working out for Disney

[epcotisbest]

Moon through the trees. We are headed out for a morning walk, so i'll quit bothering y'all now.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

We went to Typhoon Lagoon yesterday. Let's just say I am not in good enough physical shape to be doing that again.
Part of the problem is the amount of stair climbing and a few places where you carry your raft up the stairs to then go down.
We did a few of the raft and tube type slides multiple timres, but we don't do body slides at all.
And, I am not much on the last river either. It was OK, but crowded and kinda boring. Ok, this stupid device insists on changing lazy to last. It changes stupid to st if too. Now that is s t u o I f. Look what it just did to the word stupid.
Yes, it sounds like I am complaining when no one made me ride those slides and climb those stairs.
All my fault as I still have all kinds of problems with accepting that I can't do things I used to do.
I could not sleep hardly any and have been up about an hour now. If I am aching like this later, we might not go over to the F&G Festival at Epcot, then I will be really disappointed in myself for not showing more restraint at the water park yesterday.
On the bright side, the weather is great and the pools here at SSR are refreshing, the lounge chairs comfortable, and there is lots of yummy food just a short walk away at DS. Plus a well stocked fridge here in the room.
Auto correct on this Amazon Fire tablet is awful and makes typing this painfully slow, and some of the suggestions and corrections are just stupid. For example, this this just changed this thing to this this three times, which makes no sense. It also does some other weird stuff with spacing and grammar. Think I am gonna try to figure out how to turn this auto correct off.

This, right here, sums up my love/hate relationship with water parks. I love slides, but I hate all of the climbing. My older daughter chose a day at Schlitterbahn Galveston for her bday a few years ago and it was a ridiculously exhausting day. Even the lazy rivers are no longer lazy! Hope you're able to make it over to F&G.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Amen to that! I do not miss that time at all. I miss things like All-state. I always made friends there....there was no jealousy because they had all made it, too, so we were all on the same level and didn't have to compete with each other. So I miss that, but I don't miss the school drama from jealousy.

All-state and the other big external select groups like that were such a pleasant eye opener. It was definitely scary my first time around, but only because it was so foreign to me. We had a couple of girls who tried to bring that catty competitive junk into it as I became a more tenured singer...and they wanted me join in...but I just wasn't having it and refused to let them tarnish the awesome singing environment I'd come to love in these groups. They wanted us to be the three amigos and rule over all other sopranos, like evil section leaders. Not sure how other states score it or what they require in auditions, but after all components were tallied, I was the top vocal score (3 overall) and they were 1 & 2 in overall scores after adding in sight singing. I remember auditioning for something while we were still in this session of All-state and one of these girls started trying to scare the sopranos behind me in the audition line with a bunch of "ooooooh...you have to go after Sandy. I feel so bad for you. She's gonna kill it in there." To which I stood up, told her to shut it and then talked to this poor terrified freshman and told her to not worry about me. I told her to just go in there and give her best, because that's all any of us really want to do. I can't remember how I put it, but it was something in the only being as good as your competition vein, so if I beat anyone, I want to know it was because we all gave it everything. I guess it must have made its way through the line because another freshman, who ended up besting all of us for this other choir, told me she heard I was the nice one and she started coming to me for help after practices started up for that group. I guess at least I was in a position to be able keep those other mean girls in check so they didn't make things miserable for the others. Not that it has any place in any of these groups, but usually when people make All-state, Region, etc. they are extremely talented people who don't need these games. They were both very talented, so I can only think they had insecurities that were coming out in all of the wrong ways.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

DD's birthday is tomorrow so I'm getting my exercise by getting the house organized. I mowed both the front and back, and I think I'm going to have to just spray the front down with vinegar and dish soap. It's too riddled with weeds to save and it looks awful. I need to just start over.
I also cleaned up my kitchen counters that were really cluttered, and later I need to scrub out the deep fryer, and we're going to make a cake. 4500 steps so far, and I still have to get DS from school, do the grocery shopping, make dinner, etc.
But first, it's fastpass day!

Well, yay for FP day! That's always fun And happy birthday to your DD!

 

[Sans Souci]

View attachment 374313

Snoopy has no chill.

 

[Sans Souci]

Have you still been doing Toast Masters? Is there a question list somewhere of things they are likely to ask, so that you can prepare answers? I find I can present myself better if I know what I want to say. Good luck!!

I am going to join after the weekend. I didn't want to spend the money to join, only to be shipped off to Houston for 7 weeks of training and then working on the line. At one point, United was trying to get people to enter training a week after hiring. But now, training is on hiatus until the Fall, so I am going to go back to Toastmaster's after this weekend. The meetings are Mondays, so they will resume after the weekend.

