The Happiest Internship on Earth has moved! You can now find all of my new posts at www.happiestinternship.wordpress.com. Why are you still here? Click on the link to the new site, all ready!

So This Is the Year 2000, Huh? Nice.

Just a reminder that this will be my last new post here on Blogger. Starting tomorrow, all new posts can be found at http://www.happiestinternship.wordpress.com/.

For once, no one can accuse me of being indecisive. After my computer crashed last week, I sorted through all of the options, did all of my research, and last night, just shy of a week later, bought a brand new Dell. Of course, I can't take all the credit for my decisiveness: I found a really great deal. So now I have a computer, printer, and, unfortunately, a much skinnier wallet than yesterday. But with 4 GB of memory and a 320 GB hard drive, my new computer doubles the power of my old one, so it's all worth it.

Now it's time for a confession: I don't have high-speed internet at home. We live out in the sticks, and high-speed's hard to come by. I guess it's not such a horrible confession, and I may have even mentioned this here before on my blog. But it makes me feel so 1990s. So with my new, fast computer and the super-fast internet I'm looking forward to once I move to Florida, I have a feeling that I'm going to be wasting a lot more time on the good ol' inter-web. And no more bumming wi-fi at the library every time I need to work on an important project or download a necessary program! (Okay, okay. Or everytime I want to watch a video of a drunk squirrel on a treadmill.)

"Ch-Ch-Changes" and To Study or Not To Study?

After a week of exploring, testing, modifying, and just plain playing around, I've decided to switch The Happiest Internship blog over to WordPress. You can find the new blog at http://www.happiestinternship.wordpress.com. WordPress had a few options that Blogger didn't, and I felt like this was a good time to make the transition. So I hope that you will all follow me over when WordPress becomes my official new home on Wednesday!

For the next two days (Monday and Tuesday) I will continue to post here on Blogger and on WordPress. All posts, going back to the beginning, will be available on WordPress, along with some new sections of the site with more information about me and the CP. Starting on Wednesday, July 22nd, my Blogger account will still be functional, but no new posts will appear: it will be all WordPress, all the time.

Got it? Good! Now on to your regularly scheduled post.

One of the last major decisions I have to make about the CP is whether or not to take a class/classes while I'm in the program. I only have limited time in Florida, and I can't get credit anyway, so I don't want to waste all of my valuable adventure time in a classroom. I can do that at home! But at the same time, I genuinely enjoy school (sometimes), and a Disney class would definitely be a unique experience. Ugh! When can I stop having to decide things?!

Above: An actual photo taken in a Disney class lecture. (Okay, maybe not.)

There are three types of classes at Disney: Collegiate Courses, Professional Development Studies, and the Exploration Series. The Collegiate Courses are designed for college credit and are a lot of work: homework, quizzes, lots of class sessions, etc. As far as I'm concerned, these are out. I don't want to take a class that could potentially stress me out while I'm at Disney, especially if I can't even get credit for it!

Professional Development classes are available for students involved in one of four areas of study--engineering, entertainment, finance, and security--and only for those students. So since I'm not enrolled in any of these majors, these are out for me, as well.

The Exploration Series, however, is kind of intriguing. They have no tests or homework, and are, according to the official website, "highly interactive and [encourage] each participant to fully experience all aspects of the 47 square miles of the Walt Disney World Resort as a learning laboratory." Sounds fun! These classes only meet once a week for 8 weeks, which means that I would still have plenty of time to get all of this done.

There are 5 classes in this series, exploring Communication Processes, Guest Service, Leadership, Marketing, and People Management at the Walt Disney World Resort. The Guest Service class sounds the most interesting to me, and seems to have the most potential for tours and all of that fun stuff. The Communication Processes one is also intriguing, as it seems to look more at behind the scenes stuff like Public Relations.

I hope that, whatever I decide, I don't regret it. (I've still got one more month to think about it: I will have to sign up for any classes within the first few days of arriving, though I'm not sure whether I do it at check-in or not.) I originally hadn't planned on taking a class, but as the summer's wearing on, I can almost feel my brain beginning to atrophy and I think I may need to challenge it just a little bit. Plus, there seems to be a common theme of regret among the blogs of former CPs who chose not to take any classes.

Most importantly, if I don't take a class, I won't get my Mousters degree! I bet you think I'm kidding, don't you? But I'm not: Exploration and Professional classes earn you a "Mousters", while taking a Collegiate course gets you your "Ducktorate." I love it, but I have to admit that this is definitely the cheesiest thing I've come across yet in the Disney CP, and that's really saying something.

Facebook: All The Youngsters Think It's the Bee's Knees!

I’m not really a huge Facebook-er. I post the occassional picture, join the occassional group, but I’m not real big on talking to people on-line who I barely talk to in the real world. I do have to admit, though, that Facebook has come in handy the last couple of days, CP-wise.

A large group is getting together on Facebook for a meet-and-greet dinner at Earl of Sandwich at Downtown Disney the night before check-in. I’ll probably go, but I haven’t RSVPd yet. There are already more than 30 people who have signed up to attend since yesterday, so it will be a nice, big group! Sounds fun!

A fellow CP asked me on Facebook yesterday if I knew about renter’s insurance. I told her I hadn’t even thought about it, which was definitely true, and then I did some digging on the good ol’ official website. It says that renter’s insurance is encouraged, but not required. I need to do some checking, see how much it would be, but I have a feeling I will be skipping it. I like to live dangerously! Honestly, though, what are the chances of needing it? Probably not very good. If I do get it, though, what are the chances that I’ll waste a lot of money? Very good!
If not for Facebook, I wouldn’t have known about the meet-and-greet, and I wouldn’t have even thought about renter’s insurance. I know I’m going to sound like an 85-year old when I say this, but this technology thing is kind of nifty! I might actually try to use my Facebook account more often.

I began packing last night. Just a few things that I probably won’t need for the next month: sweaters, cookbooks, those kinds of things. It’s really exciting, but it’s also really hard. I have a lot of stuff! I’m glad to be getting such a huge head start, though. Yay for me!

Problem Found, Problem Solved

I went to the school library a couple of nights ago to get some books. I spent half an hour finding what I wanted in our huge collection, only to get to the checkout desk and hear that my library account was inactive, because I was not yet registered for the fall. Sigh.

At least they didn't sic the library cop on me.

I was supposed to be enrolled by the Career Center in a GEN 099 class, a class that signifies that I have full time status, even though I'm not earning any credits. They told me at the end of the Spring semester that they would get a list from Disney of the participating students, and then sign them up for the class. I just assumed that this had been done by now, because registration was back in May. So I went to their office yesterday to see what the hold up was. She said that they usually don't get the final list until the beginning of August, which, to me, seems like that's cutting it a bit fine.

So, because of the library thing, I asked if they could go ahead and sign me up. It took a little work--the school's switched over to a new record-keeping system, and the GEN 099 class hadn't even been created yet--but they got it done for me. Thanks, MSU!

I now have the paperwork in hand, saying that I'm a full-time, off-campus student. Yay! One less thing to worry about. I'm going to go back to the library tonight, and hopefully this time I'll leave with books!