Weeks 8 & 9

Ahhh!!! Sorry I'm falling behind, dear lovely people of the interwebs! However, if it makes you feel better, the past two weeks haven't been terribly eventful.

Some of the more exciting happenings happened two Wednesdays ago when my roomie and I decided to go to our very first Disney character lookalike audition! This one was only for people who are already cast members, so the line wasn't unbearably long. The first wave of the audition consisted of forming a few lines across a room, standing at your assigned number, and smiling and saying your name to the casting directors. Then, you stand in nervous, awkwardly-smiling-looking-happy-what-should-I-be-doing-with-my-face-right-now-oh-dear-lord-they're-looking-at-me-what-are-they-thinking-do-I-have-something-stuck-in-my-teeth-are-my-eyes-twitching-or-something-weird-I-can't-take-this-ahh-panic-panic for about 30 seconds while they decide your fate. Then, they call out a couple numbers from the whole line, and the ones who don't get called just go home. That was me and my roomie. But oh well! We just wanted to see what it was like, anyway. Officially my first cattle-call audition! Yay! Besides, I want to try and get into shows or parades anyway. I will definitely keep you posted on those :)

Pre-audition nervousness selfie

Later that evening, college program people had a special opportunity to go on a backstage tour of the Haunted Mansion, all decked out for the holidays in Nightmare Before Christmas stuff! Now, I've never really been a fan of the movie, but it did make the Haunted Mansion really cool. We got to walk all along the track and learn all kinds of stuff about the history of the ride and the inspiration behind what it is today. We got to walk down the endless hallway and feel the wallpaper, which is actually really velvety and lovely because that style was really in during the era the Haunted Mansion was designed after. We got to see the actual bullet holes in the wall and glass of the banquet hall where some psycho guest decided it was a good idea to shoot at the ghosts in there. We also heard some pretty spooky stories about the ghosts of previous cast members that haunt the current ones while they're working...

In other news, I have been working more, which is great. It's just not particularly interesting to write about, because, though generally pretty chill, my job is really just not that interesting :P I did get another 4 keys card though, which is nice :)

Class has also been going well. We did some work one week on emotional health, which was probably good for me, because I can tend to let my emotions run away with me and I need to learn to control them better. So, of course, thinking about all that made my emotions go sort of wonky because I am learning to deal with them and I have been getting better at it, but this exercise pointed out how far I still have to go. But that's okay. Part of being emotionally healthy is figuring out where I need to improve as well as appreciating what I have accomplished. So yeah, I'm on the right track, and I'm doing okay, and I have to remember that any kind of change takes time. 

Thinking about it, that's probably why my stomach has been angry with me lately. I know my emotions and brain chemistry are strangely connected with my gastrointestinal issues, so naturally, dredging up some of the reasons behind some of my emotional issues so I can figure them out and move past them is bound to do weird things to my stomach. Go figure. Anyway, both are doing better now than they have been the past few days. 

Aaaaaaaaaaaanyway, choir! Let's talk about choir! Yay! We had the soprano/alto sectional on Thursday, and I didn't find out until I got there (already running a little late) that it was not in the usual rehearsal hall, but one on the other side of the park and the trams were no longer running there. Lovely. So, I power-walked it backstage as far as I could, but then before I knew it, I had ended up in Tomorrowland and then somewhere behind the Matterhorn until I finally asked a very nice cast member how to get to the rehearsal halls by TDA, and she led me further through the park and I eventually wound my way to where I needed to be, and I was only 5 minutes late! Except I hate being late - even 1 minute late - but there were still people who walked in later than me so I got over it. As far as the actual rehearsal, I think we got some good work done. I just wish that we could focus more on dynamics and phrasing rather than still just going over parts. Also, the vowels need some work o_o but, I do think it's all starting to come together, and I know we're going to sound really cool for the actual performance, which I am totally excited for! Daaahhh! 

Ballet is also going way better! I can really feel my strength and flexibility coming back, and I've actually really started getting the hang of pirouettes again! I even did a few doubles last week! I think the key for me (aside from just generally not panicking and spazzing out) is the feeling of going down to go up - feeling centered and connected with the floor rather than just trying to pull everything up away from it. It also helps to keep my weight forward and engage my core. Just in case you were wondering :P 

Also, my roommates carved pumpkins! I was working while they did this though. And they became 

very moldy very quickly...

I made a playdoh humpack whale though! :P

Welp, that's about all I've got for ya. I should have more interesting things to write about this week, so stay tuned! Byyyyyye!

Week 7

Seven. Seven seven seven seven. Seven? Seven! That's seven sevens! Except now it's nine. Yeah. Seven isn't significant or anything, my brain just does silly things when it's low on human interaction, which I kinda felt like it was this week.

