Day 1225: The Ins and Outs

Finals week is upon us and I don't think I've ever known so much about music history. 

Unfortunately, four of my five finals are falling on the same day, which isn't really a situation I'd like to find myself in. Plus, they're all early in the week, which gives me less time to study. What this leaves me with is a ton of studying to do with not a lot of time, so I've been listening to my fair share of Disney music to keep me sane. 

It seems that as the years go on, things get both harder and busier...which probably isn't surprising considering the fact that, theoretically, junior year should be harder than freshman year. The great part about it though is that it almost motivates me more...to a point. Because I have so much more going on, my will to prove that I can handle it all increases, meaning that I study a little harder to achieve that 4.0 and spend a bit of extra time making sure everything is in order for the end of the year meetings across campus.

Although it doesn't give me much more time to blog...

Have a magical day!

Day 1162: A Giraffe's Cousin

If you thought I was going to waste an opportunity in my Environmental Science class to do an Endangered Species project on something other than an animal I learned about at Animal Kingdom, you'd be wrong.

Picking an animal wasn't hard! I just went through pictures from our past trips until I found an animal that really stuck out to me, and that's exactly what the Okapi did. Most people probably have no idea what an Okapi even is, but thanks to my numerous travels on Kilimanjaro Safaris I knew exactly what I was talking about in regards to the cousin of the giraffe. That's right, giraffe, not zebra!

The okapi lives in the Ituri Forest, a dense rainforest in central Africa. It's located on the northeastern edge of the Congo River Basin in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with savanna in the North, highlands in the East, and lowland forest to both the South and West. Because of these drastically different climates, the population of the Okapi is kept relatively low naturally, even without a large number of predators. However, in recent years, mostly since 1995, the Okapi population has reduced by more than half due to ongoing fighting in the regions, which impacts the efforts to save the okapi. In addition, the population is poached, and deforestation and destruction had made an already limited habitat smaller.

There's a few other awesome facts about the Okapi I learned though, such as the fact that it was once referred to as the "African Unicorn" since, until 1901, many believed the creature was a myth due to its intense ability to hide in the surrounding forest. Also, the okapi's tongue is used for grooming, and is so long that it can reach its eyes and ears!

So next time you head on Kilimanjaro Safaris, keep these facts in mind, because now you too know a little bit more about the okapi!

Have a magical day!

Day 1124: The Twentieth Century - Bring It On!

What's even better than a normal day of Music Theory class (it's my favorite course if you haven't figured that out already)? A day a Music Theory that begins with a Death Star and Holst! 

While I usually walk into class plenty early, today I happened to walk in right before we started, only to find that I had apparently been missing out on enjoying this lovely view of the second Death Star! As we begin our new semester here at SNC, we're moving along in the course of Music History from the Romantic Era right into the Twentieth Century and the destruction of tonality. If you have no idea what any of that means, don't worry, I don't really know what it's all about yet either, but I do know it means more modern music, and with that more modern music comes some of my favorite pieces...like Star Wars! 

Honestly this is going to be a really short blog post, but I like to go back to the roots of what Everyday Disney is all about sometimes: finding little bits of Disney in your everyday life, and this is most definitely an example of that! Thanks Dr. Henson for making this Star Wars Fan's day! 

Have a magical day! 

Day 1123: The First Backup System

I can't even begin to tell you how many times I've been sitting in a class and Disney pops up...only it doesn't. Well, it does in my mind, even if the actual topic of discussion is miles away from anything that seems related to Disney. Today's victim of Disneyization (Yes it's a word I just made up): Geography.

This semester I'm fulfilling a couple of general education credits by taking a geography course immediately followed by an Environment and Society course, and during a recent discussion, my professor was telling us about how Geographers have been around for a long, long time. He put up a slide relating cultures that relied on Geography in the past, including the Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Germans, British and so on. At first I didn't think much of it, but as he went on to describe how Arabs are extremely important to Geography, my ears perked up and thoughts began to align.

The Romans, of course, learned from the Greeks, and contributed significantly to Geography, building a system of roads all over the known world. Sounding familiar yet? My professor then went on to explain how the Arabs helped save many of the documents that were thought to be lost when Christianity took over Europe, such as when the Library of Alexandra was burned.