I did find questions at Glassdoor and honestly, they are so similar to American's. I am not worried about the questions, since I feel like I can answer them with past work experiences. They also ask behavioral questions, like what would you do if someone had too many bags, but the won't check one, etc. It's anything where I have to stand up in front of people and speak that sets off the flight or flight response. I know I will have to give public announcements at times, so I need to get over that. I think that will come with repetition.

 

[Sans Souci]

We went to Typhoon Lagoon yesterday. Let's just say I am not in good enough physical shape to be doing that again.
Part of the problem is the amount of stair climbing and a few places where you carry your raft up the stairs to then go down.
We did a few of the raft and tube type slides multiple timres, but we don't do body slides at all.
And, I am not much on the last river either. It was OK, but crowded and kinda boring. Ok, this stupid device insists on changing lazy to last. It changes stupid to st if too. Now that is s t u o I f. Look what it just did to the word stupid.
Yes, it sounds like I am complaining when no one made me ride those slides and climb those stairs.
All my fault as I still have all kinds of problems with accepting that I can't do things I used to do.
I could not sleep hardly any and have been up about an hour now. If I am aching like this later, we might not go over to the F&G Festival at Epcot, then I will be really disappointed in myself for not showing more restraint at the water park yesterday.
On the bright side, the weather is great and the pools here at SSR are refreshing, the lounge chairs comfortable, and there is lots of yummy food just a short walk away at DS. Plus a well stocked fridge here in the room.
Auto correct on this Amazon Fire tablet is awful and makes typing this painfully slow, and some of the suggestions and corrections are just stupid. For example, this this just changed this thing to this this three times, which makes no sense. It also does some other weird stuff with spacing and grammar. Think I am gonna try to figure out how to turn this auto correct off.

Those rafts are slippery, too and forget it if a breeze blows. You can become airborne.

I am one of those people who will chill at a quiet pool with something to read, rather than deal with the parks. I'm debating renewing my AP, because it's become a bit too much for me. So, I vote for pool time!

 

[Sans Souci]

DD's birthday is tomorrow so I'm getting my exercise by getting the house organized. I mowed both the front and back, and I think I'm going to have to just spray the front down with vinegar and dish soap. It's too riddled with weeds to save and it looks awful. I need to just start over.
I also cleaned up my kitchen counters that were really cluttered, and later I need to scrub out the deep fryer, and we're going to make a cake. 4500 steps so far, and I still have to get DS from school, do the grocery shopping, make dinner, etc.
But first, it's fastpass day!

My yard has become overrun with weeds. I'm just like, what's the point anymore?

Happy birthday to your daughter. What kind of cake are you making?

 

[Songbird76]

All-state and the other big external select groups like that were such a pleasant eye opener. It was definitely scary my first time around, but only because it was so foreign to me. We had a couple of girls who tried to bring that catty competitive junk into it as I became a more tenured singer...and they wanted me join in...but I just wasn't having it and refused to let them tarnish the awesome singing environment I'd come to love in these groups. They wanted us to be the three amigos and rule over all other sopranos, like evil section leaders. Not sure how other states score it or what they require in auditions, but after all components were tallied, I was the top vocal score (3 overall) and they were 1 & 2 in overall scores after adding in sight singing. I remember auditioning for something while we were still in this session of All-state and one of these girls started trying to scare the sopranos behind me in the audition line with a bunch of "ooooooh...you have to go after Sandy. I feel so bad for you. She's gonna kill it in there." To which I stood up, told her to shut it and then talked to this poor terrified freshman and told her to not worry about me. I told her to just go in there and give her best, because that's all any of us really want to do. I can't remember how I put it, but it was something in the only being as good as your competition vein, so if I beat anyone, I want to know it was because we all gave it everything. I guess it must have made its way through the line because another freshman, who ended up besting all of us for this other choir, told me she heard I was the nice one and she started coming to me for help after practices started up for that group. I guess at least I was in a position to be able keep those other mean girls in check so they didn't make things miserable for the others. Not that it has any place in any of these groups, but usually when people make All-state, Region, etc. they are extremely talented people who don't need these games. They were both very talented, so I can only think they had insecurities that were coming out in all of the wrong ways.

