In between

I'm in between vacations right now. My first cruise was last week. I have about about one week in between before I go on my second cruise. So I'm still in vacation mode!

The first cruise was great! We were on the Disney Magic. It was my first time on that ship. The Magic is smaller than the other ships I have been on. This most noticeably becomes apparent at Castaway Cay. There are just fewer people on the island than I'm used to. Which is a good thing! I do prefer the larger ships though. The next cruise will be on the Disney Fantasy.

This week I've been mostly training at work. I need to be cleaning at home, but since I'll be gone for a week, I've decided to wait on that until I come home from the cruise. Today, though, I am tidying up a little. Going through some piles that have been sitting around my room for a while. Reading some old emails and such.

But mostly, I'm just trying to figure out what to do with my day today. It's my one day off this week. And I want to be social and go to the parks or just get out of the apartment. But most everybody I know is working today. And I don't want to go alone. I do have a few errands to run though. And I should probably pack for next week; I won't have too much time later on to do it.

I'll find something to do!

Sorry for the pointless post!

Revisiting me

It's been six months since my last post! Oops! A quick summary of what's happened since then. 

I just re-signed a lease with the same roommates I've been living with this past 12 months. We're staying where we are for another 12 months. None of us want to move, and none of us have any pressing issues with the others. So that's nice! I really did not feel like packing up all my stuff to move again!

I've been coordinating a lot at work, and training a lot. It's a rare day to see me in regular rotation. I am now trained to coordinate at Toy Story as well. So I've been there usually about once a week. I'm still not a status coordinator. But I did skill-code for that, meaning I went to our casting building and put my name on the list. Now it's just a waiting game to see if I get any takers. I did put my area down on the list so hopefully next time there is an open position, they will hire me! I feel like I've been doing really well. And many of the managers have approached me saying that they've heard really good things about me from my peers! So that's good!

In May, I am going on two cruises. It was only supposed to be one. But we had the time off for both and both are cheap! So we're going!

I just finished reading ALL of my blogs from March 2006-December 2010. It's made me want to write again. Not so much for you, but for me. First, I love writing and it gives me an outlet to vent as well as brag. But more so, I like looking back years later and reading what was going on. And see how much I changed.

Let me tell you, from 2006 to 2010, I changed A LOT! It's like different people are writing the posts! I hope to re-visit some of those old posts and write about them here! As I was reading them, there was a lot that I wanted to share about how I feel about it all now. I shared a little on FaceBook, but I did not want everybody's news feeds to explode. So I kept it low. 

So in other words, I hope to be writing more often! So check back!

A nice mix

Oops. I thought I had updated between now and the last time I actually did update. So I guess I have a lot to tell you. Since my last entry, I had hit an all time low. I felt like I wasn't moving anywhere and I had all but decided to go to casting and put in to transfer so I could change things up a bit. But I told myself that before I did that I would talk to some of the managers and see what they had to say, and if they had any advice. Literally the next day, I spoke to some of my managers and everything changed.

::spoiler alert::

I have now been "promoted" to relief coordinator in the Animation Courtyard. I honestly thought that I would get relief in Spectacle of Dancing Lights, which is where they send people to kind of see how they would fare as a coordinator. Instead, I skipped that step and was put right into one of our complexes. While Spectacle of Dancing Lights is fun, it's a temporary gig. The Animation Courtyard is a permanent gig. Since my last entry, I've trained at three more attractions: The Magic of Disney Animation, The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow, and One Man's Dream.

The Magic of Disney Animation is a whole building revolving around animation. We have a drawing class where guests can learn to draw some of their favorite Disney character. There are character meet and greets. And there is a short show about how animated characters come to be. This show is a dialogue between the cast member (aka me) and Mushu the dragon from the Disney movie Mulan.

The Legend of Captain Jack Sparrow is a short special effects projection show. Guests are invited in and enlist to be part of Captain Jack's crew! After going through a few tests to see if they are ready to be pirates, they find themselves thrown into the middle of a battle.

One Man's Dream is a museum of Walt Disney's life. It has artifacts and such from his life. As well as models of some of Walt's creations. There is also a short film detailing some of Walt's life.

Now that I'm trained at all the attractions in the Courtyard (The Voyage of the Little Mermaid and Disney, Jr. Live on Stage are also part of the Courtyard), I am now shadowing coordinators. I'm learning what I'll be doing when I am coordinating. I'm learning a lot and having a blast! I've had two shadows so far. I have three left. Then there are a couple other things (including one or two classes) that I need to complete. But then, I'll be able to coordinate in the Courtyard. Hopefully down the road, I'll be able to also learn how to coordinate at Toy Story. And it would be fun to coordinate Spectacle of Dancing Lights. But for now, I'm happy with this.

