If you're going to a tanning bed, check make sure the card that reads 'This Bed Has Been Sanitized for Your Safety' isn't underneath you the entire time.  Lest you wind up looking as I do now.



And it probably doesn't help to lay out in the sun for two extra hours, either.  Though I didn't even notice this until tonight.  

Hilarious.  HOW do I manage this crap? 

WHERE DO I GET MY NEW MAINGATE???



Small update....life is fun, but work as a whole has been quite dull without Turtle Talk.  I literally do nothing but wander around the Seas, either coloring at Kidcot, greeting people in the front, or wander around by the old theatre and crush children's dreams of talking to Crush.  I play with Nemo merchandise most of the day....sometimes we bowl or play Dory-football with guests.  

Thaaat's about it...

So, not only was I transferred to Turtle Talk, but I also finally got moved to Chatham.  

I guess I won't be throwing any LJ temper tantrums anytime soon.....  o.O

This past week and a half consisted of three very early mornings of training and packing my entire Orlando  existence into my car for the transition.   I've finally got all my crap unpacked and put up. 

Work side is looking alright.  I managed to do my spiel in front of 190+ people without choking or tripping over a kid.  Future World is (obviously) definately a  very, very different environment than Frontierland.   This place seems a bit more uptight when it comes to rules and relationships with your 'uppers'....as in I don't think I'll be hanging out with these coordinators/managers.  I'll also be working 8-10 hour days, whereas at Splash, my typical shifts were always about 6 hours and an ER almost everday.  I didn't realize how much I had it made there.  But even still, it was really time for a change.  

I'm kind of glad that I didn't get Character Attendent, since my friend (who was also my roommate for one week) says that all she really does is stand around.  I'd still love to be in Entertainment, though.  Ugh.  

Training went alright.  Like I said, I didn't choke.  Crush thankfully went easy on us when it came to the kids he picked out, since he was told it was our first day.  :)  Oh, and I got to go behind the scenes and see how everything was done.  He even let us watch a show backstage.  Really freakin' neat.   Crush is a really cool guy(s), dude. :)  

Living side is awesome.  I friggen love my new apartment.  It's incredibly huge....or at least compared to what I'm used too.  I still haven't gotten over the fact that I can actually move around inside the bathroom and that our closet is actually spacious.  Or that I can sit in the tub without worrying about the stains on the bottom being some sort of decade old STD.  The kitchen is sorta cute....it's a handicapp apartment (we have a disabled roommate), so all the counters are sort of pint-sized.  It makes for a nice bench.  

The other girls are all cool, from what I can tell.  My roommate-roommate is apparantly an OCD neat-freak...so, uh...yeah.  I'll do my best.  They are all extendees, except for the one who rooms with me.  I don't really remember her name, but everybody calls her 'Lake', so that works.  

Lalala.  Today...frollicked around the Magic Kingdom with my one-week roommate, Danielle.  Then went to eat Chinese.  Yay.  

Most of the Brazilians are leaving.  Weird....I could've sworn they just got here last week. 

Aaaand I'm out. 

PAC (parade control) tonight was so amazingly fun.  I felt like I was at 8-TRAX at PI the entire night.

It's the start of the Magic Kingdom New Years celebration thing, so before SpectroMagic tonight,  they had some sort of DJ (apparantly located in Tommorowland) broadcasting songs throughout the entire park.  So instead of the typical banjo/frontierland/killmeplz loop that you always hear thoughout the area, they were blasting stuff like '1999' by Prince.  They  (suprisingly) played a lot of that typical club rap/techno crap you always hear at Motions, but they did throw in a few good songs. My co-workers and I had a blast dancing like idiots.   Disney  clean-dancing, of course....which means we literaly did look like a bunch of idiots.   At one point they played the 'Cha Cha Slide' and me, Charlene, Laura, and Eric started doing it in the middle of the  Frontierland walkway.  The next thing I knew we had a HUGE group of guests join in.  They must have had cameras or something near us, because the DJ gave Frontierland a shoutout.  :)   

By the time the parade finally started I was sweating like a pig.  Definately one of the best parade shifst ever.  I would't mind getting scheduled again tommorow...since it'll be the New Years thing again and all.

After both parades, I had to go back into the mountain for half an hour.  I ended up getting Tower...which means I did absolutely nothing and got my bump out pretty early.  I ran over to the Thunder Crosswalk (the wooden bridge that goes over the Little Mississippi) and watched the New Years fireworks - 'Fantasy in the Sky' - which I've been pretty much dying to see.  It was a pretty good show...I got really excited watching them and probably looked like I was five, but hey, that's fine with me.  I'm going to try to catch them in front of the castle tommorow, though the chances are that actually are pretty much zilch, because stupid guests with their stupid hats and horns will be standing and walking everywhere all stupidly....so I'd never make it on time.  

