"Hot Town, Summer in the City"

Well, it's officially summer, and almost Fourth of July. Summer has to be my least favorite times. It's so hot, so busy, so hot. Did I mention it's really hot? So far I seem to be keeping up with my once a month posts, which I've decided is both good and bad. Good, because those of you that actually read this don't have to suffer through such long posts anymore, bad because I struggle a bit more with figuring out what to write. Give me a minute. Give me a minute. Okay! I think I have an idea.

June has been quite a busy month, and July is looking to be the same. I don't remember how the month started, just know that it was both long and fast at the same time. Someone please explain that one to me? Nevermind, I forgot nothing ever makes sense to me :P Anyway..... where was I?

Oh yeah! I WAS in Anaheim, but that's the middle of the month. A few days just before, I decided to do something insane: I signed my death wish, aka signed up for a half marathon. For those of you that don't know, I'm NOT a runner. I've never been a runner. I've always hated running. I tried out running once. It made me sick. Literally. I finished the race dead last by at least a lap and nearly threw up. Since then, I haven't done much. However, when they announced this half marathon at the beginning of June, I couldn't resist. It's a Star Wars Half Marathon! The first Star Wars Half Marathon here in Disneyland. I'm sorry, but Star Wars, I had to. Guess that means I only have 5 1/2 months left to live, better make it worth while ;)

In all seriousness though, I'm working on training as hard as I can. I'm honestly nervous because of my history with running. I overheat really easily, not just when running, but even when just standing around. When I overheat, I become extremely nauseous. I also get terrible side stitches really easily. I'm trying to take things slow and see if that makes any difference. I just finished week 2 of training. The "program" I'm using calls for 2 days of half hour runs and one longer run.

The first week went really well. At the beginning of the week, I started with running for about 30 seconds, then walking about a minute. I say about because I had no way of timing these, so it was what I thought was close to accurate. The long run was for 3 miles, and I decided I'd run a song, walk a song. Week 1 finished successfully. Week 2 not so much. The first day, I had no problem with running half a mile, walking a quarter of a mile, but the second day was a total failure. I had a side stitch after running just 5 steps. I spent the entire half hour walking. I think I managed to do 2 miles at least, so at least I'm still within the minimum finishing time of 16 minutes per mile. Monday's run was more successful. 4 miles, managed to do the run half a mile, walk a quarter mile the entire distance. Not sure how long it took me to do though, I should time it next time.

Also in June, I moved! Good news: No longer in Anaheim. No longer in a sweltering hot apartment. No longer have extremely loud neighbors who play movies at max volume at 2 in the morning. No longer have to smell someone below me smoking pot. Bad news: No longer live 2 miles away from the park. No longer able to wake up just an hour before work and still make it on time. Despite being further away, I really like this new place, with the exception of the one cockroach I found in my bathroom over the weekend. Haven't seen any since thankfully (knock on wood). Sadly, because of the move, it's been over a month since I've done any real cooking. Fortunately, I finally settled in enough to start that back up a couple days ago. As of this posting, I've been able to make scones, a tuna casserole, and a Bearnaise Essence that I still need to figure out how to use..

Speaking of cooking, I register for classes in 2 weeks. Nervous and excited about that. Has it really been 2 years since I've taken a class? 3 years since I've taken classes in a classroom setting? Here's to hoping for a lot more hands on than lectures.

I also spent a lot of time playing in the park in June. I've come to the realization that whenever I just need to get away and destress or escape reality for a while, I end up in the park for a few hours. I also keep every single ticket. You should see the stack that I have right now..... it's scary.

I think that's about it for my monthly update. Time for another busy month. Busy work schedule, traveling, running, cooking, playing in the park. Lets see how well I can survive the heat this year.

What's this? It's only been a month?!

I realized I never showed a picture of my "new" costume, so here's one of me working. Photo courtesy of my dad

It is now June. That means it is beyond officially summer at Disneyland. I have to say this is the first summer I'm less than excited for. At least right now. I'm going to try to post something once a month or every other month. That way they won't get so insanely long again.

