As we go on, we'll remember all the times we've had together!

 

Officially on July 19 I graduated from the Disney College Program! I know it may seem early, but they do it then because some of the International Programs end at the end of July so they just have it early to make sure everyone can go. I still work at Pecos until Aug 10 and my last class is Aug 4. We all got dressed up and walked over to the field outside our apartment where it was being held. There were tents, a free BBQ and many of our beloved Disney characters in their cap and gowns.  We lined up to get our diplomas, Mickey ears grad caps and a poster with the castle and inside jokes within the Disney College Program :)

Here I am with my boss! Gotta love Mickey and Minnie :)

Emily, Kim, Shay, Goofy, Lindsay, me and Marnie chillin with Goofy!

 Two of my coworkers Cijia and Amber and Goofy! Love my Pecos friends!

After we enjoyed everything at graduation and took pics with everyone we decided we'd show off our grad ears at Magic Kingdom that night! So Kim, Linds, Shay, Marnie and I hopped on the bus to enjoy a wonderful night at MK! We got our names embroidered for free on the back of the ears which was a nice touch. There is nothing like Magic Kingdom at sunset and we took advantage of that with many pictures.

 Shay, Linds, Kim, Marnie and Me :) love these girls so much! Def my best friends here.

At this point we have been so many times that going on rides isn't a mandatory thing to do. Walking around the park is just as wonderful, although we did go on Haunted Mansion, Magic Carpets and Jungle Cruise! I dragged my friends to Pecos to say hi to my other friends working and to get some free water (which is a quite useful secret many guests dont realize they can get big cups of water for free instead of paying $3 for a bottle!). We also went to Town Square Theatre where you can meet the Aurora, Belle and Cinderella!

Here we are with my fave, Cindy <3

We ended the night in front of the castle talking and taking many many pictures :) We were there well after the park closed so it was fun to have it all to ourselves!

Core Four on Main Street USA.

3 More Weeks!!!

In exactly 3 weeks I'll be home in my bed hopefully petting my kitty and getting some much needed sleep, I plan on sleeping as little as possible these next few weeks so I can accomplish everything I need to get done before I leave! Thank goodness my roomies (who as you've probably noticed I do everything with and are my absolute best friends!) are planners just like me! We have everything mapped out for these last last weeks!

I had to say bye to my good friend Lupi from Mexico last week :( Goodbyes here are unlike most, as in most of them are "well this is goodbye forever because you live wayyy too far away from me, but I will never ever forget you". Sad right?! Well back in May she made a joke asking me if I would cry when she leaves and I didn't really know her that well so I played along and said i would and from then on out we were officially best friends!! Every time I would see her at work my face would light up and we would run to eachother shouting BEST FRIEND!!! I can even hear in my head how she would say it! So imagine when I had to say goodbye. She lives in Mexico City and I honestly dont know if I'll ever be in that area again in my life (I've been to Cabo once and that's it). So it truly was a goodbye forever. We said goodbye backstage and I got so teary eyed it was embarassing so I held it back. Lupi is such an amazing person with such zest for life!! I will miss her dearly, thank goodness for facebook!

 Me and Lupi pinky promising we'll be best friends forever!!!!

It pains me to even write about this now but I have to think about my goodbyes to my other coworkers who I've grown to be very fond of and who always bring a huge smile to my face!!! Especially Morgan and Laura! They were very good friends to me at Pecos and unfortunately they are here for a year and their program is half over so now they've switched to Adventureland Merchandise :( It was even sad at our last day working together at Pecos! Laura is from Australia and Morgan New Zealand. They truly bring out the best in me and love when I act my normal silly self. Saying goodbye to them is hands down going to kill me! This is one of the negatives of the program! Make us all love eachother then tear us apart! But I have SOOO many amazing memories that I'll just think of those instead and cherish each and every one!

 Kiwi (my nickname for Morgan) and I backstage at work!

