Time in: 5:30 a.m.
Time out: 2:00 p.m.

Yes, you read that right. It says 5:30 a.m. Today was so exhausting. It was my first day of on-site training. This boy Kevin and I got assigned to the Character Room at Magic Kingdom which is where all of the classic Disney characters live like Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Pooh, the Genie, etc. You get the group I'm talking about. Well these are the ones that go out on meet and greets and such. We first got a tour of the whole room and how the layout works and where to find certain specific things that we will need. It is one of the biggest and busiest character rooms at Disney which is impressive for how neat and organized it is. There's hardly even any hangers out of place. After our big tour we got to explore on our own for a while. We looked in all the drawers and at all the shoes and hugged a few characters (they're so soft!!). It was fun to basically have free reign in Disney's biggest costume room to look at whatever I wanted to. I'm picking up all kinds of organizational tricks!

After that we had a meeting with one of the on-site managers to introduce ourselves and go over basics. He seems very nice, I like him. Hopefully we'll stay on good terms. Managers always make me a little nervous. Then our trainer Millie (sweetest lady ever!) showed us how to build a few characters. We got to build a White Rabbit and a Donald Duck. It was so cool! I would never have thought of the process they use for the characters but it's very efficient and structurally sound. Each character has a checklist so you know exactly how many pieces they need to be completed and you know where to hang them and how to hang them and all that. It's all very organized. That's the biggest thing I'm noticing here. How organization is essential for the world to go round being part of a gigantic company such as Disney.

Then we helped put away some pieces that had come in from the laundry place. We helped some characters turn their fur right side out and hung them up and put them away. We learned the safe way of turning things right side out since all the characters are so heavy it can be dangerous to do it certain ways as you might pull something and hurt yourself. Safety is incredibly important at Disney. It's more important than anything else. And everybody makes sure you know that when you start. You must be safe in every single thing you do.

Today was a special day of training because one of the costuming ladies was retiring and they were having a big party for her. We helped set everything out for it since our trainer was her good friend. It's not what they usually do on training days, but today was special. What I noticed was neat though was just how much work they put into it and how many people showed up! The place was packed. The lady retiring was beloved and everyone turned out to wish her well. You could feel the sense of family from the group and it was very special to get to see from the outside looking in. I hope one day that many people show up to congratulate me on getting to sit around watching TV all day every day!

Well, that's all the magic for today!