Earned My Ears!

I have a lot to update about, but I decided to title my post with the most significant happening this week - I earned my ears!!! :)

When you start training, you'll get a red ribbon to attach to your nametag that says "Earning My Ears." When you finish training and pass your assessment, you'll get to take that ribbon off and announce proudly to the world that you have earned your ears! :)  

My training went really well, and my trainer was nothing but awesome through the whole thing. I was nervous around the middle of training about being ready for the assessment, but by the last training day, I knew I would be fine. On assessment day, of course I was still nervous, but I knew my spiel and I knew I was a good driver, so I knew I would be fine. And I was! I got a lot of compliments from the girl who assessed me and the manager who rode my truck about both my spiel and my driving, which made me feel really great. 

I've worked 2 days solo, and it's so different from being in training! I think I was more nervous for day 1 on my own than I was for the assessment! Day 1 ended up being a serious test of my abilities - it poured down rain in a monsoon while I was driving. It made it hard to see and hard to drive, and there was info coming across the radios the whole time, AND I had a truck full of dedicated guests in their ponchos ready for an awesome safari despite the weather. But everything went just fine, and the guests even smiled and thanked me before they got out of the truck at the end! :)  

So everything at Kilimanjaro Safaris has been going pretty great for me the past 2 days, and I've had some awesome interactions with guests already. My favorite thus far...

I was working at the warden's post where the trucks pull up to unload guests after their safari, and one little girl in a flowery dress ran up to me and said, "We saved the baby elephant!!" I thanked her for helping to save the animals from poachers, and I got the truck ready to leave. Her family was the last one  on the dock so I shouted out a "bye princess!" as they were leaving. Her family stopped short with big smiles and said, "How did you know she was a princess??" I said she must be because she was so pretty and had such a beautiful dress on! Her parents said she'd had lunch at the castle with the princesses today, and that little girl's face lit up and she started telling me about everything she had seen... "I met Cinderella and Aurora! And they took pictures with me! And I met Jasmine but she had to go check on Rajah, because Rajah's not allowed inside the castle." 

:) :) :)

It was so great to see her and her whole family so happy, and to know that by simply saying goodbye to her I may have made her day just a little happier and reminded her of all the wonderful things she had seen and done that day. It was a simple little moment, but it meant a lot to me. :)

I have a day off today and tomorrow and I'm planning on spending some more time in the parks. Later today some of us Kilimanjaro Safari newbies on the CP are going to the Magic Kingdom to watch Wishes - some of them have never seen it, and I haven't seen it yet since I've been here, so it should be very magical. :)  Tomorrow Brian and I are going to have a date! - I'm hoping we'll go to Epcot, since it's kind of a special place for us, but we haven't made any plans yet. All we know is that the date involves dinner *somewhere* ... I'm just hoping it's dinner at Rose & Crown or Via Napoli, rather than McDonalds.

I'm having some trouble getting direct deposit set up. I've been talking to the IT people, who have been really great. Getting onto the Hub from my apartment has been kind of iffy too. I'm not sure if it's my computer or the internet or...? I may have to make a run to the computer lab at Patterson. Hopefully it will all get straightened out soon...