Epilogue

I can't believe it was an even 90 weeks...huh, anywho. So the Monday after graduation I was flying away again to the exotic location of....Lincoln, NE. Well, I'm from the mid-west, so you can imagine the chance to be back there when I saw the job post was tempting! I had my interview at the Lincoln Children's Zoo and they hired me on the spot! Everything went great and I think I'm really going to like it there! I will be caring for a string of animals including: Amur leopards, North American river otters, Chinese dwarf crocodiles, wallabys, and most importantly, Humboldt penguins. The penguins are to be the new star attraction for the zoo and they will be my responsibility to have ready for some amazing keeper talks. After some web searches, I think I'll be trying to break some new training ground with these very ADD birds, so we'll see how all this goes! My life is in an uproar right now trying to scramble to get myself out there. Hubby is unfortunately staying behind until he finds a job, but that shouldn't be long, I hope. Anyone wishing to see the success of an EATM grad should stop by the zoo and see me! The penguin exhibit won't open until maybe September, so come see me then!

Week 90: Paco-less Graduation, AKA: IT'S OVER!

Coming home felt great after two weeks away. I had to kill time at the zoo again this week, and there was still a whole lot of nothing for me to do! The first years will be fine and I feel OK with leaving them now. We did learn that Ghost will have a new plan for the rest of his life. He is no longer being manned and will have a new outdoor extension of his mew built so he has free access to outside. From there they will work on re-training him to function without equipment and be more of a free-working bird, which will be really neat for the public to see as well, so I expect great things for him in the future. I also learned that Paco, the white nosed coati, passed on the week before as well. Very sad, but she was also on the edge of her life-span. On Thursday, I had family come in for my graduation including my mom, one sister, and the in-laws. We had a great time together and they all really enjoyed seeing the zoo and all the festivities! Friday starts off with "family circus", a show where we can show off to all our friends and family all the cool animals we've worked with that come out to do shows. It was a few hours long, but we managed to keep everyone's attention just fine! After that you are free to do what you want until the ceremony. The ceremony its self was wonderful! There were lots of tears, but what do you expect? In addition to ending the best two years of your life (so far), we had to remember all we had lost this year too. All the speeches were wonderful and better than I could have hoped for. I was proud and happy when Dr. S called my name to receive my certificate. Hubby thinks I got one of the best compliments given when she called me. It was an emotional day, but it was also an emotional two years, so it was fitting! Another class of 50 is graduated and off into the world from EATM! (Pics: Paco in my lap, family circus [me with Nuez], graduation)

Week 89: Cat Ambassador

I found myself quickly on a plane and jetting into Cincinnati, OH where the wonderful zoo there has a wonderful program called "Cat Ambassadors". Basically, think cheetah show. The main feature is of course, 5 cheetahs, but they also have an ocelot, a fishing cat, servals, dogs, a red river hog, and house cats. They had just moved into a new building with a new yard for them to put their summer shows on in. Because they had JUST moved, there was still lots of construction going on that I could see in progress and how that whole process works out. There wasn't a lot of training going on as a result, but I still had tons of fun hanging out with the cheetahs and all the other animals. I didn't get to see a full run practice either, but we did let a couple chase a wiffle ball around on the end of a lunge whip, so it was close. Great week overall that I wouldn't trade for anything! (Pics: Me and Chance, Cheetah runs, up close)

Week 88: ABMA

I spent my first project week at the Animal Behavioral Management Alliance (ABMA) conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I gotta say the city wasn't that great, and we generally found the customer service to be incredibly poor across the board in that city. Sorry to any natives, but it's just not the same friendly atmosphere there that I've grown accustomed to. It was my first big journey to the east coast, that I can remember at least. The week was filled with paper presentations and small workshops (which is code for more lectures). There were quite a few people from my class that did attend, as well as our staff members Gary and Cindy. I didn't meet a lot of new people, but the few that I did were nice and helpful! I was glad to find that we Moorparkers are a bit ahead of the training curve from what I got out of the presentations. I really enjoyed seeing the Pittsburgh Zoo and Aquarium as well as the National Aviary. The big highlight was when we went to the animal shelter and got to work with their animals to help make them more adoptable. News crews came out and I actually made both the news cast and the local paper! I was working with some of their cats, and got some high praise for some of the work I did with a very shy kitty! The whole time I was also paying very close attention to things because I was also a judge at the conference and at the end I was surprised to be rewarded with a nice etched glass paperweight for my contributions. I think it was lots of fun and I'd love to be able to attend more of these in the future! Unfortunately, I was in such a rush when I left, I forgot my camera, so maybe I'll be able to steal some nice pictures off of my friends...