And the Vlogging Continues

I'm sorry that this is just another vlog update (unless you really like my vlogs, in which case - you're welcome!).  I am officially done with school as of tomorrow so I plan to work on updating this blog a lot more in the coming weeks.  But for now I just want to share my two latest youtube videos.  The first is an About Me/Roommate Survey video and the second is a Disney Tag video.  If you enjoy them, please head over to my channel HERE and subscribe!

About Me/Roommate Survey

The Disney Tag

Thanks for watching!

An Aussie in Anaheim (aka: A Trip Down Memory Lane)

I've been trying to get a lot of stuff done around my apartment these holidays in preparation for my hopeful acceptance to the Disney International Program.  I've been going through cupboards, throwing out all sorts of things, selling my worldly possessions on gumtree and facebook selling groups (well not all my worldly possessions, but quite a bit) and finding all sorts of things I'd forgotten about.  yesterday I was going through one of my bookshelves (quite the task given the fact it has been my personal goal since 1992 when I saw Beauty in the Beast to get myself that library!) and I came across all my old photo albums.  Amongst these was the album of my first trip to America when I was 16 including photos from my first trip to Disneyland!  So I thought it would be fun to scan them into my computer (because back in the olden days we used film cameras) and take you all on a trip down memory lane :)

The Entrance and Main Street train station.  I took this photo through the gates because we got there early for rope drop

This sign was such a special moment for me.  I remember getting chills as I walked under this bridge and read this.  I sort of felt it in my soul...you know?

Main Street USA!  And you can just make out Sleeping Beauty Castle in the distance too!

Aw, there she is!  I may have teared up a little bit - the moment I'd been waiting for, for so long!

Me and Winnie the Pooh!  The first Character I met at Disneyland.  Note the date on the little calendar - I'm going to come back to that later.

The first of the three rides I was desperate to experience - The teacups!  The second was The Haunted Mansion and the third was Space Mountain (which was closed).  Sadly I still haven't had the chance to experience Space mountain :( but hopefully that will change soon!

Just chillin' with Goofy in Toontown.  Man I was such a dork!  Check out that classy green-corduroy-jacket-tied-round-the-waist look I've got going on there.  What was I thinking???

Mickey's mailbox!  I love the character houses - so adorable and brilliant themeing (as always)

Now remember how I said the date on the Winnie the Pooh picture was important?  When I looked at that picture yesterday I started to think about dates and how long ago that first trip was.  My first time in a Disney Park was on January 11th, 2000.  If I get accepted into the Disney International Program, I will be starting sometime in early January 2015 - almost 15 years exactly since my first time at Disney!  I might even end up with something significant on my anniversary like Traditions or my first day of training or the first time I get to ride Space Mountain.  I love little things like that, sentimental fool that I am :)

I hope you enjoyed my trip down Memory Lane!

You Gotta Have a Good Back Story

So It's been a while since I updated and I realised I had already half-written this post a while ago, so I thought I’d take advantage of the chance to finish and post it.  A while ago I posted my ‘About Me’ blurb type thingy, but I thought it would also be nice to talk about my history with Disney, and how I came to apply for the DICP.

Being one of the lucky kids to be born in the 80's, I grew up during the 'Disney Renaissance', so my childhood was littered with animated classics like The Little Mermaid, Aladdin, The Lion King and Beauty and the Beast.  I was also obsessed with a show we have here in Australia called ‘Saturday Disney’, which goes for about two hours really early on a Saturday morning and at the time showed Disney cartoons like Duck Tails, Talespin, Darkwing Duck, Gummi Bears, The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh… And the list just goes on and on!  I watched that show well into adulthood, but the cartoons aren’t as good as they used to be anymore. 

When I was very young, friends of our family went to America and on their return gave us a souvenir book from Disneyland.  I remember poring over that book and dreaming about one day going to the Happiest place on Earth.  I was also a super-avid reader and loved The Baby-sitter's Club series, and became rather obsessed with their very first 'super special' novel, a story about the club's vacation which involved a cruise followed by a trip to Walt Disney World.  After that I was hooked on the dream of getting to Disney one day, by whatever means necessary!

My first trip was to Disneyland when I was 16 years old as part of a 3-week cultural exchange program.  I worked for nearly 2 years in my after school job at Pizza Hut with an awful boss to pay for that trip, and it was worth every late night, grumpy manager and the weeks it took me to get the smell of garlic out of my pores!  I only got one day in the park (this was pre-California Adventure) but I knew that my Disney dreams were not going to be satisfied that easily!  I returned to Disneyland 4 and a half years later with my family and that trip was the catalyst for the change of my dream. Although it took a while for my new dream to grow, over the next 5 years I became more and more sure of something: I wanted to be a part of a Disney park - I wanted to be a Cast Member.

Around the time I finished my teaching degree at University, I looked into the possibility of working at Disneyland and even emailed someone at the company.  The response was a simple “Yes we hire international cast members as long as they are eligible to work in the United States.”  Since that didn’t include me, and no further information was offered, I will admit that I gave it up as a silly dream and started a teaching career which eventually led to returning to school to study Costuming.  The idea of one day returning to Disney didn’t die though, and I often browsed Disney sites and even went to the travel agent for information booklets so I could fantasise about my dream trip to Disney.

Fast forward to New Year’s Eve 2013.  I had been invited out to watch fireworks at the beach with some friends, but I was tired and didn’t feel like fighting the crowds, so I opted to stay home, have some chocolate and watch the NYE programming on the telly.  I found myself online, browsing ideas for jobs at the end of my studies, because I had decided I wanted to go overseas.  I was looking into cruise ships when I remembered that Disney had a cruise line, so I looked into that a bit more, watching YouTube videos until I stumbled across a video by a guy called Adande or ‘Swoozie’ about his time working as a Cast Member at Walt Disney World.  The videos were hilarious and in a few he mentioned the Disney College Program, which sparked my curiosity. 

A little bit of detective work later and I found myself at the Disney International Programs website.  Nervously I began clicking through the tabs that linked to the various programs, hoping against hope that there might be a program for people from Australia.  Typically it was the very last tab that I tried that was entitled “Cultural Exchange Program” and under that tab were the most beautiful words in the world: “Australia/New Zealand.”

Thus began my obsession with this program.

A quick read of the eligibility list told me I was able to apply, and I quickly devoured all the official information about the program.  Then I began the search for other blogs and vlogs that could tell me more about the program and let me tell you – there is so much information out there I’m surprised it hasn’t caused the internet to implode or something!  The hardest part was knowing I was going to have to wait several months before I could apply, but eventually in late April, applications opened.  However my excitement was short lived when I realised there would be more waiting involved…so here I am today – just waiting.

My DICP Guide

So, I'm still in the process of waiting for interviews to be announced, but I thought I'd share a little project I'm working on.  I decided that after a lot of searching and not being able to find a lot of information on the Australia/New Zealand J1 Cultural Exchange Program, that I would start making my own little unofficial guide, using my experience as a starting point and hopefully providing some useful information for others.  If you look at the tabs at the top of the page you will see one there for the guide so you can check out what I've done so far.  It's very much a work in progress, but please have a look around and keep coming back to check for updates because I plan to keep adding to it.