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| Peter and I at College Program graduation |
So I guess I've finally gotten tired of people telling me "you need to write on your blog." "You need to finish your blog!" Or maybe I've finally had the time to get around to it. Things have definitely been BUSY since I last wrote in, when was it? MAY?!?!?!
Okay, now that I've recovered from that shock, I guess I should start with "summarizing" everything. Let's see..... what's happened since then.... anything important? I guess I can just go month by month and see what I come up with.
May: As was written in my last blog, I finally finished with probation. This meant that I could "cross-train" into other positions, which I immediately put in an application to do. Also in May was my birthday! Okay, nothing TOO special about it, other than going out to a buffet restaurant that I would recommend to anyone visiting Disneyland: Storyteller's Cafe. First time eating there. YUM! I don't remember if I've ever mentioned anything about the cookbooks that I seem to be collecting (and definitely using, A LOT). If I haven't, well, I seem to be picking up more and more cookbooks. Last count was 27 I think. Nope, I definitely can't have too many cookbooks. After all, as I said, I use them all! A couple of those cookbooks are Disney cookbooks. At some point, I had made the recipe for corn chowder from one of these cookbooks. It's the same corn chowder they serve at Storyteller's. I don't mean to brag, but when I had the chowder at the restaurant, I couldn't tell much difference between the two, and they were both amazing!
June and July can be combined into one, and I blame this "unit" as the reason I haven't gotten another blog out. I've been told that summers in Disneyland are busy, but little did I know how busy that was. I was putting in 40 hours a week throughout the summer, partly because of the 3 year seniority that the college program gave me, but also because of the higher need of workers. On top of those 40+ hour weeks, I was still cooking most meals at home, and occasionally participating in college program activities, as well as playing in the park just about every day I was off. For those of you who know what hidden mickey's are, I think we found just about every single one in the course of one summer. I guess I'm just making up excuses (somewhat) I could've updated this instead of playing in the parks, but let's be honest: which is more fun: playing with a mouse, or writing? At least I didn't decide that ALL the time, or else this won't be posted.
The cross-training requests that I had put in during May finally paid off during this time. In July, I learned how to be a cashier at Village Haus. You'd think it would be really easy just entering that cheeseburger that the guest wants and telling them how much the total cost is and then giving them their receipt and change. Nope. You'd be VERY wrong. Guest: "can I get a cheeseburger?" Me: "would you like fries or fruit cup on the side with that?" Guest: "how much extra does that cost?" M: "it's included with the price" G: "can I get the fruit cup? And since that's a combo, I'll have a Dr. Pepper" M: "The drink would be separate, would you still like to add a drink?" G: "but it says combo on the board, that's what I wanted" M: "our COMBO is only side and the burger." G: "you did add cheese, right?" M: in my head thinking, well, you ordered a CHEESEburger "of course, cheese, lettuce, tomato and burger sauce" guest seems satisfied so I tell them the total. At this point, there's no turning back on the order, and it's already been sent to the kitchen, meaning they may have already started working on it. And it seems to be examples like this where the guest seems to struggle with figuring out if they want to use cash, and, if so, how far from exact to get, or credit card. After giving them their receipt, telling them which window to go to, I move on to the next guest. THEN they come back, "can I add pickles?" or "I didn't want tomato" or "can I change that to fries?" I understand that some people haven't completely decided what they want even while they're ordering, I've been guilty of that on numerous occasions, but really? At least those are the easy to change orders, I just inform the person at window, who informs the kitchen. Sometimes they want to change a cheeseburger to a different item, such as that BLT pizza they just saw a guest walk off with. Then I have to cancel the entire order and start over.
August: This was definitely a BIG month, with LOTS of changes. I almost need to go week by week for this month, although all the changes have all been within one week.
The first week was completely normal, still 40+ hours a week at work since it's still the summer busy season. Still way too hot for me. Since the College Program ended on August 18th, we had a "graduation" celebration near the end, on August 7th. In order to attend this celebration, we were all given the day off of work. What did I do with my day off? Spent it in the park of course! I decided to get ready for the celebration before leaving for the park, that way I didn't have to a) spend all day doing nothing in the apartment before and b) didn't have to come back to the apartment to get ready after playing in the park. Fortunately, that plan didn't end too disastrously, otherwise I'd be looking for a different picture to post above. The day started out normal, Peter and I looking for hidden mickey's, riding rides, and eating sugary foods, but it definitely did NOT end like a normal day.
