A Shopping Trip and a Sunday

Saturday was not especially interesting – I spent most of the afternoon at Walmart buying bins and things I needed so that I could store things under the bed, and also jeans because I didn’t have any without holes in the knee. I had considered going to one of the parks, but since having things still packed because there was no place to put them was making me crazy, I decided that I needed to go shopping first.
I missed the bus to go back to my apartment, but fortunately another one came in a few minutes.
“Does this bus go to Chatham [my apartment complex]?” I asked a girl who was waiting to board. She told me it did, so I got on, happily, if awkwardly due to the amount of things I was carrying. (Fortunately, since I had bought bins, I could just stack everything inside them and carry it that way.) It turned out that we were going to a couple other places before we made it back to Chatham, which meant that by the time we got there it would have been almost as fast to just wait the hour for the next bus. However, one of the places we stopped was Downtown Disney, and I’d rather sit in an air-conditioned bus for an hour and get to wave at Downtown Disney than sit the same amount of time in a hot Walmart parking lot while my milk spoils.
The rest of Saturday was spent in unpacking and organizing everything. When I was done my room seemed much more comfortable and I felt much better.
Sunday was Global Custodial Training. This means that anyone in any of the parks or resorts or wherever, who is custodial, goes to it. And learns about how to use the various chemicals and tools, and about safety, and about blood-borne pathogens, and other grippingly interesting things like that. And it’s not park-specific, so it was rather devoid of magic. Fortunately, even though it was supposed to go all day, we got through the first lecturing part quickly (I got to go to the front of the class and demonstrate the pan-and-broom and the push broom…) and could go on to the computer lab where we took classes on the computer. These were on safety, asbestos, and on helping guests with disabilities. I turned off the audio narration so that it would just let me speed-read and click through it and then take the tests, so I was the first one done, and it wasn’t even 12:30 yet. They were going to all go to the Magic Kingdom (I changed my mind, I’m putting in the “the,” it’s making me crazy remembering to leave it out every time) for lunch, but I hadn’t been to the Magic Kingdom yet, and I didn’t want my first time to be in this thoroughly unmagical atmosphere (my spell check thinks “unmagical” should be either “unmusical” or “numerical”; which do you think fits better? They both have their merits), so when he said I could go ahead and clock out and go home if I wanted to, I took him up on it. (Wow, that sentence turned out really long, with too many parenthetical clauses. I hope you don’t mind. If it didn’t make sense, just go back and read it, skipping over the parenthetical remarks, and it should make more sense.) That meant all I had to sign the form saying that I didn’t want a Hepatitis B shot (I’ve been to Mexico and Greece without one, I think I can handle the dangers of Disney World), and I could leave.
During the afternoon, I drove around to Taco Bell and to the Commons (where the housing meeting on the first day was) to see if they had found my ID. They hadn't. I also took a bus over to Vista Way where the wireless is, and was able to finally get online for a while to check my e-mail. I looked up directions to First Baptist of Orlando, since they had a Sunday night service.
I took a couple wrong turns trying to get there, so I was about 15 minutes late, but I was so desperate for church I didn’t care. Usually I hate going into a service late. And it’s a huge church so the parking lot was confusing and it took me a bit to figure out where I was supposed to go in. I found it eventually. They were singing, and it seemed like a pretty relaxed atmosphere – a few people were toward the back, sitting at tables talking quietly while the singing went on – so I wasn’t too shy about just going in and finding a seat. I just wanted a back edge seat, but there weren’t any open except one where someone was in the next one over. So I went there, and felt a bit awkward and self-conscious about standing right next to someone who I didn’t know.
The lighting was concert-style – all different colors of lights on the stage, and twirly lights on the ceiling. It was cool and beautiful, and it’s good that people with a gift for that sort of thing can worship God by doing it well for his church – but I would have given an awful lot for a single-guitar and candlelit Vespers. It was good to sing with other believers – it was good to be in a Christian atmosphere. The sermon was about praising God even when things are going badly – one that we’ve all heard many times, but we always seem to need to hear again. While we were singing, I noticed a young woman across the aisle from me, singing with such genuine passion and love for God that it warmed my heart. Much to my surprise, the pastor giving the sermon called her up to share what had been happening in her life. It turned out that a friend of hers had offered her some weight-loss pills to try. Momentary loss of reason (that’s a useful phrase, is it not? I stole it from the song, of course), and she took them. It turned out they were from Mexico, and were contaminated. A few days later, at her job with an airline, they had a drug test, and she tested positive for amphetamines. Despite explaining the situation, she lost her job – a job she loved. But it had also been the thing that defined who she was. Losing it taught her to have her whole identity depend on God, not her career. It was so amazing, after seeing how much joy she radiated as she sang praise to God, to hear her story.
As I was leaving, though, I was overcome with how badly I missed Blythefield. I was glad that no one talked to me, because a kind word probably would have made me go absolutely to pieces. When I got home, though, I was comforted by the presence of my friendly roommates – and by calling my mother. Nicole, Kara, and Marijka went out for the evening, but Dani was at work and Abby and I stayed home. I was happy that I had the next day off, and was hoping to go to Epcot - after I went and paid $50 for a new housing ID, since today had been the last day for my temporary pass.