VoluntEARing

As with all things Disney, everything is themed and everything is cheesy.  Really, really cheesy.  I"m just warning you a little about this upcoming post.

So my roommate and I decided to do the Coastal Cleanup activity today.  We signed up a while ago, but today was that wonderful day!  I guess I should explain a little about it before moving on.

Disney is really big into the whole "service" thing.  There are tons of opportunities they give cast members to serve in their communities and such.  I've never done any of them because you have to register beforehand and there's always a lot of people who want to go.  And by the time I know my schedule, it's too late to register or something else comes up and I can't go.  But I heard about this coastal cleanup thing and I just had to do it so I gave away my shift for today to a friend so I could go.

But moving on.  We arrived at the meeting place in Celebration at 7am.  They said they wouldn't be providing hardly anything, but just minutes after pulling into the parking lot we were stacked high with presents!

First, they gave us a small container of wet wipes.  I guess to use after picking up trash.  Then the tube that looks like big bite healer stuff is both bug bite stuff and sunscreen in one!  Then they gave us water bottles that poofed out when filled with water.  And, my favorite, I got my very own Disney VoluntEARs t-shirt!  I was soooo excited!  The presents alone made the whole thing worth it (and, of course, the satisfaction of knowing I served the world, gave back to the planet, helped out Mother Nature... you know... that stuff too of course!) They also fed us breakfast and lunch.  We had fresh fruit and Kashi Granola bars for breakfast/snack.

Then we headed out to Brevard County to clean up some ocean!  Tons of people came and there were people with giant video cameras everywhere!  As we got on the bus our "bus captain" explained the rules and what we were going to do.  Get into small groups, we had to write down every piece of trash we picked up so they could keep track of what sort of trash is most common (seriously, Disney researches everything), etc. etc.  At the end, our captain asked us, "So, are there any questions?"  Dead silence.  "Any questions at all?"  Suddenly a little girl in front raised her hand.  "I have a question!  Umm... what... which Disney character's favorite color is purple?"

Best.  Question.  Ever.  We were riding the purple bus, which I think it where the question came from.  For the record, we ultimately decided on Daisy, but I think Rapunzel is up there, too.

 

 It was still pretty chilly, which is why we wore our jackets.  Our group (just our bus) cleaned up 1.5 miles of the ocean's coast.  Just standing back looking at it, there didn't seem to be much in the way of trash.  But by the end, our trash bag was surprisingly heavy.  As were the trash bags of all those around us.  I was amazed at how much trash we found.  Mostly, it was just little chunks of plastic (sometimes it was hard to tell the difference between the chunks of plastic and the seashells... but when you can clearly read on it "Made in China" I tend to be convinced that it is indeed plastic) and bottle caps.  We also found candy wrappers, string, rope, a fishing line (it took forever to pull the kelp out of the fishing line), a hanger, and bazillions of cigarettes.  Nasty!  Cigarette butts actually had it's own section on the sheet we filled out.

 

Yeah.  This is me filling out the sheet.  I don't know why I'm giving the camera stinkeye.  Actually.  I do.  The sun was shining right into my eyes... and I had no idea Pamilla was taking a picture.  Anyway.  Pamilla loves this picture of me and even put it up on Facebook, so I figured I'd better explain it.

 The beach was beautiful.  And surprisingly deserted.  Especially for a Saturday.  We found tons of trash and overall had a fantastic time, I'd say.  I loved seeing all the Disney people with their families coming out to have fun.  Kids as young as five were allowed. 

Afterwards we went to the park and had a picnic.  Sandwiches, chips and cookies.  Then we came back home and finished watching the movie Aladdin that we had started on the way there.

It's been a great day!  But I've been waking up at 5am almost every morning lately, and the latest I've slept in is about 6:30, so I'm going to bed.  I know it's early.  I know I'm lame.  But I'm stinking tired!

Way to go Disney!  Way to provide tons of opportunities to serve!  I absolutely LOVED it, and totally plan on VoluntEARing again!

Rabbit Rabbit Day!

December is my favorite time in the world. For one thing, it means my birthday and for another it means Christmas!!!

I means happy music and movies and presents and spending money and candy and Christmas trees and wrapping paper and ornaments and Nativities and lights and gingerbread and bells and parades and snow (yep, snow even in Florida... try going to Main Street U.S.A. or Celebration!) and just plain happiness.