The week did start off with some absolutely lovely human interaction, as I had a couple fantastic food adventures of soup, prosciutto-wrapped asparagus, and paleo buckeyes with the best food adventuring buddy ever. Actually, come to think of it, it seems like Emily and my ~20 year friendship is essentially based on a combination of food adventures, mutual ongoing gastrointestinal distress, and goofy videos. And I'm pretty okay with that. I'm also unbelievably grateful that I now live only about 25 minutes away from her rather than 16 hours. Ohhhhhhh my goodness am I happy about that fact. Especially now that the homesickness and loneliness are starting to creep up a little bit, but more on that later.

Back to the human interaction part. So, on Tuesday, I had an 8-hour shift in Fantoon, or, the much smaller costume warehouse where only the Fantasyland, Toontown, and Costuming costumes are kept. And, compared to the other very busy costuming warehouse, it's reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally slow in there. I prettymuch sewed buttons on chef coats for 8 hours because there was absolutely nothing else to do. I was just really happy there were buttons to sew! It made the time go by considerably less painfully slowly. One nice thing about Fantoon though is that you get to listen to your own music. For someone who actively avoids pop music but is forced to listen to it consistently for 8-hour shifts in the other warehouse and now has an intense and burning loathing for every song on the top 40, this was an incredibly beautiful and sweet relief.

Most of Wednesday was spent in my apartment by myself, doing the things that I do in my apartment by myself - reading, violin-ing, plotting (for stories...just to make that clear...), writing, and internetting. Lately, the internetting has involved watching quite a bit of Breaking Bad, and staring at millions of pictures of hot air balloons on facebook, both of which have been making me really start to miss good ol' ABQ and its many splendid inhabitants. Especially because Fall is my favorite time of year, and apparently, Anaheim thinks Fall looks exactly like Summer, and there are no hot air balloons, roasting green chiles, or bright yellow quaking aspens in a place called the Santa Fe ski basin...

However! Anaheim does have Disneyland, which happens to have this neat thing called the "Dream Suite" - a super-exclusive, fancy, magical suite designed by Walt himself, which I had the privilege of touring with other CPs Wednesday afternoon. It was gorgeous, and there were all these little buttons called Walt's "goodnight kisses," which were essentially just little surprises that made the rooms come alive with music and sound. My favorite was the bathroom, oddly enough. There was this already gorgeous bathtub that lit up like the night sky and played peaceful music. I had to laugh at myself when I realized I was almost crying just by looking at a bathtub.




Stock photo from the interwebs, so not illegal! :D Anyway, this is the bathroom in all its magical, starry glory.


The view from the patio.

After the tour, a couple of my roomies and I wandered around the parks for a bit and had dinner there. We wanted to go have a bonfire on the beach, which I have never done and was super excited for, but then around 8:00 we realized the beach closes at 10:00, so we ended up not going. Instead, we came back to the apartment and played beer pong with water. It was the first time I had ever played beer pong, and, though I was completely sober, I was terrible at it. Not really surprising though, considering I'm terrible at anything that has to do with balls, projectiles, and sports in general :P

Thursday was class day, and the first class day where we were able to go into the parks. We didn't have very much time though, and we had a worksheet to fill out. Basically, we had to go talk to various cast members, ask them a question, and evaluate the cast-member-to-guest interaction through the lens of being a cast member yourself. Not terribly exciting, but informative. After that, I found myself in Disneyland all by myself, which was interesting. I went into Jolly Holiday and bought a raspberry-rose macaron (OH MY GOODNESS SO GOOD and totally worth the slight throat-swelling from the almond flour...hehe...) and sat out on the terrace and people-watched. It was quite lovely, but what made it even lovelier was this awesome jazz pianist that came and started playing right by where I was sitting. Already in a great mood, the pianist THEN starts playing Beauty and the Beast :) After he finished, I told him it was my favorite and that he totally made my morning, and he got the biggest grin on his face. I just love how there are so many little moments like that - how you never know how something so small can make someone's day, and how even just telling that person they made your day can turn around and make theirs.


The macaron. Look at its beauty! LOOK AT IT!!!

Thursday night I worked and nothing particularly exciting happened. Friday, nothing particularly exciting happened. Saturday morning, I worked and had to have a discussion with one of the managers because I had spaced and forgotten to clock one of my lunch ends a week earlier.  He was really nice about it and made sure to let me know that as long as it isn't a regular occurrence they're not going to hold it against me or anything and that clocking correctly is in place to make sure I get paid correctly and everything. It wasn't a huge deal. But I still felt really bad that I messed up and had to be called into the manager's office. I didn't cry though, which I feel is a big step for me! Geez that sounds pathetic...I really hate how easily I cry when I feel someone is even vaguely disappointed in me. But, as evidenced by Saturday, I'm getting better about it.

