Where Dreams Are Real: UCF Orientation & The Weekend

Orientation started around 10am. I got there a little early, okay they were running a bit late, and this girl with very bright red/pink hair started talking to me. She had already finished a degree in psychology at UF and was now taking micro engineering or something like that. She currently however was a server at a Sushi restaurant where they "got to" dress up like Harajuku Girls aka Japanese Girl Dolls. It was an interesting 4 minutes... I'll never see her again yet know so much about her....

Since I did part of my orientation online we got to go straight to the Rosen College part. All of the new Rosen students were brought upstairs to a room and talked to about the history of Rosen. Here is the inside scoop:

Hospitality use to be part of the Business School at UCF, but 8 years ago Harris Rosen (who owns many Hotels, golf courses and resorts) went to the head of the hospitality department and asked how much it would cost to build a Hospitality College in the tourist area of Orlando because the area really needed it and it would be great for the students. The head of the department said $18 million and Mr. Rosen pulled out his cheque book and wrote a cheque that day. In Florida the state has to match large donations, so they had 36 million dollars to build the campus and attract professors, plus Mr. Rosen donated the land, and that is how Rosen College was created. :)

Then we registered for classes. In Florida you have to complete a General Education Program, taking certain classes from English, Science, Math and Social Sciences to complete a certain amount of course hours. Upon arrival I thought you had to complete this General Education Program before taking any hospitality courses, therefore I had planned to take class and live on the main UCF campus. However during orientation they told me I didn't have to complete all the general courses before I took hospitality courses as I had assumed, so I decided to register for hospitality courses and live at Rosen. It wasn't just that simply though. I didn't think I could just suddenly change everything, but I asked one of the girls doing orientation who lived at Rosen and she said there were definitely rooms available. So during our lunch break I called my parents for a conference (yup, even 3000 miles away I still need their thoughts on big decisions), and then called the housing people to see if it could happen. Turns out they had space for me, so 2 days before moving in, I changed my housing location! Then I was sneaky and called my Dad to register me in my classes while everyone else was eating. This actually worked out great, I was in 3 classes, one that had only had 2 spots left at the beginning of the day, and was all set. Until I went with the rest of the new students just to double check everything and found out I didn't have the prerequisites for one of the classes, even though it let me register for it. I kind of freaked out because nothing else seemed to be able to fit in my schedule that didn't have prerequisites. Finally I talked to another girl who said if the class lets you in, you're in and said she was in a class called Entertainment, Arts and Events, which fit in my schedule. So I signed up. And went to buy my books. The three courses I'm taking are Hospitality Human Resources Management, Hospitality Financial Accounting and Entertainment, Arts and Events.

When I went to the book store to pick up my textbooks my heart started pounding and my jaw dropped - My coursework had Mickey Mouse on the front of it!!!

My Entertainment, Arts and Events class is taught by Ron Logan, an ex-executive vice president of entertainment at Disney World, as well as one of the people who opened Disneyland Paris and he also helped produce and direct Lion King on Broadway!!!!! Among many, many other things if you read my last post. I'm so excited! The course is a retrospective look on Disney Entertainment from 1955-2000. My other classes text books weren't as friendly looking..and were sooooo pricey! Gross.

After orientation I met up with my friend Doug and he helped me return my rental car. As we were driving I heard a severe weather warning on the radio for 60 mile and hour winds, hail and rain by the airport...exactly where we were going.

I honestly couldn't see for more than 3 seconds when the windsheild wipers would first go across. It was super intense. We pulled over for a while (that's when I took the video) and then had to get the car back before 8. We ended up getting there perfectly fine, and took some back roads to get away from the bad tourist drivers....slash that's the way the GPS said to go. There were puddles so high the waves went all the way up my car! Yikes!!

That night we went out to Alehouse with Ashley and Yelitza which was super fun! We just shared a pitcher and chatted and had a blast. We also saw a girl that was seriously 6'7...and then looked tiny compared to the guy she was with who must have been close to 7 feet tall!!!

The next morning we did something I super love.... Breakfast!! I lived near the Golden Coral for a year and never went, even though a bunch of my friends would. I have a weird thing with buffets...where I want to eat everything..all of it...three times! Let's just say they are too tempting, so I never went. However on this bright beautiful morning Doug and I decided to go and it was actually really yummy. I didn't over indulge (my worse was a corn bread muffin, but common, those things are magic!) but was really stoked on the whole place. I dare anyone to argue that breakfast isn't the best meal of the day!

Then we got to do something really exciting.....wait for an hour and a half at the Car Rental place! I did something utterly dumb in the rain storm the night before...and left my credit card in the car! I was on hold to cancel it when Doug suggested I call the car place. They had it in a safe that I could go pick up. So we went to get it, and unfortuantely they hadn't mentioned that there were only two people who had access to the safe...and neither were working. They called one in early (although he was half and hour later than she said she would be) and so we got to sit and watch Monsters Inc...the whole movie! I enjoyed it. hehehe. Then we got to go to ....EPCOT!

