Book Review: The Selection Series!

Its been a while since I have reviewed a book that I have read! This summer I am pretty sure that I have read more books than I ever have before. I cant tell if that is a good thing or a bad thing because it looks like I never do anything except stay home and read! haha! The series that I first started reading in the beginning of the summer was the To All The Boys I've Loved Before and I absolutely LOVED IT! I had the first and second book for a while but I had never fully finished reading it! But this series can be talked about in another blog post some other time!


The series that I am reviewing in this post is The Selection series! I had come across this at one time when I was reading a blog post on Buzzfeed. It was talking about books that should be turned into movies or shows! I was in the process of looking for a new series to read and this one was definitely one that I never knew was a thing! They provided a small description of what the series was and I was hooked in the plot right away!

SPOILERS:

The book starts out describing the caste system in which if you are a one you are at the highest of all and live the life others dream about and if you are at an eight, you are the lowest of the low and struggle to survive each day. America Singer is a five in the caste system and her family makes ends meet by working in the arts with singing, playing instruments and drawing in order to make money. America's mother just wants the best for her children and wants them to live a better life than they do at that moment. Aspen Leger is lower than America in the caste system and both of them are in love but have to hide the relationship because it would be frowned upon. If America were to marry Aspen, she would have to take his caste number and go even lower than where she was at.


The King and Queen have a son named Maxon that is at the age where he needs to find his princess so that he can take the throne. There is something that the royalty uses in order to find a princess and it is called The Selection. It is used to find women that are not in the royal family and helps to give hope to others that they too could get the life that many dream to have. Girls from every caste are able to apply with the chance of being the selected 36 that get to go and live in the palace and go after Maxon's heart. America is very against this because as she stated numerous times, she would be happy to marry Aspen even if she had to go to a lower caste. Aspen tells America that he wants her to at least try to get into the selection. He wants her to apply and then see how it goes because he doesn't want to hold her back from the possibility of a better life. America lets Aspen and her mother finally persuade her and sends in her application for The Selection. Soon after when it is time to announce who is chosen, America finds out that she is in fact part of the 36 to head to the palace and battle for love and the crown..... The Bachelor style.


The time has come for America to head to the palace. She had to sign agreements and learn all the rules that come with this adventure such as not being able to go almost anywhere without permission. She says goodbye to everyone and sees Aspen with another girl which doesn't make it any easier to leave. When they arrive at the palace they are shown to their rooms and they meet their maids that they will have while they stay there. America becomes very overwhelmed with her situation and starts panicking. She wants to go outside for fresh air but the guards will not let that happen, Maxon appears and allows her to go outside and he decides to join her. They talk and Maxon becomes very intrigued with her. The group of women go to their first event where they get to talk to Maxon individually. When it is America's turn she voices that she would rather just be there for the food and to be his helpful friend through the process. Maxon already is interested in her even though America is still hung on Aspen and is just using The Selection to better her family while she is there.


Time goes by and America learns what happens in the palace. Rebel attacks, how the king doesn't let Maxon have any power and she learns how to stay her true self and not hold back. Towards the end of the book America starts to feel more for Maxon and we learn that she is getting to the point where she could definitely fall in love with him.




This book was very interesting for me. I love the show The Bachelor and so when the book was described as being similar to that I was already hooked! There are not many shows, books or really anything out there that replicates the idea that the bachelor has made so popular. To put a bunch of women in one place and have them fight over one man. There are around 5 books with The Selection series and they all go through the process of The Selection until someone is chosen. I haven't fully finished the series but I know that the last 2 books or the last book that has been released is about another storyline that mixes with this one.


This book was very intriguing right from the start! Its detailed to where you feel like you are a part of the selection and it gives you a lot of feelings towards the whole process. You feel as though you are a fly on the wall and you make your judgements on each woman trying to figure out which woman you think is the perfect fit for Maxon.


This book is just the perfect book for anyone that loves romance and suspense. I'm literally on the 3rd book and he still hasn't chosen yet. haha!


GO READ IT!


