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.