Half Way Done! (Plus a Little More)

Go Ahead - Call Me Dopey

As promised, I have returned from my seven-day hiatus to reclaim the throne as the single author of this blog. Hannah did a nice job covering for me last week... Maybe I'll appoint her heir to the throne, should my reign be cut short by an assassination, bombing, or other pernicious circumstances.

I've officially passed the half-way point of my internship; in fact, that day was a solid two weeks ago, leaving me with only three months left here in Orlando. The past four months have just flown by! In fact, had I not accepted the summer extension, tonight would be my last night here in Disney World. But as Hannah mentioned last week, it just wouldn't feel right for me to be coming home already. I feel like I'm really thriving in my internship now; I'm accomplishing quite a lot, and my experiences continue to strengthen my foundation in the engineering industry.

Most importantly, though, my ID now has my picture on it. The one I got back when I started in January lacked a photo (as all interns' IDs do for their first semester, I'm told), and was set to expire on May 10th. Since I'm extending, I had to go get a new ID this past week, and they had me stand against a pale gray wall and stare happily back into the vapid lens of a cheap camera while they lethargically clicked a button on their computer screen. It was so exciting!

As you can see, it no longer has an expiration date. I wish that meant I had permanent backstage access to Walt Disney World, but Rawlings tells me it's his responsibility to collect my ID at the end of my internship. And if he forgets, I get charged money for it. But, you know, no hard feelings.

In other news, I've released another set of drawings for a tool to be used by the Operations team at Big Thunder Mountain. It's an extremely simple tool, but what was great was that I modeled the tool and created the drawings in just one day; and Rawlings approved them the very next day with no edits needed. That means I made a lot of improvements from the last set of drawings, which took several weeks of editing/revising before they were ready to be produced. So I'm learning! And of course, my name is permanently embedded on three more Disney drawings. Feels pretty good.

Also, Disney announced last Friday that the brand new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride will officially open to the public on Wednesday, May 28th! So come on out here to ride it, and maybe stop by to see me, too. It's a very fun ride.

What's that? Oh, yes, I do have an opinion of the ride already - because I got to ride it three times last Friday with Rawlings and a few other engineering interns! I was likely one of the first couple hundred people to ride it thanks to the fact that I'm an engineer at the Magic Kingdom. And in the scheme of the millions of people that will come to ride that attraction, being one of the first couple hundred makes me feel very privileged.

I can't post pictures of it all, but it really is a great ride. The special effects and animatronics are all state-of-the-art, meaning this attraction has some of the best show elements of any Disney attraction in Orlando. And who doesn't love the Seven Dwarfs?

Which reminds me, just earlier this afternoon, seven of us engineers (or six, plus an intern) had to head out to Mine Train to get a rundown of some last-minute changes they're making to the ride vehicles. We were walking through the park in single file, and I noted that we resembled the Seven Dwarfs themselves, heading off to work in the mine. So of course, Rawlings began to assign us each one of the Seven Dwarfs' names, and I, being the intern, was stuck with Dopey. Everyone knows Snow White liked Dopey the most, though, so really it's a privilege to own that name!

Physical Therapy

For the past two-and-a-half weeks, I've been going to hour-long sessions of physical therapy, twice a week. At forty bucks a visit, you'd be hoping it's well worth the time, and I'm happy to say I think it is! Every time I finish a session, my knees feel more stable and less tender. In fact, last week I did squats for the first time since December, and I had no pain whatsoever. Granted it was just my body weight, but it's a substantial improvement over where I was just a few weeks ago. Hopefully that means I'll be all better in just another month or so!

And honestly, I enjoy going to physical therapy. All the therapists there are very friendly and fun to talk to; we get along well, and they're very knowledgable, so I've been learning a lot about my injury and the physical therapy profession in general. Hannah, I think you're gonna enjoy physical therapy if you continue to pursue it as a career!

Starlit Splash

I'll be honest: thus far in my internship, most of the intern events Disney has hosted haven't been very spectacular. But last Wednesday, in celebration of the end of many interns' spring programs, they hosted a beach party at Disney's Typhoon Lagoon water park!

It was a heck of a party. There were hundreds of interns, as the event was for not just the PIs but also the CPs. A DJ on the beach played great music that could be heard around the park, and though not all of the rides were open, several of the water slides and the wave pool were, meaning there was plenty of fun to be had beyond the dancing on the beach. They also had delicious free food, including pulled pork, sloppy joes, chicken nuggets, and an assortment of ice cream, including my personal favorite: Mickey bars! They even set off fireworks from the DJ's stage at the end of the night!

Francisco couldn't make it, but Rug and Jongui and I all had a great time. And to top it all off, we got free t-shirts. And eye-patches. (I had to make my own hook though, as you can see.) A thoroughly awesome event! I hope there's another one like it at the end of the summer.

Actually, I hope there's more stuff like that consistently throughout the summer. It's gonna be tough seeing all the things my Arizona friends are doing while I work 40 hours a week off in Florida. I need some material of my own to gloat about on Facebook!

Because engineering the magic and riding Disney's newest attraction weeks before it's open to the public simply isn't enough ;)