Merry Christmas

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Christmas! I know that mine has been great this year. The Saturday before Christmas was the party with my Dad's side of the family. Then on Sunday, I celebrated with my Mom's side of the family. We even took the entire family to see the Christmas lights at lake lanier in one of The Leisure Time buses. I had a great time and got some really nice presents, including a trip to the Keys to get my advanced dive certification. I am going to enjoy my time at home with my family and friends and look forward to a Happy New Year. Happy Holidays, I love ya'll!

End of Fall Semester

I know it has been ages since my last post, but this semester has been so busy. I have been working hard to keep up with all of my challenging classes (O. Chem, Genetics, Physics, and Civ 1) and I have been working at the Brevard zoo. I still love living in Florida but I look forward to taking a break and going home for Christmas. I have exams next week and then I am off to Tampa before flying home to GA. I hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas holiday.

Back to School

I know I have not added an update in a while but it has taken me some time to settle in and adjust to being back at school. I have to say that the trip back to the mainland was extremely long. I ended up with a total travel time of 13 hours and I did not get any sleep during the trip. After I finally landed in Tampa, Dad picked me and Kristine up and we stayed with him for the day. It was wonderful to eat good food and relax after the long trip. The next day, Kristine and I woke up early and drove to campus to check in. After we got to our room, we began the long process of moving everything in and unpacking all of our stuff. We could not have done it without all of the help from our amazing friends and especially Kate's parents! That night we went out to dinner before falling asleep from exhaustion. I was completely exhausted and jet lagged for the next couple of days. Now I am completely settled and I am loving it. It is so nice to live in an apartment style dorm with a kitchen and living room!

Classes started with an interesting turn of events. I am sure most of you heard about tropical storm Fay, but I experienced it. Classes were cancelled for most of the day Tuesday, all day Wednesday and all day Thursday. The storm stopped over Melbourne and we got nothing but rain and winds for 3 days. Everything was flooded and one of the bridges on campus collapsed. Most of my time during all of this was spent watching movies with friends. Now classes have started again and I already have homework and a presentation to work on.

On another note, I found a work study position at the Brevard zoo. I had an interview with the curator of animals a couple of days ago and I start work next Friday. I will be working as a keeper aide in all areas of the zoo. I am very excited about this job and I only hope it will be a wonderful experience that I can learn from.

I hope everyone is doing well. I look forward to Mom and David visiting next weekend, but I don't know when I will be back in Georgia. I will try to continue the blog throughout the school year but I can not guarantee I will have new updates very often. For now I am all pau!

I am down to the final days here in Hawaii and I have to say that I am ready to get back to Florida. I spent my final day off with Kristine and a future intern driving around the island and watching the sunset on the west side. It was so beautiful and the perfect way to say aloha. I have had a great time here but I am so excited to get back to school and visit my friends.

It is bittersweet to leave because I am going to miss the dolphins and all of the wonderful people I have worked with everyday. I feel like we are just getting to become close to them and now we have to say goodbye. Tonight is the aloha party which will give us a chance to say goodbye to all of the people we have worked with this summer. I have learned so much and really changed as a person from this internship. I will never forget this experience and I am so lucky that I have had this opportunity. I could not have done this without everyone's help and support so I want to thank all of you. I look forward to seeing everyone when I get back to the mainland. I love you guys!

Hi! So much has happened since my last post, but I am tired so I will try to sum it all up. Three weeks ago on my day off, I went to North Shore with one of my roommates. It was a 3 hour bus ride to get there but it was still fun. It was raining so we just walked around and looked at all of the shops. I had Mexican food for lunch and it was amazing. Then we walked to a place called Matsumotos. They have the best shave ice there...so good.

Two weeks ago on my day off, I went with 2 of my roommates to the movies. We saw Mama Mia and I thought it was funny and entertaining. It was definitely a lighthearted movie that made me laugh. Then we went grocery shopping and took the bus home.

On my birthday, I went to work and didn't really do anything special. After work I had a piece of cake and went to bed early. The day after my birthday, however, was amazing. Kristine gave me the best birthday present of snorkeling with spinner dolphins! We got up early and drove to the west side of the island where we got on a boat to see the dolphins. There were spinner dolphins everywhere and they were constantly jumping out of the water. When we were snorkeling with them, they were so close that I could have touched them. We could also hear all of the noises they were making under the water. It was so amazing. Then we snorkeled with green sea turtles and tropical fish. It was such a great day! I only wish I had brought an underwater camera.