Even though the celebration was at 7, Peter decided that we had to leave the parks at 4. Apparently, unlike me, he brought his clothes with him, but decided to get ready for the celebration AFTER playing in the park. After getting ready, and since there was still plenty of time to kill, we walked around a bit. He then decided to take a long tour around the Disneyland Hotel grounds (why the long tour, I still don't know) to the Rose Court Gardens where...... HE PROPOSED!!! Well, that explains the going out of the way part a bit. Apparently he got a bit nervous though, because our photographer hadn't arrived when he finished. Pictures ended up being staged, which is still okay, right? It was only a 5 or 10 minute delay.... After that, we walked around a bit more. Apparently the photographer, who happened to be one of my college program roommates, knew that Disneyland still had "just engaged" buttons somewhere, so we went looking around for them. Turns out the only place that has them on a regular basis is Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa. I'd definitely say that the graduation celebration paled in comparison to how excited I was at that point.
After all the walking around, we eventually made it to the graduation celebration, where we received a poster, graduation ears and button, and a keepsake box, as well as MANY congratulations from people. The celebration included a full meal, prominent speakers, including the Disneyland Ambassadors, pictures with Mickey and Goofy, and dancing, pictures, and lots of fun times.
After the celebration, and just days before the college program ended, many of my dad's family came to visit. My Uncle Mike, Uncle Herb, Uncle Dave and Aunt Rose came down to visit Southern California and me. This was the first visitor's I'd had since end of May, and I was excited :)
The end of the college program was definitely a bittersweet moment. For those that may not be aware, I decided to stay on after the program ended, which meant that I had to find another place to live, and that I'd be facing less hours. It was nice having a place that was a bit on the cheaper side, but I was worried about if I'd be able to afford even that. On top of that, it was sad saying goodbye to the friends that I had made. I even had to say goodbye to Peter, who went back to the Bay Area to finish school and only stayed with Disneyland seasonally (meaning he comes back for Christmas, spring break, and summer).
Also during August, I got trained in other cashing areas, including Toontown as well as Toontown food prep, and Troubadour Tavern food prep (before they closed for a lengthy remodeling).
September: Things were definitely slowing down. My weekly schedule only had anywhere between 16 and 24 hours. Fortunately, I could call in and ask for more hours. As a result, for the rest of the year, I only had at most 2 weeks that I worked less than 30 hours a week. It's definitely more stressful trying to pick up hours to reach a goal of 30 hours a week vs. being scheduled 30 hours a week. I thought I was busy during the college program! I guess I was busier during that time, but I just felt plain stressed this time because I couldn't PLAN anything. I may decide to hang out with a friend, or do errands, but if scheduling called me with a shift, I felt the need to take it, just because I needed the hours, and, even if I was already at 5 days, or 30+ hours, I couldn't guarantee the next week would be like that. During September, I also got trained at the Fantasyland Kitchens as food prep.
October - December: To say that the few hours I was being scheduled and everything else was so new would be a bit of a discredit. EVERYTHING this year has been new! I'd NEVER lived outside of Washington. I hadn't been to Disneyland more than twice before and now, not only have I been way more than that (almost 90 times by the end of the college program alone), and now I work here. With the exception of the busy times (Thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season), I was still getting scheduled little hours. Fortunately, just like in September, my schedule changed every single day. Almost each day, I would wake up to a call from scheduling, asking me if I could move work positions (from my scheduled food prep shift to cashier, or cashier at Toontown to cashier at Village Haus, etc.), or times and therefore have more hours. From mid-October on, I would get a call on all but one of my days off each week, asking me to come in for a shift. This was great, because I often was only given 3 or 4 days of work. Of course, this also meant that from October on, I was working 6 day work weeks just about every week. No wonder everyone though I was full-time (in simplest explanation, full time in Disneyland means being scheduled a minimum of 30 hours a week). I'd applied for full-time before, but had been denied twice.
During October, I had family friends visit from home, which was very exciting. I can definitely say that I love showing people around Disneyland. That being said, if you're the type of person that doesn't want random facts given to you along with recommendations of where to go DON'T ask me to give you a tour. I WILL give you more facts than you know what to do with. I'll also do my best to work around the crowds and make beelines for things that you've told me you prefer doing. You'll be worn out by the end of my tours, and you'll probably be complaining of your feet hurting.
From this visit on, I seemed to have no breaks. Between trying to reach at least 30 hours a week, working 6 days a week most days, and visits from various people, it seemed like I had no time for just relaxing. As far as visits go, I had my grandma (dad's mom), dad and Uncle Mike drive down for a visit the week before Thanksgiving. Of course, with Disneyland being open 7 days a week, and being only part time, with less than a year seniority, I had to work on Thanksgiving. As I told guests, since I couldn't go home even if I wasn't working due to costs, there was no place I'd rather be than working. December 19th - 22nd my other grandma, mom and sister came down for a visit. This was also their first stay in a Disneyland hotel, which they absolutely loved.
