mebbradley's posterous

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One of my favorite county artists sings a song called “Don’t Blink” and the lyrics really are speaking to me as I near the end of my program. Kenny Chesney sings “So Don't blink, Naw, don't blink. Life Goes Faster Than You Think” and as my program is less than a month from completion, I don’t want to blink. I’ve wanted to do the college program and it has truly lived up to every expectation that I had for it. There is so much that I have gotten to do since I started my program and so much that I still want to do during my last month. I’ve gotten to make some amazing magical moments with guests. Surprising fact: I have the best time when I actually am at the park as a guest, and I just start talking to the guests who are sitting with me on the monorail, in line to meet a character, or just waiting for fireworks. I love talking to people, hearing about their day, and hearing about how much their little one is looking forward to “Wishes” and so much more. But that doesn’t mean I don’t like work. I absolutely love my job and the area that I work in. Are some days long, or boring, or just bad in general? Yes. They are but those days are far and few in the scheme of things. Since my program ends in just a month, I have a HUGE list of things that I want to do before it ends. Some of the things that I want to do is: 1. Visit Typhoon Lagoon 2. Visit Blizzard Beach 3. Visit Disney Quest 4. Visit Wide World of Sports [this won’t happen till my mom comes] 5. Do Characters in Flight 6. Behind the Seeds Tour! 7. Keys to the Kingdom Tour 8. Horseback riding [not a major want]. 9. Marathon day at Magic Kingdom! 10. See all attractions in Epcot 11. Take photos of the parks/resorts. 12. See all attractions in Studios 13. See all attractions in Animal Kingdom 14. Meet Rapunzel 15. 2011 Shirts? [not a major want]. 16. Everest 5K challenge 17. VoluntEAR at Give Kids the World. So what do you think? Any bets on if I will get it all done? I’m a little nervous that some of them won’t get done but I’m gonna do the best I can.

