Week 4

Well, I've been here about a month now, and overall, it's going pretty darn well. As far as my job goes, I'm starting to feel a little bit more like I know what I'm doing...until somebody asks me what pair of pants they're supposed to wear and where those pants might happen to be and I just look at the nearest costuming cast member with a look of sheer panic on my face, but hey! One step at a time, right?

So, on Monday, I got called in for a "special project." I was like, "Oh! Special project, huh? Sounds pretty cool, and I need the hours, so what the hey! Let's do this!" Ah, sweet naivete. Essentially, we had to clear out a storage room by hauling boxes and boxes of overstocked accessories, transfer them from 2nd floor to 1st in the computer system, go through the ones already on the floor and send the ratty-looking ones to destroy, and stuffing the rest of the overstock into the tiny bins with the rest of them. Now, this doesn't sound too bad, but imagine doing it for 8 hours straight, and then feeling like you barely made a dent in the storage room. *sigh* Oh well. It's over now, and I'm sure we did help.

Working back stage at Disneyland is interesting. I hear my roommates and other CPs talking about making these wonderful, magical moments for little kids and families. It's wonderful, and I love hearing their stories, but at the same time, it makes me feel a little left out. Am I missing out on the magic because I'm not interacting with little kids and park guests all day? Maybe. But at the same time, my job has its own kind of magic to it in a way. Yeah, it can certainly get monotonous, but it does allow me to have time alone in my head or time to get to know my co-workers. Yes, people sometimes get angry and frustrated with me because their account is frozen or I don't know how to do something on the computer system, but people have also been extremely grateful to me for helping them find something, or even just giving them a smile and telling them "Stay strong, brother! Once more unto the breach!" as they're heading out into the heat.

This past Saturday, I was having a particularly difficult day. I didn't really know what to do with myself, and the entire morning I was on the verge of crying. I was really nervous to go into work, because I really didn't want to mess something up because I couldn't focus. I got there a little early, so I sat in a sunny little corner for a bit. I just tried to calm myself down and breathe really slowly, remembering that although the night had been difficult, things were looking much better this morning. I resolved that I was going to try my hardest to make somebody's day better and just be as helpful as I could instead of focusing on my own worries. There was absolutely nothing I could do about them anyway, so I wanted to focus on what I could do for somebody else. It ended up being a wonderful day.

So, when I'm feeling bummed out that I don't get to directly bring that smile to some kid's face, I just have to remember that I can bring a smile to the cast member's face who might, in turn, transfer that smile to that kid. I do have a part in all of this, and even the monotony itself can help pull me out of the stress of my life outside of work.

Weeks 2 & 3

Hello, people of the interwebs! I'm falling a little bit behind on the blogging front, but I hope you'll forgive me.

So! Today, I've officially been here in this apartment for 3 weeks! Yay! It really feels like we've all been here a lot longer, but at the same time, I know the next ~4 months are going to go by crazy fast. These past couple weeks have prettymuch consisted of a massive and intimidating learning curve, and sitting around my apartment trying to come up with things to do (which...really should have been blogging and writing more in general...oh well...) because I haven't really started getting a whole lot of hours yet :/

Anyway, as to the learning curve, we started training the start of the second week we were here, which also happened to be my 23rd birthday! It was long and tiring, but we got to do a tour of Disneyland to look at all the costumes in action, and at the end of it we got to watch the fireworks show. I think the training days felt the longest because we were always walking around and attempting to absorb a flood of information. There were 3 days of training in all, ending with the written assessment and practical assessment - both of which I was way more nervous than I should have been, because they ended up not lasting very long and the person "grading" me was really encouraging.

I'm working in Cast Costuming. Now, Disney has a lot of lingo associated with its employees, starting with the word, "employees." They are not "employees," but are instead referred to as "cast members," and they wear "costumes" rather than "uniforms." So when I say, "I'm working in Cast Costuming," what I really mean is "I'm working in a gigantic warehouse called H-5 where everybody from both theme parks - the waiters, food prep, parking attendants, gift shops, ride operators, security and beyond - find their uniforms and then drops them off to be laundered and repaired and stuff." So, yeah. Just take a second to wrap your mind around how big that warehouse might be...and how many freaking pairs of nearly identical pants there are to keep track of. Essentially, think the giant door room in Monsters Inc., but with pants instead. Aaaaaaaaaand that's where I work, and now have to learn basically where everything lives in there o________o

Now, it's not quite as scary as it sounds. We do have a super nifty computer system nicknamed Wall-e that keeps track of what pieces comprise each costume and what aisle each piece can be found in. Plus, everyone who's been working in there for a while generally knows where everything goes, and they're all SUPER nice and patient with my little newbie self, and are always willing to answer the millions of questions I have :) But still, holy cow that's a lot of pants...