 Laura, Me, Morgan and Lupi on our last day at work together! Work isn't the same without them!

 Our other dear friend Peter who keeps me sane at work!

Sorry this post was sad but it's reality and these last 3 weeks are going to be hard but I plan to enjoy them to the fullest!!

Parentals in Disney World!!

Before Miami my wonderful parents came to visit me here from June 27-July 2!! I have to say we had a BLAST! I've missed them so much and really appreciate everything the do for me and how they both know how to have a great time and find joy in everything! On the 27th I worked until 9 then changed out of my work clothes and traipsed through the Magic Kingdom and hopped on the monorail to the Contemporary Hotel where they were staying. I ran into my mom's arms! It was magical! I arrived right as the fireworks Wishes was starting, so that was a great way to start off the trip! It was sooo nice spending the nights in a huge comfy bed at one of Disney's best resorts. We explored Magic Kingdom and Epcot together over the next couple of days..

 My mom and I on Main Street USA :)

 Dad and I in front of the Castle!

Mom and I chillin with Roy Disney and Minnie!

My parents loved Epcot as I knew they would! The World Showcase is right up their alley and we had to drag my dad out of the Japan store before he bought every little Japanese bowl haha And my mom finally got a picture with Donald Duck, her favorite (which I feel she had a big moment when she came to this realization)! Disney will do that to you, I found my inner princess while I've been here. Before I never really had a favorite princess (shocking I know) but now I'm known as Baby Cindy by my roomies because Cinderella is my all time favorite :)

One of my favorite memories with my parents was our dinner the last night at the California Grill on top of the Contemporary! It was a very swanky restaurant that has a view overlooking the 7 Seas Lagoon in front of the Magic Kingdom! The food was absolutely fabulous and they even were nice about me being Vegan and the chef made me a special dish that he hand crafted! And we even got to watch the sunset over the Magic Kingdom and end the night watching Wishes! from our table :) Absolutely perfect evening with my perfect parents!

The view from the Contemporary!! :)

We're in Miami, Bitch!!

22 more days....I'm in shock at how little time I have left here :( Let me update you on my life the past month!



On July 6th my roomies Shaleen, Lindsay, Kim, Jackie and our friend (unofficial roomie) Marnie went to Miami!!! I was so happy to be able to go there, its about a 4 hour drive from Orlando. There is a guy who runs party buses and offers these random trips to Miami every few weeks and we even got a free shirt out of it! The buses picked us up at 4am...such a struggle!!! And we all slept on the way there haha We arrived around 11am and unfortunately it was overcast and rainy. But we didn't let that bother us! We got to see the Kardashian's store Dash and the gelato store the Jersey Shore cast worked at. I met up with my coworker Laura who was also on the trip and we took a Duck tour of Miami and got to see famous people's houses like P Diddy, Rosie O'Donnell, Gloria Estefan and a couple others.

Then I met back up with my roomies and we went shopping on Collins Ave, a popular street in Miami. I could tell it would be full of life at night because of the many many night clubs that even Paris Hilton and her crew frequent. The bus ride back home was a huge struggle. The man running the party bus was anything but professional (we didn't really care as long as we got back safe) and lets just say sobriety wasn't the first thing on his mind. So he and his cronies were blasting music and felt the need to show us their dumb pranking youtube videos, and lets just say what happens on the bus ride home from Miami stays on the bus ride! haha Also our bus driver got pulled over for speeding when we were almost home to top off the entire day! It took us almost 6 hours to get home.

 Jackie, Shay, Kim, Marnie, Linds and Me on the beach!

My best friends Shay, Linds and Kimmmy! One of my favorite pics of all time.

Celebrating in Celebration!!

Hi Friends! So one of my goals when I was here in Florida was to visit Celebration, Florida. It is a town outside of Walt Disney World that was designed and controlled by the Walt Disney Company itself. They planned everything out and lets just say it is a picturesque, white picket fence small town. My friend Marnie drove with me, Shay, Kim and Lindsay in tow :) As soon as we pulled into the town we were all in awe!!