Sad really. Our all-state sounds a bit different. We had to send in an audition tape, but we didn't have the equipment to make the tapes, so we had to travel to the neighboring town to do our audition tapes. Then a panel of judges listens to the tapes and selects the people they want to form the choir, band, and orchestra. They send you the music and you prepare it on your own, and then you show up in January and rehearse with the others who were selected, for 3 days, and then you do a concert with that music. Though my junior year, we were supposed to be brought in one at a time to show we knew the music, but they gave up before it was my turn because so many people were unprepared. I met another girl who was a year younger than me, and she came up to me and said "Do you feel as out of place here as I do??" because I was the only other person standing alone. She was the only one from her choir, I was the only one from my school. We became good friends and saw each other in speech and debate and such, too, so it was nice to make a friend.
Then my senior year, they had us perform in quartets and it had to be from memory. They'd let us look at the section of music to see what part it was, but then you did it from memory. I was towards the end, and the directors running the check were really frustrated that so many people didn't know their music. They were so relieved that I had actually practiced and then there was one group left that needed a soprano, so they asked me to come back and sing the soprano part for their quartet. But there was no competition in it. It was just...let's make sure you practiced, and that was it.
The only year I didn't make All-state was my sophomore year...I was disqualified because they sent us the wrong audition material. Audition excerpts were sent to each district, and the head director of that district was responsible for sending it out to all the schools in that district. So we got the audition material, prepared it, and then when we showed up to make the tapes, we were told it wasn't the right material. They had sent out the correct stuff a week or so after the first, and the director never sent it to us. So we got to the audition with the wrong material and no way to learn the right material on the spot, so we were all disqualified. I was CRUSHED. I guess a lot of small schools had that issue...one of my music major friends had the same thing that year with Trombone. They sent a trumpet part or something....something that was ridiculously difficult on trombone, but he played it, and then was disqualified. He wasn't told he had the wrong music until after he didn't make it. I think some of the head directors saw an opportunity to get more of their own kids in by not sending on the correct material to the smaller schools.

 

[Songbird76]

Well, yay for FP day! That's always fun And happy birthday to your DD!

Thanks! There were even fastpasses left for FOP and SDD for the BEGINNING of our vacation. Bookings must be slow!

 

[Sans Souci]

Hello--

I did a 40 minute yoga practice this morning. I thought it was 60, but I guess I didn't see that when I went to select a class. I just went with it. I slept so poorly last night, I don't know if it was the heat or what, but I woke up many times. I woke up at 4:30 and just decided to get out of bed. I went for a walk, too. It was a little chilly after yesterday, but enjoyable nonetheless.

I am thinking of what to make for Memorial Day. I just want a low effort, stress free day.

 

[Songbird76]

My yard has become overrun with weeds. I'm just like, what's the point anymore?

Happy birthday to your daughter. What kind of cake are you making?

That's exactly how I feel about the lawn....what's the point? For every weed I pull, three more replace it. I don't think there's a square inch that doesn't have a weed, so I am going to just kill it all. DH was like "But, then it will just be mud!" and I was like "And would that look worse than the weeds? At least I don't have to mow mud!"

We made a chocolate cake...we cheated. We found a Betty Crocker box mix at one of the grocery stores in Arnhem, as well as chocolate frosting. First cake I haven't made from scratch in over a decade! But really the cake was more for DS...he's supposed to be getting his final exam results back this week, so he asked for cake to celebrate. DD invited her friends over to bake cupcakes on Friday for her birthday. Those will be from scratch, including the frosting.

 

[MinnieM123]

That's exactly how I feel about the lawn....what's the point? For every weed I pull, three more replace it. I don't think there's a square inch that doesn't have a weed, so I am going to just kill it all. DH was like "But, then it will just be mud!" and I was like "And would that look worse than the weeds? At least I don't have to mow mud!"

We made a chocolate cake...we cheated. We found a Betty Crocker box mix at one of the grocery stores in Arnhem, as well as chocolate frosting. First cake I haven't made from scratch in over a decade! But really the cake was more for DS...he's supposed to be getting his final exam results back this week, so he asked for cake to celebrate. DD invited her friends over to bake cupcakes on Friday for her birthday. Those will be from scratch, including the frosting.

For chocolate cake mixes, instead of adding all the water it calls for, measure out 1/4 cup of brandy (and then add 1/4 less of the water). Cake will come out unreal. (And you don't taste the brandy, it just makes the cake moist. A chef I knew shared that tip with me.)