And then it all clicked. Of course I thought, realizing that the Greeks, Romans and Arabs were obviously all important to Geography along with many other areas of study, as they provided the first backup system, or at least that's what it's called on Spaceship Earth. Oh yes, because of my love of Spaceship Earth, I instantly completely understood exactly what my professor was trying to say, and now it's a portion of the class that I won't forget any time soon, if ever.

Maybe I should relate all of my classes to Disney...

Have a magical day!

Day 978: In Their Defense

College is hard, although that probably isn't any news to you. After all, college students are burndened with tons of work, giant exams, real life decisions, sometimes multiple jobs, very real debt, and often times...little sleep. I somehow manage to put up with all of it though, even with the crazy schedule I'm running on this semester, but I have found one thing that makes class just a little bit harder than it really needs to be.

It seems that people really like to put the blame on Disney. It honestly doesn't even matter what it is, but it comes up all the time, particularly in the social sciences. I mean, really, how many times do I need to listen to the same lectures about Disney? Just a couple of weeks ago we ended up watching a video in class on poverty in the Orlando area, and somehow they managed to bring Disney into the conversation, and it happened more than once. Like a good person, I've learned to maintain my cool in situations like these, but I do believe it's something that many Disney fans can relate to: that moment when someone has gone against Disney and all you want to do is defend.

Instead of yelling and screaming, most of us sit quietly, biting our lip and clenching our fist into a ball, until the topic has passed. Every once and a while we do get a chance to go on defense, like I did only about a week after the poverty video when we discussed Disney World and the families abusing diability services. There was no way my class would get the wrong idea about Disney, and my professor just let me know. And while she'll probably never read this, I'd like to thank her for just letting me explain, because I obviously cared deeply about it and understood what had happened since the initial article. If only there were more people like her in this world...although that might be why this social inequalities course is offered as a Gen Ed.

I'm not about to say that Disney isn't responsible for some things. After all, the princess culture does exist, even if I can say for a fact that I wasn't really impacted by it as a kid, and that's just one example. There are real life issues out there, but I'm certainly not one to suggest we should blame any one person, company, or thing as responsible for them. After all, there's a certain point where we all have to live up to our mistakes and accept that we too might be part of the problem. I'm working on getting to that point in my life, sort of like where my professor is, but until then I'll be sitting at the ready for the next time Disney comes up in our class discussion.

Have you ever had a moment where you despretly wanted to defend Disney? Let me know your story in the comments below!

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on September 25 due to a tight schedule).

Day 392: A New Beginning

It's Monday...and since apparently it's still warm enough out for us to have school, that means that classes start today. I'm going to split this blog post into two parts, mostly because I have a few minutes to spare right now and am not really feeling in the mood to go and practice my alto quite yet (I'll have plenty of time for that later today), I figured I would sit down and go do some work on my laptop...and there's plenty of work for me to do.

But you see, I can't accurately describe all my classes when I haven't had them all yet. In fact, as of right now I've only had two: Philosophy and Music Theory. Theory is pretty close to the same as last semester, but I have to say that it was really awesome finally getting to see everyone again. It's been a long six weeks without my music theory people. I can, on the other hand, talk about Philosophy, because I'm pretty certain already that I'm going to like that class.

First off, it's an 8 A.M. class, one that I didn't really want to take (we avoid 8 A.M. like the plague around here), but when I looked through the philosophy professors on Rate My Professor, I found that one stood out from the rest, the one that I now have. Since I have theory at 9, and he only taught an 8 or 9 A.M. class, I didn't have much of a choice unless I wanted to take an afternoon class with a different professor. So I sucked it up and decided on the 8 A.M.

I guess that was a good decision. Backstory time: I don't swear a lot. I mean, hardly at all. Sometimes I'll throw in a few of what I call "Star Wars Swears," which is basically a bunch of words that mean the same thing as a swear word but that no one knows or recognizes as a swear word. I also really like to add food in instead of swear words, snickerdoodle being one of my favorites. But since watching Once Upon a Time, I've found that I tend to add in "Bloody" before things a lot. Thanks to Hook and Will (Wonderland) for that I guess.

