The End...

Well, it is bittersweet for sure but my internship has officially come to an end. I definitely learned a lot and had plenty of good times with the mouse but I cannot say that I am sad to be leaving Florida. As a matter of fact I am quite happy to be headed back to the glorious state of SC!! But there are certainly some things I will take with me including but not limited to:

-when in doubt, recycle...or ask guest relations :)
-a love for the "little things that run the world"
-a plan for how to eventually raise my children (mostly learned from horrendous displays of bad parenting)
-knowing how many toes a rhino has and what its poop looks like, and of course how important poop is at the animal kingdom!
-a much expanded knowledge base on all things dinosaurs (mostly learned from little boys ages 8 and under)
-the exact difference between monkeys and apes...monkeys have tails people!!!!
-people don't know how to read maps and don't pay attention to signs...its a fact
-a pine cone apparently feels very similar to a porcupine, a pineapple, or a dinosaur bone when hidden inside a log
-many people think it would be fun to eat all kinds of bugs, namely tarantulas and cockroaches...why else would they repeatedly ask?!
-that the phrase "well paint me black and white and call me a zebra" is totally acceptable and should be used in everyday life!

now these are just a few of the lovely things that being an education presenter at disney's animal kingdom have taught me. As you read this you may think I sound sarcastic or jaded and maybe I am a bit but I do think that working for the mouse has truly taught me so much about communication with all kinds of people and about giving great guest service and these things will surely help me with life in the future. And I don't hold anything against disney and I will certainly be back as a Guest soon enough. But I would like this to serve as a cautionary tale for anyone out there who may be considering working down here...be prepared to give up a bit of the magic so that you can make some for other people. That is definitely the trade off and only time will tell about whether I can get it back.

Seeing as how this blog was created to be info about me during my internship I believe that it will also now come to a close. I'm sorry if it didn't stay as up to date as any of us may have hoped but I have tried my best, hopefully kept you all mostly informed, and possibly even given you a laugh or two! Thanks so much for reading!

Ashley

Good Morning!

So I am ready surprisingly early for work today so I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to give an update...sorry its been a while but last week the park was crazy busy for the holiday and I was just exhausted every night. But most of those people have gone home and now it is slowing down again which is nice. I feel a little apprehensive like its the calm before the Christmas storm but I will certainly take it. Speaking of Christmas I now have the 2 week lull to try to see all the Christmas stuff in the parks that I've never seen before! Number one on my list are the Santa stories in each country at EPCOT. Apparently most, if not all, of the countries have story time each day where they have someone tell the story of Santa from that country. I saw it on the HGTV Disney Christmas special (yes I'm a Disney nerd who watched the show even though I work here) and was fascinated! I also want to see the candlelight processional since I've never seen it before and I want to go gawk at all the beautiful gingerbread creations that are up all around property. But for now I must go to work and plug on through another day...luckily only 4 more days until I'm headed to Tampa to watch my tigers squish some bugs!!!! Love to you all!

New week...

So I only got a one day weekend this week since I had 3 days last week for being in Clemson but at least it was Saturday so I got to watch my Tigers beat up on NC State and move that much closer to going to Tampa! But it was back to work as usual today. At least the weather is nice. It was a high of like 79 today with 0% humidity so pretty much perfect. I was my least favorite letter in the rotation but other than that the day went by pretty easily...no super cute kid stories to tell but I did sing the monkey vs. apes song to a family today. We talk about our Siamangs being apes not monkeys because they dont have tails and recently I found out that Veggie Tales has a song about it which now regularly gets stuck in my head. I suggest you look it up on YouTube...just search veggie tales monkey song! Everything in our park switched to Christmas last Friday I guess so there are decorations, Mickey's Jingle Jungle Parade and Christmas music in camp. I haven't decided which is worse, having the monkey song in my head or the Christmas hippopotamus song. Well got to go, I'm actually cooking dinner for myself tonight and its ready! Love to you all!

The blog is back!

