Wednesday, Sept 28th: My week-long happy mood continued today! I've noticed that I have cycles where, for a few days, I am sooo grumpy and I just don't want to be here. However, then I'll get out of that slump and be really cheery and pleasant and realize how grateful I should be for all of the opportunities I've been given. A lot of the presenters are counting down to the end of our internship, but I'm trying to take advantage of the time I have left down here.
Thursday, Sept 29th: Today was a BTN day! When I was cleaning Jenn the goat's cage, I set my bucket of bleach water on the ground. I turned around for five seconds and she started drinking it! Luckily, I grabbed it pretty quickly. Unfortunately, I had left the door from her cage into Mocha the fallow deer's cage open a bit, and she ran into the other enclosure. She is such a little brat! After frantically trying to herd her back, I called Cait, and she came over with a fig newton and coerced her back into her cage pretty easily. After that eventful morning, I cleaned all of the flight cages (my favorite) and got to feed Jasper, one of our goats, a bottle. That night, Sonia and I met up at Epcot for the first day of the Food and Wine Festival! It's a two-month-long event where they have additional country pavilions in the World Showcase, they host special wine-tastings, and they have evening concerts. It's pretty much amazing.
Friday, Sept 30th: Sonia, her friend Ema, and I went to Earl of Sandwich (yum) and then Fantasia Gardens Mini-Golf. Later that afternoon, I went to the cast member stores near MK, and I bought a Cars sticker book for my nephew Aaron and some awesome Disney pins. That evening, I was feeling ambitious, so I applied to jobs/internships at the Texas State Aquarium and the Houston Zoo. Since then, I've applied to a ton of other positions, but I haven't heard back from many of them.
Saturday, Oct 1st: After work, the roomies and I went to Magic Kingdom for the 40th anniversary of its opening day of October 1st, 1971. They had had a special celebration that morning and they sold special pins and t-shirts (which were gone by 10am). IT WAS SO CROWDED. However, we still ended up getting on Splash Mountain, Haunted Mansion, and It's A Small World pretty quickly. We also saw the "Wishes" fireworks, which were disappointingly no different than any other night. Getting out of the park was a friggin nightmare! We literally could not move for at least 15 minutes. Some people were hopping the fences and walking through the flowers to get closer to the exit. It was complete madness. The cast members actually took us backstage to get out because it was so crowded. Five monorails and an hour later, we finally made it to the parking lot! I will never ever go to MK when it's that crowded again. At least I got a sweet vintage MK park map as a souvenir!
In light of the Kingdom's 40th anniversary, here are some fun facts about it:
-It cost $400,000,000 to build MK.
-Admission to the park was $3.50 in 1971. For $4.95, you could get into the park and also receive a 7-ride coupon book. This book gave you passes for certain attractions, each of which was categorized as an A, B, C, D, or E ride. Additional ride tickets were 50 cents.
-5 Disneylands can fit in the parking lot of MK.
-The Walt Disney World Resort (WDW) property is the size of San Francisco.
-7,500 acres were set aside as conservation areas on the WDW property.
-2.6 million Mickey ice cream bars are sold every year.
-2.5 million garment pieces exist in the WDW costuming department. Wow, I didn't realize Mickey had such a big wardrobe haha.
-4% of all amateur photography is estimated to be taken at WDW and Disneyland. HAHAHA.
-600 million guests have visited WDW since it opened.
Tuesday, Oct 4th: I talked to the CUTEST kid ever at the gibbons exhibit today. He was probably only 4 or 5 years old, but he asked some really good questions. "What do they eat? Do they swim? Where do they sleep? How does their fur change color? Why don't they fall?" I talked to him and his mother for almost a half hour. It was one of my favorite guest interactions because the kid was so fascinated with the gibbons and he just asked question after question. After work, we went to Chatham Square for a Japanese-themed meet-and-greet. We had california rolls, sushi, rice, chicken, and ribs. Unfortunately, Minnie, Chip, and Dale were all running late, and we got tired of waiting for them so we went home before we could meet them. It was ok, though, because the roomies and I had a fun bowling night planned! We played 3 games, and during the final one, we all did crazy tricks, like bowling with the wrong hand, bowling after spinning 3 times, or sitting down and pushing the ball down the lane. It was so much fun!
Tonight, one of the presenters posted a video of a guy who proposed to his girlfriend with a flashmob dance to Bruno Mars' "Marry You" in Downtown Disney. Check it out here. Guys, pay attention to this. THIS is how you propose to someone you love.
Wednesday, Oct 5th: During our pre-shift meeting, the woman who is basically in charge of the presenters and all guest experiences at DAK talked about her work that she has done with Disney in Africa. They go over there every year to do teaching seminars and programs for the educators. They create entire books of curriculum so that the teachers in Africa can create a good foundation in science for the children. It was all very fascinating, and it makes me want to volunteer in a foreign country. I love learning about other cultures and helping out the less-fortunate, so it would be amazing if I could work in South America or Africa for a year or two. At least I can dream about it.
