ONE. YEAR.

Well, it happened. Today officially marks one year since my hire date when I showed up in my fancy schmancy business casual and filed into an auditorium behind Toontown to learn all about what it means to be a Disneyland Cast Member. Which, incidentally, doesn't even begin to cover it.

My first time in Disneyland since I was 7, sharing it with two girls who I had no idea at the time just how important they would be in my life :)

My dorky self in my first pair of ears at Traditions!

Team Awesome going to build a playground!

Team Awesome graduating from the College Program *sniffle*

Team Also-Awesome-But-Different-Than-Team-Awesome-Because-Costuming

Pluto being super cute with my friend, Alex.

Quality time with some Incredible folks!

My favorite bug <3

My favorite kid <3

So much has changed in a year - my role, my apartment, my roommates (half of them at least), and ok, yeah, myself. I don't continually geek out about absolutely everything onstage and backstage, because I feel like I have a pretty good handle on things now. I don't get lost nearly as often (although it does still happen more than I'd like to admit). I don't freak out about the awesome plants as much as I did when I first got here. Things that I thought were the coolest thing ever when I first got here have now been reduced to second-nature and fallen into the ordinary. But, I notice so many more details and so many more little everyday things that make up the entire experience. Every time I go into the park I notice some tiny detail somewhere and go, "Huh. Someone took the time to think of this tiny thing, and it's really cool." 

So I guess there's that question - since I've seen behind the curtain, has it ruined the magic? I guess that in certain ways it has. I can get very frustrated with guests, I have bad days where I'm exhausted and feel terrible and the last thing I want to do is go to work in the blazing California hotness. Sometimes I don't get the hours I need and it's really stressful, and I wonder why I'm doing this crazy thing at all. But then I'll have those guests who I get to make a magical moment for. Sometimes it's something as small as getting an extra long hug from their favorite character, or just feeling the freedom to let loose and be silly, or sometimes it's watching the look on their face as they realize that it doesn't matter what kind of challenges they came in with because everyone can feel special at Disneyland. Magical moments are great because when you make one happen for a guest, they turn around and make that moment magical for you. I know it sounds incredibly cheesy, but I hope I never lose that feeling. 

And don't even get me started on the fireworks - those make me cry every freaking time, I think because I'm a cast member, because I work so hard every day to make that magic for people, and because I now have a history with Disney. 

In short, I think that the more you give Disney, the more it gives back to you. So Disney, thanks for a phenomenal year, and here's to hopefully many more to come!

A Continuation

Well hello there! Long time no see! My apologies - things have been a little crazy over here.

Before we go on, there are going to be some changes to the way I do this blog. As you know, the college program is over, but my journey at Disney could not be farther from over. However, due to the nature of my new position in the company, I can't really talk about the specifics of my job. So, this blog will now be devoted mostly to my non-work-related adventures out here in California.

Naturally, you're probably wondering what I've been up to the past couple months!

A few weeks ago, my roommate Marissa decided to take me on a coastal adventure around the San Pedro area where she used to live. Our first stop was the unbelievably picturesque Terranea resort. I'm the tiny figure on the left, headed to go climb some epic-looking rocks and investigate a flock of cormorants - like I do.

Seriously, this place was ridiculously gorgeous.

Did I say that beach was ridiculously gorgeous? I forgot to mention the chapel Marissa's sister got married in. Wayfarer's Chapel *__* Yes, that entire ceiling is glass.

After a tasty lunch (despite the power being out), we headed to Redondo Pier. Also gorgeous.

The desert rat, entranced by the sea. Excuse the abysmal posture...

So! Story time! This fellow came to be known as Barnaby. Marissa had to make a phone call for work, so I was left to my own devices for about 45 minutes. I started by hanging around Marissa and just enjoying the general ambiance of the pier, listening to the waves crash, watching seagulls and pelicans. Then, I heard a loud bark. I looked at Marissa and she shooed me off with a laugh to go find it. And there he was - Barnaby - just chilling under the boardwalk, waiting for fishermen to make a wrong move while reeling in their catch. And I just stood there and watched him for the entire 45 minutes Marissa was on the phone because I'm from the desert and I have a problem...

Sorry to say, that's about all the exciting adventuring I've done here in a while. A lot of my free time is spent in my apartment doing nothing particularly exciting, I'm afraid. 

However, I have been involved in this pretty neato thing at Disneyland called Flashback, which has been keeping me VERY busy! Basically, there are four teams from various areas around the resort that get together and put on a mini 20-minute musical to raise money for charity. I'm on the blue team. We rehearse Monday through Thursday evenings. Sometimes there are theme nights for rehearsals where you get to dress up a little bit (as long as you can still dance) and those are a lot of fun. 

One of the theme nights was Holiday night, and I had nothing to wear, so I did some Dia de los Muertos makeup, which actually turned out pretty rad if I do say so. *eyebrow waggle*

Headshot! Whee! Go Blue!

