Questions... and Revelations

Hello All,

Well I just thought I'd catch everyone up on what I'm doing and the people I've met and what's going on.

Works going... ok. I'll say this, I enjoyed my job like it was the best thing in the world for about... ehhh, I don't know, 2 weeks? Then I started to settle into it and it became very monotonous. I really glad that I'm here during the holiday season for the sheer fact that Disney goes ALL OUT for Christmas and Halloween (stop, reverse that) and since I'm working all the shows and parades, I get the brunt of the christmas cheer. Yeah, they've been unpacking Christmas since about.... august. It's crazy, but quite exciting. I've heard that the Christmas parade is the biggest parade Disney has to offer, so yay!

Now, when I got to Orlando, everyone kept telling me that I was going to meet people from all over the world. I kinda believed them, but I was just expecting a whole bunch of college kids fro universities all over the states.. wrong. I can name on my hand the number of kids I've met from the actual states. Most of the people I work with are either from Korea, Russia, Ukraine, England (Liverpool.. not London), Columbia, Jamaica, and Hatti. It's truly amazing how many different cultures have been thrown into one big melting pot... hmm.. we're in America.. duh. Kelly come on :)

So the is some WAAAAAY exicting news that I need to let people know about because it's all I think about. So about a month ago now, I'm walking to the bus stop on my way to the post office for stamps, and something tells me to check my phone. So I pull out my phone and I see that I have a voice mail from my mother. Probably her telling me that she got my message and she's "Just calling me back" right?... wrong. "Keeellly, so you need to call RaeLena, because she's getting married, talk to you later. Buh Bye" I literally almost dropped my phone and just stood there, my mouth gaping open, standing in the middle of the sidewalk towards the bus stop. So I dial in a panic, my best friend since I was 4, the girl that I danced with, laughed with, the girl who my mother calls "A Surragate Kelly" or "An Adoptive Daughter". She doesn't answer, but as I wait for the bus, she calls me back. We giggle and laugh and talk about everything, how it happened, where when and how he proposed, and when and where the wedding will be. February 19th... my best friend is getting married in Reno, NV, to a wonderful man named Daniel Harlow, and I couldn't be happier! I am already in search of a perfect black dress because she asked me to be one of her bridesmaids! So now for the past month I've been on every wedding gown, bridesmaid dress site I could find. Sooner or later I'm going to take a trip to the flordia mall to see what I can find. But AHHHHHHHH my best friend's getting married! My best friend's getting married....

It's just so, thought provoking. We had always talked about what kind of dresses we wanted, what colors, and who the perfect man for us would be, and for the fact that one of my friends, my BEST friend, has finally found her's and she's planning everything, and buying the dress and picking her bridesmaids for real, is just so... real. I never thought all those childhood years would hit me smack in the face as hard as they did when I heard this news. For a while I was kind of looking at my own life, thinking of my dating life and how utterly disgraceful it is... but then I though but you know what, she's getting what's best in her life for her right now, and so are you. I am having one of the most epic adventures, meeting all sorts of new people, and most of those people are going to follow me back to college in January and I'm going to have a blast this next school year. So... I'm doing great. And she's going to have a wonderful new year in 2011.

Congrats RaeLena.... Your awesome and I wish you all the best :)

FIRST DAY OFF!!

Alright, so my friend Brad and My roommate Katelin ( whose also my friend) decided to go to Hollywood Studios yesterday for my first day off since I've started working and here's some of the awesome pics we took!

Hello Epcot!

Here is Emily and I saying hello to the world famous giant Epcot golf ball!

Wow... that's all I can say.

In just two weeks I have:

1) Been through all four parks, and one water park at Walt Disney World Resort ( and one hotel resort ;) )

2) Started my first ever company paid, on the grid, federal papers, actually hourly pay... job

3) Seen many if not ALL of my absolute favorite characters and had full fledged conversations with them!

4) Touched every single gown of each of the Disney Princesses... a wonderful dream come true <3

5) live in an apartment, and enjoy all of my roommates and keep everything pretty much clean!

6) Almost cry and break down because I've never been worked so hard in my life...

7) Gotten my first-real-actually-my-own pay check

8) PAID TITHING ON MY FIRST-REAL-ACTUALLY-MY-OWN-PAY CHECK!

9) Talk with a manager for the first time to request Sundays off

10) Wrote a letter to my manager explaining why I need Sundays off to accompany the letter my bishop gave me

Whoo! Is that all? Emily and I keep saying that we feel like we've been here for months just because we've gotten so much done, but we've only been here two weeks! Crazy... Never, when I graduated High School, never did I think that in just one year I would be sitting in an apartment in Florida, typing out my first few days of work working for the Walt Disney World Resort as a Costuming Cast Member on my blog... never could have even dreamed it....

but I'm glad that dreams.. even dreams we don't think up at first... come true...

Kelly and Emily

Friends through it all. Love you Em!

Magical Chaos... The Joy's of a New World

OK... wow. So let me fill you in on the last couple of days... trust me, it's a doozy.

Now I flew from Sacramento to Orlando ALL DAY on tuesday and settled at a lovely resort called the Regal Sun on Disney property. Very nice if I do say so myself. That bed could not have felt better after all that traveling. After settleing into the room for a minute, I sat down and paused and thought oh my goodness, I'm in a hotel room, in Florida, working for Disney World with one of my best friends.... and no parents... it was a little thrilling to think that I'm spending the night in a beautiful hotel room with a girl friend and my parents wont be sleeping in the bed next to mine... wow.

