What better time than now?

A month into 2011 and this little nomad has already moved. . .twice! Ok once my stuff and once my sister's stuff but it still counts. I am happy to report that my new apartment is adorable and I love my new roommate. Drama free year here I come!

Taking my sister home to Chicago and back to school was sad to say the least. I lost my built in friend, and with my somewhat new single relationship status I quickly began to realize that I am low in the friends department. Partly because of where I live, people my age are constantly being shuffled in and out, but mostly because I was relying too much on my sister and boyfriend to provide my entertainment. So resolution number 1 for the year: make friends without agenda and regardless of whether they will still be here in 6 months. So far so good, I'm having lots of fun with my girls and some Brazilians!

I have also decided this is going to be the year to make some serious life decisions. I applied for an exciting new job a few days ago and I will hopefully see an outcome from that in a few weeks. No jinxing, more details to come. I've had some serious petitioning for my return to Australia and I'm really thinking about it. It always was my plan to go back to live there, life just kind of got in the way. I think that if nothing career-wise has happened for me by the end of this year there will be a big move happening. I miss Sydney so much. And I realized last week it has been almost 3 years since I was there. WHAT??? That's crazy talk. How could 3 years possibly go by that quickly? It's nuts. 3 years ago today I was absolutely freaking out about leaving in 10 days having no idea what to expect.

There are these new Disney commercials for the new memories celebration that started this year. It's hard to remember every single day how special my world is to most of the people coming through my park on a daily basis. I take it for granted and wonder what weird/frustrating guests I'll meet today. But seeing those commercials brings me back to just how magical my world is. Every few months I have one of these moments where something happens and I am reminded of just how lucky I am to be spending my days with Mickey Mouse. It really brings me back to where I need to be and suddenly it's not about the annoying guests or co-workers anymore. It's about the magic and it's perfect.

I'm going to live this year to the fullest of my ability. I want to step out of the shadows, take hold of my life and make it what I want it to be. This year is going to be amazing!

Happy Thanksgiving!

There's no day better, or sadder for this little nomad on one of her first holidays out in the real world. True, I have been away from my family on holidays before but it always eats at your heart just a little bit. This year I have my sister with me though and we're planning a big night!

Both of us are working today, but on holidays at Disney we form an even tighter knit family within our units and areas as we all share in the unfortunate circumstance of having to work on this day when everyone else is eating to their hearts content and more! So if I were all by lonesome I would actually prefer to be at work, which is so wrong I can't even begin on that subject. The same goes for Christmas, not to mention how magical my little Hollywood stage is on that day just a month away now!

So by 9 tonight my sister and I will both be home to make an abridged version of Thanksigiving dinner, for the sake of time as well as my vegetarian status. We'll eat way too much green bean casserole and watch Elf (because sister darling claims she has never seen it before!) and prepare for our 4am wake up call to shop our way to sleep by 9 or 10am. I have actually never really done the whole Black Friday thing before except for Target and Walmart to get cheap movies, so I'm pretty excited and nervous for this whole experience.

Until then I'm just preparing for work and making brownies for later, all while watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade just like I did with my mom when I was younger. Reminding myself how thankful I am for everything I have and to be with family on this lovely holiday when I know there are so many people out there spending today by themselves.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

We R Who We R

Let me start out by saying I try to live my life according to Ke$ha as often as possible. And I say that in the most serious tone you could imagine. She's my Gaga and I love her in the sense that I genuinely wish this girl was my best friend. I don't really know where my love for Ke$ha began or where it got so out of control, but I often wonder What would Ke$ha do? when purchasing clothes, makeup, jewelry. . .any wearable girly thing. If there were a WWK$D bracelet you better believe I would be wearing that thing with pride!

That being said, I had great intentions to be Ke$ha for halloween circa the Take It Off video complete with powder paint all over my face and hair. Only trouble was, it seems the only place to really get powder paint is from India where they have Holi, an annual festival of color. Sounds a little bit complicated, not to mention expensive and perhaps a little suspicious. But you can make it! With strange sorts of natural dyes from plants we don't have readily available in the United States. Ok, second option also expensive, far fetched, and time consuming. The third option seems toxic (there is some sort of powder painting method for fishing lures or something fishing related. . .doesn't seem like something I want on my face). So I tried makeup, which I will post a picture of below. The colors weren't really vibrant enough and the blue looks like incredibly bad bruises. So that idea was pretty much nixed, until yesterday!