Even at work I've noticed guests are way happier during the Christmas parties than they were for Halloween. People are more willing to do what is asked of them and more helpful. People are more cheerful, there's more smiles... I just LOVE it!

I love coming home to see my tree lit up. I love listening to pleasant Christmas music. I love the Salvation Army dudes outside with their red buckets and bells and remembering how my mom always told us it was bad luck to pass one without putting at least a little something inside.

I love how it reminds me of being a kid. It feels so magical to watch snow falling and listening to sleigh bells. I just love December and everything that comes with it. I'm ready for one of the best months of my life!

And I said Rabbit rabbit this morning so that makes it all the better.

Merry Christmas

It's very wet outside. I woke up at 7am to drive my roommate to the airport. She's going home today. Something I'm extremely jealous of.

She got directions to the airport avoiding all toll roads. There were several turns and small roads and stuff and it was all foreign to me. Oh, and it was raining ridiculously hard. I don't know if I've ever skidded so much in my life (don't read that part, dad) But, we didn't have to deal with the tolls.

On the way home I gave it up and just took the toll road. I didn't want to be trying to figure out the paper directions while driving through ridiculous rain and fortunately I live right beside a popular tourist attraction so really all I had to do was follow the signs to Disney World. One of the toll ladies (apparently you have to pay every couple miles on a toll road... yuck!) even let me go by for free. "Merry Christmas" she told me. :) It took me about 45 minutes to get to the airport and around 15 to get back. Toll roads are pretty nice!

I got home expecting to go back to bed but instead I'm not as tired as I thought I'd be. I have the apartment to myself so I'm just relaxing, watching tv, and being sad that this is my first Christmas morning in my whole life that I'm not happily opening presents with my family. No family. No friends. No gingerbread houses with mom. No snow. (It's actually almost warm outside) No presents. No tree. No stockings (well, the tree and stockings are downstairs). No joy.

Okay so actually there is joy. I have great friends here. I've gotten to listen to all the Christmas music I want to. I know my family is only a phone call away. Oh, and I'm the luckiest kid in the world in that happiest place on earth. Teehee! :)

So just so this isn't a totally depressing post I'll add some happy stuff! I've had the last two days off and I don't work until 7:45 tonight. Last night I went to Hollywood and saw the Osbourne dancing lights show. Pretty cool. They were handing Christmas cookies out at the bus stop last night! We also watched the movie "The Santa Claus" last night. Good movie. Possibly my favorite Christmas movie.

Anyway, only a week left. Wow. I can't even believe it. We were looking at pictures of our program last night and I just couldn't believe how wonderful this semester has been. I love it here and I know I'm gonna miss it like crazy when I leave. But also for now I'm excited to go back to college.

Merry Christmas!!

EPCOT, My Typical Days

Today was pretty crazy at work. Several things happened but I only have the patience to write about one, really.

Tom brought this little girl over to me after I'd been there a little while. Tom's English is not so good and this poor little girl was in tears (probably about nine years old I'd imagine). He told me, "Uhh, she lose parent I ssink? Mebbee? I don know?"

So I got down to the girl's level and started trying to figure out what happened. She was lost, but she wasn't really responding to anything I said. She kind of mumbled some stuff I didn't understand. Then it dawned on me.

Why do lost children always have to be foreign!? "Habla Espanol?" I asked. Most lost kids speak only Spanish although I had one once who spoke Portuguese.

"No." She replied. Then she went off in French. The only thing I know how to say in French is "I don't speak French" and I can't type that on here cuz I can only say it, not spell it. Anyway, that didn't help much so I tried to tell her it was okay and I went straight to the phone.

We have a hotline we can call and tell them what language we need and they get us a translator within seconds. Or at least that's how it would work ideally. I've never actually had to use it before. Unfortunately it took me time to find the number and then I had to be transferred between a few people. Overall it took just a couple minutes. But it took long enough so that by the time I actually had the girl on the phone with another woman who spoke French, this guy from attractions came over to me.

"Hey, did you find a little French girl anywh- wait.... is that crying girl French?"

Sure enough he was having the exact same problem on his end with the dad because apparently dad didn't speak English either and was babbling off in French showing with his hands he was looking for a little girl.