A typical house in Celebration...soooo fabulous!!!

This is in downtown Celebration, where there are cute little boutiques and cafes

Me and Marnie super excited to be there!!!

The whole crew in front of the main hotel there, the Bohemian!

This was right out front the little movie theatre and ice cream parlor. Such a clear, perfect day!

 Celebration Bear!! <3


A lot of people come to Celebration to retire, so I could see how it could get a little sleepy. But with Disney World 20 min away what could be better than that?! This is a perfect place to raise a family!! Anyone down to move here with me and have a perfect life?!

Deployment Adventures!

Hi hi! It's been a crazy couple of weeks which means I have lots of stories to share!!

So let me recap my fun 2 weeks of deployment at Pinocchio's and Tomorrowland Terrace. So for those of you who don't understand the fun Disney lingo, let me enlighten you. Deployment means on my schedule for the week I am assigned to work at another location. This happens randomly to CPs (college programers...i really hope you know what this means by now haha) and can last from 1 week to maybe 4 or 5. I didn't even notice that it said Pinocchio's instead of Pecos on my schedule until my friend Peter pointed it out! I LOVED working at Pinocchio's. Fantasyland is very different from Frontierland. I had to bite my tongue to not say Howdy to all the guests. All the people there were very friendly and a lot more relaxed than at Pecos. Pinocchio's was dead compared to Pecos, probably 3 times less busy. Their lunch rush was our slow period. So I got to know a lot of the people that worked there and had many fun conversations. Because I was deployed I don't have to go through training yet they throw me into any task. Thank goodness they were nice there and I had lots of people show me what to do. They even set up a coloring table around 4 o'clock and one day I sat there for 30 min just coloring and talking to some dad and his shy kids. fabulous! My favorite thing to do there was trays. That means you collect the trays from the dining room and at Pinocchio's you're in charge of sending them through the giant dishwasher. It's a physically demanding and sweaty job which is why I liked it and I even told Edgardo, one of my new friends there, that and he said I'm the first girl he's talked to that likes doing trays! I was very sad to leave after only a week :( but they all said for me to come back and visit!

Last week I was scheduled at Tomorrowland Terrace (or TLT as the snazzy Disney peeps call it). WOWZA Tomorrowland is soooo different!! Even the underground tunnels are just unfriendly. The costume I had to wear was HEINOUS. I felt to unattractive it was ridic. No one should ever be forced to wear pleated pants. Such a crime. Stacy and Clinton would be very disappointed with Disney. Anywho...coming from Pinocchio's were there were many cute boys, I was working with mostly girls at TLT, which wasn't a bad thing because they were all very nice and chatty, but it was just different. It was kinda annoying because there they didn't rotate you on your assignment so you would be bussing tables for literally 5 hours, or filling orders.

But TLT was also VERY VERY slow!! I was greeter one day...literally all day, but it was an easy job that consisted of saying "Hi there welcome! Would you like to see a menu up close?" (...then handing them a menu and herding them to the nearest cashier...). And one of the managers came up to me and explained how to get ready for the lunch rush. And let me tell you, at Pecos we get SLAMMED during lunch, so i was ready for anything....however, the mintutes go by and it gets kinda busy but not anything too bad then after an hour or 2 its empty again. I was like "was THAT the lunch rush???". So moral of story...Pecos is in a league of its own when it comes to quick service. One of the friends I made there was Naomi who was super interesting and is now seasonal (which means she only has to work a certain number of hours a year but still gets all the benfits). She was a CP last year and worked at the main gate at EPCOT. Also ZoeAnn was fun to talk to! We bonded over being vegetarians and she even decided to try being Vegan after hearing my story! yay!