I think getting involved in Flashback has been good for me. The dancing is more hip-hop oriented, which definitely gets me out of my comfort zone! But, I do feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it a little bit, and maybe look less drowning-spider-monkey-esque than I usually do when trying to dance "cool." I had also been starting to feel pretty lonely and out-of-place since the college program ended and I transferred departments. I didn't really feel like I belonged anywhere and I was sort of in this weird limbo. But the blue team really adopted me, and although I'm not doing much in the show, aside from the big group numbers and a couple walk-ons, it's nice to feel like I'm part of something bigger and that I'm needed. I've also met some pretty great friends along the way :) 

That's all for now, but hopefully there shall be more news of more adventures soon. Be excellent to each other!

The End? Weeks 18, 19, and 20...

Oh wow, it has been SUPER DOOP long since I've posted on here...oops...

Let's see, where did I leave off? OH YEAH. THE END OF THE COLLEGE PROGRAM. I guess I just haven't really been emotionally prepared to talk about it yet or something.

So, I guess the last place I kinda left off was around Christmas. On Christmas Eve-Eve, all five of us roommates were miraculously home at the same time, so we exchanged our gifts then. It was such a perfectly lovely evening, and it was great to see everyone's personalities come out in their gift-giving. We did a secret Santa thing, but none of it was actually a secret by the end :P It was funny too because the way we ended up sitting, everyone just passed their gift one space to the right and it was a perfect circle!

I ended up working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Eve was nice though, since I got off around 8:30 and I had glorious green chile stew cooking in the crock pot all day. That was one tradition I was not going to let die! I also watched Beatrix Potter's "The Tailor of Gloucester" with my roommate - another tradition of mine :) Then, I called my parents and opened one of the packages they sent me, filled with workout shirts and chocolate. They know me well :D

Christmas Day, I got up at 4:30 IN THE FREAKING MORNING because I had to work at 6. It was nice getting off at 2pm and still having an 8-hour shift, but...morning... o___O *twitch* It was nice though. We had a potluck, and everybody in costuming was super happy and just did their best to make everyone feel the joy of the day. We got to spend time with our costuming family that day :) After that, I drove out to Yorba Linda and had a completely incredible dinner with some extended family! It was so lovely to see them all again - some of them I hadn't seen since I was 6 I think! But, after a little while, it was pretty apparent by our craziness that we're definitely family!



Christmas was day 2 of 9 straight days of working 8-hour shifts, and three days following Christmas were also crazy stupid early. Not quite as early, two 7am and one 8am, but still crazy stupid early for me. Luckily, after that were mostly noon-ish shifts, which I can totally handle. But I was pretty dead after those mornings.

In the middle of this craziness was New Year's Eve. I worked again, but got off early enough to go home and blog about the year and go up and hang with my roommate and her Photopass buds and watch the Disneyland fireworks from the window!

New Year's Day itself was rather unspectacular as I worked and did very little else that day. But hey, I was pensive and stuff. Whatever.

After that, I had survived my 9-day working spree and it was now time to PANIC AND PACK LIKE A MADWOMAN!!!!!!!!!! Because we had to be out of there by the very early (7:30. My fault.) morning of January 5th so they would have enough time to prep for the next round of CPs coming in the following week. WEIRD.

The sunrise on our last morning

So basically, I packed like a beast and obtained a super comfortable bed and moved it all into my apartment in 3 days! BAM!

Virtual tour time! Woo!

The living room!

My little corner of the world :)

My somewhat messy book shelf...

The dining room! Complete with bird tablecloth!

FISHIES!!!! Pudge (orange/white, belongs to Marissa) and Priscilla (all gold, MINE)

More living room plus artwork

However, on Sunday the 4th, I still had time to go do another audition...

And it went well...

Exceptionally well...

And I don't know how much I'm allowed to post on social media, but...uh...

Starting in February, I'm gonna be "friends with"...



So that's a thing.

Yeah. Lots of newness happening over here right now. New Year, new apartment, new roommate, new job - it's been a lot to process. It's all good things, but it's still an adjustment. The college program is over. Lots of the friends I made went home. I still haven't gone home and am not sure when I'm going to. When we first moved into our new place, all my roommates decided to go home for a few days, so there were a couple days where it was just me in a completely new place, (with no internet yet), completely alone. But it's changed now. They're all back and I've gone back to work and things have started going back to a normal rhythm again. It's different, but it's good. And things are happening for me. They're actually, really, truly happening. I'm out here and I'm chasing my dreams and discovering where my life is going to go! I guess part of me is almost scared to realize that because I don't want to jinx it, or I don't want to wake up and have it all vanish. But it's not going to. I'm here.

I guess I could say that one thing the college program really taught me is that you shouldn't take anything for granted, because it'll be gone before you know it. Take advantage of the time you have with people. Go out. See things. Do things. Because the opportunity won't always be there. Don't spend all your time by yourself because you're afraid of getting too attached. Say yes to things that scare you. Break out of your comfort zone. Make mistakes and move on from them. Never, ever be afraid to be completely and unapologetically yourself, because you never know who might need you to be just that. And, of course, cheesy as it is, keep the magic alive, always.