Anywaay, came back, dropped Laura of, and now I'm here eating some Ravioli that Santa Clause bought me for Christmas.  No, seriously, he brought me groceries.  And I needed them badly, too.

I can't believe this is a lot of people's last week.  It hasn't really sunk in yet.  I'm trying to get Joe and Co.  together to Jellyrolls again before they all leave.  We'll see what happens.

Last one from graduation.  

At 6:00 p.m. tonight, I randomly decided that I wanted to go to the beach.  

So I did.  Joey (friend from work) came with me, and we drove to Cocoa Beach...on the Atlantic side, where I've never been.  We got there in less than 45 minutes.

Now I'm back and sitting at my apartment.  Sorta surreal. 

Another one from graduation..

Me, Mikey, Joe, Kat, Melissa, and Dean.  All Chatham folks except me. :)




WHAT AM I GONNA DO WHEN EVERYONE LEAVES?!

I'm gonna try and keep this short, since my entries tend to be long.  And boring.

Anyway.

Yesterday, after literally begging Scott (our coordinator) for an ER, I left work after about two hours.  Later that night was the Frontierland Attractions Cast Party thing, which turned out to be a lot better than I expected it to be.  Being that a whole bunch of us were for once gathered in the same place, we all became a bit camera whore-ish and took pictures of practically everything.  After that, we all headed out to PI.  ALL of us.  It was crazy...everytime I  would turn around in the clubs I would  bump into somebody I knew.  We completely owned the place that night,.  I'll post all of the pictures in another entry. 

Next day....graduation.  I met up with Joe and Co. and got my Mickey Graduation Ears, which are your basic Mickey Ears with a tassle stapled to the top.   I eventually want to have my name embroidered on the back and all that lame stuff.   I also got a little Grad-Mickey car antennae thing, but  unfortunately my car doesn't have an one, so I'll just find some place to stick it so it can sit there looking cute.   Oh, and I also got my little cardboard diploma. :)



The ceremony itself was felt a bit like a high school senior day or something.  Or a seven year olds birthday party.  Especially when you were walking around looking at a sea of Mickey hats.  But it was fun.




Me and Kat, a co-worker.


I forgot my camera, which sucked, but I'm slowly collecting pictures (like the one above) from everybody else who was there.  Joe was nice enough to take a picture of me with Grad-Mickey and Minnie, so I'll at least have that when he gets around to sending it to me.   That's really all I wanted, anyway.

So after we ate our burgers and whatever else they served, I went back over to Joe and Mike's apartment to chill for a bit.  Joe gave me one of the many little cardboard Christmas trees he had (for some reason) scatterd about his apartment,  so I made him and Mikey sign it so I could turn it into a reasonable keep-sake. ::)

I came back home maybe an hour afterwards, called in (FOR THE LAST TIME, I PROMISE), and fell asleep for about three hours.  

I don't want anyone to leeeeaaave. :(

I've been scheduled for Christmas Parade shifts like crazy.  And after seeing the parade about 6 times so far, I must still stand by my opinion that the Halloween parade is 400x better  in pretty much every aspect.  Doing PAC (Parade Actictivies) for the special events is always interesting though, because everyone's in this 'super special' mood or something.  And while I don't really care too much for the Christmas Parade, it's always been fun playing with the little kids before it starts. 

Random, non-sequitor  (PAC and non-PAC) stories from the last few days:

Guest Story #1:

-  Some guy came by Fastpass with his little daughter who turned out to be too short to ride.  He was sort of depressed and tried begging me, but I explained that even if I were to let them through, the other Cast Members would stop them from riding.  I felt really bad turning them away, and almosI considered tracking him down with a No-String-Attatched card for priority entrance onto another ride.  

That is, until he came back not even two minutes later insisting I remeasure his kid.....who was now wearing different shoes.  So I don't even think twice about calling him out on it, since he apparantly thought I was a dumbass.  Ugh. People.  


Guest Story #2:

-  I was at Unload ("Alright guys, hop on out to your left!  Alright guys, hop on in, here we go! WHY are you wiping the seat? GET YOUR FAT ASS IN THE LOG, BITCH!"), which is the position that  also runs intrusions should they happen.  Well, I heard Tower beeping Dispatch via the ride phone, so I pretty much knew what was coming.  