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Hello everyone! I know, I’ve been neglecting this blog a lot but hopefully from here on out I get better at actually writing posts and posting them! In my defense, our internet at my apartment honestly stinks and I’m not on it all that much at all as well as the fact that my phone died forced me to be a tiny bit disconnected with the real world. I have a list of things to share with everyone and some of these things include ESPN the Weekend, deployment, picking up shifts, regrets in my program, family visiting, going home for a weekend, and things that I’m looking forward to as well as things that I’ve done [but the last section will probably be a different post all together]. I’ll probably not manage to cover all of that in this post but I will very soon! ESPN the Weekend is an annual event held at Walt Disney World each year and is hosted by Dick’s Sporting Goods. This year, it was held March 3^rd to the 6^th at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and I was lucky enough to get to work it! One day at work in Tatooine Traders, a sign-up sheet appeared for anyone who had an interest in working the event. I signed up, figuring that since it was the weekend after my family left, there was no way that I would get to work it as I had been scheduled for 5 days off prior to the event. Lo and behold, when the schedule was posted two weeks before the event, I was scheduled for 4 shifts for ESPN the Weekend! I was pretty much ecstatic about it and looked forward to it so much. Thursday [March 3^rd] was my first shift [8-16:30] and basically we set up the merchandise tent the entire time and around 14:30, we got free time to go play in the game zone before the cast preview! How many people can say that they get to play sports at work? Yup. Gotta love Disney. The cast preview was that night from 16-18:00 and I got off right in the middle of it but I headed straight out to meet my boyfriend who was in the parks that day. The next three days were insanely crowded and busy but the atmosphere was pretty much amazing beyond belief. Overall, it was an awesome experience to get to experience and well-worth everything. ESPN the Weekend also provided me my only regret so far in my program, which was not running the Champion 5K race that was held on the 5^th. Next topic: Deployment! Now, I’m not talking about the “Air Force, See you in a year, write me a letter” type of deployment. Disney, since it is such a huge company with over 60,000 employees [and over 15,000 per year are college students!] has the right to “deploy” us to any resort, park or location within the Walt Disney World Resort. Deployment is kinda a win-lose situation in my book. It is a win situation for me because I love getting the experience of working in a different park and meeting new cast members but it’s a lose because I’m away from my home area and the cast there that I am friends with. So far, I’ve been through 2 deployments and will go through another for the week of March 20^th to March 26^th as well as one additional volunteer deployment [ESPN the Weekend]. Deployments can be as short as one day and as long as several weeks. There have been some deployments that have lasted as long as six weeks! The two deployments that I have been through have been for different lengths. My first deployment was for one day and it was within Hollywood Studios. I was deployed to Sunset Ranch, which is up on Sunset Boulevard near Tower of Terror/Theater of the Stars. My second deployment was for a week and it send me to Downtown Disney! I was deployed to World of Disney, Walt Disney World’s largest merchandise location. Deployments are always interesting and my next one will have me being sent to Epcot, Future World. I’m looking forward to the different interactions that I will get there as it is a completely different park than any of the others. Going right from Deployments, I can talk about picking up shifts! One of my biggest goals on the program is to work in every park in a merchandise shift as well as PAC [Parade Audience Control] Shift in the Magic Kingdom. Picking up shifts is typically easy, as there always seems to be shifts posted on The Hub [which is basically a huge website for Cast Members that helps us with everything and anything Disney]. So far, I’ve picked up shifts in my own park, Hollywood Studios as well as in the Magic Kingdom [and the Transportation and Ticket Center, which features a gift shop]. After my deployment next week in Epcot, I will have exactly one park left [Animal Kingdom] to work in! I also picked up a PAC Shift for Monday of this week. Work is pretty much an amazing experience here at Disney. It’s busy and detail-oriented sometimes but so worth it. Most of my weeks of work have been around 33 hours or so, and then I typically pick up a shift or two more for a little extra spending money. I really enjoy work down here a lot so I hope to go seasonal after my program ends in May. My family [and boyfriend] came to visit me for my 21^st birthday which was amazing. I was actually able to get every day that they were down in Orlando for off [except for the last one and then the day they left, which was because the last day they were here was originally supposed to be the day they left], which was super nice! They were there from February 25^th to March 4^th and we had a blast while they were here. It was so amazing to get to see my family’s reaction to the whole WDW-experience. While it was not the first trip for everyone, except for Chris, it had been a while for everyone so they really enjoyed getting to see everything. When my family left, it was definitely hard! But the fact that I knew that I would be seeing them in about a week made it a tiny bit easier! Even before I arrived in Orlando, I knew that I would be flying home on March 11^th for the weekend. Why? Because I had a hockey game to go to, of course! Chris [who is my boyfriend] had been selected [and was eligible] to play on the Dover Air Force Base’s Hockey Team for a game against McGuire Air Force Base. Now, this just wasn’t a game at a local rink…. Nope. It was held at the Wells Fargo Center on the Philadelphia Flyers ice! I flew in on the 11^th after getting like 45 minutes of sleep the night before and Chris picked me up from the airport. After stopping at Christiania Mall to look at a couple random things and grabbing some food, we headed to his house. That night, we spent time hanging out with his family [his mom and dad drove down from NY for the game] and cooked them dinner. Saturday, March 12^th was the hockey game! Chris and I rode with his mom and dad up to Philly early in the morning since Chris had to be there around 12:30 for the team. Most of my family actually came as well and they met us there. Their hockey game was a really cool experience and well-worth coming home for! While McGuire beat them [as usual, sadly], Dover played really well together and it was just a very fun game to experience. After the game we headed to Chickie and Pete’s in Philly and wow, they have very yummy Crab Fries. Later that night, we had tickets to the Flyers game even if we were in the nosebleed section. The flyers put up an awesome fight but seemed to run out of steam in the 3^rd period and allowed the Atlanta Thrashers to catch up and tie the game. The game would go into overtime and The Thrashers would win! No one expected that to happen but it was definitely a different ending! I honestly loved watching hockey in person; I’m not a huge fan of it on TV. I’m actually writing this entire post on the plane right back to Orlando. It was nice to go back to the shore [even if the furthest on the shore I got to was Dover]. Well, that’s about all that I have to say for this post. I’m going to do a post in a few minutes about things that I’ve done as well as things that I’m looking forward too but this post is quite long enough as it! It’s over 1500 words, practically a small novel. Thanks for reading everyone! I miss everyone and wish everyone a magical evening! J  

