The Yellow Bandanna

When I was about 6 or 7, I saw this magic show at a dinky kiddy theme park that I absolutely loved. About halfway through the show, the magician pulled out this correspondence course envelope and announces that he will be learning how to perform...

The Yellow Bandanna!!! *cue fake applause and puppet yays*

The gimmick of the trick is that supposedly, the magician gets this really cool new magic trick kit in the mail with taped instructions, but instead of including the yellow bandanna, a yellow banana is included instead. The trick is turning the banana into the bandanna and making it all disappear. Overall, it's an extremely cheesy trick with lots of visual gags, and the taped instructions mean that the performer doesn't have to think up much of a patter.

Most people just saw a kinda stupid disappearing trick with a dumb pun as the premise. I took away something the magician probably didn't intend.

The fake instruction tape used in that trick "teaches" the performer about palming - using your hand (your palm) to conceal small objects. It's one of the most basic moves a magician ever learns, and is used in everything from massive stage magic to up-close sponge ball tricks. Despite the relative simplicity of the premise, it's difficult to learn how to pull off correctly because the real trick of palming something is not in hiding coins (or folded bananas) in your hand, it's the misdirection that keeps the audience form knowing that the thing was ever there.

For whatever reason, this trick stuck with me after we got home. I'd sit in my room practicing palming and revealing quarters and pennies. Then I got brave.

My house has always had a pretty strict one-candy/cookie/desserty thing-only-after-you've-finished-dinner rule. Most of the time me and my siblings would draw from large Tupperware buckets of leftover Halloween candy, trying to discover that one last Reese's cup months after the holiday. One day, after asking permission to get my "bucket treat", I decided that I would try to sneak an extra piece of candy. I picked up and displayed a Three Musketeers bar (almost as good as a Reese's), and got the okay from my parents. While putting the lid back on my bucket, I slipped an extra Snickers bar out, palmed it as I walked back to my seat, ate my Three Musketeers bar, and asked to be excused. I took the Snickers bar out of my lap, palmed it in a fist that to me was obviously too tight, and hurried up to my room.

The extra candy bar was sweet with adrenaline-fueled goodness.

I hid the wrapper under some other trash, and thus began my prolific years-long career of petty larceny of candy and cookies. I now think my parents were aware of some of it (at the very least, I'm sure they had their suspicions) but I never got called out.

That was the first time that I started to break the walls of the panopticon and see that I was not always being watched - in fact, that most of the time, people don't notice what they aren't looking for. Over time, I used that knowledge and an expanding awareness of what people actually pay attention to to get away with doing basically what I wanted most of the time. I still do, to some extent (my friends will tell you I am a fantastic cheat at Munchkin). I've learned what I can get away with, and sometimes, it seems like I get away with way more than I should be able to.

Does this make me a bad person? I don't think so. I have definitely picked up some bad habits - it's way too easy to fall into them when one can be relatively certain of their own impunity. In a lot of ways, that has hurt me. On the flip side, I have gotten really good at knowing how to make people pay attention when I want them to.

My friend bemoans the fact that I'm not a magician. Sometimes, the tricks are just so much more fun to pull off without a stage.

Why Disney Needs Interns

Hello all - it appears that what little traffic that still comes my way after months of silence and bombastically declaring myself done comes from lifeanchoredinhope's list of Disney internship blogs - which is cool and all, but I never meant for this to be a Disney blog. You guys are here anyway, so I'll try to give you something fun to read. And I feel your pain - there's little enough first hand information about the engineering internships in particular - I know, we engineers are not all illiterate, we just act like it sometimes.

Quick background - I was a Professional Intern at Walt Disney World from January 4th 2016-May 15th 2016 (Spring 2016), working with Facilities Asset Management (FAM). FAM manages all the construction and refurbishment that the Imagineers or the Design and Engineering group doesn't manage across all the parks and hotels. I worked on projects like repainting the Aladar statue in front of Animal Kingdom's Dinosaur ride, building projection towers for the Hollywood Studios new nighttime entertainment, replacing a beer cart at EPCOT, and bringing the Carousel of Progress back up to modern fire code, among other things - not necessarily the glamorous jobs, but the ones that needed to be done to keep the parks safe and functional. Specifically, I did cost estimation and cost control, making sure that these projects had relevant numbers to budget to and that they stuck to those budgets. I got to see projects before they happened and see them progress, which was super cool.