They told me there was an intrusion at the Briar Patch, which is near the very end.  So, I make my way there and look around.  All clear.  No guests drowing in the flume, no stupid teenagers humping the animatronics (it happens), nobody hopping out of their boat.  There were a couple of young guys yelling some stupid, non-sensical crap, but people usually yell out questions and stuff when the ride stops and they suddenly see us sprinting around....so I ignored it.  I couldn't find the ride phone, so I just walked back to station  since it wasn't too far away.  When I picked up the phone at Dispatch to let them know it was clear, I hear Paula (the person in tower) saying 'It's the guy in white shirt! He's in a white shirt! He's crossing the logs!'  I turned around to look (since they would be coming back into station any minute), and I see this guy practically balancing on top of the log.

I RAN as far towards him as I could, leaning over the gate SCREAMING at him to sit down.  

He looks me dead in the face, grins, and crosses another row. 

"SIT DOWN! SIT DOWN!"

He does it again.  Now he's trying to cross over to the next log in front of him.  By now, Dispatch had issued another Ride Stop.  I completely go off, pointing at him the totally non-Disney way. 

"YOU NEED SIT DOWN! DO YOU KNOW HOW DANGEROUS THAT IS? SIT DOWN RIGHT NOW! SIT DOWN!"  

So the asshole finally sits and I literally scream at him for a couple of more seconds just to blow off hot air.   I finally walked back to my position completely frazzled, shaking my head and trying not to curse.  I think a couple of guests applauded. 

When the guy finally stepped off the ride (right in front of me), I pulled him to the side and told him that if he ever did something like that again, I'd make sure he was kicked out of the park.  Of course I don't have the power to do so, but he didn't know that, right?  

And honestly, it's not so much that he was 'breaking the rules' that pissed me off.  I mean, come on,  I don't exactly run Disney rides for a power trip.  It was the fact that he looked me dead in the face and kept doing it after I told him to stop.  Not to mention that if something were to happen to him, it's OUR asses.  But after that incident, he could have fallen in the flume for all I care.  

Sometimes I hate people.


PAC 'Sort-Of Story' #1:

-  Yesterday I sat and played this fish-for-the-christmas-bulb game with a bunch of little kids for about 20 minutes.  There was this basket full of those unbreakable Christmas tree bulbs (we have them back at home too....they bounce when you drop them and it's like the most amazing thing ever), and every bulb had this big loop thing around it so the kids could 'catch' it with their candy cane  fishing poles.  It was actually sort of hard to do...some of the parents ended up taking turns and kept at it because it drove them nuts, haha.  I ended up helping a few of the littler kids...I would slip the hook through the loop and then tug, like a fish was biting it.  The look on the kids faces when they would catch something was priceless.  Then they got to fish through a nifty little basket full of cheap, mostly broken prizes.  


PAC Story #2:

- A large majority of the prizes were these stupid little  plastic christmas dabloon things.  My co-worker Tia and I were trying to figure out why anyone would want such pieces of crap.  I suggested we tell the kids that they were 'Magical Christmas Wishing Coins', so we both ended up doing that.  Each time I gave one out, I ended up adding more the story.  I think my final version was that Santa Clause's elves made the coins, and then he asked Tinkerbell to sprinkle pixie dust on them to make them magical.  I told the kids that they were supposed to hold them between both hands, close their eyes, and make a wish.  Lame, I know. 

But the kids absolutely loved it.   The parents did too...a lot of them went on about how they were going to stick the 'magic coins' in their scrapbooks. 

I was going off on the spiel to a little girl before the parade started, and when I finished the story I gave her some Mickey stickers to go along with the coin.  When I got up to leave,  this man motions me aside and asks if I could go give one to his son.  At first I thought he meant the Mickey stickers,  but he was like, "Oh no, the wishing coins!  Could you please go give one to my five year old son?  It's his birthday."  He was in line for a churro, so he pointed me to where his family was sitting.  I ended up  telling the 'story' to him and his 1 1/2 year old sister, who of course didn't really understand what I was saying and just kept trying to stick the coin in her mouth...haha.  Before I left, the dad caught my eye and mouthed 'Thank you!'....I honestly think it made him happier than it did his kid.

I thought that was kind of cool.   I'm sure he didn't really care if his kid got a 5 cent plastic coin....what he really wanted was for me to make his son happy by telling him my little made up story. 

As much as I want to stab myself in the eye for saying this, Cast Members do make magic. :)