More on the very busy past week later, here are some pictures for now- I have about a thousand more still to come!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2019061&id=1322040101&l=1e635f40db
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Week 9, 3/4 done!
Whoops, I forgot to update last week, but don't worry you haven't missed much! I'm halfway through my 9th week in Vancouver and cannot believe I have been here for two months! Tomorrow I will officially have four weeks left at the Aquarium and then I'll be back to NE to see everyone. On that note, if anyone does want to see me my flights are all booked, I'm coming back to O-town August 21 and leaving for school in CA August 30. So that will put me at home for a total of about 10 days this summer!
As far as Canada goes- the internship is pretty much the same, fun, but I haven't taken on any new duties for the past week. I'm still doing mostly fishhouse, powerwashing, animal duties, and basic training sessions with the whales and otters. I'm working a little more on my Milo project and will try to analze the results by next weekend to let the trainers know where I'm at with it.
The week has been fun out of work as well, there is a big fireworks competition here called the 'Celebration of Lights' that takes place over four days. Three countries (China, Canada, South Africa) have seperate shows and the winner puts on a finale for the last night of fireworks! I went to the first show last night with one of the other interns, and it was amazing! It was Canada's turn and they did a solid 20 minutes of fireworks to the 'Wizard of Oz' soudtrack. At first it was a bit weird, but the 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' finale was really pretty. There were literally a hundred thousand people all packed onto the beaches at English Bay to watch the fireworks being shot off a barge in the water, we felt like a herd of cattle when we left and the streets were still packed with people even 6 or 7 blocks away from where the show was. I'm looking forward to going again in a couple of days.
I'm also looking forward to the Grand-Boeckers visiting tomorrow! We don't have too much planned because I have to work two of the days but a few ideas are a state park, the fireworks, a suspension bridge, Stanley Park, whale watching, and of course the Aquarium. I'm also going to try to get them behind the scenes to watch me do a session w/ the whales- but it may prove a bit tricky since the other two interns have their entire families here this weekend as well!
Anyway, I'll keep you all updated and I'm sure I will have many many many pictures to post, courtesy of Grandma Sharon.
Miss you all!
As far as Canada goes- the internship is pretty much the same, fun, but I haven't taken on any new duties for the past week. I'm still doing mostly fishhouse, powerwashing, animal duties, and basic training sessions with the whales and otters. I'm working a little more on my Milo project and will try to analze the results by next weekend to let the trainers know where I'm at with it.
The week has been fun out of work as well, there is a big fireworks competition here called the 'Celebration of Lights' that takes place over four days. Three countries (China, Canada, South Africa) have seperate shows and the winner puts on a finale for the last night of fireworks! I went to the first show last night with one of the other interns, and it was amazing! It was Canada's turn and they did a solid 20 minutes of fireworks to the 'Wizard of Oz' soudtrack. At first it was a bit weird, but the 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' finale was really pretty. There were literally a hundred thousand people all packed onto the beaches at English Bay to watch the fireworks being shot off a barge in the water, we felt like a herd of cattle when we left and the streets were still packed with people even 6 or 7 blocks away from where the show was. I'm looking forward to going again in a couple of days.
I'm also looking forward to the Grand-Boeckers visiting tomorrow! We don't have too much planned because I have to work two of the days but a few ideas are a state park, the fireworks, a suspension bridge, Stanley Park, whale watching, and of course the Aquarium. I'm also going to try to get them behind the scenes to watch me do a session w/ the whales- but it may prove a bit tricky since the other two interns have their entire families here this weekend as well!
Anyway, I'll keep you all updated and I'm sure I will have many many many pictures to post, courtesy of Grandma Sharon.
Miss you all!
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Let's call this one the week of dichotomy!
Well the week of awesomeness came to a pretty bleak end. We found out on Tuesday that two staff members (one of them being one of my best friends at work) were giving their two weeks notice. While they were leaving for pretty exciting personal reasons, new job/moving etc, it was still a depressing day for the Marine Mammal Dept. Unfortunately one of the staffers leaving is the head of fish house which means its back to 7am shifts for the interns! It kind of stinks going back to fish house two days a week, but we are going to get 'pulled up' from it throughout the day to do animal sessions, so it won't be too bad.
After a lousy start to the 7th week, things got better- I got to deliver my first solo sd (signal that asks for a behavior) w/ the whales, which was a 'dorsal layout', basically the whale lies flat on its stomach with its dorsal ridge within arms reach. This was really cool because I'm actually getting to do 'trainer stuff' now! I also got to be part of an encounter which was really really cool. Encounters are when people pay a bunch of money to come back and meet the whales. They usually consist of three trainers- two trainers with a whale and 2 guests each and a third trainer on the opposite end of the pool that the whales get sent to when the trainers want to give the whale a little break from the guests or take a minute to explain something to them. I got to be the third trainer for an encounter, and although it's nothing too difficult, it was awesome to actually feel like part of the team and know that the staff trusts me enough to let me do it!