During November and December I also cross-trained to Village Haus food prep AND order cook. I had also applied for trainer back in August, and the managers decided to make me a trainer. I haven't trained anyone yet, but maybe one of these days I can. Christmas week was much like Thanksgiving. I worked 56 hours and worked on Christmas day. I didn't think Christmas would be anything special, but it was. Not only was Peter there, since he was working during his school break, but I was able to watch my entire family open presents due to the wonderful technology of Skype. Of course, at that point and many times before and after, they kept asking when I was coming home again. If only I could've told them the surprise my mom and I had been planning since just before Thanksgiving....
January: I'd learned very quickly that January and February were the SLOWEST times for Disney. During these months, the part time workers hardly get any hours (my roommates were only getting 10-16 hours for the second week of January). I had been talking to my managers and found out that this was probably the easiest time to get time off, so I submitted a request for time off. Unfortunately, since I'm not full-time, I don't find out if I get the requested time off until the schedule comes out. This meant that, while I purchased plane tickets to go home January 10th - January 24th AND put in the request for those days off, I could have found out on December 28th that I didn't get any of the time off. Then I'd either have to trade shifts with people who were off those days, give away the shifts, or call in personal (which puts points on my record). Either that or ignore the plane tickets and stay in California, which was an option I wasn't going to consider since I hadn't been home for over a year. Fortunately, my over-worrying was for nothing. I got all the time off I needed for the entire trip. Not only was I able to surprise my family (seeing the look of surprise on their faces was so much fun), but I was able to come home for both my sister and my dad's birthdays! Yay! Just before leaving, I had submitted two applications: one application at the beginning of December was my third attempt at applying for a full-time position. The second application was to become lead. A lead is similar to a shift manager (for those that don't know what a lead is, but do know what a shift manager is). Leads are responsible for the workers in their area as well as addressing concerns that may arise.
My trip home has so far been very fun, and surprisingly busy. Little did I know that I'd be spending just about every day going through boxes of my stuff, packing more stuff away, and getting rid of even more. I think I've gotten rid of half of my stuff this trip alone. My mom's comment "you definitely don't have a problem getting rid of things." Last Wednesday (January 16th) I woke up to a call from Disneyland. I had finally been accepted for full time! I guess now I should go into more detail about what it means to be full time in Disneyland. Disneyland has something called lines, which simply means that this is the weekly hours you'll be working (anywhere between 32 and 40 hours a week), which days off you'll have, and where you'll be working. This means that I'll have consistent days off, and I'll know exactly where I'm working and not be changing location day to day like I have been as part time. Now I no longer have to worry about remembering where I'll be working, or what time I start. I also don't have to stress over getting that 30 hours I need to support my "extravagant lifestyle" (okay, so maybe $50 a week on groceries at MOST isn't extremely extravagant, especially since I don't always hit this mark). On top of that, I'll also be getting insurance (at what cost, I don't know). Since lines are for certain length of time, I don't actually start full time until March 10th. This means another month and a half of part-time schedules. I can live with that, right? I've done a year already.
If you've paid attention to the dates that I was gone for, you'll realize that I'm not in California currently, but that I'm home. Home in this case is Chehalis with my parents. While I haven't fully adjusted to California weather (80s are still too hot), the weather here is definitely cold. But I'll still take this cold weather any day. I prefer having to wrap up in more layers and blankets to having to take cold showers to cool down.
I guess, as horrible as I feel for putting this post off (all excuses aside, when I did have time to update, I either felt guilty about not updating more or didn't know how to update. Sometimes both), I feel like writing from here has made this blog come full circle. I started out writing from Washington, wrote about my year in Disneyland, and now am writing again from Washington. I will spend a few more days here in Washington before going back to California again.
Because this blog is "Disney Adventures", I now have many options of what I can do with this. I started this blog for the purpose of documenting my time with the Disney College Program. I could leave it at that and call this blog finished or I could continue talking about the adventures at Disneyland, although it wouldn't be as work oriented as it has been. These adventures can be things I discover in the park (sorta similar to disneyland park blogs from my understanding of them), how I've been doing overall (like a personal journal), or I can start heading into talking about food (like Julie and Julia, talking about this or that recipe that I made, experiments, and other stuff relating to my exploring the wonderful world of cooking [sung to the tune of "wonderful world of color"]). I could also do a combination, retire this blog and create another one for those other ideas. At this point, I'm really not sure which the best course would be. I guess if I have anyone that still reads this, your advice would be EXTREMELY helpful, I'm stumped.
I'm sorry about the length (I had a lot of catching up to do), and I'm even more sorry about the lack of posts.