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Hi again everyone! So I've been working for Disney for a month now, wow! I honestly cannot say enough praise for this program, I really can't. It is an amazing experience and I love my job. I work in the backlands area at Disney's Hollywood Studios [when I'm not deployed; but that's a whole other blog post!] and this area includes 15 shops. Backlands includes the merchandise for the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, the Lights, Motor, and Action! Show, Backlot Tours, our American Idol Experience show, Muppets, as well as Tatooine Traders and Muppets. It also includes Writer's Stop and several other shops/carts including the studio's Christmas Shoppe. My first week that I arrived [January 10th-15th] was a blur of goodbyes, traditions, "On with the Show!" and the beginning of training. Disney is a guest-service genius and training centered on that for the first day. The second day of my training was Merchantainment at DU which taught me the register system and how to handle transactions. Merchantainment is a long course which at times gets very dull. I also had several "E-Learning" activites that I did during my first day of training as well as after my Merchantainment course. My third day of training was my register day! Woot. Actually, the register was a lot easier than I figured it would be and in my case, I got adjusted to it very fast. The 4th day was more "e-learning" as well as learning the outdoor stores. That was my last day of official "merchandise" training. Then we had training for Writer’s Stop, which is in our area of Hollywood Studios. Honestly, weeks go by so fast here. I’ve had some amazing experiences already in working and I love every minute of it. I’m going to write a blog post later about some of those experiences.

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Hi again everyone! For so long, I've been reading blogs and people say, "Oh. It's impossible to update your blog all that much because you are so busy. And when you do have time, you will either be too tired or want to go play in the parks." Well, it's true. It's hard down here to stay on-top of updating your blog down here just because of that. It honesty doesn't help that the Internet in my apartment is crazy and doesn't want to work half the time. Anyway, back to the update! The day I checked in (january 10th), we got bussed to Casting. Casting is the procedure where you do everything that you have to do to start work as a member of the Walt Disney Family! This included finding out where you were going to be working, fingerprinting, tax papers and payroll cards/deposit, getting your schedule for the next few days, taking an awesome photo-pass photo, and turning in loads more paperwork. Casting took me about 2 hours from the time I left vista to return, so make sure to wear comfy shoes, it's a long day of standing. After I got back to Vista to meet mom and aunt k, we headed over to the apartment. I'm living in Chatham and I honestly love it. My apartment has a few issues but slowly but surely we are getting those fixed! :) That afternoon, I had a housing meeting for like 3 hours. It was honestly slightly pointless but I guess it is stuff that we need to know. If you actually want to know what was said, message me. After the housing meeting, I spent time with my mom and aunt and we went to Downtown Disney. That was alot of fun! The next day we went shopping, moved into our apartment and the thing I'd least looked forward to since September was here. I had to say goodbye to my mommy. It went okay with minimal tears. :( So on Wednesday, I had traditions. Traditions is the class that everyone takes before starting work. In this class you learn Disney history, the basics, and get to generally have fun! You can win things and just have a great time overall! I won two figurines: a Minnie Mouse and a Pluto for answering questions correct. Also at traditions you get two very important things. The first thing is your ID Card, which is your pass into the parks and your discounts! The second, and to me just as important item, is your name tag. Now, at my traditions, a pretty important mouse popped in to deliver a present! That present was the name tags! When I got out of traditions, I went back to the apartment and got changed, ate some lunch, then decided to head out to the parks with some of the roommates! We headed to my park, Hollywood Studios! Yup, that's right. I'm working in The Studios in the Backlands area! We spent some time at the studios and then headed out to Epcot! It was a fun bonding time with Anna, Kandice, and Margo. We checked out where Kandice and myself would be working; rode tower of terror, backlot tours, aerosmith's rockn' roller coaster, and just wandered.

