journaling

For my internship credits at school I have to keep a journal of all my experiences here at Disney. I'm trying to find the words to describe everything that this internship has done for me and everything I have so far experienced. What have I come up with?

So far, this intership has been the most exhausting, overwhelming, pressured, time consuming, challenging, physically demanding, eye-opening, exploratory, rewarding, amazing experience I could have ever imagined.

This is anything but a 7 month vacation. I work more hours and longer days than most of the full timers and haven't had an adequate amount of sleep since I got here. I have 2 days off a week, one of which is spent in a classroom. On the other day off, I find myself not catching up on sleep, but rather waking up just as early to fit all that i can into the day (for example..i've been to the wizarding world at universal 7 times..). This is hard, hard work, and a real wake up call into what 13-hour days, 5 days a week feels like. On the other hand, I wouldn't trade the last few months for anything. Every single day I bring smiles to peoples faces and I can't help but feel a jolt of happiness everytime I start to feel down. Memories of children's faces are forever implimented in me. Just the other night my second huge magical moment occured. It was the last family of the night at Character Spot at Epcot, so when the family got to the end of Goofy's line, Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Pluto (who the family had already seen individually) jumped out to take a group shot with the family. Sometimes the families are excited, and it's even worse when they aren't, but this was particuarly special. It was a family of 3 - a mother, a father and a child, probobly about 3 years old, and as soon as the other 4 characters came out all 3 of them broke into tears. The child was smiling from ear to ear and went aorund in a circle hugging all the characters and saying "I love you ___" by name. The mother couldn't even speak, she kept trying, but tears got in the way. And the father just kept saying "thank you, thank you." And as we gathered to take the final photo, surrounded by the entire photopass and attendent team, the song "miracle's happen" started to play. I had tears running down my face for the rest of the night, as I'm sure the family also did. I went to sleep that night with tears in my eyes and a grin as bright as that little girls. It's moments like that that completly justify how truly demanding being here is.

So getting back to my journal, I may not be learning how to lead cooperate meetings, design a plan of action or work on a major project, but I'm learning so much more about happiness and fufilment..you can be overworked and overwhlemed to the point of feeling like you can't even move any more...but if you are doing something that makes you happy, you'll always find a way to prevail. Though I miss my job at Jordan's like crazy, this journey has so far been the greatest adventure I have ever had....and I still have 4 more months. Plus a semester traveling around the world.