...of whales, Taco Bell runs, and extreme weight loss.
I've been pretty busy these last few days, and, as a result, I've been neglecting everyone's posts. Now worries, though; I'm reading, and I promise I'll catch up!
Ok so...I guess I'll start with the weekend.
On Friday I went with a group of friends to the Florida Keys - more specifically Key Largo - to save whales.
Yes, I am being completely serious.
Since Florida is kind of surrounded by water, there are a lot of people here that are dedicated to protecting marine life. On this past Mother's Day, May 5th, three pilot whales were found beached off the coast of the Keys. Since then, the Marine Mammal Conservancy in the Keys has been taking care of them. Apparently the whales are so badly injured that they can't stay afloat in water, and so they need volunteers 24/7 to help the whales stay afloat so they don't drown.
A friend of mine named Tara saw the story on the news and rounded up a group of us to go help.
And, forgive me for saying this, but fuck the whales.
First of all, the orientation process was terrifying. I guess I had been expecting sunshine and rainbows and YAY!WE'RESAVINGWHALESOMG-like feelings, but the guy in charge of running everything quickly got rid of those delusions. He told us that pilot whales are one of the most aggressive species of whales, known to brutally attack their own kind because that's what they consider to be "fun." Also, he warned us to keep our hands out of the water whenever we were in the whales' line of sight, because apparently floating hands look like squids to them and they love to eat squid.
Then he went on to tell us that the whales were sick and had some intense parasites; apparently they could easily pass on their disease and parasites to us. So, in addition to being horribly maimed, we were about to be exposed to some sort of foreign whale diseases.
My reaction: x_0
The instructor had the audacity to be all, "Now that we have that cleared up...WHO'S READY TO SAVE SOME WHALES?!"
Yeah. No one was exactly jumping up and down to go into the water first.
However, yours truly was magically "volunteered" to go first. D'oh. I dragged my friend Hector with me, and we, along with this other random volunteer girl whose name I just forgot, got stuck tending to the biggest whale of the three :| Incidentally, it was also the most volatile of the three. It was suffering from a nasty bout of pneumonia and was in pain because it also had a damaged tail. According to the instructor, our whale - whose name was #302 - was looking for someone's head to bite off (in a decidedly non-metaphoric way).
So we spent four hours in nasty whale water (our whale decided to pee while we were tending to it. I wanted to vomit) making sure #302 didn't drown. The water was freezing, there were other smaller fish swimming around and our whale kept trying to eat them, and #302 smelled OH-SO BAD, OMG. I can't even begin to explain to you how awful it smelled :/ Here's what it smelled like: trash combined with bad breath, horrible B.O., and vomit. Aka it was a feat in itself that I didn't vomit, lol.
All in all, I'm glad that I did it (how many people can say they not only helped save a whale, but also got to swim with one? I got to pet it! It was so cool - for all of five seconds before I got over it, lol), but I would NEVER do it again or even recommend anyone else to do it. I'm not even sure why we even wanted to save these whales. They smelled awful, were full of parasites, were vicious as hell.
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On Saturday, I went to a small house party at my friend Kelli's house. It was fun, actually. It reminded me of my undergrad days (which were oh-so long ago *sarcasm* I can't believe I've been graduated for a month and a week! Crazyyy) and the house parties I used to attend in Gainesville. I kind of miss it on occasion. By the end of the night (after a quick Taco Bell run with my BFF Kevin, yummm. The only time I'll ever eat Taco Bell is after having a few drinks, lol), however, I realized that I'm nothing more than an old foagie. I'm too old for this bullshit, lol. This is supposed to be my vacation before the most academically-challenging three years of my life. Running myself into the ground with minimal sleep and copious amounts of alcohol? No thanks.
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And that's about it. Since then I've been working, ugh. So tired of this job. It's incredibly physically draining. I'm glad I'm getting a great work-out, but come on now. This is a little much. I've lost eight pounds since being at home. I've only been at home for a bit more than a month. Part of it is due to having a better diet (I love free nutritious food!), but most of it is due to the fact that I'm running around a yogurt shop for eight hours, pushing around 500-pound frozen yogurt machines and lifting boxes and UGH. I so desperately want to quit :/ I'm glad about the whole losing weight thing (I ain't even mad), but it's not like I particularly needed to shed eight pounds so quickly, and I wish it wasn't under such painful circumstances, lol. Ah, c'est la vie, I guess.