I've finally been able to get back into playing in the parks. Just in time for the parks to become to crowded for me to tolerate. I still struggle with finding people to go with me, so I've been going a lot by myself and just wandering around because the lines are too long. It's also gotten too hot too quickly. If anyone knows of a way to keep from getting nauseous while out in the sun, please let me know. I have also been placed on transitional at work. For those unfamiliar with it. Transitional is an "in between" position between being away from work and coming back to work from an illness or injury. For the last couple weeks, my wrist had been bothering me, finally went to the cast health center and they said it was tendinitis. Now I'm greeting for at least the next week at various locations, mostly stores. I think it would be more fun if they moved me around every couple of hours. Okay, that's all the negative stuff. Now on to the fixing part.

Last post, I made a serious mistake. I kinda confused birthdays and anniversaries. I mistakenly said it was the beginning of the church calendar (not looking up facts and thinking Pentecost, of course that's when the church had to have started and therefore the calendar. Nope). Pentecost may be the birthday of the church (I looked up my facts this time, dad "http://catholicinformation.aquinasandmore.com/2011/06/12/pentecost-the-birthday-of-the-catholic-church/" and other websites say close to the same without specifically saying "birth of the church"), but it's not the beginning of the calendar. I'll admit that's always been a detail that's confused me, which is probably part of why I made the mistake in my last post. The beginning of advent is the beginning of the church calendar. Okay, I think that's all the mistakes that have been pointed out to me. Onwards!!

I feel like this post is going to be a lot shorter, probably because there's been a lot less time between this and my last post (finally!). Other than being on transitional at work, most everything is the same. I've made it through the spring break season only to now be in summer season. For one of the first times ever, I decided to do something for my birthday this year. I was hoping that the dates I had chosen would work really well, but apparently any time in the end of May is bad. Guess in that regards, I don't have a very good birthday date. Disney once again decided to do a 24 hour event (from now on, I'm just going to say that this is their way of celebrating my birthday) on Friday and Saturday of memorial weekend.

My bright idea was that Thursday night would be great to get everyone from work together for medieval times. Nope. I had two people show up: my roommate and a friend from Fantasyland. We had a blast though, so I guess it worked out. Then I decided to get a small group of friends from work together to play in the park on Tuesday. That worked a lot better, but it was frustrating figuring out all the details. Ended up having a girls brunch, followed by sporadically meeting up with the guys. We were all together (minus one that worked) by the time the evening ended at least, so that worked out as well. Because of the weekend, my birthday present was also late, but I got that as well: a food processor! Now I don't have to ruin as many blenders attempting to use them as food processors. I also got a target gift card (thank you Connie), starbucks gift card (Thank you Tyler) and couple bouquets of paper flowers and an owl, handmade by Tricia. All and all it was a good weekend, and I'm really happy with the friends and coworkers I have. I think that's about all on the Disney front, but wait! I have more!!

I've made a bit more progress towards culinary school in the fall. last month I was feeling like I had hit a brick wall, and it was putting me down, but I've finally been able to make more progress. As of this year, California has decided to have a priority registration deadline. This means that you have to have grades, transcripts, credits, and education plan all in by June 1 in order to register before classes start. Everyone else gets whatever is left (and with how overcrowded the California schools are, that's nothing). My biggest hangup was the meeting with the counselor to create the education plans. Meetings had to be set up in advance, but by the time I would figure out my schedule, all the appointments would be taken. Thankfully, as the deadline got closer, they did away with the appointments, and made it walk-ins all day every day the counseling center was open. It meant I had to wait 2 hours, but I was able to go on any one of my days off to finish the last requirement. Now, I'll get an email any day now telling me when my registration appointment is. All I know right now is that it will be for some time in July. Classes start late August. I was also approved for some financial aid, but I don't know how much since the amounts they gave me were assuming full time, and I won't be going full time. At least I won't have to use my entire savings to pay for everything. I'll keep this post up to date with the school stuff. I'm really excited to finally start. 2 1/2 more months!!

And now for the video of the post. For some reason, any time I watch a marvel movie, my villain obsession increases. This video is one of the not so common-anymore villains. The beginning of the video is just the intro to the song, so bear with it :P