Enough about me - to the main point - why Disney desperately needs interns.

Don't get me wrong - Disney is a great place to work. Therein lies the first problem - a lot of people who work there have been there for a long time, which in and of itself isn't a bad thing. Experience means that there almost always is a solution to almost any problem, but at the same time, there is a set way to do things - which can cause issues in a company that prides itself on innovation. Interns bring in new perspectives and new techniques, which can help the company grow and change with the times. Disney is an old company with a lot of traditions, and it relies on the churn of interns to shake things up a little.

In addition, interns come in imbued with the pixie dust that a lot of the people working at Disney seem to have lost after years (or decades) of working there. From personal observation while I was there, a lot of the full time cast members seem to forget how cool it is that they work at monkey-flipping Disney World, where their job is literally to make the imaginary real and to make people happy. It was part of my job to passively remind the people I worked with that it was pretty amazing that what  they do is unique and pretty frakking amazing - I mean, some of them got to work every day underneath Big Thunder Mountain, or with real zookeepers, or on frakking Rivers of Light - and, yes, I know, it all becomes over time an every day job, but working with young cultish enthusiastic interns helps remind older cast members why they wanted to work there in the first place.

In addition, interns bridge the gap between cast member and guest. Because the vast majority of Disney interns are young, family-free, and brand new in town with shiny blue (free!) passes to Disney World, that is where a lot of us spent a lot of our free time. (I mean, Universal and Sea World cost money.) A lot of the permanent cast members don't have time to actually experience the magic they help create because they have families and bills to pay and hobbies (ugh!), so they miss out on a crucial perspective of making Disney what it is - what it looks like from the customer's side, which, as Disney prides itself on catering to its customers' needs, is extremely important. A lot of the time, interns serve as instant focus groups (and test dummies) when it comes to testing new ideas because they have not yet become ensconced in the Disney Company bubble and still have a bit of an outside perspective.

And finally, there's the reason you all want that gosh darn internship in the first place - Disney needs interns to find the best people out there and indoctrinate  hire them. Disney consistently ranks as one of the most desired workplaces among millenials, the LGBTQ community, and maybe, I don't know, America?, so the internship program seeks to find out who really wants to work, not just who wants the shiny big brand name on their resume. As you've undoubtedly heard before, it really is a long interview that goes both ways, and as internships unfortunately become more of the new entry level position, Disney needs hungry new interns to fill up the lower ranks.

Long story short - interns keep the company young and hip, and help Disney find the best new talent. The Walt Disney Company would not survive without its internship program, which is why it's so monkey-flipping amazing. If you can get in, it's definitely a lot of work, but a lot of fun.

If you have any questions or comments about Disney and/or internships, feel free to shoot me an email at g14racer@gmail.com or look me up on LinkedIn or Facebook.


*Please note that all opinions are my own and in no way represent The Walt Disney Company or any of its affiliates.
**Also note that the hyperlinked images are not my own and belong to their respective sites.

Moving On

Hello all - I know I haven't posted a lot recently, and I know some of my regulars have been a bit miffed about it. However, I know this post will likely draw a reaction.

So here's what you missed: Interning for Disney was a fantastic experience where I met some amazing people and worked on some really cool stuff. Most of it is not anything that you'd hear about, like fire alarm systems, bridge repairs, roofs, and other stuff, but I have come away with a much better understanding of how to construct basically anything and everything. Seriously, I worked on everything from ADA compatibility adjustments to zoo enclosures.
I'm currently at summer school. working to catch up on what I missed.
Part of the reason I didn't post anything was that Disney has a fairly draconian, slightly ambiguous social media policy (despite the look of  attempted officialness, Blogger is very much so a social media platform) especially with regards to stuff that hasn't happened or been announced yet (not that most of what I worked on would be or will be announced).

The other part involves a confession.

I have an addiction.
I've had it since I was little, and it's steadily gotten worse over time as I have gained access and knowledge. I don't think it's debilitating; in fact, at some points in my life, it's been rather helpful. I have an inking that part of it is inherited. The good stuff causes extreme dopamine rushes to my brain's pleasure center, but I still devour the mediocre and even the awful stuff with gluttonous abandon.
Ever since I was little, I have had an unrelenting addiction to stories, in all shapes, sizes, genres, and mediums. Stories let me get out of my own self-destructive head and into someone else's head. Stories make me laugh, stories make me cringe, stories make me need stay up late at night to find out what happens next. I can't go more than a few days without a fix. My library, my friends, the Irish guys at the fair, movies, books, games, comedy, the works - I can't get away from it, but I don't want to.

