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.