What I'm after

What I currently have. Sorry I look so mean, I really just wanted to see what the color pay off was going to be in photos. Looks like a shiny bruised mess. Even the yellow which I thought was the best, you can barely see.

I now have until April 22, 2011 to figure out my powder paint sitaution because I just found out Ke$ha will be stopping by my lovely Disney infested town on her Get Sleazy Tour next year! I cannot wait! An entire House Of Blues of fellow Ke$ha lovers with crazy fashion sense and questionable morals. Love it.

Anyone have any insight on the powder paint situation? I've seen videos of some universities that have had these powder paint fights but I cannot seem to find any that don't come from India. And I don't particularly want to spend $19.50 each for MAC pigments, although I guess if I only really need yellow and pink it wouldn't be so bad. But where I would use the yellow again I have no idea, and I kind of wanted a few more colors than just those two.

Consume my wine, consume my mind

Maybe it's just me, but I get pretty obsessed with certain things to the point where it's probably unhealthy, but you know it's whatever. This current obsession of mine is one of those where I love it because it's where I would love to see my life go. I literally envision myself on a stage singing and acting every night and just absolutely loving my life. Enter long running obsession: Spring Awakening. I cannot get enough of it.

I've always really enjoyed plays and musicals, but for some reason this one is different. Maybe because it's all people my age that I can really relate to, like hey look where my life could be at 24! Maybe it's the music and unexpected-ness of the show, or the incredibly hot boys! Whatever the reason I can't get enough!

I have always been in choirs and plays/musicals at school, but it's one of those things where that dream is so far fetched it's hard to even imagine. Not to mention I have that awful syndrome of being scared to sing in front of people. Believe me I can do it alone in my room and with strength in numbers (choir), why not when it matters alone in a spotlight? The never ending always circling question. Anyone know how to break that unnecessary fright? I would love to know!

The reason this obsession has come back so strong is because I'm currently in rehearsals for the cast choir for the Candlelight Processional at Epcot. If you've never heard of the show it's basically a nightly performance Epcot puts on from Thanksgiving to Christmas telling the Christmas story through words and song. Celebrities are invited in as narrators along with guest choirs from around the country. So I've obviously been singing a lot more lately and I've found myself once again heavily listening to the broadway section of my itunes, which always brings me around to Spring Awakwening. I begin to live in my fantasy world where I'm all la-di-dah nomading my way from city to city on a national tour of some great musical. God, I wish.

I just want to sing! I wish it wasn't so scary!

Spring Awakening is on it's second national tour right now, so if it's coming to your city I highly recommend you go see it if you enjoy theatre. It will not disappoint!

Also, if you're heading to Walt Disney World this holiday season check out the Candlelight Processional at Epcot! It's really powerful and don't forget to wave to me!

PS. I'm not being paid to promote either of these! I just love them!

Where oh where has this little nomad been?

Nowhere really is the upsetting answer. I'm not really sure why my blogging suddenly stopped (and I'm sad it did), but I do have a few guesses...

1. Around middle february I found my boyfriend whom I am so happy with and was too pre-occupied with to write anything I guess.
2. At that time I started making really good new friends. The kind of friends that I really do want and try to keep in touch with now. (Don't judge my nomadic views on friends!)
3. Work got even more crazy and it continues to every single day.

That's the best I've got. . .sorry.

So where am I now at this exact moment in time? About 200 metres from where I posted my last blog. I'm still in Florida, still doing the same job, still trying to work my way up (or anywhere for that matter). The only difference is I don't live in CP land anymore. Something much worse in fact, the I work hourly for Disney for a living world. I do still love it with most of my heart, but it's definitely becoming a little tedious to go to work.

It blows my mind that I'm still here actually. I have not consistently stayed in one place this long in my adult life except at school for obvious reasons. You better believe I am coming up with the craziest ideas in my head of where I'm going next. A sneak peak into my brain:
-transfering to Disneyland (I've always wanted to move to California)
-applying for Teach For America (this is definitely happening, whether it will be this year or next is the question)
-finding some crazy (in the nicest, most sincere way) job in a foreign country.
-going to grad school in Sydney (this won't be off the list until it actually happens)

Votes/bets which will happen first??