So here's the reason that goes along with that - I've always wanted to have my own adventure, have something that someone could write a story about, to discover the world. This past semester was a kind of bizarre attempt at a build-your-own bildugsroman - my own personal dramatic coming of age story.
I've come to the realization that a lot of what I have, and a lot of the major decisions that I've made are not entirely my own - and I know that's not a bad thing.  However, I've become rather disillusioned after realizing that almost nothing significant that I have achieved has been achieved because I wanted it first. I needed something I could claim as my own, something that I could go for, something that I worked for and earned, and this internship happened to be just what I needed - a Bueller-esque chance to stop and look around around before I miss what I'm told is the prime of my life. It also gave me the freedom to take complete and total responsibility for my own path, and my own mistakes - and that was glorious. I had some time to reflect and think about where I - not my parents, not my friends, not my relatives - where I want my life, my own story, to go. And it's going to be epic.

Here's the thing - a lot what I've posted here over the years is disingenuous. I am very cognizant of my audience, that they want to hear that everything is hunky dory, that I love my classes, that I love life. (Otherwise, I get weird probing anonymous comments.) Sometimes, that's true - everything has been all good. A lot of times, it's definitely not. Last fall was the worst semester of my life, grade-wise, and probably health-wise. There were times when I obsessed over what would happen if I just disappeared, quit, moved out of the picture. I am no longer homesick, but despite having gone all across America, there are still very few places where I feel like I fit in well at all.
No, I don't think I'm gay (not that that would be bad), and don't worry, I've never been suicidal.  
But here's the thing - after this "semester abroad," after actually making friends that I can still talk to, after literally driving across the country, I've gained some perspective. I've realized that I have changed dramatically since freshman year.

I still want to tell my own story, but this blog is not the place to tell it. It was never really mine, and it wasn't even my idea in the first place, and it's never told an entirely genuine tale of who I am. I know there are a lot of fake people on the internet, but I don't want to be one of them. I'm trying hard to get over my own propensity for opportunistic storytelling. I also can't stand the shameless self-promotion and narcissism that running even a mildly successful blog about myself entails.
There are also a lot of other projects that I am working on, art, short stories, opinion pieces, photos, videos, and the like, that this platform is not well equipped to handle.
And then there's this.

And that's why this is going to be the last official Dragon Scales post.

I just can't deal with the lies.

It's just not working for me any more.

It's not you, it is most definitely me.

I know you're all devastated to see it go.

So this is Grace, signing off.

I need to go live my own story.

42.

From Orange County to Orange County... Part 1

Day 0
I hurriedly try to clean up my room and complete everything I've accidentally on purpose left until the last minute. My sister comes by to sit on my suitcase - it zips closed. I rush to the store, buy a good chunk of 80/20 ground beef, and start preparing burgers with all the fixings for my family. We have dinner, then I hug my siblings goodbye. My parents endure the always hectic drive to LAX, where my flight leaves late. I get shuffled through a few different security lines, then find my way to my terminal. The flight is full, so I check my carry-on suitcase, which is barely within size regulations anyway. I get a window seat next to a nice older couple and try to sleep.

Day 1
I arrive in Orlando bright and early at around 7AM local time. I shuffle off the plane, along with the other weary travelers, pick up my luggage, and haggle with the rental car agency. I get out of the airport and order my first and last actual coffee from the nearest Starbucks (a peppermint mocha) in order to make sure that I am awake. I sit and drink my coffee for a bit and try to plan my day. I end up going to Downtown Winter Garden, where my hotel is located. This little strip is disgustingly cute - all semi-southern charm and still dressed up for Christmas. I walk the conveniently located bike path until I find an open bathroom. I go back to my car and decide to check out Walt Disney World, since I'm going to be working for the next few months. I find my way to Disney Springs, the East Coast equivalent of Downtown Disney, then park and wander for a while. I notice there's a ton of construction going on, both on the roads and in the resort areas. I head back to Winter Garden to check into my hotel - the Edgewater. It's a restored B+B that looks alternatively cute and charming or like some old hangman ghost is going to wander into my room at night, but the people running it seem nice. I chill out in my room, then go for a walk again, then turn in for the night.