Needless to say we eventually got them reunited but I felt terrible because most of the time when we reunite the kids to the parents it's like this big thing where the parents imagined their child was dead and the kid thought they had been orphaned so they're all hugging and kissing. This situation the dad grabbed the poor little girl's arm and started yelling at her. I felt so bad for her. So sad.

Anyway, some other things happened like the lady who dropped her camera on the ride and it went down into this crack that's impossible to get into without shutting down the whole building.

Then this girl I work with called in (a common occurrence, no one was really surprised) so I had to be extended (more money! I'm so not complaining!) and then we had some other minor problems with the attractions people. Really, there shouldn't be rivalry between Attractions and Merchandise... and there isn't. But I think there should be more unity between attractions and merch. The merch people never really know what attractions are up to and vise versa. Meh.

Anyway, for the most part it was a great day. I got two hugs from little kids which is rare but totally welcome. One of the little girls was disabled and stuck in a wheelchair but she asked her dad to ask me to come around so she could give me a hug which was so totally cute of her.

The other girl I brought behind the counter because it was her birthday and she had a special call. I'm not sure how much I'm allowed to say about that but she was adorable and she kept asking me questions about it. I answered her questions to the best of my ability and eventually satisfied her "whys." And then I stood up and she hugged me around my legs and it was the cutest thing ever.

Actually, I see a lot of "cutest things ever" here. It's so great!

I "graduate" in two days. That means I get my "graduation ears" and stuff. So fun!

Now for pictures that I haven't posted in forever.

My American Adventure costume. This was the night I got to watch the candlelight processional. So fun! Except for the weird petticoat part. Still not sure what that is... I had trouble getting that apron thing on and this gay guy was going to try and help me but really I'd rather a natural girl help me with that sort of thing. Weird...



We went to Chef Mickey's for my birthday on the 7th. But Heather's little sister Allison happened to be in town so we celebrated for her too. Unfortunately for me the munchkin gets more attention than the twenty year old. But really? Look at her. She deserved every minute of it and I was glad to share it with her.

Natalie and Janessa with Donald



Allison's adorable face all covered in birthday frosting.



Heather and adorable Allison



I realized I didn't have any pictures with my boss so I had to snap at least one. Even if he's in his chef's outfit!



Kelly by our amazing Christmas tree!!!



Heather and I made a freakin' AMAZING Thanksgiving turkey. Not bad for a first try. We woke up at something like 6am and went to Walmart for last minute supplies because Thanksgiving was really held on Monday because that was the only time we could all go and since Heather and I had never done anything like this before a few calls to mommy were necessary but other than that.... yeah. It was totally amazing. Like, it totally fell off the bone amazing.



Our family. Me, Janessa, Kelly, Heather, Lis and Natalie. And Steve.



Thanksgiving feast before.



Thanksgiving feast after. Yeah, we hardly made a dent.




Ahhhh the beach. I love you soooooooo much!



After spelling my name like this kept getting killed.



I went up a little further and just made my name like this.






We buried each other in the sand. Now I can say I've done it. And I never ahve to do it again!



Does this guy not look exactly like Captain Jack Sparrow? It's downright creepy cuz his mannerisms are identical too. Pretty cool.



EPCOT!



Picture of the morning we ate breakfast with the princesses. I really wish I had better photos of this morning. Alyssa and Laura, my friends from work, invited me to go with them. I'm sooooo glad I went! But soooo sad I have no group photos of all of us. The food was amazing though!

Sunburn

In the sun for four hours. It's raining the WHOLE ENTIRE TIME!

I lather my shoulders, face and chest in oodles of sunscreen and put just a little on arms and legs.

And guess what?

I got burned. I got burned good.

But not on my arms and legs where I hardly put anything.

On my shoulders. Where I glopped it on.

Four hours. Raining the WHOLE ENTIRE TIME.

Say it with me now. FAIL!

Owee!

Weather

On my IGoogle page I usually have a little block that tells me the weather. I used to just have my home here and Rexburg, ID on it. But then recently, for obvious reasons, I added Orlando, Florida.

It's supposed to rain there today. And tomorrow. And the day after. And yesterday. And every single day that I've had those little blocks on my IGoogle page! It has the little picture of rain. Every. Single. Day.

I guess I can take it off my page now and use the space.

I can predict the weather for Orlando every day from now on.