The job doesn't just entail memorizing pants locations, which is good. A lot of it is quality control, making sure things with rips, stains, missing buttons, etc. don't get put back on the rack until they're repaired, and sorting the clothes into the correct laundry bin. There's also a lot of standing and guiding people through the checkout process, which is totally magical. You walk through this portal with big sensor thingies, and all the costume pieces you're checking out blip up onto a little screen. You walk through, and the computer knows what you're wearing! It's the future!!! :O

Overall, it's pretty cool! One thing I enjoy is that there's a lot of basically alone time which makes my introverted side happy, but you also get to see and interact with a ton of people every day and get to help them out and make them feel a little less overwhelmed by the massive warehouse. Plus, my co-workers (at least the ones I've met so far) seem like a pretty goofy and generally fun and down-to-earth bunch.

So yeah! I'm looking forward to just getting out there more and actually being able to answer people's questions when they come up to me :P

Other than working, I haven't really done much. I've read a few Series of Unfortunate Events books, watched some (by "some" I mean "a lot of") Netflix, cleaned my apartment for apartment inspections which started today (the tub was way nasty, but it's better now), rode Space Mountain with the lights ON, taken a couple classes at Anaheim Ballet (WOOOOO!!!!!), gone to the beach a couple times, discovered I can actually eat In 'n Out fries (WOOOOO!!!!!), went antiquing and had boba, and had my friend transform me into a goth for a photoshoot for her new jewelry line. Mega rad!

You know, just chillin' with our bosses.

THE BEAST'S LIBRARY *dies*

I...don't know...

Hey! Hey guys! Look! It's King Triton! :P

I rode a whale on the carousel. So majestic.

DA BEACH!

Sandy feeties.

Cheese.

Our sandcastle: a.k.a. Charlie, Lord of Thunder and Wave, guardian of the kingdom of Disnerdia under the rule of princess Shelley (the tiny shell on Charlie's head), and defender against such evils as Lord Flappy the Seagull and his evil minion, Sir Slithers the Snake. We really thought this one out...

Sir Slithers the Snake

Boba Tea!

Still not sure how I feel about bobas...

Aaaaaand that's all the pictures I have right now because I'm terrible about taking pictures. I'll have a picture of my uniform if I ever think about it, and will be uploading an apartment tour video once it decides to upload...

Toodles!

Week 1

Wow wow wowie wow. I can't believe I've been here a little over a week! In ways, it feels like much longer than that - probably because this week has been absolutely packed with new people, places, and information. I almost don't know where to start, so much has happened! Although, I suppose the beginning is generally a good place to begin, so we'll go from there...

This is where I live! Yay!

Check-In Day

I arrived about an hour before I really had to because I was anticipating this day to be very long and drawn-out, mostly standing in a line and stressing about whether I had all my paperwork right or not. I was actually able to go sit in Starbucks for about an hour, and then stand in the first check-in line in front of the building for about 10 minutes. The first thing that struck me was how friendly everyone was during the check-in process. I'm used to logistics-type people being mean, scary, joy-sucking paperwork machines who look at you like you're a huge imposition on their time simply by breathing near them. Not so at Disney. They had people come out into the line and chat with every little nervous person in line and give them a smile and a name tag. Seriously, every person (and there were a lot of them) who took every little piece of paperwork was really nice and patient, pointing me where to go next and what to make sure to have ready when I got there. It was all so smooth and made me feel loads better, and the whole thing was done within about 30 minutes!

After that, it was time for the very long process of schlepping all my stuff up from my car to the fourth floor of the building. I had already made about 3 trips up the stairs with heavy loads before I realized there were freight elevators and dollies you could use...But! Once I did, it made hauling everything a whole lot easier :P At first, the hauling process was a little awkward - you show up in this room carrying lots of heavy things, put them down in a pile in front of your new roommates and their family/friends helping them move in, and you're just like, "Hey! Here's my stuff, person-I'm-going-to-be-living-with-for-the-next-five-months-but-have-never-met-in-person! I'm going right back down to get more stuff! And more! And MORE!" And then you all have to stake your claims to shelves and drawers and figure out where the heck five people's stuff is going to live in your 2-bedroom apartment. Luckily, I have really, really awesome roommates and we have things pretty well figured out now.