Day 2
I'm up and ready to go early because my breakfast time is 8AM. I get pretty good fried eggs, sausage, and toast. The owner of the hotel is there and tells me stories about when he used to work as a costumer for Disney. After searching the Internet for cost effective things to do in Orlando area, I decide to go to Rollins College, which is supposed to have an amazing free art museum. It turns out that that art museum is closed to rotate out the collection. I wander the campus for a while, crash their library, and go up the (relatively short) tower there. I decide to return to earth. I walk their equivalent of University Drive, and find a local park with a sort of sculpture garden among the pseudo-high end shops. Some of the installations are strange, but the idea is pretty interesting. I've walked a few miles by this point, but I see signs for a "Morse Museum." Thinking this is probably some funky technology showcase, I follow the signs and end up at a beautiful building, and notice that student admission is only a dollar. I pay admission, and find that the museum is almost totally dedicated to Tiffany glass art, including tons of windows, an abundance of lamps, lots of pottery, and a full colored glass encrusted chapel. I head back to the hotel, then grab a pretty dang good pulled pork sandwich from a quick-service place from across the street (I swear the cashier dude was flirting). I go to Disney Springs again, this time for a pre-arranged pre-check-in meeting with some other interns. We end up eating at the bowling alley (go figure), and I meet a bunch of great people, most of whom I will probably never see again. I go back to the hotel, pack up, and set my alarm.

To Be Continued shortly....

The end is near

Finals are upon me again. This semester's dreaded tests of knowledge, skill, and cunning promise to be difficult, but not impossible. I'm still not looking forward to them.

The weather is taunting me. Despite it being winter and despite the night-times being bone-chilling cold, the day-times are sunny, beautiful, and tantalizingly out of reach while I while away at online tutorials and old PowerPoints. Thankfully there's only a few more days until I'm free.  

I got my hair cut again last week. It's shorter than it's ever been, and I love it. My hair finally looks decent, and it's inherent fluffiness works in my favor. The the hairstylist said it gave "volume" and "texture," which I think are good things. The only downside is that I now regularly get mistaken for a boy, especially when I'm in my good hoodie and loose jeans (hey, it's chilly), but that's okay. I think it's a good look and it's really easy to take care of.

It was great to see my family over Thanksgiving. My brother just got inducted into the Arnold Air Society, an honors society for Air Force ROTC, and has grown up and gotten some ripped biceps. He seems to be doing better than I am. My sister is getting really involved at school and is busy practicing for this year's Nutcracker at her ballet studio (She's Fritz - if you want tickets, contact my mom). My parents just got back from Ireland and had some good stories. My grandparents seem to be doing as well as ever.

I'm really looking forward to going home, seeing old friends, and (and this is big) sleeping in. I'll see a lot of you soon! 

Back to My Regularly Scheduled Life

"Is this how time usually passes? Really slowly, in the right order?" - Doctor Who - Vincent and the Doctor

So if you missed my last post, I am in the enviable position of being at Disney Imagineering as an intern in Florida.
Spring can't come fast enough. My paperwork's through, my flight is booked and my housing's been acquired (no, I don't have a specific address yet). Just FYI, as part of that paperwork there were a few nondisclosure agreements, so, like last summer, I'm probably not going to be able to post extensively about what I'm actually doing there, and no, I can't take your ideas even though a Soarin' type ride with a Hercules theme would be awesome.
I just can't wait to be there.

But for the next 1.5 or so months, I'm still stuck in the semi-real-world of academia, with finals, lab reports, and homework, all of which are starting to send me alternatively into extreme boredom and unnecessary stress.  Yes, I'm exercising and yes, I'm eating half-decently. I'm also taking three more classes than full time and two more than the recommended course load, so I'm trying really hard to lie in the bed I've made for myself. It's not comfortable, but they say that nothing worth doing is.

I'm looking forward to going to the grandparents' for Thanksgiving and hearing everyone's stories. As long as we can keep away from politics, it promises to be a great weekend. I'm also looking forward to seeing some of the family that I don't get to see very often.

In other news, my magician buddy has started forcibly dragging me to Magic Cats meetings, so I have a few new rudimentary card tricks and bandanna tricks.

That's all for now - Hope you all have safe and happy holidays.

I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!!!