So now, here's the total:

I can work at six different attractions. I can train at Toy Story and at Disney Jr/Voyage of the Little Mermaid. And I can coordinate all of the Courtyard. That's a lot to be able to do! And it's a nice mix!

Two years later

Today's the day! Two years ago today, I was checking in to my college program. I was moving over 1000 miles away from home, with no idea if it would be permanently or just for a semester. There were many unknowns. For me, that's a big deal, but I decided to take the leap anyway. Who knew what would happen?!

"It's been crazy..."

Not only was my college program crazy but the past two years have been crazy as well. I never dreamed that I would still be here. "Crazy" has turned into normal day-to-day business. Disney, as of right now, is  my career. I'm excited to see where I will end up. I started my college program as a park greeter at Disney's Hollywood Studios. I enjoyed my program very much. The role could get monotonous, I will admit. Constantly helping people enter the park or waving goodbye as they exit. There was not much more variety than that. But the people, that's where it's at! The other college students I worked with, as well as the part- and full-time cast members, were such a great group! I miss them all so much! I made some very lasting friendships and am glad for being placed in that role. After my college program, I was selected for a professional internship. Here, I was coming in for a "normal" desk job, 8-5. I was answering phones and emails, helping program participants with any questions or issues they may have. I was sitting in on security and roommate meetings. I filled out paperwork for participants leaving the program early. It could not have been any more different than my first role. Again, I met so many wonderful people and learned so much about the company's inner workings. I loved every minute of it. When this internship ended, I was relieved and to have been offered a full-time Host position at Toy Story Midway Mania, back in Disney's Hollywood Studios. Here, I learned as much as I could, and continue learning every day. I have become a trainer, and can now impart my knowledge to the new toys as they come in. Again, it's a whole different ball game from my other two roles, but I love it just as much. And now, I'm also trained at Voyage of the Little Mermaid and Disney, Jr. Live on Stage. I can't believe it's been over a year as a Host. Time has flown by. It really has been "crazy."

"I felt lost for the first time on my trip." ... "But I got through it."

I can't say I'm entirely happy with where I am. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy where I am and what I'm doing. I was simply hoping that I would be a little further into the process by now. I guess I'm just impatient. To work up into any company, it takes time. And I know my time is coming. Sometimes though, I just get down a little bit. I feel like I'm not doing something right. I see other people starting their ascent up into the ranks and then I see myself still basically at entry level. But patience is a virtue, right? I will admit, sometimes I feel lost in general though. It starts with the fact that I have not moved up as far as I want. But then that gets me thinking about why I'm here in general. Was it really the right choice to move over 1000 miles away on a whim? What am I doing here? And why am I so far away from my family? But after a little while, I feel better. I've met so many people an done so many things that I would not have otherwise had the chance to do! I love that I've had this experience and am excited for the future.

"We got the complex we wanted."

Since being here in Florida, I've lived in several different places. During the college program, I lived with five other guys on the college program property. We lived in the newest of the complexes, which is the one we wanted. I loved it! The complex itself was quiet and, since it was new, was very nice. I loved living with my five roommates, and I loved being close to my other friends. If they weren't in the same complex, the other complexes were pretty close. It feels very much like college dorms in the community sense. When that program ended, I moved in with three different guys. We moved to an apartment complex down the road, in Kissimmee. The apartments were nice enough. I loved the location. But the living situation was not the best. I decided to move out after five months rather than endure the uncomfortableness for the entire year-long lease. At this point, I moved into a newer complex near the college program housing in Orlando. I loved these apartments. The location was not quite as good, but still very close to work. I moved in with two friends that I worked with during my professional internship. Here, I stayed the entire year-long lease. I won't lie, some of it was frustrating, on my end as well as theirs. But we got through. Up till now, except for my college program roommates, the other two situations were not the best for me. However, when the previous lease was over, I moved yet again. I moved back to the first complex in Kissimmee with the great location. This time, I moved with one guy and one girl, both of which I knew from Toy Story. It's been a great situation. We all get along and when we have issues, we can talk candidly to each other. I will admit, we don't really see each other at all. The girl now works at another location, with an opposite schedule of me. I saw here yesterday for the first time in weeks when she stopped by at my work. The guy I still work with, however we are now both trained at other, different locations so we don't see each other much during work. And after, we both have significant others and spend a lot of time with them. No big deal though! We make it work. And it seems to be working well at that!

