Monday

So today is Monday and thank goodness I have it off. I've got a nasty cold. It was creeping up on me last week at work but this weekend it hit full force. I guess I was working myself to hard.

Last week literally flew past me. I hardly remember all the details. To give you a little background on what I am doing here right now I'll explain a typical day. I usually start my day out pretty early waking up at 5:50. I get ready, eat breakfast and make lunch and then I'm out the door at 6:40. It takes me upwards of 20 min to get to EPCOT from my house. Considering that Disney is literally right across the street from my home I actually enter the park a minute or so after I leave the house. The rest of my drive to EPCOT is actually a drive through the park. It's that huge!

Once I get to work I park in the cast parking area and walk through cast services, the park and then to the greenhouses. Lately the mornings have been pretty cold but I don't mind too much. I think I've already acclimated to the weather here though. Pretty bummed about that. I thought I could handle cold fairly well and I'm already a wimp when it comes to cold weather here.

I start work by checking the board for the day to see what needs to be done in my area. I then take the cucumbers we use to sample to our guests on tour to the kitchen where they prepare little baggies full of fresh cucumbers. Then I head to my greenhouse. The first week we were here each of us received responsibility over certain greenhouses. Mine is the string greenhouse also known as the production greenhouse. This is good because my emphasis is actually production so I get to use a lot of what I've already learned at school and apply it here. That is, if I can remember it all. ha ha. I'm so glad I worked in the hydroponics greenhouse while I was at school. It has already helped me so much with making work more efficient.

So I start by cleaning my greenhouse really well. I blow all the dead plant leaves and dirt off and spray with water if I need to. Then I check all the signs and make sure that everything is in its proper place and well the list goes on but I don't want to bore you all with minute details. After I get opening finished I can start on the projects for the day. We like to call our projects parties. That way other people will want to come and help. right? :) Just this week we had an NFT party. I bet you're curious what that means. Well, NFT stands for Nutrient Film Technique. We have a system of growing our lettuce using a film of water that is infused with nutrients. The system looks a bit like this:

So the water is moving down these gutter like rows and hits each of the lettuce roots. Well the lettuce takes about 6 weeks to grow and then we harvest it. Harvesting 500 heads of lettuce is much easier when you have help hence, NFT Parties! It takes about an hour or so to harvest the lettuce, clean the system up and put the new lettuce in its place. We're getting better at it each time. 

Some of the smaller projects that I get to do are training the bell peppers or the cucumbers. When I say training I don't mean like training a dog. I mean using string and clips to train the branches. It's actually quite interesting. I may elaborate on this more in a future post. 

Usually our days from 7:30 up till 4 are pretty busy and there really isn't a free moment. I like it that way. The time goes by pretty fast and I learn something new every minute. Feels like my brain might explode at times but I'm really glad to be here and especially right now. I think the best part about working for Disney is that everyone here is really happy and friendly. From our guests to coworkers, everyone is very pleasant to work with. It really is safe to say that Disney World is one of the happiest places on earth. Every day I leave work I get to walk through the park. It still can't walk through this place without a big smile on my face. It's pretty awesome.  

First two weeks in Orlando

So I've been in Orlando for over 2 weeks now and have loved every second of it. The weather is beautiful, Disney World really is a dream ( I get to walk through EPCOT everyday), and I've got great room mates that have been so helpful in getting me settled and treating me like family.

I need to back up a little bit and mention something about the trip down to Orlando. It was long. twelve hour drives for four days straight but I made it and had a wonderful time with some good people in Cortez Colorado who were kind enough to house me and some amazing friends on Christmas eve and morning in Lubbock Texas as well as a family in Raymond Mississippi. When I pulled into Orlando it was around one in the morning all I wanted to do was sleep but first I had to find money to pay the toll road fees. Easy enough until I got to the toll roads where you had to have exact change. Since I did have quarters I was fine but because I made a mistake and got off at the wrong exit I payed once to get off the road and then had to pay again to get back on the toll road. Thankfully a kind person behind me waved a quarter in their hand to give to me. Miracle number one. Then as I was getting off the second exit I had to pay a 50 cent fee to use the toll road. I opened my car door and there were two quarters sitting on the ground as if someone had placed them there for me. I'd say this was probably the most welcome thing to meet my eyes at one in the morning than anything else could have been. I looked up to heaven and thanked God for that blessing. I know... 50 cents? He even takes care of the little stuff.

The next morning I began the process of exploring this place. The grid system here is different than any system I have used. I love the system in Salt Lake. Give me the coordinates and I can be there in 5 minutes. Here you must know the name of the road and the second name of the road  because they seem to enjoy double naming roads here Fouquette Rd becomes Fouquette Hancock Rd or is that visa versa? I can't remember. Isn't that confusing? So I made it to the Publix which is kind of like the Smiths back home and bought food for the week. I cleaned my room up and organized everything and got ready for the first day.

First day we met at Casting which is right across from Downtown Disney. We signed our lives away. It was great to finally meet my future comrades though. They are all so great! We've been able to hang out and spend time with each other already once during new years and then at the parks this last week. The first ride we rode together was Hollywood Tower of Terror and then Rockin Rollerscoaster. So fun!

Second day we met up at the Epcot and started our training for the next week and a half. It was intense and still is actually. I have yet to catch up with all the information I've been given but I guess the best way to learn is hands on, so throwing us into it without knowing everything ought to work really well right?

My partner in the greenhouse is Cayla. She's awesome! (She's standing to my left in the black) We got along right away. I think we're similar in that we are definitely extroverts and love to make random comments. She's already written all the odd random comments for our "Heard" book on the back of my binder. Maybe I'll take some pictures so you can see what I'm talking about. Well that's all for now. Send me questions if you want and I'll answer them in my next post.