Well, my philosophy professor seriously was talking today and said "Bloody well" and I totally had this floored look on my face. I mean, really, not a TON of people say that these days...at least that I hear. MY PROFESSOR SAID BLOODY. Honestly that sentence kind of seems weird, but it was AWESOME.

Also, there was this point when we were talking about opinions and he was saying something and I had what I now have termed Disney Deja Vu. It occurred to me right away what it was reminding me of: The Carousel of Progress. He was using this example of people in Iowa or something, and the words themselves didn't really remind me of it, but the tone of his voice and how he was saying it really reminded me of the Father in the Carousel of Progress. I'm not kidding, it's was awesome.

And now it is the second half of the day (meaning that everything previous to this paragraph I wrote at 10 this morning, and everything from now onwards I am writing at 3).

First I had sociology, which I think I'll enjoy well enough. I mean, it is a class that's basically about social things in our culture, and I do seem to study on screen love triangles and relationships as a hobby, so parts of the class should be interesting for sure. Plus I want to work for Disney, so maybe I'll learn something interesting that will help me with that as time goes on.

And then I had Classic and Contemporary Fairytales. This is probably the class I'm most excited for this semester, and it's all the fault of Once Upon a Time and the fact that I have friends in that class already (a bunch of us also took Science Fiction and Fantasy last semester). I wasn't actually originally going to take the class, but my friend talked me into it. I mean, Disney and Fairytales seem to go well together, but often enough critics get angry with Disney for what they do to the fairytales (I have FRIENDS who get angry and I'm like really?) But I'm going to look at the class with a different perspective. WHY did Disney change the fairytales in the way that they did? It goes right along with Philosophy and Sociology honestly, and I think it's going to help me in the long run.

My big goal for this semester: to actually read EVERYTHING I need to for Fairytales. I didn't read a lot of the stuff in Sci-Fi and Fantasy, so I am determined to get it all done. In fact, my friend Rachel and I signed an agreement today, a mission if you will, that says "I will read all the required books for Fairytales or else I will not watch Once Upon a Time." Pretty big consequence there if you ask me. That show is like my life right now. So it will be interesting to see exactly how Adam and Eddy adapted the fairytales for the show as well. I'm particularly excited about Peter Pan, for obvious reasons, but today we did talk about our favorite fairytales, which I'll talk about further in a previous blog post that I'm about to make up that I missed. Click here to go to that one.

I still have one class to go, although I don't really consider it a class, because it's Wind Ensemble and that's an hour of playing my alto and that's just awesome. Now to get a headstart on my homework so I can spend tomorrow watching HIMYM because I have no class!

Have a magical day!

Day 387: Classic & Contemporary Fairytales

As I'll talk about in a post down the road a few days (but really I'm writing it at the same time as that other one), I am just starting a new semester here at SNC. That means plenty of new classes, including one special topics course I'm taking titled Classic and Contemporary Fairytales.

I was hesitant to take the course because of the disconnection between Disney and the actual original Fairytales, as many critics despise Disney for how he (and now they) have adapted the stories into film. But my friend convinced me, and thanks to Once Upon a Time, I found that I really DO love Fairytales. And that's why, at 1:40 this afternoon, I found myself in a classroom talking about just that: Fairytales.

What I found was interesting though is just how much Disney HAS impacted how we, as a culture, see Fairytales. Personally, I don't think these stories would be as popular as they are today if Walt Disney hadn't began making the classic animated films such as Snow White in 1937. These stories have withstood the test of time, yes, but would we have things like Once Upon a Time today? No, I don't think we would. Disney has helped keep these stories alive, and that's obviously seen through the list of favorite fairytales my class had.