As of a couple days ago I'm officially back at Pecos! My first day back was crazyyyy!! Lets just say I didn't miss the unfreindly Haitians in the kitchen and insanely busy lunch and dinner rushes. But it was nice finally knowing everything and not feeling lost. Also, getting to see my favorite work friends like Morgan, Laura, Peter, Sabrina, Emily, Amber, Lupi, Cijia, Michelle plus a couple others and finding ways to avoid work with them is fun :)

 Morgan and Lupi!! Mejor Amigas!! <3

Hello Fantasyland!

Hello friends! I'm so sorry I havent updated in a while, things were pretty much the same here and it's quite a lot of effort to blog. So I will treat you with a fun new update!

Every Wednesday my roomie and a couple friends have been going to Buffalo Wild Wings (B Dubs as we call it here) which is a restaurant/bar type place where you can do karaoke and dance and meet
 other CPs

My roomies Shaleen and Lindsay and our two friend Marnie and Sarah before going to B Dubs! It's been really fun to get dressed up because during the week all we do is work in our costumes then come home and change into sweats, not gonna lie.

Us at B Dubs in the karaoke room!


Sadly we had to say bye to the last batch of CPs that were already here when we arrived, which means there have been TONS of new CPs! It's weird being the veterans and showing all the newbies what to do at work. I secretly like it though :) The past couple weeks I have become very comfortable at Pecos and find ways to avoid working and instead use the time to have fun conversations with my coworkers (sorry Disney pretend you don't know this, I swear I have good work ethic). Because of this I have become very close with a couple of my coworkers! I even tried sweet tea for the first time with my friend Seth and Nathan and will forever think of them whenever I have sweet tea! We want to plan a reunion at Pecos when we're all married and have children haha that should be interesting!! I even invited my friend Morgan from New Zealand to my house for Thanksgiving (yes mom this is my way of telling you haha) and my friend Peter wants to meet in Disneyland next summer!

However though, Disney does this thing called 'deployment' where you are assigned to work a different location for a certain amount of time. So when I looked at my schedule last week instead of it saying Pecos, it said Pinocchios! I didn't even notice it until Peter pointed it out. So for 5 days this week I am in Fantasyland working at another quick service place called Pinocchio's Village Haus. First off the costumes is cuter and it's wayyy slower than Pecos so everyone is more calm and laid back. Also the coordinators are very nice as well as the managers, which makes for a more pleasant experience. I was SO nervous for my first day on Sunday, because I HATE change and crave routine. But I can tell I have changed a lot with the experience because it didn't really bother me that much, I just sucked it up and went in with a huge smile! Everyone I encountered was so helpful, because I am not trained in the ways of Pinocchios (they do things slightly different than at Pecos). People were going out of their way to make sure I knew what I was doing. I can't get over how nice people here are and open to conversation. It will be interesting to come back home and not be surround by Disney happiness. I miss my Pecos family a lot :( and next week I'll be at Tomorrowland Terrace. I have to wait until next Sunday to find out if I'm back at Pecos after that.

I love my Fantasyland costume!!


I have been here 2 months and 23 days already!! And only 1 month and 29 days until home. Can you believe that?! Time flies when you're having fun! I know I will miss EVERYTHING about being here so I am embracing literally every moment I have here. This has been the best decision of my entire life and made me a better and happier person! :)

Passion!

Hello friends!! It sure has been a while but so much has happened! Many of the fun people who arrived here in january are leaving this week :( it's so weird to make friends with certain people, then have them leave and go back home (most likely to a far away state) these past couple days I am so happy that I am here for another 3 months! Of course I really truly wish I was home with my family, best friends and kitty. But for now, it is my time to explore and grow as a person and create memories that will last a lifetime and that I can learn from. Tonight I was with Morgan, my fellow Gamma Phi sister from San Diego State University, as it was her last night here!! :( We went to Magic Kingdom of course with her roommates (one of them I happened to work with at Pecos!) And as we watched the fireworks show Wishes, I got chills as I do everytime. My roommate Lindsay said it best in her blog. So please read this quote from her,,,,