Also on check-in day was a little welcome/apartment orientation rules-y kind of thing. After that was more settling in, and then my roommates and I (minus one, who was spending the evening with her family and fiancee) went to Downtown Disney for dinner and roomie bonding! Yay! 

Orientation

There were basically 4 days of orientation. The first day was very basic, welcome-to-Disney type stuff, then more settling in the rest of that day. The next day was called Traditions. This was a rather long day of learning all about Disney history and heritage, touring the park and backstage, and eventually getting our beautiful name tags and ID cards - delivered by Mickey Mouse himself, which made me ridiculously happy and oddly emotional. 

 

My first pair of ears!!! (Also prettymuch the only photo we were allowed to take backstage)

My gloriously beautiful and magical name tag :D

The following day, we had Our California Story, which is basically like Traditions, but for Disney's California Adventure park (DCA). Now, since it is very similar to Traditions, I really should have guessed that there would be a lot of walking (actually, there was even more walking than the day before), but I was dumb, and decided to wear heels that day. Not wedges, not thick heels that support your weight evenly - spike heels. My feet were not thrilled with me that day. However, in spite of the pain, the tour was pretty amazing since I'd never been to California Adventure before, and it was great to get all the history and inside knowledge that you probably wouldn't get if you were just visiting the park as a guest.

That night, even though my feet were almost completely dead, two of my roomies and I went to the parks, and it was utterly fantastic even though we didn't really do that much because we were all really tired. The first ride we went on was Soarin' Over California in DCA. If you're ever in that park, go on that ride. It was incredible. The cinematography was gorgeous, the music was exciting, and you get to smell pine and orange trees. On this ride, it really hit me that all this was really happening - "Dude. I live here. California. I work at Disneyland. OMG GUYS I WORK AT DISNEYLAND AHHHHH!!!!" I seriously had to try really hard to keep it together and not just start blubbering like an idiot. Also, side note, when they showed the part with hot air balloons, I recognized a few of them from Fiesta :P Yay, New Mexico! We also went on the Little Mermaid ride and ate very tasty food at Flo's V8 Diner in Cars Land, and the chef came out and talked to me personally about my food options! Super courtesy points! After that, we hung out in Disneyland, which was only the second time in my life I'd ever been there, the first time being when I was 7. It was mega rad.

DCA Gift Shop selfie with ears that now have my name embroidered on the back ^_^

Paradise Pier

DISNEYLAND!!!

My roommate and I really love ducks. Like, a lot. She told Donald that he was her favorite. Donald freaked out - literally fell to the ground. Unfortunately, my camera is stupid and was too slow to capture the ground moment. But trust me, it was fantastic.

"So these are summer weekend crowds..."

Haunted Mansion! Which I had never been on before because I was too scared as a 7-year-old. It was neat, but I think my favorite part was the wrought ironwork on the outside of the house. It was so pretty!!! Also, the puns on the headstones in the pet graveyard were pretty great.

The next day was Welcome to Operations. This day was basically a lot of sitting and watching presentations. Lots and lots of stuff about safety, including more scenario-specific safety, and a whole section on lifting and moving things without hurting yourself, complete with fun little interactive demo with Andy the Trainer! :P After lunch was Entertainment-specific. I'm Cast Costuming, so that's under the umbrella of Entertainment, along with Photopass and all the characters and parade performers. We got to do a really reeeeeeeeeally cool backstage tour for this one, which got me crazy stoked to start working in costuming, but mostly made gave me a giant, burning longing to be in the parades...so, we'll see what happens... :D

After that, I had two days off, in which I did a lot of errands, and won some groceries that I can't eat in grocery bingo at our building! I got to go to the park with all my roomies on Tuesday night, and they surprised me with a birthday button, which made me extremely happy, and we watched the fireworks that night, which was spectacularly magical. 

So, that's basically what happened the first week! Yay! I'll be posting soon about my training and first few days on the job, but for now, just know I love you all, miss all my New Mexico and non-California friends like crazy, and wish you all a very magical day!