We danced with June

I normally can’t stand clowns, but Jo Jo is very sweet

Today I worked at the Magic Kingdom with my friend Alice in the morning, and my friend Dale in the afternoon. I love the chipmunks so much! And today after my sets in Town Square (the front of the park) I discovered that Disney planned out a catered BBQ for all the Town Square cast members. It was awesome! Free pulled-pork and ice cream; who could say no? It was a very easy day, although I had trouble pulling myself out of bed at 4:30 in the morning! Yep, I had to be at work by 6:30am, and in order to do that I had to hop on a shuttle at 5:20 that took me to a bus at 6:00, which then took me backstage to the Magic Kingdom. I’m pretty tired now. In fact, I think I might go try and take a quick nap.

Tomorrow: another fun day with my pal Alice!

Other than the hot weather everything is going well here. My roommate is coming down with the flu so I’m avoiding her like the plague. My family is coming to visit next week and I do not want to get sick while they’re here! In fact, I’m about to leave my apartment in a few minutes and go shopping with my friend Alina. She is also an Evergreen student and joined me down here for the College Program.

What I love so much about working here is that I can play in the parks any time I want. A few days ago my boyfriend Ryan and I were at the Magic Kingdom backstage talking to a manager about our contracts, and after our meeting we went onstage to ride the Tea Cups. Working at a theme park definitely has its perks!

Riding the Tea Cups! Alice’s favorite ride!

The rain is very different down here in Florida than in Washington. In Washington the rain comes down constantly, but it’s never too heavy of a downpour. Florida gets much more sporadic rain showers, where the rain will be hot and beat down on the dirt so hard the dirt will bounce. But I have yet to see a downpour last more than a half an hour here.

I did have the opportunity to ride the newest ride at Hollywood Studios yesterday! The ride is called “Toy Story Mania” and it is based on the hit Toy Story movies. I don’t want to give anything away in case some of you might come visit the parks and ride it, but it’s an awesome 3-D ride with some very cute graphics. My favorite part about the ride was the queue line. It’s designed to look like the inside of a toy box with all these games and toys spilling out everywhere. Giant crayons line the area, and the ceiling is a scrabble board! My friend Alina is working at the ride, so it’s even more fun to go there and see her. She really enjoys working at “Toy Story Mania” and loves being a part of something brand new and special at the theme parks. She really lucked out with her job; working at that ride is a big deal!

This spring quarter is literally flying by! I cannot believe there is 5 weeks left to the quarter. I still have a paper I need to write about my experience working in entertainment at Disney for my internship contract, and talk to my manager here at Disney about my evaluation at the end of the quarter. So much to do!

I met the Fairy God Mother on Sunday! She was lovely.

I’m enjoying this experience more and more each day. Although I feel a little bit like a small fish in a massive pond of entertainment, I feel like each day there is another opportunity opening up to me. This has been such a wonderful internship so far, and I can only expect it’s going to get better and better.

Last night some of my girlfriends came over to watch “27 Dresses” together. Evan and I finally got TV! We have a friend who has a computer flat screen monitor and he is letting us borrow that to get television through. It’s wonderful. I’m surprised how much I was disconnected to the news without the television. I never thought I would miss a TV, but I'm sure glad I have one now!

Toward the end of the evening the three of us decided to venture over to Toontown and take a peek at Mickey and Minnie’s homes. While we were looking around a character attendant ran up to us and said, “Alright, if you hurry I’ll let you meet them.” We didn’t know exactly what he meant but we followed him into another room. Once we walked in we were blown away to see Mickey and Minnie waiting there to meet us! It was so great! Penske and Denim’s mouths were on the floor. We had a personal meet and greet with the big cheese and his first lady! It was a lovely ending to a wonderful day. I hope to see Penske and Denim again soon in the near future.

Yesterday Ryan and I both had the day off from work, so we took full advantage of it. Neither of us had visited Animal Kingdom yet, so we boarded a bus over there to check it out. It was such an amazing theme park! I had no idea how environmentally conscious the park was. I was very impressed, and I know my fellow Greeners would have been too. We spent the day watching some amazing shows and riding the biggest roller coaster on Disney property: Expedition Everest! One of our highlights was riding the Kilimanjaro Safari ride, which was a jeep tour across the plains to see live African animals! It was truly amazing.