 

[MinnieM123]

We went to Typhoon Lagoon yesterday. Let's just say I am not in good enough physical shape to be doing that again.
Part of the problem is the amount of stair climbing and a few places where you carry your raft up the stairs to then go down.
We did a few of the raft and tube type slides multiple timres, but we don't do body slides at all.
And, I am not much on the last river either. It was OK, but crowded and kinda boring. Ok, this stupid device insists on changing lazy to last. It changes stupid to st if too. Now that is s t u o I f. Look what it just did to the word stupid.
Yes, it sounds like I am complaining when no one made me ride those slides and climb those stairs.
All my fault as I still have all kinds of problems with accepting that I can't do things I used to do.
I could not sleep hardly any and have been up about an hour now. If I am aching like this later, we might not go over to the F&G Festival at Epcot, then I will be really disappointed in myself for not showing more restraint at the water park yesterday.

I've been a few times to both water parks. Never did the body slides, only the tube ones. I like the lazy rivers, but only when they're not crowded.

I don't mind climbing the stairs, but I despise hauling a tube up them (especially Runoff Rapids at Blizzard Beach).

But the straw that broke the camel's back was when they switched over to these digital combination lockers. I used to like getting the key inside the sports shops, and it attached around your wrist. But with the new lockers, they assign some arbitrary combination of numbers, and I had to remember what the stupid numbers were. Thought that was for the birds. Haven't been back since they did that a few years ago..

 

[Songbird76]

For chocolate cake mixes, instead of adding all the water it calls for, measure out 1/4 cup of brandy (and then add 1/4 less of the water). Cake will come out unreal. (And you don't taste the brandy, it just makes the cake moist. A chef I knew shared that tip with me.)

This one was already super moist! I wish I had put it in the freezer before I tried to frost it!!! But that's a great tip!

 

[Sans Souci]

For chocolate cake mixes, instead of adding all the water it calls for, measure out 1/4 cup of brandy (and then add 1/4 less of the water). Cake will come out unreal. (And you don't taste the brandy, it just makes the cake moist. A chef I knew shared that tip with me.)

I've never heard of that. I'll have to try it when I do a box mix. I know vodka is supposed to help make a flaky pie crust, but I've never made a scratch pie--we're cake and cookie people.

 

[Sans Souci]

Good morning-

I had another poor night of sleep. I have been up since 2. So, again, I got up at 4:30 and did 60 minutes of yoga. There was a theme to it about purging your life of situations and personal feelings that don't serve you, so I'll be keeping that in my head today. I have a friend who's been subtly insulting me about how I choked at my last interview.

I'm going for a walk once it gets a little warmer outside. It's another sunny day in the 70s here.

I have a juvenile blue jay who's been tapping on my patio doors to my bedroom and downstairs when I am doing yoga. He pecks at the window and then chirps. It starts just after 5 AM. I think he sees his reflection and thinks it's another male taking over his territory.

I have a video, but it won't let me upload. Do I need to upload it to YouTube and then upload it from there?

 

[Songbird76]

Good morning-

I had another poor night of sleep. I have been up since 2. So, again, I got up at 4:30 and did 60 minutes of yoga. There was a theme to it about purging your life of situations and personal feelings that don't serve you, so I'll be keeping that in my head today. I have a friend who's been subtly insulting me about how I choked at my last interview.

I'm going for a walk once it gets a little warmer outside. It's another sunny day in the 70s here.

I have a juvenile blue jay who's been tapping on my patio doors to my bedroom and downstairs when I am doing yoga. He pecks at the window and then chirps. It starts just after 5 AM. I think he sees his reflection and thinks it's another male taking over his territory.

I have a video, but it won't let me upload. Do I need to upload it to YouTube and then upload it from there?

Why would a friend insult you about your interview? That's not very friend-like! That doesn't seem like something you need in your life. I think people should try to make the people around them feel better for having interacted with them, not feel like they are doing everything wrong.

Interesting bird behavior. Maybe he just wants to do some yoga with you!