See ya real soon,
M'lyn Miller

Training and Learning My Job | DCP 2017

Hi there!
The last post left off with me seeing wishes for the first time and hanging out with all of my roommates! That was such a fun time and what made it even more special was the fact that we knew that wasn't going to happen very often when we started our new jobs!
After completing Traditions, I had some time off before I officially started and that was really helpful since I was freaking out about my first day! I was able to have time to breathe!


Training started and that consisted of us learning the registers and just what Disney was wanting us to use and think about at every moment that we worked! Our first beginning stages of training we would not wear our costume, we would dress up in business wear and just take the classes that were required. The day that we did eventually get our costumes was really fun! I already knew what my outfit looked like so I was prepared for how many stripes was going to be present at all times! (A lot).
We went to costuming and were paired in a group of 4 or less and we found our sizes to try on for each clothing item! As with any shopping experience, it took a while and a lot of pant sizes to figure out which sizes would work. I am the weird one that doesn't really fit in a size but more of an in-between size so I was happy when we finally had every piece of our costume picked out and ready to go! My favorite item of my costume was my hat because I LOVE hats! haha! Its a straw hat with a striped ribbon and I am not kidding you when I tell you that I wore the hat every single day to work. Since we had been split into groups, we stayed with the same people until we were done training. This is when I met one of my best friends Erin! We were paired the most throughout our training and I was so happy because we clicked right from the beginning! She was super supportive of me when I felt overwhelmed at the register (She was AMAZING at the register) and we would laugh pretty much all the time! haha! Love you girl. Also we half way through the program we decided to call her Erni because my other bestie Kara, our adorable international coworker, thought Erin's name was Erni. hahaha!


Here is a picture of my glamorous outfit.

When we were not training and had some time off at night, my roommates and I adventured over into Epcot and watched the light/firework show that is shown at the world showcase! This is also where I finally tried my first Mickey bar! My roommate Chrissy loves them and she suggested that I try one and it was amazing!! Its one of those items where if you didn't at least have one your Disney trip is not as successful.


Here is a picture of the Mickey bar and me trying to be artsy with my picture taking. haha!

Another item on my bucket list was to see the 3:00 parade at Magic Kingdom. (3:00 people.. its always at 3:00. #LifeOfAMagicKingdomCastMember).
Parades are always wonderful but I can definitely say that this one is one of my all time favorite parades. I'm sure you can guess my favorite part of the parade too...... RAPUNZEL! I'm lame and I was too zoned into this parade that I didn't take any pictures besides snapchat videos of the parade! I do have a great snapchat video of my roommate Tori who should literally be in the parade so you can check that out on my Facebook if we are friends! haha!


One place that my sister and I spent a good majority of our time at is Universal Studios in Orlando. I'm pretty sure that we were there more than any of the Disney parks.... oops. We both loved to go there and also Megan had free parking there so we made sure to go at least once a week on our days that we would have off together. At this Universal there are two different parks (well as of when I left there are 3 now... Volcano bay) and we would usually go to one side for the day and visit the other side the next day. On the Universal side, there is a Jimmy Fallon store and a ride that I love to visit every time I go! The first time I ever went in the gift shop there, I saw a shirt that I knew I was going to eventually buy! It says "I got my tight pants on" from SNL. This shirt also has significance to my days in Elluminate and I was so excited that I had found it. Don't worry I ended up buying it eventually.

Here is a picture of my Jimmy shirt!

Harry Potter is the biggest section that everyone visits when they are there at Universal. It stretches to both parks and there is a train that can get you to either side. I am sad to say that I did not ever end up riding that train and I am so mad at myself for that! My family went on the train and it has so many elements from the movies in it. :( The details that were put into the Harry Potter land is so crazy and amazing that even the people that are not huge fans of the books will still love!


Here are some pictures of the first section of Harry Potter land!

This at the enterance on our way to Harry Potter. Megan is always trying to ruin my pictures

Hogwarts!

Part of my location at The Big Top Souvenirs is that we have a lot of specialty items within the store. This led to a lot of training days where I would get to learn each specialty item around the tent! The first thing I learned was the hat stitching which I was honestly pretty excited about! The hat stitching is super easy and you actually don't even have to stitch it yourself. There are these HUGE machines that you can just enter the information in and it does it all for you, but you do still feel like you are a pretty great hat stitcher after making each hat!