"Everytime I see Wishes I get that incredible feeling, That one where you get chills up and down your spine, the good kind of chills. Where you feel like your inner child is beaming, and you really can stay young forever. When you feel like all your dreams and hopes and wishes built up inside really can come true if you believe with all of your heart and entire being. You remember growing up with all these amazing songs and stories that have made you laugh and made you cry that you hope to be able to make into your own fairy tale some day. And standing there under the breathtaking castle and brilliantly colored fireworks, surrounded by amazing friends and familiar music pulling on your heartstrings, I feel like I’ve never felt before. And that is the sole reason why I came here, and that is why I will stay and do as much as I possibly can to have the time of my life and fulfill my dreams, because “If you can dream it, you can do it.” -Walt Disney

I couldn't have said it better!!! Now onto what I originally wanted to say in the post...I finally started classes this wednesday!! The class I am taking is called Marketing You, and it's exactly how it sounds. We are going to learn to how to sell ourselves in a professional interview and to find our dream career! Our teacher...Penny Hightower...is FABULOUS!! She reminds me of Oprah, but skinnier. Even though our class was 4 hours long, she made it fly by. Her charisma and ability to connect with each of us really was inspiring and I know I will be ready for the big scary real world after this class! The first activity we were given a blank piece of paper and were told to draw (yes she gave us crayons!) what our dream job was when we were little, then share with the class and say what our dream job was now. I drew myself as a princess and actress in Hollywood! (and of course I was so excited I spelled Hollywood wrong and my roommate Shaleen laughed her booty off at me, as would Shannon I know!). And my dream job now would either be to work for Disney, a teacher or even a nutritionist or life coach (yes that is a real job) :)

As of now, and as I mentioned in a previous post, I have a couple options for my future. I don't want to make any decisions now, but it feels amazing to have a couple ideas of what I could do and what my passions are. The word of the day in class was PASSION. As I thought about that I realized whatever I end up doing, I want to make sure I am passionate about it, or else life will become boring. It never hurts to live everyday with passion and find what makes you happy!

I have also started a personal blog with fun pictures and quotes (not quite of me or this journey) but just for fun :) the link is http://wishuponastar103.tumblr.com/ 

Wishes!

Last night was another successful grad night!! Attendance was down from 15,000 to 6,000 so the park was pretty empty. I was closing counter which means I was scheduled to be there until 4:30 am! wooof, but being the ninja I am, I closed counter in 30 min (not 1.5 hours) and was home and in bed at 4:45. Thank goshhh I have today off (some people were scheduled to work at 9 or 10 this morning after being there until 4) ohhhh Disney, you are secretly out to get us! Just Kidding, you're magical!! :) I am now sitting in the living room with my fabulous roomie Emily and we are singing along to the Wishes! soundtrack (which is the infamous fireworks show everynight in Magic Kingdom) that I bought a couple days ago. I know I'm going to miss seeing the fireworks every night once I go home so I am treasuring every moment already!

This past week was amazing because the park closed no later than 10! Which means I was out by at least 9:30 or 10 every night and I could hang out with my roomies when I got home! On Thursday night I went out with Emily and some of her coworkers and we went to Qdoba (the southern version of Chipotle!) and I got a bitchin', well overdue burrito...yummmm! Then we went to the Polynesian to watch Wishes! from the beach. You can see the castle off in the distance and the fireworks and magical at a distance and the music was playing in the background :)

On Friday Lindsday and I ventured to Downtown Disney and we both agreed that it is so visually pleasing and full of life, and that is one thing we're going to miss most about being here. Everything has so much attention to detail and theming. It was a treat to just walk around Downtown Disney, there are so many restaurants, shops, bakeries, clubs and more! We went to the movie theatre to see Water for Elephants which was AMAZING!! I forgot how much I love going to the movies and becoming immersed in a whole new world (no Disney reference intended :p)