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Sad really. Our all-state sounds a bit different. We had to send in an audition tape, but we didn't have the equipment to make the tapes, so we had to travel to the neighboring town to do our audition tapes. Then a panel of judges listens to the tapes and selects the people they want to form the choir, band, and orchestra. They send you the music and you prepare it on your own, and then you show up in January and rehearse with the others who were selected, for 3 days, and then you do a concert with that music. Though my junior year, we were supposed to be brought in one at a time to show we knew the music, but they gave up before it was my turn because so many people were unprepared. I met another girl who was a year younger than me, and she came up to me and said "Do you feel as out of place here as I do??" because I was the only other person standing alone. She was the only one from her choir, I was the only one from my school. We became good friends and saw each other in speech and debate and such, too, so it was nice to make a friend.
Then my senior year, they had us perform in quartets and it had to be from memory. They'd let us look at the section of music to see what part it was, but then you did it from memory. I was towards the end, and the directors running the check were really frustrated that so many people didn't know their music. They were so relieved that I had actually practiced and then there was one group left that needed a soprano, so they asked me to come back and sing the soprano part for their quartet. But there was no competition in it. It was just...let's make sure you practiced, and that was it.
The only year I didn't make All-state was my sophomore year...I was disqualified because they sent us the wrong audition material. Audition excerpts were sent to each district, and the head director of that district was responsible for sending it out to all the schools in that district. So we got the audition material, prepared it, and then when we showed up to make the tapes, we were told it wasn't the right material. They had sent out the correct stuff a week or so after the first, and the director never sent it to us. So we got to the audition with the wrong material and no way to learn the right material on the spot, so we were all disqualified. I was CRUSHED. I guess a lot of small schools had that issue...one of my music major friends had the same thing that year with Trombone. They sent a trumpet part or something....something that was ridiculously difficult on trombone, but he played it, and then was disqualified. He wasn't told he had the wrong music until after he didn't make it. I think some of the head directors saw an opportunity to get more of their own kids in by not sending on the correct material to the smaller schools.

Yeah, I'm sure every state has its process and it may have all changed in this "modern" era. For us, everything was in person and auditions were held in different parts of the state on different dates depending on your Region chorus location. We had a preliminary audition, which was essentially a watered down version of the full audition. It just weeded out people who didn't really belong there from a talent perspective. The full audition included three scales set for your voice part (one chromatic), a solo a cappella piece (same piece for everyone in a key designated for your voice part), and a set choral piece where you filled in your voice part in the recording they played. Not sure why they never changed it up, but the choral piece was ALWAYS "The Silver Swan." They always had a warm up room where music was permitted, but you had to go into the audition room at your set time with nothing in hand. Oh, and after you went through this, you moved on to tonal memory and sight singing, which was done by separate judges and it was something like 5% of your final score. There was only one year where I didn't make it for All-State, but I was ridiculously sick...high fever, laryngitis, and coughing up a lung, so I try not to beat myself up over it. Not sure how it is in other parts of the country, but if you rank high enough in All-State on the east coast, you are put into All-East, which is a choir comprised of the top singers in 11 eastern states + DC. Your All-East rank, if high enough, qualified you for a national and international chorus. You were given ranks for all of this, but even though I liked my rankings, it all seemed kind of bogus since someone in NY was auditioned using different pieces, processes and people than the singers in NJ, DE, CT, etc. It's also a lot of $ to do all of these things since it involves a ton of travel. We had some travel for All-State, but it was nothing compared to what these other choirs required...and the year I made all of them, my parents started looking at college costs and the fact I was already in to my top choices and had talent scholarships attached to the offers, so it was no longer really necessary to participate in all of these elite groups.

That's absolutely terrible about the disqualifications! I couldn't even imagine the heartbreak. Wrong pieces or not, you prep so hard for these things (musically and mentally) and even if it was the wrong stuff, I'm sure you went in and sounded great. It's just unfortunate that these structured auditions don't have any kind of allowances for mistakes like this...especially when they are well aware that they started this problem. That would be disgusting if teachers sabotaged the smaller schools and districts like this. I'm sure it happens, but it doesn't make it right.

 

[HouCuseChickie]

Good morning-

I had another poor night of sleep. I have been up since 2. So, again, I got up at 4:30 and did 60 minutes of yoga. There was a theme to it about purging your life of situations and personal feelings that don't serve you, so I'll be keeping that in my head today. I have a friend who's been subtly insulting me about how I choked at my last interview.

I'm going for a walk once it gets a little warmer outside. It's another sunny day in the 70s here.

I have a juvenile blue jay who's been tapping on my patio doors to my bedroom and downstairs when I am doing yoga. He pecks at the window and then chirps. It starts just after 5 AM. I think he sees his reflection and thinks it's another male taking over his territory.

I have a video, but it won't let me upload. Do I need to upload it to YouTube and then upload it from there?

OK...I liked the post, but didn't technically like all of it. The blue jay sounds cute! I usually have to upload my vids to YouTube and put a link in my post.

I'm also jealous of your temps! It's still pretty early here and it's already mid 80s. I'm so not ready for summer!

Mind you, I have friends where we needle each other to push each other, but if that's not the norm for your friendship...that's just mean. You don't need that kind of negativity.