Here is a picture of my first hat that I got stitched. This was done at Disney springs in of the stores!

Another Specialty that I got to train on was the treats that we make in the kitchen! My first Kitchen day we learned how to make candy apples and Cotton Candy. I didn't know at that moment just how much Cotton Candy I would be making in the future of my program... the answer is a lot! haha! The best port of the training days is when we would make our items, we were able to try them! I tried the candy apple and I can definitely say its not my favorite but its not too bad! Just be prepared to have a lot of hard candy stuck to your teeth! The Cotton Candy was of course amazing and it was fun to eat something that I made!


Here is a picture of my cotton candy that I made! Of course it was pink!

Another thing that we got to make was chocolate covered strawberries! These were really fun but you had to find what was comfortable for you to be good at drizzling the white chocolate over the milk chocolate. Drizzling is no joke. You think you will be able to do it so easily but its surprisingly hard!


Here is a picture of my attempt to be good at making strawberries and also the pineapples that we made as well! All I can say is make sure to try the pineapple at least one time on your trip! Its super fresh of course and it is soooo good! Get lots of napkins though because its so good that it gets all over!

Another treat that I learned to make were the cake pops that we sold in the store. The cake pops at Disney are LIFE CHANGING. The amount of cake pops that I consumed while on my program was so much! haha! I mean I had to stare at these things all day so can you really blame me?!? There are many different types of Cake Pops that we would make. There were the mickey head shaped ones that can be made in full sprinkles or just chocolate drizzle and we had 3 different flavors; chocolate, vanilla, and red velvet which was my favorite! There were specialty cake pops that would change every once in a while. We had mickey and Minnie cake pops that are definitely my second choice as far as favorites. At one point we had a Mike from Monsters INC cake pop which was adorable and we had a rose cake pop from Beauty and The Beast and also an Olaf cake pop as well as an Easter cake pop for when it was Easter! It was pretty amazing all the different types of cake pops there were to make! I can tell you that in the whole 4 months that I was in Disney I was never assigned to cake pops so I never had to make them which is kind of sad but also good because it was always scary to make them perfect!


One of my next favorites of treats that we made there were the Mickey head shaped Krispies. These are AMAZING! I love rice Krispies anyways and so to see these were so great! We had sprinkle kinds, Peanut Butter chips, drizzle kind and a milk chocolate M&M kind! I would usually go for either the M&M kind or the PB kind! SO good. Ahh I want some now.


The last treat that we would make a lot would be the Specialty apples! These are all the apples that would be covered in chocolate and usually had some kind of theme to it. Something that was hard for me with these treats was that I would always shake when holding the sticks that were attached to them. Apples are heavy and they are even more heavy when you have to hold them by a stick. It was really embarrassing but I knew I couldn't change it! I found my way to still decorate it the way I was supposed to with all of my shaking still going on! With specialty apples we would have apple pie apple which was a big favorite, we would have chocolate with peanut butter chips apple, a sorcerer apple, a Minnie mouse apple and a Jack Skellington apple. We also had caramel apples and nutty apples!
Here are some pictures of our caseline that was at the Big Top. The case would change and new treats would be added but these are some pictures of what it looked like when I was there!

There were other treats in the case line of course but these were the ones that I had the most fun with!


The last specialty type of training I did was with leather bracelets and keychains. We had a machine that would engrave names into the leather and it was super cool! When I trained on it I got to use a sample piece and put my name on it! I didn't end up doing this specialty at first because I had to get proficiencies put in but once that happened I was there a lot and I loved it!