Well, until next time, friends!
- Nat
Ok so...I guess I'll start with the weekend.
On Friday I went with a group of friends to the Florida Keys - more specifically Key Largo - to save whales.
Yes, I am being completely serious.
Since Florida is kind of surrounded by water, there are a lot of people here that are dedicated to protecting marine life. On this past Mother's Day, May 5th, three pilot whales were found beached off the coast of the Keys. Since then, the Marine Mammal Conservancy in the Keys has been taking care of them. Apparently the whales are so badly injured that they can't stay afloat in water, and so they need volunteers 24/7 to help the whales stay afloat so they don't drown.
A friend of mine named Tara saw the story on the news and rounded up a group of us to go help.
And, forgive me for saying this, but fuck the whales.
First of all, the orientation process was terrifying. I guess I had been expecting sunshine and rainbows and YAY!WE'RESAVINGWHALESOMG-like feelings, but the guy in charge of running everything quickly got rid of those delusions. He told us that pilot whales are one of the most aggressive species of whales, known to brutally attack their own kind because that's what they consider to be "fun." Also, he warned us to keep our hands out of the water whenever we were in the whales' line of sight, because apparently floating hands look like squids to them and they love to eat squid.
Then he went on to tell us that the whales were sick and had some intense parasites; apparently they could easily pass on their disease and parasites to us. So, in addition to being horribly maimed, we were about to be exposed to some sort of foreign whale diseases.
My reaction: x_0
The instructor had the audacity to be all, "Now that we have that cleared up...WHO'S READY TO SAVE SOME WHALES?!"
Yeah. No one was exactly jumping up and down to go into the water first.
However, yours truly was magically "volunteered" to go first. D'oh. I dragged my friend Hector with me, and we, along with this other random volunteer girl whose name I just forgot, got stuck tending to the biggest whale of the three :| Incidentally, it was also the most volatile of the three. It was suffering from a nasty bout of pneumonia and was in pain because it also had a damaged tail. According to the instructor, our whale - whose name was #302 - was looking for someone's head to bite off (in a decidedly non-metaphoric way).
So we spent four hours in nasty whale water (our whale decided to pee while we were tending to it. I wanted to vomit) making sure #302 didn't drown. The water was freezing, there were other smaller fish swimming around and our whale kept trying to eat them, and #302 smelled OH-SO BAD, OMG. I can't even begin to explain to you how awful it smelled :/ Here's what it smelled like: trash combined with bad breath, horrible B.O., and vomit. Aka it was a feat in itself that I didn't vomit, lol.
All in all, I'm glad that I did it (how many people can say they not only helped save a whale, but also got to swim with one? I got to pet it! It was so cool - for all of five seconds before I got over it, lol), but I would NEVER do it again or even recommend anyone else to do it. I'm not even sure why we even wanted to save these whales. They smelled awful, were full of parasites, were vicious as hell.
________________________________
On Saturday, I went to a small house party at my friend Kelli's house. It was fun, actually. It reminded me of my undergrad days (which were oh-so long ago *sarcasm* I can't believe I've been graduated for a month and a week! Crazyyy) and the house parties I used to attend in Gainesville. I kind of miss it on occasion. By the end of the night (after a quick Taco Bell run with my BFF Kevin, yummm. The only time I'll ever eat Taco Bell is after having a few drinks, lol), however, I realized that I'm nothing more than an old foagie. I'm too old for this bullshit, lol. This is supposed to be my vacation before the most academically-challenging three years of my life. Running myself into the ground with minimal sleep and copious amounts of alcohol? No thanks.
________________________________
And that's about it. Since then I've been working, ugh. So tired of this job. It's incredibly physically draining. I'm glad I'm getting a great work-out, but come on now. This is a little much. I've lost eight pounds since being at home. I've only been at home for a bit more than a month. Part of it is due to having a better diet (I love free nutritious food!), but most of it is due to the fact that I'm running around a yogurt shop for eight hours, pushing around 500-pound frozen yogurt machines and lifting boxes and UGH. I so desperately want to quit :/ I'm glad about the whole losing weight thing (I ain't even mad), but it's not like I particularly needed to shed eight pounds so quickly, and I wish it wasn't under such painful circumstances, lol. Ah, c'est la vie, I guess.
Well, until next time, friends!
- Nat