Wow!

This is gonna be a long post so I've split it into pictures and stories for easy tracking. :-)

On Tuesday night all 6 of my apartment mates and I went to Downtown Disney and watch Bride Wars then had dinner at Planet Hollywood. It was good times. My apartment buddies are all pretty cool. I don't have any major complaints about any of them. ;-) We all seem to be getting along pretty well. I have been really concious (more than I normally am) of trying to be a good witness to them. The books dad had the staff read before I left (Unchristian and Just a Walk Across the Room) have been replaying in my mind a lot. From left to right thier names are (top) Tracy, Olivia, Me and (bottom) Tiffany, April, Dariana (we just call he Dee). We've been having fun together. :-)

Wednesday morning we went through the first of our many days of training and at the end of it we were awarded our Cast Member IDs. So, that night I went to the Magic Kingdom. My first time in Walt Disney World! I thought the fireworks were at 7 so I got there about 6:30. When i found out that they were actually at 8 I went to ride the Pirate ride. :-) It was cool, I haven't seen it since they redid it to add Jack Sparrow and Davey Jones. It was pretty neat at the beginning of the ride they have some sort of mist that they project Davey Jones and a waterfall on. So it looks like you're going to get doused but then you just pass through Davey Jones's face. It's pretty cool. Then I watched the fireworks (which were stinking sweet) and rode the mono rail all the way around and came home. It was a pretty good day.

I know I've told you that my park is Disney's Hollywood Studios, but I found out my actual attraction today...Toy Story Midway Mania. Its currently the Park's newest attraction. When American Idol opens in April it will still be the park's newest ride. I haven't been on it yet, but they tell me it's like a giant 4D videogame, where you are the character as you ride through it. It keeps your score and they say that lots of guests will wait the hours to ride it again just to try and beat thier score. I'm really excited.

We toured the entire park today (It looks pretty cool with no one in it.) and I absolutely love it! It's chalked full of little movie things, plus really really BIG movie things. :-) Fun stuff like the Sci-Fi Dine-in theater. Each table at the restuarant is a car, faceing a movie screen. Some of the waiters use rollar skates and they do fun stuff along with the movies being shown. For instance during a horror flick from the 50s there is a shot where a woman screams at whatever the villian is that is coming after her. So all the waiters turn to the screen and scream with her whenever it plays, then go right on with thier conversations. Another is a diner where everying is "homestyle". "Mom" is the cook. "Aunt_____" and "Uncle_______" are your servers, and they do fun stuff like...if you put your elbows on the table you have to stand in the corner. Or, if you go to the bathroom and don't remember what color the soap is when you come out...you have to go back to wash your hands. Ha!

Nametags...apparently there is a lot of words on this tag. Other than "KAREN" and "OK STATE UNIV STILLWATER" and "Walt Disney World" and "Where Dreams Come True". It also says "I know everything about everything, please just ask me!" It becomes invisible the moment you touch it, so I can't see it anymore. ;-) We got our "Earning My Ears" badge today too. We have it all through our training as well as for one week after we've completed training. It's supposed to let other people know that we're new and might not know everything about everything right at first.

Some things I've learned at Disney, that I think apply to life:

1. Every guest (or you might just say everyone) has incredible value and deserves all of my attention and respect.

2. When all is said and done, there is no substitue for truth, integrity and ethical conduct." -Bob Iger (current CEO of the entire Walt Disney company)

3. Sucess come from a combination of Faith, Trust and a little bit of Pixie Dust. (Hmm, this sounds familiar except change those last to words. :-)