Something that we would also have to do with our job was not so much a specialty position but just another register position. It was called Candy Register... duh duh duh!!! Everyone that worked with me can tell you that I pretty much had a home in this position. No matter what I did I would always end up at the candy register! It was fine at first but then it would end up that I would ALWAYS be placed there. One day I was there an entire day and I was getting so frustrated! I would go on break and then come back and pick it right back up! Basically candy register is where you are the register for the case line in the fish bowl. You would wear a kitchen hat (RIP my curly hair that I curled) and you would just wait for people to order what they wanted from the case. I got pretty good at it because I was there so much but if we had a rain scenario and everyone came in the store that would always be hard to keep up the pace. I liked the kitchen environment and being around the people that would usually work the kitchen since a lot of my close friends would work production but I just wished a lot that I could be a normal register person. haha!


The last position I am going to talk about in this post I didn't really train on because they would pretty much just explain what we had to do and then moved on. Little did I know that this would be the second position that I would ALWAYS be placed at. Its called Kitchen Roustabout. DUH DUH DUH!!!!!! I don't know why but whenever I was floorstock I would always end up being placed in the kitchen. Basically I just couldn't stay out of the kitchen no matter how hard I tried. The first time I ever was placed in it I freaked out so much! When you hear that you are basically the one that stocks up the kitchen with the things they need, you think that it is probably pretty easy, but its a very stressful thing to have to go through. The biggest thing that we had to do was stock the Case-line. We would have to make sure we had trays on stage that had each treat so that we could fill in what was needed. That would be fine alone but we had other responsibilities too which included making sure the drink cooler on stage was stocked (this would get empty so fast), make sure that the glacier bottles were stocked, make sure the cups and everything that the case line person would need was stocked and just basically be the person that would help the cast members that were unable to leave the kitchen and get their supplies. I am literally always moving when I am in this position. I will say that my days would go by super fast when on kitchen roust but I would also be in a lot of pain because I was walking, carrying and lifting so much. The best thing with this position is you are usually not alone. I mean there are those gaps in the day where you are waiting for the next person to arrive and that's when its definitely hard because its just you but there is usually someone to help you out having that person makes all the difference! Overall I became better with it and I was able to get the flow of it all, but I definitely still did not like those days where I would have a 12 hour shift and I was placed in Kitchen Roust!


After being trained in all these positions I was finally able to take off my ribbon and officially 'Earn My Ears'! Taking that off symbolizes that you have trained in all the areas that I need and I can be the best cast member I can be!
Here are some pictures of the store so you can see just where I lived for 4 months!

We had a popcorn board for all the pin traders out there!

This is what the registers looked like! There were 3 stations all around the tent!

This is the fish bowl and we would make treats behind it so that the guests could watch us and see how we make them!

Every day we would have these performers in front of the big top play Disney songs and one day I was fortunate enough to be out there when they played and I got to listen to it! WOO!

Thanks for reading!


See ya real soon,
M'lyn Miller

My First Week Being in Disney!

Hello!
So a lot has happened since I last wrote a blog post! I completed my program with the Walt Disney Company over in Disney World! WOO! I have made some decisions about school! WOO! I dyed my hair lighter with some silver! WOO! So that last one is not too crazy but I am pretty excited about it.


Lets start catching up shall we?


In January, I turned 21 and the next day from being legal, I set off on a scary journey that I had no control over! My parents, my twin and I woke up at 4am and got ready to drive away from the place that was my comfort zone. We said goodbye to my dog and my older sister with plenty of tears all of which were from me. I'm way too emotional for my own good. We had two vehicles to get to Florida because my sister Megan couldn't handle sharing just one. I mean hey we shared all through high school so we did our time. It took us 3 days and a check engine light to get to our new home. I was so excited but also so tired from driving. Okay... my parents did all of the driving except for two hours that Megan and I drove. Thank you mom and dad! We had arrived in Florida a couple days earlier than our check in time because we were on a mission to find a car for Megan to have while she was in Florida. I was basically having the time of my life and I owed it all to Megan. Car shopping is not fun at all friends and I am just thankful that we found a car as fast as we did.

Here is a picture of us at one of the many dealerships that we visited. So fun.

