Where is the silver lining?

Let me first remind everyone how grateful I am to have this opportunity with Disney. I am living a dream and trying to make the best of every moment. That being said, today was one of those days where I had to constantly remind myself how lucky I am.

I woke up with a black eye. From surfing. Three days ago. It just decided to show up today. That, accompanied with the other bruises all over my body and the sore muscles from trying to hang on to a surfboard while waves were crashing on top of me, made for a great start to the day.

My lead manager asked me to bring out a boat on my own - this is the first time I've been asked to do this, so I was very excited that I had been 'promoted' so to speak. While climbing over boats to get to the one I needed to prepare, I somehow sliced open my knee. And bled all over my costume and the boat floor. I was stuck in the river without any way to clean up my cut. I dug around in the tarp on the boat and found a paper towel and did my best to make it look like nothing had happened. But in the process, I somehow sat on a berry that had fallen from the jungle overnight. I was wearing khaki shorts. And I had to spend the next two hours driving a boat with a berry stain on my rear end until I got a break - at which point I had to race across the backstage area and sweet-talk the costuming department into issuing me another costume in time to get back before my break was up.

While I enjoy the opportunity to tell jokes all day long (I do want to do stand-up comedy after all), it's hard to get motivated to give a scripted 6.5 minute tour 34 times a day. Especially to boats full of foreigners who don't understand what I'm saying, or crying babies who scream over my microphone spiel, or smart-alec teenagers who try to ruin my jokes. For some reason, today I had all of these boats.

And then there are the other jungle skippers. While I have been lucky enough to meet some of the normal ones, I have to admit (in a loving way) that a lot of the skips are their own breed. And while I am a unique individual myself, I don't feel like I fit in.

Yesterday, for example, I was doing what a fellow cast member had told me: doing my stretches backstage. (Yes, Disney is big on safety, so we have to stretch while we're at work. It's part of the rotation.) One of the trainers came backstage to find me and let me know that I should not be 'hanging out backstage during a task.' He said people had been fired for much less, and I learned the hard way that not all cast members are as helpful as I had thought. Especially the one that specifically told me to go backstage for my stretching.

Today during break, one of my friends told me something he overheard. He said another Jungle Skip was explaining to a guest that most of my jokes were the same because I'm a new cast member. He got really upset, and wanted me to know that he had been there for over a year and all of his jokes were still the same too. He also told me my jokes were funnier than hers anyway. I don't know if it's true or not, but I felt better anyway. It's never a fun feeling when you're the new person. Especially not when people keep pointing it out.

Long story short: today was not a fun day. Yesterday wasn't either. And I'm working at Jungle for the next 2.5 weeks.

Ok, I'm done whining for a while. I hope.