Then the week got lousy again- there has been a flu going around the department for a couple of weeks, and I got it. I now realize that it really sucks being sick when you live alone, there is no one to get you ginger ale and make you soup and listen to you whine. Thankfully it's not the stomach flu, its the 'influenza' flu which is a lot easier to manage by yourself. But I still don't know how I made it through the last two days at work, I've basically been coughing up a lung/blowing my nose/shivering/dying from fever for three days straight. My weekend started yesterday at 3pm and I came home and slept for around 12 hours and finally just got up. I'm pretty sure the worst is over and I broke my fever- but last night was really awful. I had the fever and chills so bad that I had a fan pointed at me on high and a wet towel wrapped around my head, but I also had two comforters next to me to wrap up in for when I got freezing. So pretty much all I've done in the past 24 hours is sleep, watch old friends episodes, and eat crackers and a smoothie.
But I'm still hopeful the week will improve again!
After a lousy start to the 7th week, things got better- I got to deliver my first solo sd (signal that asks for a behavior) w/ the whales, which was a 'dorsal layout', basically the whale lies flat on its stomach with its dorsal ridge within arms reach. This was really cool because I'm actually getting to do 'trainer stuff' now! I also got to be part of an encounter which was really really cool. Encounters are when people pay a bunch of money to come back and meet the whales. They usually consist of three trainers- two trainers with a whale and 2 guests each and a third trainer on the opposite end of the pool that the whales get sent to when the trainers want to give the whale a little break from the guests or take a minute to explain something to them. I got to be the third trainer for an encounter, and although it's nothing too difficult, it was awesome to actually feel like part of the team and know that the staff trusts me enough to let me do it!
Then the week got lousy again- there has been a flu going around the department for a couple of weeks, and I got it. I now realize that it really sucks being sick when you live alone, there is no one to get you ginger ale and make you soup and listen to you whine. Thankfully it's not the stomach flu, its the 'influenza' flu which is a lot easier to manage by yourself. But I still don't know how I made it through the last two days at work, I've basically been coughing up a lung/blowing my nose/shivering/dying from fever for three days straight. My weekend started yesterday at 3pm and I came home and slept for around 12 hours and finally just got up. I'm pretty sure the worst is over and I broke my fever- but last night was really awful. I had the fever and chills so bad that I had a fan pointed at me on high and a wet towel wrapped around my head, but I also had two comforters next to me to wrap up in for when I got freezing. So pretty much all I've done in the past 24 hours is sleep, watch old friends episodes, and eat crackers and a smoothie.
But I'm still hopeful the week will improve again!
Monday, July 6, 2009
'Week of Awesomeness'
So I finished my 6th week or the “Week of awesomeness” so named by my co-workers. We had a Canada day BBQ, a farewell party for one of my coworkers, a West Wing marathon, and a delicious lunch. It was a very fun week in which much money was surely spent well! It’s definitely been my most fun (socially) week in Canada so far. Work was fun as well, nothing too new this week though. I learned more about delivering ‘sd’s (the signals that elicit behaviors) like how and when to give them and which ones are which. I also made some progress on my project about Milo the otter. I’ve narrowed down when he pattern swims and I’m trying out new solutions to counteract it; like switching around feeding times and places and giving him varied types of enrichment. The next few weeks should be really good as well- there are two big birthday parties soon and my friend Christian from Pomona might be coming up to visit, which would be great!
There was one minor incident this week- an apartment in my building had bed bugs (ew) so they inspected and sprayed the whole building. Luckily I worked during both appointments so my landlord just took care of it, and I didn’t have any bugs (thank the Lord), so I just got a little preventative spray on the apartment baseboards and everything should be fine! Also oddly enough, the landlord told me they use a little Beagle to inspect the houses. Apparently they are specially trained and are over 90% accurate at detecting the presence of pests. I thought that was pretty hilarious, maybe Meredith and Andy should enlist Bailey.
I hope everyone had a great fourth of July, I’ll call you all later this week to hear about them!
There was one minor incident this week- an apartment in my building had bed bugs (ew) so they inspected and sprayed the whole building. Luckily I worked during both appointments so my landlord just took care of it, and I didn’t have any bugs (thank the Lord), so I just got a little preventative spray on the apartment baseboards and everything should be fine! Also oddly enough, the landlord told me they use a little Beagle to inspect the houses. Apparently they are specially trained and are over 90% accurate at detecting the presence of pests. I thought that was pretty hilarious, maybe Meredith and Andy should enlist Bailey.
I hope everyone had a great fourth of July, I’ll call you all later this week to hear about them!
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