We were lucky enough to have my friend Nick let us into Epcot and we went to visit Ashley in Canada who was greeting for the restaurant.

All Star Greeter

She didn't want this picture taken :)

She called up Janice who I haven't seen in so long and we got to have a great chat! I miss her, she's such a great lady. Sometimes a bit crazy about cleanliness of the popcorn cart, but a really good person, she use to give me great chats. We went into the Pixar Weekend event in the World Showplace but there were crazy lines for the characters so I just snapped a few shots of them and strangers ;)

It's true, My heart DOES beat for the Canucks <3

They had some great walls/signs up with Pixar info

They mentioned all the things that were in each movie...Like a Nemo toy in Monsters Inc
and the mobile over the Dentist's chair was from Monsters Inc.

The Luxo Jr. Ball is in every Pixar movie!

The old man who plays Chess with himself in the short is the restoration guy when Woody gets beat up!

Andy's neighbour Sid from Toy Story is the garbage man in Toy Story 3!

There were more but my other pictures didn't turn out so well...

He pretended to fix his hearing aid

They were outside in a Flower and Garden garden

I didn't realize Pixar puts so many little details in their movies connecting them all. It's pretty incredible. Then we ventured over to see Yelitza in the UK before heading to France to watch the movie. Originally the plan was to say hi, then go to Animal Kingdom then Magic Kingdom, but our passes didn't let us into MK (they had blocked it out), so we decided to go around Epcot and then Animal Kingdom. I'd never bothered to see the French movie before and although it was very beautiful, it seemed kind of pompous... We travelled from France to the America Pavilion where I finally agreed to see the American Adventure show. We stubbled upon the Voices of Liberty group and they sang K-k-k-katie, the song my Grandma and Grandpa use to sing me when I was little. They use to take us out individually so we got to have our own special time together and they would always sing me this song:

I loveee it.

The American Adventure was an experience and a half. I will admit I was laughing at one point, but overall it was good. I wouldn't watch it again, and they brushed over a lot of American History details that weren't so favourable but it was fine. When we came out our Animal Kingdom hopes were somewhat squandered because we found this:

African Outpost hiding from the rain

DOWNPOUR! We tried to brave it and make it to Mexico but it was too much by the time we got to Africa and we had to hide out for a bit. Eventually it let up and we got the best thing going in Epcot...Margaritas! and headed for lunch in the land.

The Best thing about Epcot is not Soarin', nor is it Test Track, Illuminations (although it's pretty close), Spaceship Earth, or the countries. The best thing about Epcot is The Circle of Life movie in the Land. I think every single person who enters Epcot should have to watch it, actually every 5th grader in the world should have to watch it! It gets the message about conservation across very well and very simplified ~~(not that I think some people need simple)~~ and it's also beautiful. I will admit I cried the first time I saw it and have been dragging people in there ever since. I think it's important, and made me respect Disney even more.

We also rode the Living with the Land boat ride and then headed to the Sea where I stared down this little guy:

So cool!

Next we headed to Hollywood Studios and took in some good ole fashioned Great Movie Ride. I try every time to get the Cowboy, but they never have his/her scene going! I need to wait in one of those crazy long summer lines I guess...

On our way to the Studios we saw this little babies..

and these ones!

When we got off the Great Movie Ride we didn't know what to do and it hit me to ride Star Tours. I wasn't sure if it was open yet, or what was going on, but I really wanted to check. When the ride came into sight I got crazy excited because it was the first day of soft openings!!!! I couldn't believe it!! Immediately we jumped in line. This ride is so good. Let's repeat that...this ride is SO GOOD! It's 3D now and has 54 different ride sequences you could end up with. I guess there are different segments, and the computer system randomly puts them together to create a different experience each time, therefore making guests want to ride over and over and over again...the brillance of Disney, gets me everytime ;) In our ride there Darth Vader, an Alliance (those are the good guys right?) spy on board that we had to protect and deliver somewhere (they took a picture and showed it of a little boy onboard) and an amazing holigram of Yoda is how we knew to protect him! Chewbacca was in the ride, a huge city, some Ewok, it was amazing! The only thing is it kind of felt a bit short - I never wanted it to end. New Star Tours? A++

We headed back to Epcot to watch Illuminations: Reflections of Earth....which I loveeee!!! They say the best place to watch them is from inbetween the two towers at the entrance to the World Showcase, but the two times I've watched from there we've gotten so much smoke and firework debris in our eyes/hair/clothes...

Sunday afternoon Ashley came over and drove me to Rosen College Apartments to move in! Once we found the room we went in and found Kelly, one of my new roommates. She was super nice and welcoming and got rid of all the girl who was here before me's stuff that she has left. I was pretty nervous, moving in with two girls that were good friends, but so far everything has been great! They are so helpful and friendly and fun, so it's great. Kelly is freshly 24 and from Tampa, and my other roommate Emily is 23 and from Cincinnati, Ohio/has lived in California as well!

This is where I was going to move into: