Work

Animal Kingdom was a blast! We started out first thing with the 'It's Tough to be a Bug' 3D movie. ...I still hate it as much as I did when I was 11. I will fully admit to spending most of the movie staring at the floor. After that ordeal, it was over to Dinoland, USA. I complained that all my fears were the ones to come first (Rob and Carolane weren't overly keen on the idea of Everest), since I have a huge fear of dinosaurs that, yes, I realize is entirely unfounded and a little bit insane. So we walk up to the Dinosaur building, I look up on the sign for the ride that has that lovely little bust of the carnotaurus on it, and all of the bravery I'd built up on the walk (which admittedly wasn't much) immediately left me. I chickened out. I think I'm going to have to go back there one day by myself for the express purpose of riding Dinosaur. ...I'll let you know how that goes. Anyway, so now that the lands that housed all my fears were behind us, we went to Asia, and this is where the real fun started for me. We started out here on the Kali River Rapids, which is arguably one of the best rides in the park. Rob and Carolane were sitting next to each other, and ended up taking all the dips and turns backwards, which they weren't too happy about. I laughed. We were all absolutely drenched, which was actually my aim since it was ridiculously hot out and there was no breeze. I can't speak for the others, but I stayed cool the rest of the day. And because it was right there, we got off the rapids and took the Maharajah Jungle Trek. There was a tiger in the water! It was so cute! Also, I got some awesome pictures of the giant bats, because it was so hot that they all had their wings open to fan themselves. After that, it was time for Rob and Carolane to face Everest. I absolutely love this ride. I think it's my favourite ride on the Walt Disney World property, of the non-classic rides of course. But see, Carolane has, first of all, this thing about roller coasters; secondly, she has a thing about going backwards. I failed to mention that, so she didn't realize it until we were far enough up in the queue that we could see the trains being boarded. *Evil laugh here* I also failed to mention that you go backwards IN THE DARK. And then you go forwards and drop. Rob doesn't like drops. At least he knew this happened at some point. Man, the picture from that ride was hilarious! Rob and Carolane are looking terrified for their lives, and I'm sitting there like nothing's wrong and I'm barely even moving. They loved it when they got off, though. Both of them agreed that it's an awesome ride (I'm not sure how much it would take to get them back on it). Then we moved on to Africa to do the Pangani Trail and Kilimanjaro Safaris. The trail was nothing really special, except that a hippo came almost right up to the glass of the underwater viewing area, but the Safari ride was spectacular! I don't think I've ever seen more than a couple elephants hiding out in the background before, but we must've seen at least 10 or 12 on that trip! It was so cool. We actually saw a LOT of animals, considering how hot it was and stuff. I think there were more crocodiles than water in the croc area.

We were pretty much done everything we really wanted to do at that point, so we grabbed some burgers...or chicken...and I had a veggie burger, so count that as whatever you want. Anyway, I wanted to head over to Magic Kingdom after to do some stuff, since I'd only done the one ride there with Heather, and I've been here for a week and a half so that's just a little bit sad, but Rob and Carolane had to do a run to the store, so I went over on my own. Doing a Disney park by yourself is a very, very strange feeling. I felt extremely odd saying 'one' when they asked how many at the boarding point. Thankfully I didn't do too many rides, because it seems I was cursed to be stopped on every ride I went on! This didn't bother me too much on Buzz Lightyear, though, because it meant I had more time in front of the targets. ...Don't look at me like that, it's totally not cheating because I didn't stop the ride on purpose or anything! The Haunted Mansion stop was a little more annoying, because I was stopped right in front of the hitch-hiking ghost mirrors, and my ghost was sitting on top of me. I actually spent most of my time at the park doing the really long character lines, namely the princesses in Toontown, and Ariel in her grotto. So now I have a bunch of my princess character pictures taken care of (and only how many characters to go?). Then I asked a few of the parade setup cast members if they could tell me where the Fantasia float can open up, since it's so wide there are few places it can actually do so. It seemed like the Frontierland stretch was my best bet, so I parked myself outside the widest part of that road, opposite the Country Bear Jamboree (bet I would've had time to sit through the show, had I been so inclined, but I wasn't up for the torture that night). Closer to the parade start time, people really started filling in around me. This included a couple of girls who decided to bookend me, even though they were together, and lean on me (like, full-on, elbow on my knee kind of leaning) while playing with their toys and yammering to one another in Spanish. Then the lady with the stroller came up behind me, and the toddler decided it was a good idea to sporadically kick me in the back. I've decided I'm never going to a parade on my own again, if only to use my friends as crowd buffers. By the time the parade ended, there was 15 minutes left before Wishes, the fireworks show. I was right across from the path to Adventureland, so I figured I'd see how long the wait for Pirates of the Caribbean was, and I'd ride it if it was less than, like, 10. Well, it was 5 minutes, so I figured 'why not?' and wound my way through the queue (which is ridiculously long, by the way). Turns out it was a little less than 5, because I walked right onto the ride! It occurred to me after I'd boarded the ride that I was riding Pirates of the Caribbean on Talk Like a Pirate Day, so that was pretty cool... in my head, anyway. I'm not sure anyone else would've found it quite as amusing. I didn't mind too much when we were briefly stopped on this ride, either, because we were stopped right at the end in front of Jack Sparrow. So I got off the ride, made a beeline for Main Street, and got a really great place for the fireworks. I took a bunch of pictures, so I'll have to upload them at some point, once I weed out the blurry ones from the good ones.

And then yesterday I worked again. I had my stocker training shift, and was trained by David (the one from the Studios). I had a lot of fun with that, especially since I watched the bartender for a while so that I could learn to cover bar (which I'll probably avoid as much as possible, because there's no way I could be as fast as the bartender is, and then the whole restaurant would be backed up because of me). The night was mostly bussing tables, folding napkins, and restocking silverware and glassware, but I had fun. Though it seems that something goes wrong every time I'm at work. The first day, it was that insanely large party that we had to figure out how to accomodate (not such a huge deal, really); the second day, the buses stopped running for a while, so all our reservations were backed up by about 40 minutes (but when people came out of the restaurant they said it was well worth the wait!); and yesterday, the system crashed and we had to switch to manual for seating. Apparently that wasn't much fun, so I'm glad I wasn't actually dealing with guests then.

Carolane and Rob and I decided to go swimming after work, which felt amazing after the running back and forth for eight hours. I think I'm going to make a habit out of swimming after work. I seem to sleep better. And now today is my last day of training (I'm on PM seating), and then I'm on my own (which is really, really scary). Hopefully all goes well. I have no idea who's training me.