Tonight, we had another team-builder! We watched "Newsies," a musical about the newsboys' strike in 1899. The only reason I watched it was because Christian Bale was in it, but the movie was surprisingly well-done!
When I got back from the movie, I learned about the sad passing of Steve Jobs. Although he was always associated with Apple, he had ties to Disney and Pixar, so he's near and dear to my heart. RIP, Steve. You changed the face of technology forever.
Thursday, Oct 6th: The best part of my day was when I took an injured armadillo for a walk at BTN! He was absolutely adorable (except for the fact that he smelled like pee). This was only the second live armadillo I'd ever seen! Unfortunately, he had been run over by a car, so his legs didn't work very well. Hopefully we can rehab him back to health!
Friday, Oct 7th: In the morning, Sonia, Melissa Hartley, and I went to costuming to buy our winter clothing. I'm still not convinced that it will ever go below 50 degrees here, but we'll see. Later, Sonia, and I went to Downtown Disney. I bought the park passes for my family's upcoming visit, ate lunch at Pollo Campanero (I highly recommend it), went to the pin trading store, and then did some grocery shopping. For dinner, Cici's Pizza was having a really cheap all-you-can-eat buffet, so of course we went there. By the time Sonia, Cassie, and I arrived, the other presenters were already eating. Somehow, they convinced the manager to let us cut to the front of the super long line so we could sit with them. I had 5 pieces of pizza (including some dessert slices), breadsticks, soup, a brownie, and a cinnamon roll for $2.12. EPIC WIN.
Saturday, Oct. 8th: In the morning, Julie and I got driven to CS for our one-on-one meetings with the Education Manager. My meeting went really well. She told me that I was doing great out in the parks, but I could improve by working on my confidence at animal exhibits. I knew I definitely needed to work on that because I don't feel nearly as comfortable there as I do at the KDCs. I ended the day closing the Tree of Life KDC with Megan, but at 3:45, we got a call from Core Team. She said, "Attention all education presenters, the KDC's will now be closed, so please return to the CCC." YES!!! We got to go home at 4:05 instead of 5:15!! Apparently, there were only 6,000 guests in the park that day, so it wasn't even worth it for us to be there. We were all SO excited to leave early.
Sunday, Oct. 9th: After a rainy day at work, Sonia and I went to All-Star Sports so we could confirm my family's reservations. Then, we went to Walgreens to buy hair dye. I dyed my hair a really dark brown color. It turned out really well, but since then, it has started to go lighter again. Damn you, Florida sun!
Tuesday, Oct. 11th: Today we had our zookeeping seminar!! I had been waiting for this for a long time. Our speakers were Michael, a rhino keeper from Pittsburgh (he used to intern at the Zoo!!), and Paul, a manager who LOVES birds. Whenever Paul mentioned that we would be visiting the rhino barn, everyone was excited. Then he said we would also visit the backstage aviary. I immediately squealed and my face lit up. Everyone just laughed at my uber excitement. They first did a short presentation on what it takes to be a keeper, and then we started our tour!! We split into two groups, and mine went with Michael to see the rhinos first. We also caught a glimpse of the cheetahs. They are such beautiful animals!! The rhinos, on the other hand, are disgustingly smelly. The stench combined with the heat started to really get to me, and I felt incredibly nauseous. Erin and Sonia made sure I was ok, and I started to feel a little better after we left the gross smell. I would've considered leaving at that point, but y'all know I wouldn't miss a chance to see some cool birds, so I stuck it out. Paul showed us all the cages with the injured/"retired" birds, in addition some endangered species. We even saw the Micronesian Kingfisher, which Disney has successfully bred several times! Then, Paul took us to the incubator rooms where they take care of the eggs and baby birds. That was the end of the tour, and I was feeling well enough to stay at work. However, when I opened up Camp with Melissa, I started to feel soooo sick again. It was awful! I made it until noon, when I realized that I couldn't make it through the rest of the day. Core Team drove me back to the CCC, and then Cassie picked me up and took me home. I slept for three hours, but my stomach still wasn't feeling right. I figure out that I had the stomach flu. It took me almost a week to get back to 100%. That night, my roommates and I had a game night for all of our Presenter/Seas interns. 13 people showed up, so it was definitely a success. We played some intense games of "Last Word" and "Cranium." It was good to just have a fun night with friends, because we hadn't done that in a while.
Wednesday, Oct. 12th: This morning, I had my interview for the Conservation Education alumni internships. It was a little intimidating because there were several managers there, but I'd say it went relatively well. When I got home from work, I had an email from the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species in New Orleans. They wanted to set up an interview for their crane department internship for winter 2011. Unfortunately, they wanted someone to start in late November. I was really disappointed that I had to turn them down, but hopefully I'll find something better for when January rolls around. Anyway, my day turned out better, because I picked up my parents who had just flown in that morning, and we had dinner at Olive Garden!!
Ok, that's enough for now. Next time, I'll post some pictures from Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party with my family, and talk about James Cameron and Stan Lee visiting DAK!
"Laughter is America's most important export."--Walt Disney
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