"We did all of our working documents and such."

With everything that has happened, I have definitely become an "adult." With no longer being under my parents' roof as well as no longer being 18, I've had to do things for myself. Don't get me wrong, I did a lot of things for myself before. But since being in Florida, I've had to do a lot of "grown-up" things that I never had to do by myself before. I have life insurance now! I had to research and get my own auto insurance, as well as renters insurance. Since being full-time, I now have benefits with the company which include dental, vision, and health insurance. I had to research all of those and pick what was best for me. For the first time ever, I've had paid vacation time, which is exciting! Now that I'm graduated, I have had to start paying back my student loans. And up next on my list is looking for a new car. I'm still trying to decide if I want to buy a new car this fall, or next spring. But I'm currently researching cars and all that buying a car entails!

"But that brings you up to date on everything."

So what's next you may ask? Well here is a brief look at some things that I have in mind for the future.

I'm hoping to become a relief coordinator and then a status coordinator in my area. These are the people who supervise the attraction hosts and hostesses. Relief is a person who is trained as a coordinator, but still works as a host. Status is a person who works only as a coordinator. I think by the end of the year, I will be a relief coordinator At least, that is my goal. Future goals include getting into leadership/management. They also include possibly looking into casting, recruiting, or college program roles.

I'll be living where I am now until May 2014. After that, it's unclear what will happen. I will start figuring it out early next year. However, I am hoping that the next time I move, it might be a little more permanent, and not another apartment to rent.

I'm also looking into going back to school. Right now it's just an idea. I have not actually started looking into it. I don't know if it will be another bachelor's degree or if it will be a master's degree. And I don't know where. However, Disney has a pretty good education reimbursement plan so why not look into it, right?

One very important thing I have not really mentioned yet is Nick. Nick and I have been dating almost the entire time that I've been in Florida. I was not actively looking for anybody when Nick came into my life, but things just fell together and I wouldn't change any of it. Nick really is the one person who can keep me sane and keep me on track. I don't know what I'd do without him. I am excited for our future together. Maybe I convince him to come with me next time I head home!

Hopefully that brings everybody up to date one my life. It's probably one of the longest blogs I've written in quite a while. PS the quotes I've used were from my blog I posted two years ago about checking into the college program, just in case you were curious.

Excited, yet Discouraged

Fast forward two months, and I'm well on my way! I've had several trainees! And I'm much more comfortable training! I've had three sets of twins, as I call them. That is to say, I've had three weeks where I've been doubled up on trainees. When this happens, special attention must be paid. You may have two trainees that can keep up with each other. Or you may have two trainees where one does not catch on quite as quick as the other. So now, you want to balance between making sure the one is not bored, but the other is not lost. My twins have been pretty good, and seem to catch up with each other. One of the most difficult situations though is one particular set of twins. One had been a cast member for 5 or so years, while the other is a new hire. Luckily, the new hire caught on very fast. But it's difficult since the seasoned cast member has all the background information of the company, while the new hire was learning everything for the first time. It's interesting and can be a challenge! But I'm up for it!

At this point in time, Toy Story really has no new people coming. All of our open positions have been filled, and no more College Program people are coming in. So training has slowed down.

This week, I'm being cross-trained at Voyage of the Little Mermaid and Disney, Jr. Live on Stage! I've only trained one day so far, but I love it! I'm so excited to get a little break from Toy Story. Don't get me wrong, I love Toy Story, but it's just nice to have a change every once in a while! And cross-training will also give me more opportunities to pick up hours!

I'm hoping to cross-train some more and become even more marketable! It's exciting! But at the same time, I'm a little discouraged! I was hoping to become a relief coordinator soon. But as of yet, there is no news for that! There have been rumors of others though, which is why I'm discouraged! But I just need to keep my chin up and bide my time, right?! So hopefully soon that will happen! Until then, I'm going to enjoy my new location and keep working hard at the old location!

To live would be an awfully big adventure!

When it comes to work, I've been much less burnt out than the last time I posted. On the contrary though, I've been kind of getting "burnt out" when it comes to Florida. I'm missing home. My family, my friends, places, things. I'm missing everything about Illinois. But I keep telling myself that I'm here now. I'm not saying I'll be here always, but I'm here now. And I want to see this through. I miss a lot of things at home. Parties, weddings, anniversaries. I have cousins that I've never met. I have family members who have had babies and I never saw them pregnant. But this is really a once in a life time opportunity. When else in my life am I going to get the chance to move down to Florida and work for Disney? I'm here now, and we're going to see what happens. It's an adventure, and it's better to have an adventure when I'm young, and then settle down. So, even though I miss everything and everyone, I'm going to stick this out and enjoy my adventure.