As we do in every class with that professor, we started out by a huge get to know you discussion. We said our names (Lizzie), our major (English & Music Performance Double Major), Unique Fact (My name is actually spelled incorrectly on my birth certificate: Eliazbeth instead of Elizabeth), Favorite Fairytale (Rapunzel & The Wizard of Oz...although I like pretty much all of them to be honest), Where we first heard that fairytale and why we like it (WoOz I watched a TON as a kid, so that's easy, and Rapunzel I read in my book "Once Upon a Time," the one with the forward by Adam & Eddy that I got because I watched OUAT...I have no clue why I like them so much), and then a definition of a fairytale (I said: a story that has been passed down through generations, such as a folk tale, can include fantastical elements, but doesn't HAVE to).

Our Prof listed the different "Favorite Fairytales" on the board, and I took a moment to jot them all down, 100% for the purpose of writing this blog post. I found it interesting how Disney seeps its way into these fairytales, as many of them were on the list because people loved the movie as a kid (myself included). So here's the list of different fairytales that we talked about briefly today:

Paul Bunyan, Sleeping Beauty, Princess & The Frog, Brave, Beauty (& The Beast), Goldilocks, Jack & The Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass, Peter Pan, Phantastes, Hansel & Gretel, Stardust, Irish Fairytales, Three Billy Goats Gruff, Twelve Dancing Princesses, Frozen, Rapunzel, Wizard of Oz, The Swan Princess, The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing and The Princess Bride.

Now if you just look through that list, there are bunch that are Disney films, and at the same time, a bunch that aren't. I know with OUAT, people are always asking "What are they going to do next?" It's a fair question, because on the show we already have everyone from Ariel to Pongo (and hopefully Cruella in the future!), so what's left? The truth is, there are a lot of fairytales that we HAVEN'T explored. Like hundreds of them. It's kind of crazy honestly.

Throughout the semester, you'll see plenty of posts comparing the different classic fairytales that I read to the actual Disney movies (Sleeping Beauty is coming up first...and quickly). I figured it might be interesting to see just how different things are (I know they are a lot in most cases), and HOW they are different. Either way, it should be an interesting semester...as long as I can keep my head out of arguing for Disney. ;)

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on January 27, 2014).

Day 253: #SaveTheBooks

Today has been an interesting day, and that's a lot to say considering it's barely into the afternoon and I have no clue what the rest of the day will hold. But still, it has been, well, interesting, obviously. This morning was my weekly 8 A.M. class, so I went to that, and then my class at 9, and then my class at 10. But in the middle of my class at 10 this morning, the fire alarm went off. We figured it was a drill or something, so we headed out of the library, where the class is held, and waited.

Then the firetrucks came...and the ambulances, and the police cars, and they blocked off the road, and we were all just standing there for a good twenty minutes while they apparently checked the sprinkler system because it was being weird. That's fine with me, because time out of class is time out of class, even if it is one of my favorite classes. Still, that's how things worked.

And of course, I had to Instagram about the moment too, because, well, of course I had to! It would just be wrong not to Instagram about the fact that I was missing class because the library had something going on and there were firetrucks everywhere! But I think my favorite part about the entire thing was the hashtag I used, #savethebooks. I mean, that makes sense, right? If the library is on fire, one wants to obviously save the books!

But this brought another thought into my mind, a while after the library had reopened and we finished class and I headed to lunch. You see, #savethebooks brought a certain Disney reference into my mind, and if you know me, or Disney really well, you may know where I'm going with this.

Spaceship Earth.

Yes, again. It seems I can relate just about everything in my life to something that happens in that attraction (and honestly I don't post half of it here on my blog). This time though, the particular line from after the burning of Rome came to mind, the one where she specifically says "The books are saved, and with them our dreams of the future." Yeah, it's the world's first backup system. Too bad our library probably doesn't have one of those. Then again, our library isn't the home of some of the only copies of books for the world, but still!

Plus, I'm pretty sure our school doesn't have any Arab and Jewish scholars either.

"Artistic" is the prompt for today's Frumpstagram post, and so I went back and looked through my pictures until I found this, a drawing of Pluto I did at Disney Quest back in 2011 when I was there for FBLA. Great memories right there!

And here's today's Disney History: 1999: The Tatooine Traders merchandise shop (attached to the Star Tours attraction) opens at the Disney-MGM Studios. Previously called the Endor Vendors shop, Tatooine Traders features a wide variety of Star Wars Merchandise.



Have a magical day!