So sorry everyone...you know how it is, life got busy and habits got broken but I promise to try to keep up better from now on. So today was my first day back from my weekend in Clemson! Hooray for a tiger win over FSU! This morning I had an interview for another internship that would last from January to June. Its with the same department but not the same job. I think the interview went well so hopefully that will be an option when this is over. I am still waiting to hear about school but that could be anytime between now and March if not later so I figured I'd better work on some options. It was a good day at work. The weather was nice. Its finally cooled off some but it was really windy today probably because of the storm in the Gulf. They say its supposed to make landfall tomorrow so we may get some rain but probably nothing major. Nothing particularly interesting happened with work today. Park attendance is somewhat down since we are in-between holidays which makes for a pretty easy going day. Tomorrow night is the first lighting of the castle lights as well as the first night for the Mickey's Very Merry Christmas parties. That's right, Christmas, all the other parks have their trees up and decorations slowly trickling out except ours. I think our jungle like theming doesn't lend itself as easily to the switch so we dont get as many decorations in general. I hope to go see the lights soon but everyone has been switching schedules around so much that I dont know when we will be able to get a group together to go. If I go I'll try to get some pictures posted somewhere though...it really is very pretty! Alright I suppose that's all for now! Hope everyone enjoys this and I'll update again soon!

Second Monday...

So since today is my normal "Monday" it was kind of like my 2nd monday for the week. but as far as mondays go it really wasn't that bad. At the end of the day I got to give Rafiki stamps (meaning a completed stamp card from all 6 kdcs) and the Kids Discovery Club membership pledge to two different families that I had given the first stamp of the day to, which is always neat to be the one to start and end their day. Also our team was complemented twice today to me by guests at how good we are and how much their kids learned today which is always nice to be recognized and feel like we really are teaching kids about something important instead of them just blindly spending the day at a theme park riding rides and eating mickey heads. The only other things going on right now are the fact that I have to start working on re-applying for school as well as getting ready to apply for another disney internship. Luckily there is the potential for doing both since the internships are 6 months and schools start in May or August. I suppose we shall see! Well that's all for now!

DAK Fun Fact--> In order to support the incredibly large and sophisticated dinosaur Audio-Animatronics at DINOSAUR in DinoLand U.S.A., their dino-size bases were built clear through the structure down to their own large foundations in the ground.

to catch everyone up!

Hello everyone! sorry its been so long since my last post. Life got pretty busy and I've been really exhausted when I got home, well come to find out it was because my body was fighting illness. I got sick this week, no worries just a cold, but it has taken a lot out of me. Playing with kids all day exposes you to a lot of germs I guess. Oh well hopefully I will get better by tomorrow though because this week I had Thur/Fri off because I switched with Dessa so that she could go home for her grandfather's birthday.
Work has been good though. About the same everyday except this past Wednesday. Every year the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA) chooses an animal that is in need to "celebrate" and try to educate people about. And since DAK is both AZA and WAZA accredited, we got to participate in the celebration. This year we are celebrating the Year of the Gorilla and Wednesday was the day we chose to really do some real gorilla education. Four of the twenty presenters were chosen to work a table at conservation station that included getting kids involved in putting together a puzzle that showed pictures of things they could do to help animals like gorillas, and I was one of those who were chosen. It was really cool because it was something different from what I do everyday and also it was pretty exciting to me because it is an activity that they actually do with kids in an orphanage in the Democratic Republic of Congo near where the mountain gorillas live that Dian Fossey studied.
Well that's about all from me for now. I'm just trying to get well so that I can get back out there perky and smiling and enjoying Disney Magic!

DAK Fun Fact --> there are 4 different subspecies of gorillas and all 8 of the gorillas at DAK are western lowland gorillas! They are separated into 2 troups, the family troup consisting of the large silverback male and 4 females, and the bachelor group of 4 boys. Learn more about the year of the gorilla and the projects out there to help these incredible animals at www.yog2009.org

Another day

It was another day at work with nothing terribly exciting happening. No ducks to save or crying to avoid. I had to give the Harambe presentation today which meant that I got to go to the lovely conservation station for 2 hours as well. It rained again today but only for about 20-30 minutes and it didn't cool anything down. As a matter of fact it was steamy, hot and humid all day long. :( We are having our first mentor meetings this week which is pretty exciting. We are divided between the 4 core team members into mentor groups that meet once a month or so. Its just a way for us to all meet up and talk about any questions we have or anything going on with our lives or in the world of Disney. Thats about it here.

DAK fun fact --> Disney's Worldwide Conservation fund has been established and giving out grants since 1998 when DAK opened and has awarded more than 12 million dollars in 110 different countries to date! You can best support DWCF by donating and receiving a button at many different Disney park and resort locations. 100% of your donation goes directly to our conservation projects, while Disney covers all administrative costs!