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Hi again, everyone! Did you know you are reading a blog post written by one of the newest members of the Walt Disney World Family? Yup! I’m officially a cast member now! But before I can share more information about that fun little tidbit, I have to go back in time to Sunday [because that’s the last day that I haven’t shared information about with you, my lovely readers!]. So….back to Sunday we shall go! Sunday [Jan. 9^th], we basically had a slow, relaxing day around Orlando. Sunday morning, we got up around 9:30 or so and headed out by around 10:15. We were in search of a farmer’s market! I had looked up where one was on the internet and there was one in Celebration. So after we found it [thanks to the GPS on my phone!], we explored it. It was one of the best farmer’s markets I have ever been to. We got some gluten-free cake, some flowers, and vegetables. The next thing that we did was to go find some random stores to do some shopping of stuff that we would need for our apartment. [I feel like this is just a personal monologue for no reason, so I’m sorry for this!].  When we got back to the timeshare, I felt like there was only one thing I could do since it was snowing/sleeting up at home. “What was that?”, you may ask? That was to go jump in the lazy river, of course! It was a balmy 85-degrees in the lazy river and so fun. That night we had planned to have dinner with one of our roommates and also with her mom/sister. That was one of the funniest dinners I have ever had with someone I just met 10 minutes before dinner! The roommate that came was Kaleigh, and she is from Nebraska. Kaleigh is working on Main Street in the Magic Kingdom as Merchandise as well.  After dinner had ended and we were just sitting around talking, we realized that the fireworks would be starting soon. Bonnet Creek is situated as such that you can see most of Epcot from the upper-level floors of the towers at the resort. So, we simply jumped on the “depressed” elevator [it would sound all sad and depressed as you went down to a lower floor!] and went up to the 15^th floor and watched Illuminations through the window in the center of the tower. The next morning was check-in! The day that I had been waiting for since like….I doesn’t know, September 10^th?!? Yup, pretty much since then.  The night before check-in [still on Sunday, for anyone having issues with my rambling writing] I went to bed around 11-ish because I ended up sleeping that night on the couch. January 10^th! The day was finally here, the day I’d practically been waiting for a very long time! My program would begin! So I was up at 5:45 so that I could get ready and we left the timeshare around 6:45! We pulled up to Vista Way [one of the four complexes that students can live in and the original complex as well as the main complex] at 7 and decided that rather then get out and wait in line right at that moment, I needed coffee. So we ran and got coffee and then came back! We hopped into line and Anna [one of our other roommates, she is from Georgia and works in Magic Kingdom at Lost and Found] came and found us. We talked and such for about 45 minutes before Kandice [who is from Texas and works in The Land as quick-service f&b] and Kaleigh joined us. Our last roommate made it a little later and we met up with her at our housing meeting later in the afternoon. They moved our line back to the clubhouse in the back of Vista Way at exactly 8:00 and began the process of check-in at the housing complex. The first thing we did was get our name-tags and then our program guide, a package authorization form, a housing contract and a contact form. We waited in another line and then we were taken in groups of 5 people to fill out that stack of paperwork at little tables in the clubhouse-area. After filling it out, we moved on to gain a sticker that told us what session for the housing meeting and casting that we went to. Next up was housing! Housing works rather strangely at Disney. The rent for your apartment is taken out of your check per week and varies per apartment complex as well as by size of apartment. I live in Chatham Square and will pay 85 dollars a week in rent. That covers, for background knowledge and understanding, my apartment, electricity, cable, internet, air/heating cost, water, transportation to and from work as well as transportation from such places as the Bank, Wal-Mart, Publix [a grocery store down here]. I live in a 3-bedroom apartment with 5 other girls. Each of us girls shares a bathroom and closet as well as our bedroom with our roommate [so I share the bathroom, closet and bedroom with Ashley] and we have a kitchen, dining room and living room for the apartment.  To choose your apartment, you go through housing selection. If you have “matched” online with your roommate, only one person in that pair must go through housing selection to make the choices for the apartment. Our apartment got a tiny bit messed up when we went through housing but it got all sorted out in a day or so. After housing paperwork was all turned in and we had gained our keys, we had our housing ID photo taken as well as the ID itself printed. The next place we went was to double check about the paperwork we would need at casting as well as a few other things. Then, it was off to the buses to be “bussed” to Casting!

