This was a busy week at the zoo. Busy for me, at least.
I was especially accident prone today, more so than usual, which is a dangerous level of accidenty-ness. (I'm also extremely tired, so my English is not forming sentences very well. Forgive me.) It was rainy a little this morning and I was gather bamboo for the birds when I slipped on some grass into a little pothole. I flung out my hand to help me balance, but accidentally hit a thorny blackberry branch, but only with my pinkie finger. So now I have some nice deep cuts in my finger, and I had to use tweezers to pull the thorn splinters out. It was a lovely start to my day. And later I closed a gate on the same finger. Ouch.
The highlight of my zoo week was playing with the mule deer yesterday. I wasn't really playing with them. I was mostly just walking through to get some tools, but the baby deer came to say hello to the keeper and me. They are sooo adorable and soft and I just want to cuddle them all day!
I also got to clean the wallaby habitat. It was the most fun I've ever had scooping poop. Most of the time, the animals are in a separate place when you're cleaning their habitat. But the wallabies were in there with me, watching me and making sure I didn't get too close. I get to put my bumblebee training to use though, because as soon as the wallaby starts moving, I have to freeze so I don't scare them. Which is the same thing I did when a bumblebee got out. Well, except for the time the bee went up my skirt, of course.
My favorite zoo visitor question of the week:
"Is that the mommy deer?"
No! We have a one year old deer named Leeloo that everyone thinks is the mother of the three babies. First, Leeloo is only one year old and she's not going to have three babies at once. That is very rare. Second, there would have to be a daddy deer at the zoo too. How do you think the babies just come from one deer? Oh people and their lack of common sense...
Ok. So. The deer are all supposed to be named after strong literary female characters. We have Leeloo, who is from something called The Fifth Element, i think. I'm not sure about her. And Willow from Buffy, which i also don't know about. And then we have Alice and Bella from Twilight. While I like the names fine, I just can't agree with the "strong female" part. Bella is always such a wimpy damsel in distress type until the very end of the book when she finally sucks it up. But then by the next book she's annoying again. I'm sorry. I don't like Bella much. She has less of a personality than Edward. Anyway, I found this all out yesterday and it's still bothering me. Rawr.
I'm sooo tired. And I just drank coffee. I do not approve.
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Friday, August 7, 2009
Chuffing and Psych
I'm not very good at posting regularly. Oh well.
I got to play with the baby tigers on Sunday. It was five of the most exciting minutes of my life. Who else can say that they've petted a tiger? Other than all the other volunteers and people who booked encounters at the zoo.
I also got chuffed at by the baby royal white today. I was guarding the tiger perimeter (we have to keep people at least three feet away, and they need to be reminded every few minutes) and the white boy came up next to me and looked at me with his beautiful blue eyes and chuffed. Chuffin
g is like tiger purring. It's a friendly greeting, saying they recognize you and are happy to see you. It's a pretty amazing feeling when the tiger looks at you and does it. I'm trying to learn how to chuff back. Soon, I will be able to talk tiger!My parents are gone on vacation this week, so I am all alone at the house. I'm a little worried, since I don't know anyone up here to call if I need help. We'll just hope that I don't need any help. Awesome. Being alone at the house also means I'm taking care of the birds. So I come home from taking care of the zoo animals to take care of our parrots. It's fine though, because I get to do more than just scrub poop and fill water dishes for my birds!
My very exciting Friday night involves sitting on my couch, wrapped in a cozy blanket and watching TV. Yeah. I'm such a party-er. The first episode of the new season of Psych is on tonight. It's pretty much the best show ever.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Baby Tigers and Half Blood Prince
First. The zoo I work at was on the front page of the Seattle Times today!
Go here: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009501163_a1tigercubslo20m.html?cmpid=2628
There's an adorable video of the baby tigers on that website. They're way cuter in real life, but pretty much any of you who read this, won't be able to see them.
On to the main subject of this blog...
I saw Half Blood Prince for the second time today, so I feel sufficiently capable of writing my thoughts on it down.
Therefore, if you haven't seen the movie OR read the 7th book yet, you should probably not read the rest of this unless you want to be spoiled.
Stop.
Now.
Hokay. So i really liked the movie. A lot. Obviously, there were things I didn't like. It's not the book. It's not going to be perfect, according to my ideas.
My biggest problem with it was how much of the horcrux information was left out. No mention of the cup at all, nothing about items from the four founders (have the founders even been mentioned in the movies??), only a small bit about Riddle liking collecting things, which was just shown, and only mentioned as thievery. So I'm sure they'll be able to make it make some sense in the next movie, when Harry is suddenly all "We need to find a cup! And something of Ravenclaw's!" but it could have been so much easier. All they had to do was replace the weird conversation where Dumbledore asks Harry about him and Hermione with a little conversation where Dumbledore goes "Riddle liked to collect trophies. He's Slytherin's heir. He might have made the horcruxes out of the founder's objects." Yay!