Last weekend I went surfing with one of the trainers (Amy Perry) and 3 other interns. It was the first time any of us have ever been surfing and it was so much fun. Amy was so patient with us, because we had no idea what we were doing. Surfing is exhausting, but I was so proud of myself because I actually managed to stand up once. I was so sore the next day but it was worth it.

When it comes to work, I have been doing the same things. I can't believe it is almost over. I did take my phase 2 test a couple of days ago and I passed. That just means that I can learn other things and become more involved in the training of the animals. I finally have a couple of pictures and I will try to take even more in the upcoming weeks. I want to have plenty of pictures to look back on. I love and miss you all and I will keep you updated with what I am doing these last few weeks.

Hi everyone! I am sorry I have not added a new update lately but I have not had any internet for the past four days. I don't have too much news, just everyday work. One of the most exciting things that happened in the past week was... I got to swim with penguins! One of the trainers from the Hawaiian Ocean Theater just told me and two other interns to grab masks and follow her. We had no idea what we were going to do but when we got there, the trainers told us to jump in the water and they put the penguins in the water with us. It was so much fun and a once in a lifetime chance!

I also got to spend a lot of time working with the animals this week. One day I was the only intern at work and it turned out to be a lot of fun. I had a ton of cleaning to do but I also got a ton of animal time that day. At the end of the day, one of my favorite trainers was helping me clean coolers and once we finished cleaning she told me to grab a life jacket and meet her at pool 3. Because I cleaned all day I got to do a training session with Bugs and Buster. The two dolphins needed practice working together, so I got to do a double dorsal tow and two double foot pushes. So much fun!

This week I have also done an interaction with Kai (one of our pacific bottlenose dolphins). I love getting the chance to get in the water and work with the dolphins. I feel like I am learning a ton about training and working in this field. I will never forget this but I am ready to get home. I miss everyone and can't wait to see you all soon.

Another amazing week has gone by and I am still loving it. I can't believe that I only have 5 more weeks until I am back at school. This summer has just flown by!

Last weekend I had 3 days off from work and it was nice to catch up on some sleep! On Monday night, my roommates and I went to dinner in Waikiki. Then Tuesday we went to the Polynesian Cultural center. It was so beautiful there and the place was huge. We walked around to all of the different areas of the park and each area represented a different island. There were shows and activities going on everywhere. Then we went to the luau where we enjoyed the food and listened to all of the singers and watched the dancers during dinner. After that, we saw the night show. It was amazing! There were different dances and songs from each of the islands. There were even people walking across fire. It was a very entertaining show! I was so tired though because we didn't get home until midnight (after riding the bus for 3 hours) and lately I am used to going to sleep at 8 or 9.

On Sunday I just relaxed and enjoyed my day off. I bought some groceries and then went to the beach for a little while. On Monday I went scuba diving!! I went with 2 of my roommates to the west side of the island for a day of scuba diving. We dove with a diving shop in Kailua and we all had a great time. The weather was perfect and the scenery was beautiful. I did 2 dives where we toured the reef and just enjoyed watching all of the fish. It was very different from Florida because the coral here is hard coral, but it is still beautiful. The highlight of the dive was seeing a turtle that swam right by me! I was tired at the end of the day but it was worth it! I did take some pictures with an underwater camera so I am going to try to get them developed this weekend. I hope some of the pictures came out ok.

Work has also been extremely fun this week! I am still cleaning a lot but every day it seems like I get to spend more and more time with the animals. Yesterday in particular was the best day so far! I got to work with Kermie (the wholphin) with her primary trainer (Amy). I got to do all sorts of husbandry behaviors and I had 30 minutes just to play with her! I even got to ask for her high rise ( one of her new behaviors where she jumps out of the water and touches a ball with the tip of her rostrum). Later that day I did interactions with Keimakani and Kamoana (our 2 Pacific bottlenose dolphins). I even got a belly ride from Kei! After that I was in a program with Buster (one of our blind dolphins) and one of the other trainers (Jesse). Because Buster is blind, all of the signals for his behaviors are tactile. For the first time I got to ask him for one of his behaviors. Then at the end of the day (after all of the cleaning was done) my boss, Scotty, told me to grab a life jacket because we were going to swim with the dolphins. I got to do a double foot push with Maui and Buster and a belly ride with Maui. It was a great day! The end of today was fun too, because I got to do another double foot push with Maui and Buster and another belly ride with Maui! I love swimming with the dolphins everyday!

This is random but I even saw a celebrity today! When I went to lunch, I saw the man who is the boss in The Closer, the owner of the newspaper in Spiderman, and the dad in Juno. I couldn't believe it.

Well that's all I have for now. I will try to take my camera to work from now on and maybe get some pictures of me with the dolphins. I love you guys!