Come Sail Away With Me

Sorry it has been so long since my last post. I have just been so busy. Last weekend I flew home for my brother's graduation. It was a busy weekend, but I enjoyed visiting with family and old friends. Congrats David!

When I got back to work, I took and passed my safety guidelines test, and my scrubber test. Now that all of my tests are over, I can dive and scrub without a trainer present and I can begin to work with the animals. It was a stressful week! I even had to scrub one of the pools by myself the day after I passed my test. It was definitely an experience. The scrubber was having problems so it was only after many attempts and some assistance that the scrubber finally worked. And the pool I was diving in is one of the coldest pools in the park. Talk about a shock at 8 in the morning. But hard work pays off. That same day, I was able to feed one of the dolphins during a training session! The next thing I have to do is finish memorizing my feeder pool script. I have to know it by Monday so I guess I should start practicing.

This weekend I was surprised with a visit from my mom. Today we visited the Seaquarium so she could see where I work. She even met some of the trainers that I work with. Tomorrow we are planning on just relaxing and maybe going to a movie. That's it for now :) Bye

Orientation at the Miami Seaquarium

I have just finished my first week of work at the Seaquarium. I began the internship on Monday along with 3 other girls. The first two days involved a lot of paperwork, reading materials, and a dive test. The dive test was fairly easy and I passed! After the orientation days, we were all sent to specific areas. I am assigned to the Top Deck and Seal and Sea Lion areas. I will be spending 3 days of the week at Top Deck and one day at Seal and Sea Lion. Everyone has been very nice and I am working hard to learn the day to day routine. I have already learned how to do fish prep in Top deck by myself and I have learned how to ID all of the 4 dolphins in the Top deck area. I have also completed three buddy dives (the check out dive, a dive in sea lion show pool, and one in the top deck pool with the dolphins). The internship involves a lot of diving, and I have to complete 12 buddy dives before I can dive without a trainer. I will also be learning how to use the underwater vacuum and scrubber. I have quite a few tests coming up to make sure I am ready to dive and use all of the equipment safely. This internship is definitely going to leave me in great shape, but for now I am just exhausted and sore. I am working 4 10 hour days, and they definitely wear me out. I will be happy when I begin to adjust to the demanding schedule. That is all that has happened so far, but I will keep ya'll updated!

Goodbye sophomore year

I have not posted frequent updates during the school year, but the school year is winding down. I have only three weeks of school left, and then I am on my way to Miami. It seems so close, but I have so much to do before I can leave for the summer. These next few weeks I have loads of school work, I have to put my stuff in storage, and get everything ready for the summer. If you do not know yet, I will be interning at the Miami Seaquarium this summer. I can not wait for this new experience and I will do my best to post often and keep you all updated this summer. Well I have tons of things to do so I will try to give an update once my internship starts!

Happy New Year

Welcome 2009! I hope everyone had a great holiday season. The year of 2008 was a great year and I hope that 2009 can be even better. My New Years eve was spent with family and friends. Mom and I went out to dinner with the Brant family and then went to the movie. It was a quiet New Years but I could not have asked for a better one. It has been nice to spend some time with family and old friends but I am looking forward to going back to school.

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!