Wednesday December 31, 2014

Happy New Years!!

Happy New Years Eve everyone!  I hope you all had an amazing Christmas holiday with your family, or Hanukkah if that's something that you celebrate!  I've been meaning to write another post for a few days now, but I've been really busy with work and everything now that I'm home again for the holidays.  A lot has been going on both with work and with getting  everything ready for Disney!  Since I've been home, I've done lots of shopping and have received several new emails from Disney, which is always exciting!  I don't know if you watched my most recent vlog about what I'm most excited for, but let me just say that at this point with only one more month left until I leave, I'm so so excited about so many things!  Guys, is it really only one more month away??!  This has been a dream of mine for so long now and I can't believe I'm actually going to be helping make magic for guests in the MOST MAGICAL PLACE ON EARTH!  I've been talking with my roommates for about a month and a half now and we've been getting along great!  I'm so excited for check-in when I'll finally get the chance to meet them!  I know I keep saying in my vlogs that I'll talk about how we met and who my roommates will be and I promise I will!  HEHE!  It was kind of a crazy process and I want to devote an entire video to that.  I'm also very excited to find out where I will be working and where I will be living.  There's just so much excitement, it's crazy!

 

Anyways, like the Disney Look email that I mentioned receiving in one of my videos, I also received an email about Education soon after that on December 17th.  On December 23rd, I received an email about my New Hire Paperwork and New Hire Portal Instructions which I was very excited about filling out.  There was quite a lot of information to read over and look through so I saved .pdf files of all the documents.  At the beginning, there was a welcome video which made me start to tear up a little bit.  This whole experience has just been INCREDIBLE and I haven't even started my program yet.  AHHH! 

 

My mom and I have been trying to go shopping to look for clothes for both Traditions, class, training and for my apartment.  Back over Thanksgiving break, we went to the Gulfport Outlets in Mississippi

 and I found a really cute skirt that fits the Disney look perfectly and I'm so in love with it!  I can't wait to wear it for Traditions!  Also, I just found some cute flats to wear for Traditions yesterday.  Finding shoes is so hard for me because I'm really short and my shoe size is like a 5 and even smaller in children's shoes and usually all the cute shoes start in 6's.  I don't wear flats that much so I thought they would be difficult to find in the first place, especially finding some that I liked, but I found some at Target that were actually children's flats, but they're plain and don't really look childish, so I'm happy I found some to wear.  I'm thinking about wearing a purple sweater that I had gotten at Forever 21 a little while back and hopefully finding tights to finish my outfit for Traditions.  I had bought another skirt also to maybe wear to class and a pair of skinny black dress pants from Kohls.  I'm just trying to pick up some professional pieces that I can wear when I need to.

 

Let's see, what else!  Oh, well exactly one month from today I will be in Disney!  I haven't vlogged about my travel plans yet, but trust me, I will film that too!  But very briefly, yes, I will be in Disney on January 31st!  We're arriving just a couple of days before my check-in date so that I can spend the weekend before with my family.  I can't believe how soon it's coming! 

 

For Christmas, my parents got me a Thomas Kinkade 2015 Disney calendar that I'm so excited to use in my apartment!  He has some of the prettiest Disney pictures ever!  I really want one of his puzzles to do!  That would be so much fun!  Also, they gave me Two Girls and A Mousetale by Elly and Caroline Collins which is a book that two sisters wrote about their experience while working for a full year during the Disney College Program.  I'm already on chapter fifteen and they were both Merchandise cast members so I really love reading their stories since that's what my role is!  It's a really great book, and I definitely recommend that one and Amber Earns her Ears just for a good read about the program. 

 

Also, my last little update that I have which is not exactly Disney related, but since I'll be down in Florida for six months, I was planning on visiting Universal Studios quite a few times and paying for an annual pass.  I've heard nothing but great things about the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, but as popular as they are, I've never been interested enough to watch the movies or read the books.  I've seen so many people vlog about going to Universal Studios during their program and everyone loves the Harry Potter section there, so I was curious what it was all about.  Last Friday night, I decided to watch the first movie just to see if I'd get into it, and I DID!!  I can't believe I've never watched any of the movies before.  The magic and wizardry is a little different than what I'm used to watching, but besides that, the story is so good and I love all the characters and storylines!  So far, my favorite one is Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and the Goblet of Fire!  I guess I'm turning into a Harry Potter fan now!!

 

I just thought I would share some pictures from Christmas and earlier today. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!!

 

                      

 

~ Krista Lauren Girod

Thursday December 11, 2014

Goodbye Finals, Hello Disney!!

Guys!!  I can't believe it!!  Today was my very last day at Southern Miss, and I'm really sad...  It feels so weird to think that I'm not coming back to school in January with the rest of my friends, but I'm also so excited to begin my Disney journey!  It feels so nice knowing that I'm done stressing with school until next August, which makes me really HAPPY! 

 

I had finals all this week which is never fun, but I got through them and am so happy that I finally have about a month and half to be at home and prepare for Disney until I leave.  I had two finals Monday and two finals Tuesday and then a paper for English due today.  On top of that, I had to pack up my entire dorm room to move out completely since I won't be coming back in the spring.  My parents drove to come help me this morning because I had tons of stuff to pack up and bring home.  Most of it will probably be repacked for Disney,  HAHA!  The last few days on campus were amazing, and I feel so blessed for all the sweet friends I have that have wished me the best of luck down in Disney!  It's such a bittersweet feeling leaving.  Around this time last year was when I first decided to research the program, and just about one year later today, here I am moving out of my dorm to start this new chapter in my life. 

 

I just wanted to write a quick little blog about what's been going on!  There's so much I want to tell you guys since I'm finally free from all the stress of college, but I feel like it would be easier to make a separate post for each thing I want to share with you all, which just means that there will be many new posts to read very soon! 

 

Starting Monday I'll be working again until the end of January, which is exciting!  I'm glad to be back working and to hopefully make a little bit of extra money to start me off for my program.  Let's see what else I can say real quick...  OOOHH Christmas will be here very soon which is my all time favorite holiday, so I'm looking forward to that!  I forgot if I've mentioned this in past blogs, but I did find all my roommates and we've been talking about once a week or so.  We all follow each other on Instagram and talking with them makes me so much more excited to meet them all!  I will most likely write a separate post about how we all found each other and who everyone is.  On a sidenote, Disney has been sending several emails within the past few days which is always exciting!  I love Disney emails!!!!  I received one all about the Disney look, which isn't very new, but there's tons of information to read (which I love!).  All my roommates and I also received a tax registration email which was really simple to fill out, and I've already heard of some people getting their New Hire Paperwork email which is so cool!!  I haven't gotten mine yet, but I'm hoping it will come soon!  Disney also sent an email about a new arrival date opportunity which was different.  They are apparently offering a new check-in date on March 2nd, but the departure date associated with that date would still be August 7th.  I don't know anyone who would want to change their date to an even later one, but I thought that was interesting!  I've already made my travel plans and have found all my roommates so I'm sticking with February 2nd!!  Also, just two days ago I got my most recent email which was about the DORMS Housing process.  It didn't say much, but it did remind us that we would able to register for housing two weeks before we check-in!

 

I'm going to miss everyone so much, BUT......................

 

In just 53 days more days and counting...  I'll be there... Can't wait to be in the MOST MAGICAL PLACE ON EARTH!

 

                     

                     

 

 

~ Krista Lauren Girod