To become a trainer there are two main things one must do before he is able to train by himself. First and most importantly, he must shadow a current trainer for an entire training process. Second, he must attend a four hour class called Train the Trainer. My shadows were weeks ago. I got to shadow one of my favorite Toys. I learned a lot and we had a bunch of fun doing it. Our trainee was very smart and such a great guy. Fast forward to now, and he's doing really well at Toy Story. I hope he sticks around, because I can see him becoming a trainer when the time is right!
Train the Trainer is a simple class. The first part of it is electronic. The second part just reinforces the first. After the class you get your trainer pin, which is Jiminy Cricket. Then you wear it on your costume, as a way to signify that you're a trainer.

Last week, I had my first trainee by myself. It was a bit nerve-wracking. But it was fun. Again, I had a good trainee. She got a little overwhelmed every once in a while, but she was super smart and now is on her own and seemingly doing well! Everything went smoothly, and I'm getting my bearings as to what to do when, and for how long, etc. I've started my second trainee this week. However he only has Fri/Sat/Sun availability, so I saw him Sunday, but I won't see him again till tomorrow. Sunday did not go so well. Not my trainee's fault. My trainee is super smart. Circumstances just did not work out well, mainly that we had 5 new people start on the same day so we were continually bumping into the other training groups. Now tomorrow we will have to review quite a bit and then try to get in all the new stuff I want to cover as well.

A normal training schedule is four days of training and one day to assess. The first day is a closing shift. The second, third, and fourth days are opening shifts. Opening starts at 7 am (when we open at 9 am), so the training groups come in at 6:30 am so they have a half an hour to walk through what's going to happen. We are required to train to of our opening positions (out of seven). But here's the problem coming up. Star Wars Weekends start tomorrow. We open at 8 am for the events, so opening starts an hour earlier. Except none of the trainers were scheduled an hour earlier. So for those of us it effects, we had to get our schedules changed. I am now coming in at 5:30 am several mornings! It's gonna be a little rough, but we'll get through it! I just hope my trainees are okay with us changing their schedules, and with coming in an hour earlier. Plus side, it means we get to leave an hour earlier!

Otherwise, everything is going well! I just recently moved. My lease at my old place was ending, so I've now moved to a new place. I moved in with two friends from Toy Story and will be here for the next year! I like my old apartments better, mainly because they are just newer/nicer. But I love the location here better. It's closer to work and/or easier to get to different places.

Movin' on up

Surprise Surprise, it's been a while since I posted. Sorry again!

Yesterday, my Toy-baby was born. I have been working in the Toybox for nine months. Which also means I've been full time for nine months. Lately, I've been getting super burnt out at work. It seems all I do is work. To have any resemblance of a decent paycheck, I have to put in 50 to 60 hours a week. But the more hours I put in, the more burnt out I get. If I cut back my hours back down to 40, I'll have no spare cash. So I push on through. This past week, I tried my hardest not to get burnt out and to have fun while working. And honestly, going in with that mentality, it helped me. Most of the days I was at work, I was content. I mean, I'm still not as happy as I may have been when I first started there, but I definitely feel better.

But hopefully it'll all change. I found out two exciting things this past week. First, the Toybox is bringing back a backstage tour of Toy Story Midway Mania. At the end of February, the manager in charge of the tour put up a sign up list if we would like to be a tour guide. After anybody interested had put their names down, the manager team would discuss the possibilities and select a few to become tour guides. I found out this week that I was selected to be one of the tour guides! There's no monetary advantage to being a tour guide, but I'm doing it just to mix things up. And I think it will be loads of fun. It's just an extra hour in the morning.

But even more exciting than that, I found out that I would be a trainer! A few weeks ago, the trainer interest list went up. The managers discussed the possibilities and selected five people to give their support to become trainers. On Thursday, I had a meeting with the Training team manager to seal the deal. And found out then and there that I would be moving on and will become a trainer for sure. In the next two months, I will go through the training required to become a trainer, including some E-learning, a class, and trainer shadows. The goal is to have us ready to train by the next CP arrival which is in May.

This is the moment I've been waiting for since I started at Toy Story nine months ago. This was my first major goal, and my first stepping stone into the upper ranks of Disney. The next stepping stone will be to become a Relief Coordinator. This means having the proficiencies of a coordinator, but not being statused in that role. I'm also still keeping my eye on Office and Technical jobs that might catch my eye. But for now, I'm excited for the training experiences to come!