VoluntEARS: WE Gives Back event

So today didn't start off great. I had some crappy children and crappy families when I started at flamingo, and after I took my 30 min break and headed to tracking it didn't get much better. I was swamped with people and within the first 5 min I was pushed by some guy since I was apparently in his way of taking his kid's picture. Because asking to move is just too much work, am I right? So after an hour and a half of tracking, when I went to lunch I was in a pretty foul mood. I felt super nauseous and couldn't eat anything so I got some Jamba Juice and ate some popcorn. I am normally a pretty patient person and normally like my job, so maybe it was because I was sick, but the day wasn't going well. I got to Animal Call and Forestry and felt like I was going to throw up on the children and was going to ask to go home but it was so busy I didn't get a chance to call Core Team. I even got ipaq'ed by Krystal and didn't even get a chance to talk before she gave me a thumbs up and walked away. I made it through that hour and a half and took a quick break offstage to compose myself before heading to Gibbon. I didn't make as much as an effort to recruit people or go up to guests, but I still had some decent conversations as I tried to keep myself together. I got to my second 30 min break and pretty much feel apart but figured I just had headquarters to go so I could push threw. Headquarters ended up being the best part of my day and closing went pretty easy (Anastasia even came by to help out since I had helped out with her signal 70 while she was at Animal Call) and I got a second good ipaq for the day/week from Krystal. 

I wasn't going to stay for the VoluntEAR event Krystal had set up, but talked myself into staying. I had signed up and really wanted to do it and felt bad backing out. I also figured I would reward myself with the pizza we ordered at the event. It was a ton of fun. We used old t-shirts (some grey ones from textile services and other colors) which was a cool way to recycle. I guess they have diverted over 500 tons of the entertainment shirts from landfills which is pretty exciting and the doggies at some shelters will get some cool handmade toys! First we cut some shirts into strips and we used a square stitch sort of thing I used to use all the time for the lanyard things I made at Kids Kamp when I was younger to put them together, so I caught on really quickly and was the first to finish so I made so more. It was fun to eat good food, chill with my fellow Wilderness Explorer Troop Leaders, my manager, and the leader from the Nutrition center who taught us how to make them. She is apart of the blanketEARS group which does a lot of crafty things so I might join if I end up staying another semester. At the end we even celebrated Christina's birthday with a cake and everything!

The one dog toy that I made! Super easy and super fun.

So ultimately, while today started on a sour note, it ended on a good one hanging out with people at the event while also giving back.

Post-DAKlimations Adventures

I decided to make a separate post for rest of the day after our DAKlimations class since the other post was getting a bit long.

We had already planned to go to the park, and since we got off early we got changed and headed to DAK as a guest (I changed in the car, because while everyone else was changing Amber had locked my stuff in her car. oops!). It was our first visit as guests to the park that we would be calling home for the next few months! We decided to get our wilderness explorer books from headquarters to check out our future job! We even went and got 2 badges at the Asia WE booth. We missed part of the lesson and were a little disappointed that we didn't do the whole activity.

Then we headed over to Everest. I was so excited! My family didn't get to go on it the last time we had come since it had been hit by lightning and closed down. We waited about 25 min as group to go on. It was so much fun! We went right again in single rider and was about 5 min. It was hot so we stopped by a blue ice cream truck thing. I didn't really want ice cream, but I did get my first glass of free ice water.

First ever ride on Everest!!!
Amber and I in back row
Then Allie and Lauren, 
Then Anastasia and someone random person

Single Rider for my second adventure

Next we headed over to dinosaur and afterwards Anastasia left to go let out her dog. Everyone thought it was pretty scary, but I don't really get it. The scariest part for me is right at the end and the picture part never is, but whatever. It's fun to see peoples' reactions.

First time on Dinosaur as a PI.
Amber, me, and Allie in back row. 
Anastasia and Lauren in next row.

Next we went on Primeval whirl and we were all screaming as we went around the turns. The forecast said it was going to rain and looked dark out. So we headed over to It's Tough to be a Bug since we figured if it started raining everyone would rush there. Waited for next show and had fun. I think lauren left at this point since she was really hot since she still had dress pants on because she didn't bring clothes to change into.

After the rain we decided to hit up the triceratops ride since it was one of only ones we hadn't gotten to and had a bit of time before the Nemo show. We went to the 6pm Finding Nemo Musical show and had a blast. Was first time Amber and Allie had seen it so their reactions were great to see. It was just as great as I remembered it. Then we headed back to Everest for one last ride. We literally walked right up to ride!

One last Everest ride of the day

We decided to go on Kali since we were leaving and it was one of the last rides we hadn't gone on. Allie got us a locker and we waited only like 10 min. We didn't get AS wet as we thought we would and headed out for the night. We came home and ate dinner and watched Pretty Little Liars with the roommates. Then I took a shower since I was gross from being in the heat at Animal Kingdom all day. I called mom to give her an update and wrote all of this stuff down, before heading off to bed!!!


Note: was published on 11/3