Here's the story - sometime in late September, I was canvassing Google, searching for internships and the like, and decided to look at Disney's career site. I started scrolling, filtering, looking for something that looked like it fit me, and subsequently threw a generic resume and hasty cover letter into the black hole that was (and presumably still is) their online application site. Since summer internships had not been put up (and I've been told that they are extremely rare), I threw my name into the hat for a generic Engineering Professional Internship at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World, and for a Construction Management Internship at Disney World. I kinda forgot all about it - it was an extremely long shot, and I wasn't even sure I wanted a Spring position - until a little while ago, when I got a call from a 407 area code. It was an Imagineer from Florida who wanted to "talk to me about my resume" - with less than 2 hours notice.
So we talked, then I talked to him and a couple other people, and briefly, a few women from HR. Two days later, after waiting for months, lo and behold, out of the blue, right between the eyes, [insert favorite cliche here], I got an offer to be part of the Facilities Asset Management team at Walt Disney World in Florida for the spring.

And I've taken it.

I know some of you are shocked, awed, and perhaps a little confused as to why I'd take a semester off school to work when I'm going to be working the rest of my life anyway. I don't usually explain myself, but this is huge, and intensely cool, and so I think I probably should. So, I don't usually do stuff like this, but here's the top ten reasons I'm going to work in Imagineering at Disney World (I will forgo the Buzzfeed style gifset):

10: It's Disney.
Everyone knows Disney, the vast majority of people like Disney, and pretty much everyone respects Disney. It will be an extremely impressive thing to put on a resume, and I've been told that once you have Disney on your resume, that's all any interviewer will want to talk about.

9: It's outside of Arizona
I've been feeling a little stuck at the U of A, and I think a change of pace and a change of climate will do me good. I've never been east of the Mississippi for any extended period of time, so I'll get to experience at least one new culture and will have somewhere new to explore.

8: Everyone else says its awesome
I have a friend who is interning in engineering in Anaheim and is having the time of her life. There are a multitude of blogs, tumblrs, and assorted media mavens who rave about Disney Professional Internships, and even Disney's own marketing seems surprisingly genuine.

7: I can get school credit
Almost any study abroad that I could have done would have netted me 3-9 credits from classes that don't help me graduate. Even the engineering ones mostly give only 3 credits of research units. This will count towards my graduation as a 3- unit technical elective, and therefore be better for me academically than studying abroad - and I'm getting paid.

6: I'm a semester ahead
Since I'm only a single major now, I have some extra time to play around with. If I get all my classes, I can still graduate May 2017 even if I take a semester off.

5: Networking/Mentorship Opportunities
Disney Imagineers are the best in the business, and a lot of them come from other businesses. I'll have the opportunity to learn from the best of the best, and meet some really cool people who could advance my career - not to mention that the interns themselves come from all over.

4: There's a ton of really cool potential projects
A new land based on Avatar, James Cameron's sci-fi movie about blue skinned aliens, is opening soon at the Animal Kingdom. A major revamp on a beautiful hotel (the Wilderness Lodge) is coming up. Soarin' is getting an upgrade. And I could potentially be part of one (or all) of those.

3: I have the tools
From my experience at Bechtel (thank you all), with Rube, with Haunted Dungeon, I have experience managing people, dealing with suppliers, pricing material. and making sure things get done. And anything I don't know, I pick up fast. I'm really good at building stories, at pacing, at getting the psychological payoff I'm looking for, which hopefully means I'll fit right in.

2: It's mine
This was something I searched out for and applied for myself. Looking back, I've noticed that I have a disturbing habit of stealing or absorbing other people's dreams in lieu of searching for my own (e.g. aerospace was and still is more my brother's thing than mine), but I've always wanted to work for Disneyland since I was little. This dream is my own, not my brother's, not my parent's, not my friends', and that slight bit of ownership and autonomy will make me work that much harder and makes it all that much sweeter. Also, it will be a great experience to be somewhere legitimately on my own without the safety net that comes from having grandparents 2 hours away.

1: IT'S DISNEY
Speaking of dreams, this is a company that literally creates them (ever seen Alice in Wonderland?). It's been a huge part of my childhood (and, it could be argued, my semi-adulthood). Just being able to be part of that legacy would be an amazing experience - to create the things that the next generation of Graces will obsess over would be so cool.

So that's why I'm ditching school. If you're going to beg me to stop, it's too late now, and I'm not sorry at all - in fact, I'm excited out of my head - I'm still bouncing off the walls. This is one of the coolest things that ever happened to me, and I'm really looking forward to the experience.