There were also a few too many awkward Harry/Ginny moments. Now, I love Harry/Ginny, but I never saw them as that awkward. The first time I saw the movie, it didn't bother me too much. I was mostly just excited that they finally fit Ginny in. But when i sat through them all a second time... Not so good. One or two would have been ok. The scene on the couch was amusing, I guess, except for the whole "don't you trust me" bit. Well, yeah, but I don't really want you shoving this weird cookie in my face... I did like the Slug Club scene though, when he stands up at the table. That was all cute and gentlemanly awkward. They could have left it with that. And the kiss was just ok. Not nearly as awesome as it should have been. Plus. Really. Call me old-fashioned, but the guy should kiss the girl.
Bellatrix was the only character the really, really annoyed me. We was like a little destructive child with a weird shoulder fetish. She just blew things up, acted like a little kid, and constant put her chin on everyone's shoulder. It was mostly just creepy and not really scary. Which is totally not what Bellatrix is. I wouldn't have minded her unnecessary presence if she was at least as scary as she was supposed to be.
Now on to the things I did like.
I liked some of the small things that they did to set up the next movie. Such as showing Ollivander's kidnapping, introducing who Regulus Black is through Slughorn's shelf, and mentioning that Harry's eyes are like Lily's again :) The last bit gives me hope that they'll do the Prince's Tale stuff right.
I finally liked Michael Gambon as Dumbledore. I don't know if I will ever forgive him for shaking Harry almost senseless in Golebt of Fire, but he finally seemed eccentric enough, calm enough, and powerful yet weak enough to be Dumbledore. In fact, a lot of the actors became more of their characters for me. Especially Daniel Radcliffe as Harry. Which is a pretty big compliment to him, because Harry is one of my favorite characters of all time ever. But he was hilarious, particularly in the Felix Felices scene. Ron was amazing, too, in the love potion scene. Even Hermione's eyebrows were better.
There were so many new characters that I really liked too. Both of the Tom Riddles were just soo creepy. And Lavender was hilarious and perfectly fangirly. And Cormac was way more good looking than I pictured him, but I'm not going to argue with that. He made a pretty good vile, jock-type.
Oh. Something else that bothered me. We never saw Snape teach DADA. It's just mentioned in the beginning and then we hardly see Snape. I was looking forward to a little more of Snape in this movie, seeing as he is the Half Blood Prince, and then we don't even have a class with him. Hmph!
Other things I liked: Harry and Ron's pillow talk, the cave scene, Harry's entrance to the Burrow with all the heads popping out on the stairs, every scene with Luna, Fred and George and the joke shop, all the bits of magic in the background like the penguin sakting on the cake at Christmas.
And that's all I've got today. Hopefully I will be making a video later, mostly because my outfit today is extra cute. And I will mention this blog in the video, so that may be how some of you came here. Hi!
And now, Bye!
Go here: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009501163_a1tigercubslo20m.html?cmpid=2628
There's an adorable video of the baby tigers on that website. They're way cuter in real life, but pretty much any of you who read this, won't be able to see them.
On to the main subject of this blog...
I saw Half Blood Prince for the second time today, so I feel sufficiently capable of writing my thoughts on it down.
Therefore, if you haven't seen the movie OR read the 7th book yet, you should probably not read the rest of this unless you want to be spoiled.
Stop.
Now.
Hokay. So i really liked the movie. A lot. Obviously, there were things I didn't like. It's not the book. It's not going to be perfect, according to my ideas.
My biggest problem with it was how much of the horcrux information was left out. No mention of the cup at all, nothing about items from the four founders (have the founders even been mentioned in the movies??), only a small bit about Riddle liking collecting things, which was just shown, and only mentioned as thievery. So I'm sure they'll be able to make it make some sense in the next movie, when Harry is suddenly all "We need to find a cup! And something of Ravenclaw's!" but it could have been so much easier. All they had to do was replace the weird conversation where Dumbledore asks Harry about him and Hermione with a little conversation where Dumbledore goes "Riddle liked to collect trophies. He's Slytherin's heir. He might have made the horcruxes out of the founder's objects." Yay!
There were also a few too many awkward Harry/Ginny moments. Now, I love Harry/Ginny, but I never saw them as that awkward. The first time I saw the movie, it didn't bother me too much. I was mostly just excited that they finally fit Ginny in. But when i sat through them all a second time... Not so good. One or two would have been ok. The scene on the couch was amusing, I guess, except for the whole "don't you trust me" bit. Well, yeah, but I don't really want you shoving this weird cookie in my face... I did like the Slug Club scene though, when he stands up at the table. That was all cute and gentlemanly awkward. They could have left it with that. And the kiss was just ok. Not nearly as awesome as it should have been. Plus. Really. Call me old-fashioned, but the guy should kiss the girl.
