Archives for 2009

Really? Oct 9 was the last time I did an update? It feels like it was a couple days ago. Things here are going well, but even busier which I didn’t think was possible.

Last week was crazy but also very cool for all of us “first years” at the zoo. The second year students all went away for a week to go on field trips throughout Northern California, sooooo that meant we were left to look after the animals at the zoo!!! EXCITEMENT!!!! We were all assigned different animals, anywhere from 2-4 people on each animal. I was in the Primates area for the week so I was care-taking for Samantha the Gibbon and the three Spider Monkeys (Indy, Maya and Cindy Lou). Unfortunately with the primates (or at least these particular ones) there isn’t a whole lot we can do with them directly, so it was mainly just feeding and creating some cool BE (Behavior Enrichment)  to keep them busy. Depending on the animal, there were some care-takers that were able to take their animals for walks and do training sessions with them. I was envious of them.

here is Samantha, she’s awesome – I just love her! She makes the coolest happy monkey sounds : )

Here she is going through the box of goodies I gave her.

So, some other things that have been going on since I last posted on here:

I recently found out that I’m allergic to Soy which really sucks. It was a huge part of my diet and I couldn’t understand why I was getting so sick all the time. I had been totally addicted to Edamame and was eating a ton of it everyday, plus soy milk every morning, and soy protein shakes and bars, etc. I cut all of it out of my diet last week and have been fine ever since! (I did test it out one day and ate something with soy – sure enough within the hour I was sick). ugh, its amazing how much stuff has soy in it too, I’ve been checking labels like crazy. Dairy products don’t do so well with me either but I have discovered a really tasty Almond milk so that’s one good thing.

I did get an afternoon off a couple weeks ago and got to go to Disneyland with some of my friends from school (we are all annual Disney passholders). We wanted to see the special Halloween stuff they had there and the Haunted Mansion with the Nightmare Before Christmas in it was awesome!! Space Mountain’s new “Ghost Galaxy” was a huge disappointment, especially considering we waited almost 3 hours to get in. The Halloween fireworks show was amazing though. We had fun, even though the park was INSANELY BUSY – it was the busiest I’ve ever seen it, it was so hard just walking around there were so many people (and strollers…).

Oh, something funny did happen though. We got stuck on the Indian Jones ride, it literally broke down right when we were in front of the big rolling ball near the end of the ride!! The anamatronic Indiana Jones was dangling directly above our heads, it was a little unnerving! All the lights came on so we were able to see all their secret hallways back there and stuff and the big ball kept rolling in front of us but we were able to see how they do it. The secret has been revealed! haha! It took them half an hour to come get us out of the jeep, we had to climb down on a little ladder and then follow the cast member through the hallways to the front of the ride. The good thing was we got fast passes for whatever ride we wanted to go on next.

right above our heads!

Oh – I’m totally into pomegranates right now – it helps that we have a huge tree full of them in our backyard! I picked these a couple days ago:

But my most exciting news actually began this week. The second year students are going away again – next week so we get to care-take on all the animals again – this time different ones! I am in Carns this week (Carnivores) so the animals that I’m assigned to are: the Hyena (Savuti), the Wolf (Lengend) and the Serval (Spitz). I’m SO EXCITED!!! I got to hand feed the serval yesterday and go on a walk with him, and today I got to meet Savuti and pet him through the fence (He is a protective contact animal). I haven’t yet met Legend close up but hopefully I will tomorrow (I’ll also get some photos of her then).

Savuti on his back waiting for more scratches – he was loving the attention!

As I was walking across campus today it suddenly hit me that it’ll be mid October next week. Here we are in Fall already and today really was the perfect Fall day. Blue skies, not a single cloud to be seen anywhere. Warm but not hot, just right for a tshirt but too warm for a sweatshirt. A slight cool breeze in the air that made me think of Fall, however the grass and trees are still green, and there are no leaves on the ground. A Fall like I have never experienced it before, but I like it.

I’ve mentioned this before, how things get really overwhelming – there are good days and bad. Yesterday was one of the not so great days, was just feeling really tired, worn out, missing home, overwhelmed with tests and projects. When I look at my daytimer and see how many things I have coming up, it makes my head spin. Occasionally those questions do pop up such as “why am I here? why did I give up my whole life and what I had to come here? Was it worth it?” And then this morning I got my answers. Watching the sun come up while walking around the zoo with a miniature horse, feeding a gibbon, going on a walk with a wolf and having the 1500 pound water buffalo lick pellets out of my hand. It’s just these little things that can make an entire day and remind me why I’m doing this. And this is just the beginning.

Walter the Water Buffalo

Walking with Nick the miniature horse

with Coraline the California King Snake

Walking Max, the Black and White Tegu

Weezer, the Opossum

So much has happened here the last couple weeks…it’s a little overwhelming trying to remember everything!

A couple weeks ago we had the chaos of the wildfires burning here in Ventura County. My very first experience with them and I’ll admit, it was a little scary! One fire came within a mile from the college/zoo so we were all prepared to evacuate the animals from the zoo. Luckily, it didn’t come to that. Another fire was over not too far from my neighborhood and we were right on the border of evacuations. I had stuff packed up just in case but thankfully once again, we didn’t have to evacuate.

Right in the middle of the fire situation, I came down with a bad cold and was really sick for days. I still went to school and did my regular zoo duties but each minute I had off, I was sleeping. It paid off though and I was all better in a week which is fast for me! I usually get sick for weeks and weeks!

School is going good and I cannot believe it’s half way through the semester already! Excitement is coming up for all of us first years as the second year class is going away on field trips for a week coming up mid October so we all get to be caretakers on the animals while they’re away! This means getting to feed them and getting closer to them than we normally do! I’m going to be in the Primates area and I’ll be caretaking on the 3 Spider Monkey’s and a Gibbon. : )

We also just got our “Handler” status at the zoo which means we can take out certain animals now – any of the reptiles, the rabbit, the chinchilla, the opossom, the emu…  it might not sound like much, but its a big deal to us – when we haven’t been able to touch any of the animals and now we can finally touch at least some of them – this makes us very happy! haha

with Sally the Snapping Turtle

I got to pet this giraffe at a Wildlife Education Center fundraiser

On the home front, the pets are doing great. We have added a new baby to the mix – another little rat. I thought Bella needed a friend so I got a little dark colored rattie from one of my classmates whose rat had babies. Her name is Pip and she is the sweetest little thing. The rats both actually adore Fro so much – its pretty stinkin’ cute! They climb on him and try to snuggle up underneath his chin, and he’s really good with them. I think he’s just happy to have their attention.

I got this cute picture of Zoey a few days ago – I found her in bed like this with her 2 favorite stuffies all tucked in under her chin and arm. : )

Besides school, zoo duties and studying (I’ve never had so much homework and studying before in my LIFE), that’s pretty much all I do. I did make it out on the weekend to go to Knotts Scary Farm with a group of friends from school. (Knotts Berry Farm gets transformed into a haunted park). It was fun – there were some scary mazes, and yeah I did scream quite a bit. My throat was sore the next day because of it!

Part of our EATM group at Knotts : )