A whole wave of CPs (college programers) are getting ready to leave at the end of May, which is sad! Many friends I've made here will be gone, only to be replaced by more CPs! There is a new girl at work from BYU named Jen who is so sweet and full of energy, I can tell we are going to be great friends! I also had a fabulous chat with my manager last night (who is the youngest manager at Magic Kingdom, she is 24) about how she became a manager and she told me all the ins of professional internships, the college program at DisneyLAND (which I'm not considering doing soon), and how to get noticed in the company. It was the first time I could visualize a career here at Disney and maybe come back here after college to do a profession internship, if I'm offered one. BUT those are just ideas for now!

And finally....CHECK OUT MY BROTHER'S BLOG!! He is having quite the experience in Alaska at the northernmost truck stop! His blog is very enjoyable to read due to his witty nature. :)
http://www.thelasttruckstop.com/

Cause Baby You're a Firework!

So I just have to say last night was unbelievably fun :) Mostly because it was like nothing I have ever experienced before! It was grad night at Magic Kingdom, so high schoolers from all over Florida got to explore the park until 4am (luckily I got off at 1am, not 5am). The atmosphere was buzzing with energy and youthfulness, as opposed to the usual family vibe. The park closed to regular guests at 7pm, and opened to special grads with tickets from 8-10, then all the other grads from 10-4am. So we all had an hour to spare from 7-8, and the whole Pecos staff gathered in the lobby for a pep talk from our manager! Izzy, the manager gave a really positive speech which reminded me why I'm here and how much of a show we put on everyday and create magical moments for guests but celebrating their birthdays, anniversaries, engagements and much more depending on what pins they are wearing. After the meeting my friends Morgan and Laura (from New Zealand and Australia) went out the back entrance to Adventureland which was deserted in preparation for grad night and we explored and made our way back to Frontierland. The park was SOO different when it's empty. It is almost more magical because you can really see every detail and appreciate the archetecture plus so much more! We joked about buying out the park for a day and how amazing that would be! :)

We then got to the front of Pecos where all the other CPs (college programers) were, and instead of the corny Frontierland music playing there was a DJ that was playing all the hot songs now! It was such a great change of pace! So, being the crazy college kids we are, we all started a huge dance party out front waiting for the grads to come around the corner from liberty square. People didn't show up for a good 30 min so we entertained ourselves with dancing and conga lines and the like. When the first grads came we made a huge tunnel and screamed with excitement while we welcomed the grads! They got so into it and it was a great moment :) The rest of the night a bunch of us stayed out front and danced to the music, we dougied, jerked and snapped our fingers to Lil Jon! The grads always ate up our energy and most joined in on the dancing! Pecos wasn't busy at all which was nice and gave a lot of us the freedom to interact with the kids (on a side note there were tons of cute guys! but they were all jailbait unfortunately :( some of them looked like they could be in college though!)

I also got to chat a lot with my friend Morgan from New Zealand! I can't say enough how amazing this program has been for me, and a lot of it has to do with the people I've met from all over the world! To give you a taste I'll list the places my friends are from: USA (Washington, Illinois, Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Ohio, New York, Texas, plus more), Puerto Rico, Brazil, Thailand, Honduras, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand. Morgan is so funny, she makes fun of my California accent and how I say my Rs harder, like MiRANda...and she pronounces my name Mirinda...if that makes sense :) And also how I sound like a valley girl OMG! haha

Last but not least, I must discuss the AMAZING fireworks! They were at midnight and to some of the top songs and finally ended with Katy Perry's Firework :) There was all kinds of fireworks that took up the whole sky with hundreds of colors and shapes! My favorite was the heart! Best firework show I've seen since the ones in Washington DC on the 4th of July 10 years ago. I can't wait to see the firworks in Disney World on the 4th!!