Bellatrix was the only character the really, really annoyed me. We was like a little destructive child with a weird shoulder fetish. She just blew things up, acted like a little kid, and constant put her chin on everyone's shoulder. It was mostly just creepy and not really scary. Which is totally not what Bellatrix is. I wouldn't have minded her unnecessary presence if she was at least as scary as she was supposed to be.
Now on to the things I did like.
I liked some of the small things that they did to set up the next movie. Such as showing Ollivander's kidnapping, introducing who Regulus Black is through Slughorn's shelf, and mentioning that Harry's eyes are like Lily's again :) The last bit gives me hope that they'll do the Prince's Tale stuff right.
I finally liked Michael Gambon as Dumbledore. I don't know if I will ever forgive him for shaking Harry almost senseless in Golebt of Fire, but he finally seemed eccentric enough, calm enough, and powerful yet weak enough to be Dumbledore. In fact, a lot of the actors became more of their characters for me. Especially Daniel Radcliffe as Harry. Which is a pretty big compliment to him, because Harry is one of my favorite characters of all time ever. But he was hilarious, particularly in the Felix Felices scene. Ron was amazing, too, in the love potion scene. Even Hermione's eyebrows were better.
There were so many new characters that I really liked too. Both of the Tom Riddles were just soo creepy. And Lavender was hilarious and perfectly fangirly. And Cormac was way more good looking than I pictured him, but I'm not going to argue with that. He made a pretty good vile, jock-type.
Oh. Something else that bothered me. We never saw Snape teach DADA. It's just mentioned in the beginning and then we hardly see Snape. I was looking forward to a little more of Snape in this movie, seeing as he is the Half Blood Prince, and then we don't even have a class with him. Hmph!
Other things I liked: Harry and Ron's pillow talk, the cave scene, Harry's entrance to the Burrow with all the heads popping out on the stairs, every scene with Luna, Fred and George and the joke shop, all the bits of magic in the background like the penguin sakting on the cake at Christmas.
And that's all I've got today. Hopefully I will be making a video later, mostly because my outfit today is extra cute. And I will mention this blog in the video, so that may be how some of you came here. Hi!
And now, Bye!
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Frugal lemurs
I intern at a zoo.
Working at the zoo has it's ups and downs. It's definitely not an easy job. It's more of a if-i-have-to-move-one-more-inch-i-think-i-might-collapse-oh-yes-sure-i-can-go-rake-that-stretch-of-gravel kind of job. It has it's rewards, some of which are the few moments when i get to carry a bird on my arm, or stop weeding long enough to pet the deer. I also get to take home ridiculous stories of the ridiculous "general public".
One gem that i collected today happened outside of the Black and White Ruffed lemurs. We have a sign by them that says "The most frugivorous species of lemurs." Now i get "What does frugivorous mean?" a lot from guests, which is understandable. "Frugivorous" is not a particularly common word. However, I do expect most people to connect that it is describing an animal, and also sounds like other more common words like "herbivorous" or "carnivorous".
Apparently, my expectations are a little too high.
Today, I passed a group of people trying to decide what it meant:
"Frugivorous. Sounds kind of like 'frugal'. Maybe it means they're the most frugal lemurs."
Sounds of agreement.
"I wonder what that means, to be a frugal lemur..."
At this point I couldn't help stepping in and explaining that frugivorous means they eat mostly fruit. They accepted this definition and realized it made more sense than what they had been thinking. They probably felt a little silly too, because, really, what on earth would it mean to be a frugal lemur? And why would we feel the need to put that on a sign next to the habitat as though it's the one fact we want you to walk away with.
The intelligence, logic, and common sense of the general public continues to astound me...
Working at the zoo has it's ups and downs. It's definitely not an easy job. It's more of a if-i-have-to-move-one-more-inch-i-think-i-might-collapse-oh-yes-sure-i-can-go-rake-that-stretch-of-gravel kind of job. It has it's rewards, some of which are the few moments when i get to carry a bird on my arm, or stop weeding long enough to pet the deer. I also get to take home ridiculous stories of the ridiculous "general public".
One gem that i collected today happened outside of the Black and White Ruffed lemurs. We have a sign by them that says "The most frugivorous species of lemurs." Now i get "What does frugivorous mean?" a lot from guests, which is understandable. "Frugivorous" is not a particularly common word. However, I do expect most people to connect that it is describing an animal, and also sounds like other more common words like "herbivorous" or "carnivorous".
Apparently, my expectations are a little too high.
Today, I passed a group of people trying to decide what it meant:
"Frugivorous. Sounds kind of like 'frugal'. Maybe it means they're the most frugal lemurs."
Sounds of agreement.
"I wonder what that means, to be a frugal lemur..."
At this point I couldn't help stepping in and explaining that frugivorous means they eat mostly fruit. They accepted this definition and realized it made more sense than what they had been thinking. They probably felt a little silly too, because, really, what on earth would it mean to be a frugal lemur? And why would we feel the need to put that on a sign next to the habitat as though it's the one fact we want you to walk away with.
The intelligence, logic, and common sense of the general public continues to astound me...
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