In the evening Ryan and I went to Downtown Disney and had some excellent pizza at a fancy Italian restaurant. It was a nice ending to our date day. Downtown Disney is always happening, and although we had a long wait to be seated for dinner, I was glad we had some time before dinner to do some shopping. It was great having day for just the two of us. I can’t wait for another date day!

So in case anyone is wondering, my contract here at Disney World is an internship contract through Evergreen. In an internship contract you must have one faculty sponsor from the school and one field supervisor from the internship in order to qualify for internship credits. My faculty sponsor contacts me once a week and we discuss what I am learning and doing here in Florida. My field supervisor overseas that I am staying on task, and at the end of the quarter they will write up a narrative evaluation on my performance.

Since the Disney College Program is world wide I have met a ton of people from other colleges. Most of the interns here are not getting college credit for this experience. This is just another reason why I think Evergreen is so unique. They welcome people's interests and are happy to award they appropriate credit for their passions.

See, my friends, all you need is faith and trust, and a little bit of pixie dust and I know you can do great things!

What a wonderful day! 


It’s been so long! I can’t believe how fast time has flown by! I am now down in Orlando, FL working at Walt Disney World. I am so excited to participate in this college internship Disney has to offer. And I am so thankful that Evergreen has a contract system so that I can take part in internships in college to help build my resume and work experience.

I am working in Entertainment here at Disney World, and I have just finished my five days of training. So far I have really enjoyed the experience. But I have to say, this has been an overwhelming week for me. There is so much to learn, it’s crazy. I have to remember a lot of things, and since Disney World has four theme parks I have to memorize everything in each park. It’s insane! But it still has been a lot of fun.

Here is a picture of one of my favorite pals here at Disney World. I had the pleasure of meeting him a few days ago at EPCOT. He was wonderful.

I will be posting more about all the unique events and opportunities I will encounter on my Disney Adventure over the next quarter, so stay in touch!

This is really my first official day off. I have been on the go from the minute I stepped off that airplane almost 2 weeks ago. It felt so great to be able to sleep in today and not have to get up early in the morning to race off to training/work. So now that I have a little more time on my hands I will catch you all up on what I have been doing.

Last week I had 5 days of training to be a character performer. This was a lot of fun, but I found that there was a lot of information to remember in a short amount of time. I also had to learn all the different backstage areas of the parks because I will be working at multiples ones a week. Then of course, there is the training with the costumes, which was fun and a bit of a challenge. I wish I could go into detail about the costumes and my work in that aspect but I must keep it a secret to maintain the character integrity.

I love the fact that I can get into the Disney World parks for free! Trust me, I've been using that to my advantage lately. Just today I went to Disney's Hollywood Studios with a couple of friends just to watch the new parade "Block Party" and ride a few rides.

In case anyone is wondering, Disney owns four theme parks in Orlando:
Magic Kingdom: This one I'm sure you are all familiar with. It is similar to Disneyland, and has the castle and all those favorite rides as Disneyland does.

Hollywood Studios: This is a theme park designed to look like the back lot of a major movie set. Most everything is themed for the 20s-40s time period, when movies began to make a big impression on society. This park has a lot of fun thrill rides like the Tower of Terror and Aerosmith's Rockin' Roller Coaster.

EPCOT: EPCOT stands for "Experimental Protoype Community of Tomorrow", and it was a design Walt had before he passed away. He wanted to create a land where people could live in the future with new innovations. Well, it didn't quite turn out to that, but it did become a pretty amazing theme park. Half of the park is dedicated to the future and technology, and the other half is know as World Showcase, which ahs several mini pavilions for various countries.

Animal Kingdom: This theme park is pretty self-explanatory. It's based on animals! Don't call it a zoo though, there is much more to it. They just built a new thrill roller coaster called "Expedition Everest" and it's a very popular one.

My friend Josh and I found Wendy and Peter Pan! Alright, that's all from me right now.

in Florida, and now I leave in 12 days. I am so excited for this opportunity with Disney, and everyone will have a chance to read about my adventures because I will continue blogging my journey.

This week I had so many loose ends to tie up, and projects to complete. I finished all of my homework, including that fiction piece I was having so much trouble on, and I completed all of my self-evaluations. I also finished my internship contract this afternoon and turned that in to Registration and Records. And the rest of the day I’ve spent packing up my things in my house. Wow, it’s been a productive day for me. I only have one more evaluation meeting this evening and then I’m finished with all my work for winter quarter. To treat myself for all my hard work I’m going to watch LOST at 9pm. So excited!