**Sadly, I need to go to sleep since I was up at 5:30 this morning for Traditions and will be up at 5:45 tomorrow for my first day of work at the actual studios! So, I will post a  --PART TWO—tomorrow evening about Casting, our housing meeting, moving into my first apartment, traditions and my fun afternoon at the parks with some of the roommates! **

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Helllllooooo Orlando!! Yup. You read that correctly. We’re finally in Orlando! We arrived around 16:00 hours today [about 4 pm] and checked into our timeshare. But to start our jouney, we must travel back into time and go back to Thursday afternoon!

Thursday afternoon, Ashley arrived in Maryland at my house and after a yummy dinner [of my favorites: Fried Chicken, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, and Peas], I finished up some last minute packing and then the three of us started loading the car. Yikes. Hellooooo Stuff. We had shipped a lot of stuff down but yikes. We had a lot of stuff still.

Some Images of the Packing Process:

Overall, packing up the car went pretty well after we did some massive re-arranging a few times. My amazingly wonderful boyfriend helped endlessly to fit stuff in and strap the carrier down after we finished and I’m truly grateful for him. I’m going to miss him terribly in Disney. Next on the time-table was the yucky time to say goodbye to Chris for the next 5 months [well, the next 5 months of being in the same area, he is coming to visit in 50ish days hopefully!]. That was insanely hard. When I applied for the program, I knew I’d have to say bye to my family for 5 long months but I didn’t know I would have to say bye to some silly boy that I love. Anyway, it will be fine =] The next morning, we left Maryland! =] We drove out of the yard at 8:20 and to explain our journey for the next two days, we made a video….Enjoy! We also have a bunch of photos from the trip down. You can check them all out by clicking on our flicker [which is on the right of the screen].

=] Our Traveling Journey Video =]

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe9kb4vMeCU]

Tomorrow I will try to update again with more random thoughts, explanations of a project that we did on the way down, and just to share this wonderful adventure with you! =]

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Where did the time go?! I can’t believe that we leave on Friday. Packing is going insane but it’s all okay! I never realized just how hard packing for the college program would be. It’s really hard to determine exactly what I need for the whole 5 months. This week is a week of “lasts” for five months. Last night was my last hockey game for Chris until next fall as well as so much more. Today, I’m spending time with one of my best friends from freshman year then after she heads home, my mom and I are going to spend time together and work on packing. Tomorrow, I’ll hopefully be spending time with my friends and boyfriend but who knows. Thursday, Ashley will arrive down here and we will load the car. We leave on Friday early in the morning. I’ll update later tomorrow hopefully with how the packing is going! :)  

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I'm posting this today because around the world, both in combat and not, there are soliders that cannot be with their family or loved ones on Christmas. My boyfriend is one of them and I can't wait untill Sunday to see him after he gets off work. He works all weekend 7-7! Yuck, but at least he's at home here on base safe and sound. That's my Christmas Blessing... 

 

Merry Christmas to everyone! :)

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