Once we found the car that we wanted to purchase and got that all settled, we were able to finally enjoy Florida! Megan and I had check in and casting that we had to go through while our parents were still there but we still had time to explore and even grant my moms wish to go to Magic Kingdom for the day! I had found out where I would be working while I was on my road trip over to Florida and since it was in the Magic Kingdom I was able to go visit and see what life was going to be like for 4 months! I worked at Storybook Circus; Big Top Souvenirs and it was the best location I could ever ask for! It was a big store with a good amount of merchandise so we would be pretty busy with people. The store had a lot of specialty options for the guests such as hat stitching to put names on the ear hats, leather embroidery and we would make cotton candy, caramel apples, specialty apples, cake pops.. all sorts of yummy treats that even I couldn't resist! This day was so fun but also really hard because it meant that what came next was our goodbyes and I was just not ready for that.

Here is a picture of me and some of my roommates that I had! Sarah, Jessica, Me, Kelly, and Chrissy!

Here is a little bit of what our apartment looked like before we all moved in!

I showed up to my parents hotel room and we were wearing the same shirt.

1st picture at the castle!

Here is my store!

After we finished having all of our fun, the day had come where we had to say goodbye. Megan and I decided to stay at the hotel that night so that we could spend as much time as we could with our parents. My mom was having a hard time letting go and would wake up a lot worried. When we were at the moment of truly parting ways it was the hardest moment of my life. This was the first time I had ever lived away from home. The most I had ever been away was when I would go to CIY church camp that would go for a week. There were a lot of tears and this time majority of them were from my mom. Megan and I knew that we had to be strong for her because that was not going to be her last time that she cried. Megan and I headed back to the apartment and went back to bed since it was 5 am. haha!

So then began our time learning how to live on our own. We had a lot of roomie bonding trips to see resorts, the entrance of Epcot (Since we couldn't get in yet) and decorated our apartment! I definitely would have been more of a mess if it wasn't for my wonderful roommates. They kept me busy and I had so much fun!

The full group of 7204! Chrissy, Tori, Whitney, Kelly, Megan, me, Sarah and Jessica!

Kelly and I! haha!

Animal Kingdom Lodge

We took this picture so many times in order to get it right!

Here's a picture of my side of the room! All decorated!

One of the first things we do as official Cast Members is go through Traditions. Its a class that pretty much takes a good majority of your day, but you are not too upset about it because its fun! We learn all about what Disney expects from us and we get to truly experience why Disney is the most magical place on earth. The best thing about Traditions is its the class that once we finish we get to finally go and have fun in the parks. This perk is given to us so that when a guest has a question or wants a recommendation, we are able to help them and truly understand the parks. it was definitely the best perk you could get! Right after Traditions, My roommates Sarah, Jessica and I headed to Animal Kingdom so I could see it for the very first time! We rode dinosaur and Everest!

Everest is a ride that I definitely felt like I was going to pass out on. It is super fast and it has a surprise that gets me every time! We left Animal Kingdom and went to Epcot to experience that world for the first time!

Traditions!

Epcot waiting to ride Test Track!

First time watching Wishes!

Epcot

Love them! Sarah and Chrissy!

 

Riding the carousel!

Animal Kingdom!

My first Mickey ice cream bar! 

3 Cheers for Memory maker haha!

Riding Dinosaur!

While we waited to officially start working and training, we still had time to do things together as roommates. One night that we were all free, we headed to Magic Kingdom and watched the firework show called Wishes! (RIP). This show was one that I kept hearing about and I was pretty excited to watch it all together. It marked the start of our DCP and it was truly magical. I have never been that excited over fireworks because to me they all look the same, but Wishes was one that took my breath away and made me shed some tears for sure. Wishes stuck around my whole program until the very end when they opened a new firework show called Happily Ever After! I was unable to watch that one before I left but I heard it during my last few days of work! People said it is even better than wishes so if you are out in Disney World go check it out!

Here are two of my favorite pictures from Wishes!

My first week in Disney was one for the books. I met so many people in just that first week that I loved and I knew that this program was going to be special. Its super fun and refreshing to be that excited about something that you worked so hard for. To be able to do the things you said you were going to do. This was the first step in the path of me having the strength to figure out what I want and to never give up on making sure it happens.

I will be posting more posts about the other fun things I got to do in multiple posts so that you dont have to read it all in one big post!

See ya real soon,

M'lyn Miller