This has been a wonderful year for me. I feel like I have really grown into a much more confident and competent young woman. I have always been on top of my studies and worked hard, but this year I feel like I have really accomplished a lot. I also have enjoyed working for admissions as a Student Ambassador. This job has enhanced my love for this college even more, and it has brought me such joy to share that enthusiasm with other people.

I feel so fortunate to have been a Geoduck these last three years. Through all my experiences, academic and social, I know I have gained so much knowledge and have confidence in myself that I can make the most out of any place my life will take me. I look forward to seeing what the next years have in store for me, and I anticipate many challenges and memories ahead. I hope all of you prospective students find Evergreen to be as fulfilling as I have. I know it can change lives; I’m a perfect example.

Since I am leaving for Florida soon I wanted to get one last visit in with my Uncle Larry. He is my dad’s brother, and he has been like a second father to be over the years. I have just written a fictional story about my father’s childhood, and it was great having a chance to show it to my Uncle Larry. He laughed all the way through, and thought it was a very good story.

Also there for a visit was my cousin Elise. She is also from Olympia, and she graduated from Evergreen in 1999. It was great seeing her again and talk about some of the same teachers we have had. She is a herbalogist and works on the local Native American Reservations. She also just wrote a book about medicinal uses with native plants. She made us all lip balm out of calendula flower petals, lavender, and beeswax. It’s so inspiring to see an Evergreen grad out in the real world working in a field of interest!

On Sunday my Uncle and I went for a walk down on Evergreen Hwy where a Vancouver fish hatchery is located. We went and watched the fish jump and walk on the nature trails. I was very impressed with this fish hatchery because it has become an education center for children. They have a lot of hands-on projects there, which is great for children.

My Uncle out front of the fish hatchery.

The Hatchery.

A really neat tree on the walking trail.

This one particular day he sat my class of 20 students down and we had the opportunity to ask him about rumors we heard and he told us whether they were true or not. Most were not even close to the truth. He explained that a since Evergreen is such a unique college people on the outside have a hard time understanding how Evergreen works exactly. So when something happens on campus it can be blown out of proportion a great deal.

For example, I guess back in the 70s a woman had a seeing eye dog with her in the library building and the dog ended up pooping somewhere in there. No big deal, dogs sometimes can’t hold it. But I guess 5 years after this incident Evergreen faculty and students were being asked from friends and family if it was true that the library was actually a zoo and pets could roam free and they could pee and poop on the carpets.

One true rumor that my teacher told us about is one of my favorite stories I have ever heard about Evergreen, and so I want to share it with you. Apparently back in the 80s there was someone known as the Phantom Sponge. He had a phone number, and if you were throwing a party on campus and there was a still of some sort, a man dressed in all black with a giant sponge attached to his front would come in and clean up the party foul. It happened for four years, until this mystery cleaner graduated.

I would love to see someone start that back up, and come dressed as a giant sponge to help clean up parties. What a clever idea!

So there you have it, folks. Not very many Evergreen rumors you hear are not true, but that one most definitely happened.

For the most part I enjoyed high school. I performed in the school musicals and was in ASB, as well as ran for roles of ambassador programs in the community. I had a pretty active four years of high school. But during that time I was only worried about grades, friends, and looks.

College is like a restart. When I began at Evergreen I realized that I could be whoever I wanted to be; none of these people knew my past. If I wanted to be the smelly kid there was nothing stopping me (don’t worry, I continued to shower in college). I think having that freedom to express myself in the way I wanted was a very freeing experience. No longer did I feel like I had to fit a mold to be accepted into social circles.

I’ve also immensely enjoyed the independence I’ve received in college. My parents are cool, but it was nice to have the freedom of doing things when I wanted to do them. If I wanted to stay up all night and eat ice cream for dinner, I could (never have though). Again, it was a freeing thought to know that I was entirely responsible for me. This helped me become a much more confident person in my academic and social lives.

With the independence came a lot more responsibility too. This was also good for me, because now that I was in college I didn’t have a mother sitting on me to make sure I got all of my homework done. I was the one to have to make sure I did everything. It taught me work ethic and I learned real quickly how to prioritize.

Whoever said “high school is the best years of your life” were sorely mistaken. I don’t necessarily consider college my best years yet, but I sure know they rock a lot more than high school.