Whichever way it boils down, I can't stay here much longer in my current situation. Really at this point I stay because it's a job and those are hard to come by these days. I would stay and work for Disney forever if I had a real job. I'm not using any of my skills at this point and I didn't go to school for nothing. So don't get me wrong, I really love Disney and working here, this nomad just needs to find her place in a company so big it's impossible not to get lost. But really I can't complain, a company that gives every single cast member (really think about how many people that is!) a copy of Toy Story 3 blu-ray combo pack just for all the hard work we do is definitely somewhere I want to be! And let me tell you, I'm lovin me some Toy Story 3!

I have a lot more to tell, but here are some new guidelines I'm going to live by: my blogs are going to be shorter now, I will be able to post more that way. I won't rant as much I promise! And I'm getting really into lots of new hobbies and I want to express those in this blog too! So there's going to be a little more variety!

Dear John, Love Lauren

I went to see Dear John tonight. It was amazing, but also not what I expected at all. It makes me want to find a man like John. And it makes me wonder why it seems like some girls get all the luck with guys. Obviously I am not one of them. For some reason I have always traveled with a crowd that is generally younger than me, not by choice that's just what happens. This then leads to dating the 19, 20, 21 year olds and even though that doesn't seem like a lot to my 21, 22, 23 year old self, I think you do a lot of growing in your college years. It becomes very obvious to someone like me, who has gone away to school and traveled halfway around the world when someone has never been across their state line. (And I mean obviously they have, I'm just exaggerating. But in some cases not by much.) It's just hard to connect with someone when they are in a different stage of their life and can't really relate to the things I've done and seen. I've met some of the most interesting people through my travels, I should be doing more of that. And I realize that I am making it increasingly difficult to find someone who fits my criteria. Ahhh! Well, there are always some prospects. :)

In other news, Disney life is actually going really well lately. With our new batch of college program kids, I seem to have been taken out of that category almost completely. I'm getting more privileges, being given a lot more responisibility (as I talked about before), getting raises (at least some of the time) even though I rarely see the benefits of it (paycheck troubles :( ), and just generally getting a lot more trust than I had even a month ago. So all in all it's good to be an extended CP in Hollywoodland. And I'm making new friends! Friends are great, I've missed friends.

And my newest and more exciting piece of news! I think I have a writing job. A real, honest to goodness writing job about what this little nomad knows and loves most, travel. I'm still exchanging e-mails with the head of the company but it looks like it's a go! It's great to see my hopes becoming realities. The reason I started this blog was to have a sample of writing. Being a journalism minor does nothing for me, and I know this. So what do I need? Experience! And I think I'm about to get it! More details to come. . .

You touched me for a little while

One of the best parts about being an extended CP: everyone begins to look at you as not a CP. There's a stereotype I guess you would say that CP's are generally not looked upon very highly. We are chronic call in, early release, goofing off, personal breaking kids who just want 6 months off from school. For the most part in most areas no matter what your job, full timers and even some managers don't regard CP's in a positive light at all. But it seems that extending is somewhat like graduating. All of a sudden co-workers that would hardly even look at me are now joking with me all day and telling me things that I don't even really want to know. I take it in though, I'm glad to be on the inside finally.

With all of this newfound acceptance also comes more responsibility. And let me tell you, I am ready for it. Many extended CP's boast about morning shifts (we always get the closing ones!) and better/consistent days off. In my case I have even worse shifts, but that comes with my responsibility. A few CP's a semester get trained in money counting and I am a chosen one! I have done this before at my old location, but with transfering and what not I have had to re-prove myself and I am finally back at the top! The view is nice, I'm the oldest newest star in Hollywoodland.

Everyone is still complaining about missing friends though and it's getting on my nerves. Don't get me wrong, I miss them but 5 months or less of friendship does not equal me needing to call you every 5 minutes telling you what I'm thinking about while dreamily staring out the Starbucks window. Maybe this little nomad is just used to her status and has accepted her fate. I realize I'm not settled and probably won't be for at least a few more years. Maybe it's just those who have never been away from home before. Maybe it's having been to college and abroad and realizing that with a true friend you will always be able to pick up exactly where you left off. Maybe it's just realizing that a lot of the friends you make here are more for convenience than actually having anything in common. Whatever the reason, I'm not stressing. Those that matter I will see again. Fate will always work its magic. There are friends everywhere, and I don't think it's worth it to waste the time talking to people thousands of miles away when there are new friends to be had right across the hall. They complain and they don't realize that with their complaining they're missing out on opportunities right in front of them.

Here's to making friends with the cute guy downstairs or the girl you pass each day on your way to work. Friends can come out of the woodwork if you let them.