Disney Challenge Days 17 and 18

First off: HAPPY NEW YEAR! Today is New Year's Eve and also the 'One Week 'Til Florida' mark! I leave next Tuesday at 9:30 am and will arrive in Orlando at 7:30 on Tuesday night. I got the email from the people at the DCP to register for my housing and roommates--fingers crossed that all of that works out :) I haven't unpacked TOO much since coming home for Christmas so I'm hoping that packing everything won't be a complete and total nightmare...but we'll see.

I. Am. So. Excited.

But anyways:

Disney Challenge #17: Least Favorite Classic

I have to go with Pinocchio on this one.
For whatever reason, I just have always thought this movie was just...dull. I wish I had more words to justify my standpoint on this one but I really don't. It was just weird to me. He turns into a donkey and then is eaten by a whale. That whale is terrifying to a young child by the way. I don't know why but Pinocchio didn't do it for me.

Disney Challenge #18: Favorite Pixar film

This one is so hard because I feel like Pixar really knocks it out of the park with the majority of their movies. Pixar is really hit-or-miss with me: I absolutely love them, or I'm not a fan. They're definitely not mediocre by anyone's standards.
I have to say my all-time favorite is "The Incredibles".

What's not to love? The family is hilarious. I grew up thinking that my dad basically was Mr Incredible--he was the strongest man in the world. My mother could absolutely be ElastiGirl. I was the living embodiment of Violet throughout middle school and my younger sister would absolutely be Dash. Jack-Jack is so precious.

My sister has the scene between Frozone and his wife memorized. She's not afraid to bust that sucker out whenever the situation calls for it.

Start 2014 out with a laugh...I couldn't resist

I'm still waiting on a sequel to this movie. It totally highlighted the beauty of a nuclear family. There are very few Disney movies that have Mommy and Daddy in the picture. This one shows the chaotic dysfunction of a normal family...but then shows how awesome it can all be if we're all on one team. I love it. Absolutely love it to pieces.

Disney Challenge Days 11 and 12

 

Disney Challenge Day #11: Favorite Love Song

"We're not saying you can change him,
'Cuz people don't really change.
We only say that love's a force
That's powerful and strange.
People make bad choices when they're
Mad or scared or stressed.
But throw a little love their way
And you'll bring out their best!"

And that my friends, is wisdom. Plain simple truth stated in a song sung by trolls. Therein lies the magic of Disney.

The song "Fixer Upper" from the new movie Frozen takes the cake for my favorite love song simply because it's true. No unrealistic expectations here. No 'smoke and mirrors' effect where someone tries to hide their flaws from their love interest. No deception. Just brutal honesty from his 'family' because they want to see him end up with someone who accepts and loves these flaws of his.
What more could you ask for?

I say yet again: if you haven't gone to see 'Frozen'...just go see it already. It's wonderful.

Disney Challenge: Days 1 and 2

 

Finals are over. The apartment is cleaned and moved out of. I have evacuated out of the cold frozen potato-infested region. I survived one heck of a car accident (goodbye Phyllis the Toyota Camry! I have never had a noble steed to call my own, but I do believe you were the noblest of the noble as far as car/steeds go!). My 15 hour road-trip morphed into a 30+ hour road-trip due to the complications that come with totaling a vehicle in the middle of nowhere.

But all is well! I am home at last in the Golden State where you can step outside in a tee-shirt and not catch hypothermia. As much as I love that quaint little college town, I do not miss my nosehairs freezing when I'm outside. Life is beautiful. There's nothing before me now except for four months of pure magical bliss. Yes, Christmas is going to be wonderful. This is my favorite time of the year for all of those happy warm fuzzy reasons. But for me, the joyous feelings aren't going to stop and I can postpone the entrance back to the real world for a little bit longer.

Why, you might ask?

Because I'm going to go live and work at Walt Disney World for four months. I'm under no illusions: I'm hired because college kids are totally cheap labor and yes, my pay is going to be less than it would be if I had a minimum wage job here in my hometown. I'm totally aware of it. But on my days off I can take a picture with Flynn Rider and ride Space Mountain...so I'm not complaining :)

In order to channel my somewhat-obsessive/overly excited feelings towards this new adventure, I turned to Pinterest for some ideas on how to keep myself busy/distracted. And I stumbled upon a 30 Day Disney Challenge for bloggers. According to the beautiful CountDown App on my phone (hush, don't judge me), I have 14 days until I catch a plane to Orlando which means that I'll have to double up and do two days worth of challenges at a time butttttt that's totally fine with me :) So....let's do this thing!

Day Number One: Favorite Character

The issue with me (and trust me, I have many many issues) is that I have so many favorites that I really struggled to nail them all down into one category because they could fit in so many. For example: Belle is my favorite princess but technically she's a heroine. But anyways, I digress.

For the issue of favorite character, there really was no debate. If you know anything about me and my love of Disney, it's that I absolutely adore the Lion King. So my favorite character is, naturally, Simba.

It took me many, many moons to understand the themes and the dynamics all at work in "The Lion King". No, it's not completely original. Yes, it's based off of Shakespeare's 'Hamlet'. But man oh man do I absolutely love it. 20 years of life later and I can still enjoy it. I have way too much of it committed to memory and I'm at the point where I have to monitor who I'm with when I watch it because I will do the full running dialogue throughout the entire thing.

Last Christmas the Broadway stage production of "The Lion King" came to San Francisco and my Christmas present to myself were two tickets to go and see it. My younger sister accompanied me and while she enjoyed it, I don't think she geeked out nearly as much as I did. I was in absolute heaven. If you ever have the chance to go see it GO. I'll be going again in a heartbeat if it ever comes to my neck of the woods again. The costumes are incredible and the way that the actors have taught themselves to move like wild animals...it's pretty amazing to watch. I'm a fan. 

The nerdiness has continued since my discovery of using 'Spotify' to listen to movie/musical soundtracks while I work on homework or write. The soundtrack for the Broadway version of the Lion King is powerful. My personal favorite song: "Endless Night". So much beauty and depth. It's more than a story about a lion and his silly meerkat/warthog friends. It's a movie with powerful themes and motifs on life and accepting who you are despite the mistakes that you've made. Plus...c'mon, Pumbaa is adorable ;)

I'm including a link to a YouTube video of a performance of 'Endless Night' on the Rosie O'Donnell show back in the day. Seriously go watch it and just fall in love. Plus: look at that costuming. A man. But a lion. At the same time. Pure genius.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7AeTFYsBgc