Namaste!

This past week was an exciting one, folks! I’ve earned my ears! I am officially done with training and have begun work as a Kali River Rapids cast member in normal rotation! We just got a few new CPs at Kali, and I am now no longer the new kid on the block!

Took this off my name tag! Picture from my Instagram.

Kali is in the Asia portion of DAK, and the greeting for guests in Asia is “Namaste!” If you want to know even more fun information, at Kali you can throw a little “rafters” on the end, and welcome everyone with a festive, “Namaste, rafters!” I know…it’s awesome.

I am getting close to the one month mark of my program, and I can honestly say that the time has flown by! My time is constantly being spent working, eating, sleeping, or shopping because I have a cast member discount that I use to justify everything I buy, and certainly don’t need.

Obviously it goes without saying that working is tiring. Working outside in the sun drains my energy so quickly! I come home and fall asleep on our couch practically everyday. Sometimes I even fall asleep on the bus, and then freak out when I wake up because I fear that I have been circling around for hours!

I wake up around 4am, go to work (DAK is so weird in the morning when it is all dark and empty), come home, fall asleep for a few hours, and then repeat. I do try to go to a park when I can though because I want to make the most of my time here!

Today, I went to Disney’s Hollywood Studios with Kirsi and two of my roommates for a few hours. I have been feeling poorly, a bit under the weather lately, but I wanted to go out just for a bit! We rode Rockin’ Roller Coaster, which is where my roommate, Chelsea works, Tower of Terror, met Mr. Incredible and Frozone, and learned how to draw Tigger. Pretty good day, eh?

From L-R: Maggie, Frozone, Me, Chelsea, Mr. Incredible, and Kirsi

Before all of that jazz and fun, I had the first day of one of my classes! My “Creativity and Innovation: Gaining the Edge” class meets once a week for 4 hours, and I honestly loved every minute of it today! I am super excited to continue that course, and to start my additional seminar next week!

I know that I don’t have a whole lot of information to update you all on, but to wrap this all up and basically summarize, I will say this: all is going well, I’m a little sick, but pushing through! Work is going well, I passed my assessment, yay! Let the busy workweek continue! My next day off is in 6 days!

To make this all a little more exciting and colorful, I will now leave you with some pictures from the last week or so. They are all with characters, so it may seem a bit repetitive, but hey, I think they’re fun! I love to meet and interact with characters!

Russell wanted thumbs up, but Dug wanted dog paws, so we compromised and each did both :)

Me, Goofy, and Kirsi

Minnie was obsessed with my sweater because it says, "Believe in Love"

She seriously couldn't stop talking about it!

A picture of my costume is still to come! I am just trying to build up suspense and excitement! (but actually, I am too lazy to go take a picture right now so let’s hope it will make it into the next post!) Ooh, update actually: I GOT FEMALE PANTS! I went back to costuming and finally found the female style pants, which still have extremely weird sizing, but who cares! Man pants are gone!

If you’ve tried to watch my recent video on YouTube lately, I know it won’t play because it is currently blocked, so thanks for trying to watch it, you just can’t right now :) I will work on getting that fixed as soon as I have time and faster Internet, deal? (Update: It should work all fine and dandy now!)

x Lauren