When I got back home, there were people setting up for an event in the plaza outside our building, and they had an Appalachian group playing for it. I got ridiculously excited about it, especially when they started playing songs I knew, like my favorite, "Greasy Coat." But soon, it made me feel kinda lonely. It made me remember that I don't know anyone here who knows "Greasy Coat" and can play it with me. I've been playing all my fiddle tunes a lot by myself here, partly because I forgot to pack any actual sheet music, but also because I just love playing it because fiddle music makes me happy. But what makes me even happier is playing fiddle music and jamming with other musicians.

I was starting to get a little sad just sitting there and listening to the people jamming it up outside my window, when I realized it was Saturday. I then remembered this thing I had heard of called Downtown Disney Swing (swing dancing) that happens every Saturday night, and decided to go, even if I was just going all by myself. It's a social dance, therefore, I'll just meet new people doing this fun thing that I used to love doing back in Albuquerque! It'll be great! What could possibly go wrong? Well, it ended up being more of a concert. The live band was quite good, and I was enjoying listening to them. Hardly anybody was dancing though. Slowly, more people started getting out on the floor, and they were pretty amazing swing dancers - like, holy cow. These people probably did competitions and stuff. Another thing I noticed about them was that they were all couples. Not just dancing partners - actual couple couples who only danced with one another. Nobody mingling on the outside, nobody asking strangers to dance - just couples happily dancing with each other, or happily watching on the side and giggling at their little children wandering out onto the dance floor. And then there was me, suddenly feeling quite alone.

So I went back home and ate cereal. But I'm feeling better now! Haha, but really, I also got to skype my brother and one of my really good friends, and that seriously made a world of difference. So, even though I haven't made a ton of friends here yet, I still have an absolutely fantastic support system back home, and the friends I do have here are all in this with me and I know I can count on them to make me smile when I'm feeling low :)

Week 6

Another week gone by! For some reason, this one seemed to go by quicker than the others. I assume it'll only seem more so from here on. Today however seems to be going by remarkably slowly since all my roommates are out and I have no laundry or errands to do (waaaat!!!) Anyway, perfect time to blog, I guess!

So, let's get started! First off, this happened on Monday:
I'm the one in the red hat slightly to the right of the blue "Try it!" sign.

Last Monday, I had the opportunity to help build a playground in 6 hours along with about 200 other people through the Ka-Boom! program and Disney VoluntEARS. This event was open for College Program participants and Disneyland executives and ambassadors only. The whole thing was pretty incredible.

When we got there, it was just this big hole in the ground with a few random-looking pieces of metal and plastic laying around, a bunch of concrete bags, and this giant pile of mulch. We got split up into teams. Some people were on concrete-mixing, some were on painting garden boxes and the sidewalk, some were building the various playground structures, and my group was on what came to be known affectionately as "Mulch Mountain."

Building a playground takes a LOT of work. For nearly 6 hours straight, I alternately shoveled mulch onto tarps or dragged those tarps over and dumped them into the hole in the ground that was slowly beginning to make sense as more playground structures were fixed into it. The whole process was absolutely exhausting, and I was in the sun prettymuch the whole time, but I had a blast. They actually had a pretty decent playlist going, including but not limited to Disney music, which, of course, we all sang along to. Just seeing everyone's energy and enthusiasm the entire day was kind of amazing. There was one lady in particular in our little group over on the north end of Mulch Mountain who just had this go-getter attitude and really helped keep our energy up by making it fun and making it into a challenge. I didn't find out until about halfway through it all that she was one of the top 4 candidates for the Disney Ambassadorship. She was just so awesome and down-to-earth that it didn't even really register at first. It just blew my mind that she and all these other top Disney people were right there, doing all the tough, tedious work along with a bunch of college students to build a safe place to play for the kids of La Habra, CA.

All I did was shovel mulch. That's it. But when we finally got to see it all come together, and the kids from the neighboring schools came out to thank us and cut the ribbon, it was just so cool to see how it all came together - how my tiny contribution helped make something so much bigger happen.

Plus, I got to leave a little bit more of a mark there than just a bunch of mulch:

We all got to put a handprint on the tree on the sidewalk. Mine's the one with the blue palm and black/white fingers.

I was completely exhausted, my arms felt like jell-o, and I was slipping in and out of consciousness on the bus ride home, but it was totally worth it and I would do it again in a heartbeat :)

I was actually really surprised at how relatively not-sore I was the next day. I mostly felt it in my back from lifting hefty shovel-fulls of mulch, but my arms were actually feeling pretty okay! I figured, if I could come out of that day feeling like I did, I could do anything. So, I went back to ballet class that night.