So we wake up the next morning and have a quick little bite to eat in the lobby, and then the fun began... alright now we got ready and headed off to get a cab. Ok, this was my first ever cab ride and it was pretty nice! We got our hotel to grab one for us and they got us a beautiful Excursion with plenty of room for our 200lbs of stuff we brought with us.

We arrive at the check-in point at Vista Way apartments and we go through this HUGE check-in process ( getting keys, apt #, signing paperwork, being carted around from one building to the next... very complicated.. BUT WE DID IT!) So we get through this huge process which started at 9:00am and ended shortly after 12:00pm.

Now, our apartment is absolutely beautiful, and we probably have the biggest bathroom known to college students because it's basically a master suite with a huge walk in closet and takes up the entire back wall of the apartment. So nice, and I only have to share it with Emily! Perfect!

So that night we meet up with some friends to go get some ice cream at one of the resorts...

This is what we ordered....

For ten people... we ordered two... I felt like I was going to burst by the end of it. BUT IT WAS AWESOME!!! Eight scoops of ice cream, a full can of whip cream and every topping they had! Ah-mazing! ( The Kitchen Sink at Beaches and Cream at the Beach Club Resort)

After getting completely Chocolate Wasted, we headed back to the apartment to sleep it all off.

Thursday was exciting for the sheer fact that we had no food in the house and we needed desperately to go to Walmart. After going through practically every food isle and getting a couple cleaning essentials, we ended up spending $90 for the both of us! Quite spectacular. The problem was getting it all home... with no car... taking buses... oh, boy...

That's Emily with half the groceries on our bus. I had just that much on my arms... can't believe we actually carried all that home...

So then we decided to take naps after that long journey. And when we awoke, we had many asking if we wanted to explore Downtown Disney! Of course we would, we replied!

Oh so much fun... :)

Now the next morning was my first day of work, aka: Orientation/Traditions. Now, they took me to a lot of places I can't say on the web, but I was giddy like a school girl when I saw Cinderella's Castle for the first time! Now, when we got back they started talking about a lot of different things we needed to know, and then there was a knock on the door and there was this huge present box with a bow on it, and then out the other door came in MICKEY MOUSE! THE BOSS HIMSELF!!! It was so cool!!!! Then he told us that the present was our NAME TAGS!!! I screamed.. I really did. I could not keep composure at that point. I'M WORKING FOR DISNEY WORLD!

Life Comes at You Fast...

These last few weeks have been an absolute whirl wind for me. I don't think 3 weeks could have gone by any faster. Here I was practically wishing I could hurl myself all the way to California so that I could get home from school instead of having to wait those super long hours during the car ride home, and now I'm typing what might be my last post before I'm in Orlando, FL!!!

We spent today just getting ready. Making sure I was packed, that I knew where I was going and how I was getting there. Making sure I had all the correct paperwork printed and filled out, and that I said goodbye to any dear friends I have here in Tracy.

Then I realized as I was putting the last of my stuff in my suitcases....

9 months... 9 months....

It was like one of those moments in the movies where you hear the voice in your head echo a certain phrase a million times over and over again, and you always think it will stop with the next one but it doesn't... I never thought that I'd be spending 9 months of my life away from home and away from my family and friends my first first year out of High School. I am going to be living independently across the entire country for 5 whole months... and then flying immediately back to school to jump into classes. I wont see my parents until April 2011... It feels like April 2010 was just yesterday! As you can see, life's catching up to me.. as Momma likes to quote the MasterCard commercial... "Life comes at you fast..."

But I can do this. I just got through some of the worst challenges and hardships these past six months on my own! I moved to a new state in the debt of winter ( -19 degrees!!!), I survived a horrendous first date while maintaining my dignity, signed up for my own classes and made the adjustments myself to fit my needs, auditioned and was cast in my first college production (and had a fabulous time. thank you Barber of Seville Cast and Crew! ), Got MONO for 3 weeks and was incapacitated and threating to enter the emergency room BUT I SURVIVED AND KEPT A 3.1 GPA!!!, I also got through some of the worst roommate drama ever endured by one woman.... BUT I DID IT! I didn't come home, I did threaten to come home and cried to my mother like a baby for about a solid month, BUT I DIDN'T COME HOME! I finished my first year of college and that means that I can live across the country in a big city and figure things out and live to tell the tale, right? ...right?

Oh, boy... well, here goes nothing, right? No turning back now... WISH ME LUCK!!!

Self Loathing...

Deep sigh... Ok this is really depressing. When you think you lost a whole bunch of weight and that your size 14 jeans should be falling off you, but then you slip them on right out the dryer and they fit almost snug is like getting a lollipop and then having the flavor be something like vomit or buggers. I can never catch a break. Never. Most of the women I know can go for three weeks, eat whatever they want, not care about if they work out or not, and MAINTAIN their weight. Not me. I so much as think about not exercising and I gain a pound. I'm sorry to say that in the last 3 weeks I have gained 11lbs. It's disgusting. How can anyone gain 11lbs in just three weeks! It makes me sick...

Well, what I've learned is that theres no point in moping about it, because then you just go for the easiest "fix" for your depression and have an extra bowl of ice cream, or one more peanut butter cookie. Whats the harm in one more since you've already screwed up, right? Wrong! The only way to change a habit is to kick it. Complaining about how horrible something is, doesn't make it any less horrible. You just have to button those extra tight jeans ( because they look good, dang it!) and walk out saying "Next week or the week after, this will be different. These pants will need a belt in about a month" and you think of how your going to make that happen. For me, I'm going to track all my food intake for the week next week and then make adjustments. Exercise shouldn't be too hard since I'll be running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to figure everything out! haha, well onwards! New goals, new friends, new adventures! Cheers to goal making.