"Life in Agraba"

Today was different. My shift started at 7, which is code for the alarm goes off at 4. Can’t say I’ve ever gotten up for a 4 a.m. shift before. But by the grace of God, I managed to pull myself out of bed. Because of the weird bus route, I got to the Kingdom about an hour early so I just chilled—I took a shelf-lead tour of the underground tunnels at Disney, just to familiarize myself with them. One back, I clocked in and headed to warm ups. I was a spare again today, however at the Magic Kingdom they simply tell you to come back and check in for canceled shifts, they don’t send you to work in other departments to just kill time, so I spent about six hours this morning listening to my ipod in the Mousecateria. It was a tad bit on the boring side. About noon, they sent me to lunch (can you guess where…the Mousecateria.) After that I headed back the duty captain’s window (at this point we were the best of friends). She said to head down to Agraba and help Aladdin and Jasmine. So, I pack my stuff up and did that. Now let me just preface this by saying, being in the presence of a face character is like being back in high school again. I felt like a freshman walking into a room of seniors (though I was probably older than Aladdin). It was so awkward for me. However, the first set went pretty well (though I had my outfit on completely backwards). The second two were pretty great too! I enjoyed my time with Prince Ali and Jasmine. Both were kind, welcoming, and sarcastic (which made me feel right at home). Overall, it was a great shift. Then I headed back down to costuming around 4:30 to unpack my costume and such. After that, the duty captain told me to just sit and chill for the last hour before clocking out. I headed back to the Mousecateria with the same gait as the one child that isn’t picked for the kickball team.
After work, I got to spend some time with Jessica Ellens, my friend from SAU. She is the one that actually suggested this internship to me, so it was beyond great to get to go out to dinner with her. I told her, I feel like I’m still coming into my own down at Disney. I haven’t become comfortable enough yet to just be myself. Having dinner tonight with her, let me just loosen up. I didn’t have to worry about making a good impression or living up to expectations. Those few hours were some of the nicest, most relaxing one’s I’ve had since I’ve been down here.
Today I had ubber amounts of time to spare, so I checked back in with Sternie boy and listened to the next sermon in the Jimmy series. Today he was talking about being a friend of either the world or of God. James makes it very clear that you can’t be both! In fact, he calls those people in love with the world adulterers. That’s some pretty strong language James! But it conveys to the reader the significance of our relationship with God. Our relationship is a loving relationship, similar to that of a marriage. When we accept Christ as our savior, we say yes to him, and no to all others. “Others” being the world and ourselves. In the same way, when I get married, I am telling my wife yes and all those other women no (I mean let’s face it, there won’t be others, but for the sake of argument, lets consider me a playa). I promise my commitment to her will rise before that of any other, even my commitment to myself. That’s a promise to take seriously!