Monday, September 20, 2010

Mickey Says: Update!

Let's start from the beginning.  First and foremost, I am pleased to announce that on September 16th, I accomplished #58 of my 101 Goals: Sing karaoke.  On Thursday night, a bunch of the life guards went out to a bar in Orlando called Cowboys and we took a taxi there.  This taxi was awesome.  When we first got in, I noticed the ceiling was covered in name tags from Disney World.  They were from all over the world--except America.  He had them organized by country so there was an Italy section, a Germany section, a Japan section, etc.  It was cool and probably about half the ceiling of a 12-passenger van.  He also had karaoke in his car!  He had the machine between the two front seats and two screens that came down--one from the dashboard, one from the ceiling.  So we sang all the way to Orlando.  We did ABBA, Destiny's Child, Jennifer Lopez, etc.  It was a lot of fun.  So there ya go, crossing one off!

I wish I could cross off #24: Take a Spanish class again.  I've been spending a lot of time with Mexicans and people from other Spanish-speaking countries.  They keep encouraging me to speak Spanish to them, so I've been practicing a lot.  But I'm still shy about speaking it a lot of the times.  I can usually understand them though.  I've also had to use Spanish a lot at work.  It seems like the number of Americans is down right now and the number of people from South America is up!  So I've learned how to talk to people about balls--do you want one, you can't have that one, etc.  And also running, diving, jumping.  One day this little boy and girl kept diving in and she did it right in front of me, so I called her over and told her, "Puedes saltar con tus pies primero.  No tu caballo."  Of course I meant to say "cabesa"...you can't jump in with your head first.  Instead I told her horse.  They just looked at me like I was crazy.

Here's the group at Cowboys 2 weeks ago.
Back row, L to R: James, Ashley, Tyler, Alix, Nicole, Hannah (ME!), Nicole
Front row, L to R: Emily, Jaime, Samantha
(We all work together, except Samantha is the second Nicole's friend from outside work.)

On Saturday at work, I had my first Operational Alarm (OA).  I was working at the Surf pool at All-Star Sports at the time.  I probably should have radioed it in, but I forgot.  I was more concerned with helping the guest quickly.  I was standing on the side of the pool watching the water when a woman in the pool approached me asking me if I had anything for cramps.  I thought she meant menstrual cramps, so I told her we only had tylenol, advil, etc.  Meaning not midol.  She went on to explain that her legs had cramped up as soon as she got in the water.  So I went around and got the first aid kit for her to let her see what she wanted.  We're not doctors and we can't tell people what to take, so we give them our first aid kit and let them decide what they want.  She took a packet of pills, I don't remember which, and then said she needed water, but she didn't think she could get out of the pool.  So I tapped out, meaning I let the other guard know I was losing my 10/20 and leaving the pool.  (A 10/20 means we need to be able to scan our entire water in 10 seconds and get to the furthest point in the zone in 20 seconds.)  So I went to the bar to get her water and took it back to her.  I stayed there to make sure she was alright and didn't need anything else before I scanned back in.  It was the second to last stand and my next rotation was AC (area clean-up), so I checked in with her periodically, but then she disappeared so I'm guessing she left.  We made sure she stayed in the shallow end, because if she couldn't use her legs, she couldn't stay up in the deep end and we did not want to go in for her.  She ended up okay and 20 minutes later a kid on the other side of the pool stubbed his toe, started crying, and our coordinator was out there anyway.

On Saturday night, I went to Epcot for dinner with some people from work and their friends.  Three of them were from Mexico, one from Costa Rica, and one from Guatemala.  Meaning lots and lots of Spanish!  It was a lot of fun.  We were going to eat at the Mexican pavilion, but the sit down restaurant was $25 a plate and we don't get a discount there and the quick-service restaurant was $10-$15 for stuff like nachos, quesadillas, etc.  They didn't want to spend that much money on stuff they eat at home all the time for a lot less than that.  So we decided to go to Biergarten in Germany, where I've been before.  But it was a 30 minute wait and it was already 8:30 and the fireworks show, IllumiNations, starts at 9:00.  So we went to the quick-service German place and just got bratwursts.  We spoke in Spanish and English all night and I tried to follow along with the conversation.  It was hard sometimes, but it was a lot of fun.  I imagine that's the closest I've ever been to being in another country with another language because they all said they struggle with English.  But they were nice and they liked to practice their English with me anyway.  Zuly, one of the Mexican girls, said she should always speak English to me and I should always speak back in Spanish.  I like her thinking!

The group at Spaceship Earth in Epcot.
L to R: Glenda (Guatemala), Zuly (Mexico), Hannah (ME!), Fernando (Mexico), Ana Daniela (Mexico), Jose (Costa Rica)

During dinner, they asked me what we call sauerkraut.  I told them and that it was a word we adapted from the Germans.  They said in Spanish it's called "repollo" so Jose, from Costa Rica, said, "Is it re-chicken in English?"  If you know Spanish, you know pollo is chicken.  Very funny.  The language can sometimes be frustrating and a barrier, but it also makes for a lot of good word play jokes--my favorite.

On the bus home, I met a guy from Italy.  He's the first Italian that I've met here!  Apparently they all live in the international housing complex and I think most of them work at the Italian pavilion in Epcot.  But I'm making my way around the world, one contact at a time!

On Sunday I had my last AM shift at All-Star.  I worked at the Calypso pool in Music and after work my feet were killing me.  You have to rove at both stands, which means you're basically walking back and forth the whole time on stand.  I'm sad it was my last AM because 1) I like getting off work at 4:30 more than 10:30 and 2) I like the dance we have to do at the end of the shift.  There's always a changing of the guard dance.  Both of my AMs before we did The Cupid Shuffle, but yesterday we did Cotton-Eye Joe.  The rest of this week I'm only PM and then next week I'm back at my home region.  I'm kind of bummed about that.  I like All-Star.  Also, yesterday if I had had my car, I could have gone to the Polynesian Resort because they were pulling guards from other regions since they were short, so someone else went instead.  Huge bummer.  Once again, the bus ruins my fun.

Anyway, I have two days off now and I was supposed to go to Jacksonville today and Cocoa Beach tomorrow, but life happens and plans change.  So instead we're spending two days in the parks.

Also, it's officially been one month and one day since I've done laundry.  And I'm still not out of clothes!

Okay, one last thing!  Apparently I'm literally the only person in the world that hasn't heard "Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)" [The Official 2010 FIFA World Cup Song] by Shakira (featuring Freshlyground).  It's on the play list at Calypso and it's so cool because when it comes on literally every person in the pool knows the whole thing--no matter where they're from.  So of course I had to hit up iTunes and download it immediately.  Now I can't get it out of my head.

2 comments:

  1. Omg you had never heard that song?!?! It was on my June roadtrip playlist. C'mon!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I know! Where was I, right? I can't stop listening to it now!

    ReplyDelete