A couple weeks earlier, I nearly had a pirouette-induced panic attack because I felt like I was the worst dancer in the room and the teacher felt like I was wasting his time (not at all his actual thoughts, btw). Since my back injury a year ago, I a) have not been able to take class very regularly, and b) had a lot of issues with and setbacks in my technique, particularly with back-bends, anything a derriere, flexibility of my right leg, and holding myself in turns. Pirouettes have always been difficult for me for some reason, but they've only gotten worse since the injury. Take that, along with all the stress of moving to a new place, insecurity about being totally new at a job, and trepidation of joining a completely new, nationally-recognized ballet school where they know absolutely nothing about you, plus all my general social anxiety and perfectionism...yeeeeeeeeah...

I got through it, though. And I managed not to cry or hyperventilate, which I'm considering to be a success for that week. The class the day after Ka-Boom! went much, much better. I think it was partly because of what I'd accomplished the day before. I proved to myself that I'm stronger than I think I am. If I could shovel mulch for 6 hours, I could certainly handle a ballet class. I just had to tell myself to stop comparing myself to everybody else in the class and focus on improving my technique. So what if I was barely doing singles when the rest of them were doing doubles and triples? If my single is starting to look good, rather than me looking terrible and panicking, I'd call that a success.

Wednesday turned out to be loads of fun, as my roomies and I went Disneybounding. What's Disneybounding, you ask? Well, since adults aren't allowed to wear costumes inside the park, some people have found a way around that. Basically, you figure out a way to wear street clothes in a way that reflects your favorite Disney character. Want to dress up as Mickey? Find a black shirt, red shorts, and yellow shoes, throw on some mouse-themed jewelry and voila! Non-costume costume!

  

Due to what we all had in our closets, we ended up with two Annas and me, Belle (NOT Elsa!!!!!). Because of the color combo I went with, and the conspicuous amount of Annas surrounding me, most people assumed I was Elsa, despite my perfectly coiffed Belle-hair, and the fact that I was literally walking around the park reading my book nearly the entire time -_- Oh well. I had fun. (And I ended up reading about 100 pages that day, which was a nice bonus :P )


I even got to serenade some livestock! (Before they kicked me out of the petting zoo because you're apparently not supposed to sit on the totally sittable-looking barrels...)

I also got to flirt with Thor as Belle too! When we went up to get our autograph books signed, Thor looks deep into my soul with his beautiful blue eyes and says, "Oh my. You look lovely today." I replied a feeble thank-you, and then, as he was signing my book, my evil dorkbrain decided to say, "You know, your long, flowing locks and beastly muscular form remind me of someone I know, but I just can't place it!" It came out before I could do anything about it. Thor replied, "Really! I don't really know what to say...is he an honorable man, this 'friend' of yours?" I had to keep it going. "Ah! Yes! I remember now! He is very honorable - he saved me from wolves once!" "Ah," said Thor. "Well, it is indeed an honor to have reminded you of one so brave." And then it was time to pose for the picture. We wanted to do a warrior pose, so Thor held out his hammer and my roommates made muscle-y poses. I was still holding my autograph book, pen, and my other book. So, I held out my pen. Thor says, "Hah! A pen is no thing for a warrior!" to which I immediately reply, "THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE SWORD!!!!" Thor couldn't suppress a laugh at that, and someone from the rest of the line to meet him said, "Your English teacher would be proud!" Thor grinned and said, "Ah, but is it mightier than the hammer?" to which I replied, "I...haven't tested it out yet..."

Definitely my favorite character interaction thus far. Sadly, there was a malfunction getting the photopass picture at the time, so the Thor picture will have to wait :c

Thursday, we had class. The day was mostly devoted to figuring out our communication styles. I'm an Amiable, which basically means I ask a lot of questions and have a lot of feelings. No surprise there :P I also had choir, which is quite lovely and I'm really glad to be singing again. And I didn't lose my voice this week! Yay!

And work is going well! On Friday, about 10 minutes before I was supposed to clock out, the lady I was at the greeter counter with got called in to the manager's office. They presented her with a 4-Keys certificate with her name on it to put on the bulletin board, as well as a starbucks gift card. A 4-Keys card is basically a little slip of paper other cast members fill out when they see another cast member exemplifying one or more of the 4 Keys: safety, courtesy, show, and efficiency. Apparently, if you get a 4-Keys card for each of the 4 Keys, you get entered into a drawing to win prizes like starbucks. So yay! Go Deb! When she came out though, I was surprised to hear her say, "They want to see you next, Elise." Though I had done absolutely nothing wrong, I got really nervous. "Why would they want to see me? Am I not catching on fast enough? Did I make some kind of horrible mistake that I was unaware of? Why are there so many managers in there? Wait, why are they all smiling?" Somebody had written me a 4-Keys card for helping them bin dive about a week ago to help find somebody's name tag and a few dollars that they had dropped down the laundry chute by accident. It just felt awesome to get recognized for something little like that by my coworkers and managers, and it totally made my night :)

So, on the whole, I'd say this was a pretty great week! Love and miss all you guys back home! Enjoy the sweater weather and balloons!!!