Zoo Diary 20th - 21st May
I had pretty much forgotten about this :S but I reckon that I might as well do it properly and finish if there's any point in doing it at all. May not be accurate it being 2 weeks ago and all, but that can't be helped now.
(as an aside, I still have a bruise from that staffy pup 2 weeks later! hehe)
Thursday:
Not difficult to remember cos I was out with Steve on outreach again. Drove somewhere about an hour away to do a talk at a primary school (an enormous one this time) that was apparently awarded the status 'struggling' by ofsted which is slightly worrying for an inspection where they tell you ages in advance when they're coming and what they'll be looking at. I could kinda see why, especially as if I hadn't known otherwise I would have assumed that it was a special needs school - some of the children seemingly having no social awareness, curling up in balls on the floor, sitting on teacher's laps etc. so I gathered that some of them were probably not well erm.. nurtured at home. They also had some horrible little ones who spent ages poking or hitting the other kids *sigh*. Was an amusing talk though, my job was basically to make sure that the animals were not manhandled and to put them away as soon as they were no longer needed. We couldn't get one of them out cos the kids weren't well behaved enough and she wasn't bomb proofed enough (Spiny Norma the hedgehog). The highlight was some feathery/ glittery showgirl head pieces that Steve hauled up a teacher from each class to put on and do a bird mating dance with him in (hiding behind a pretend tree was involved XD). No escapes this time thank God, and afterwards we went to the North Devon Art College to check on a hissing cockroach suit that some girl was making for her degree and giving to Steve afterwards. I was absolutely stunned, It wasn't assembled enough for photos but it was big enough to cover a person, the exoskeleton was made of moulded plastic and then textured with glue before being painted and she was making jointed legs to go on the front and all sorts, it was amazing! Steve promised to send me a picture of it when it was finished but then he also promised to send me a reference and I'm still waiting on that. Also we had the first conversation I didn't feel slightly uncertain about on the way back - it moved from fancy dress staples (apparently he has several full Victorian outfits and I expressed jealousy and told him about my Adam Ant fancy dress outfit), to Victorian language and how we loved it, to Victorian porn - my recounting of phrases from my copy of Sins of the Cities of the Plain, which he expressed curiosity about, to '20s dirty music hall songs to Jeeves and Wooster and Raffles the Gentleman Thief XD
Anyway after that my day was sticking labels on cockroach boxes, helping to clean the cockroaches... by cleaning fruit fly maggots out of their food dishes :S the snake talk and furries (where I held a guinea pig that weed on some poor retarded guy, who was really sweet about it, and made a valiant attempt to dive head first in the opposite direction from a sweet little girl who really wanted to cuddle it - ah well, what can you do? other than what I did which was make up excuses about the greedy guinea pig thinking it was his tea time already XD) and then I was breaking up chicken carcasses, as far as I remember.
Friday:
Ordinary day really, Can't remember what I did exactly, but I think first of all I cleaned the squirrel monkeys with Jemma, and maybe I cleaned the smaller monkeys before that actually, but I definitely did the tortoises - which I blatantly got lumbered with because it was a scorchingly hot day and it's 30 degrees in the tortoise house and they're heavy so and sos that have to be shifted about a lot. Anyway I got some great pics :) and then did guinea pig fishing before lunch and I think I did furries and got to walk Mr P afterwards bless him :) I don't really remember the rest of the day except that there was a lot of freezer stuff involved - maybe that's all I did do - Oh no, I lie because after furries I was grass picking and then went to help with the freezer stuff for the rest of the day - including getting to saw a slice of a horses leg that I was impressed I got through, seeing as I couldn't lift it to get it out of the freezer. Then doing chicks and chickens til home time really - that and washing up - the fun! :D Out in the car park also met Steve once again and he showed me and Dave his Gambian Pouched Rat (he's taken it to a talk) which is really enormous and cool :D
It was definitely an interesting three weeks and I wish I was the kind of person who can just click into an environment and rub along with people like they've known them forever because it's just enough time for me to feel like I'm beginning to find my feet but I got what I wanted out of the experience and think it is definitely something I would like to go into, although I think I would like to progress into something with more of a footing in behavioural research - speaking of which I'm disappointed me and Amy never got to do that project :/ especially as it doesn't reflect well on us not following through but there was simply no time in the end - we needed to dedicate a good few days to it and nothing else :( I also found that I was pretty low for about a week of it but managed to keep a cap on it and get on with things, I can't help but think that being outdoors and busy helped that, which is definitely an upside if there were no others. Messaged Amy to see if she got a place there in the end, but haven't heard back as of yet. Would be nice for her if she did.
(as an aside, I still have a bruise from that staffy pup 2 weeks later! hehe)
Thursday:
Not difficult to remember cos I was out with Steve on outreach again. Drove somewhere about an hour away to do a talk at a primary school (an enormous one this time) that was apparently awarded the status 'struggling' by ofsted which is slightly worrying for an inspection where they tell you ages in advance when they're coming and what they'll be looking at. I could kinda see why, especially as if I hadn't known otherwise I would have assumed that it was a special needs school - some of the children seemingly having no social awareness, curling up in balls on the floor, sitting on teacher's laps etc. so I gathered that some of them were probably not well erm.. nurtured at home. They also had some horrible little ones who spent ages poking or hitting the other kids *sigh*. Was an amusing talk though, my job was basically to make sure that the animals were not manhandled and to put them away as soon as they were no longer needed. We couldn't get one of them out cos the kids weren't well behaved enough and she wasn't bomb proofed enough (Spiny Norma the hedgehog). The highlight was some feathery/ glittery showgirl head pieces that Steve hauled up a teacher from each class to put on and do a bird mating dance with him in (hiding behind a pretend tree was involved XD). No escapes this time thank God, and afterwards we went to the North Devon Art College to check on a hissing cockroach suit that some girl was making for her degree and giving to Steve afterwards. I was absolutely stunned, It wasn't assembled enough for photos but it was big enough to cover a person, the exoskeleton was made of moulded plastic and then textured with glue before being painted and she was making jointed legs to go on the front and all sorts, it was amazing! Steve promised to send me a picture of it when it was finished but then he also promised to send me a reference and I'm still waiting on that. Also we had the first conversation I didn't feel slightly uncertain about on the way back - it moved from fancy dress staples (apparently he has several full Victorian outfits and I expressed jealousy and told him about my Adam Ant fancy dress outfit), to Victorian language and how we loved it, to Victorian porn - my recounting of phrases from my copy of Sins of the Cities of the Plain, which he expressed curiosity about, to '20s dirty music hall songs to Jeeves and Wooster and Raffles the Gentleman Thief XD
Anyway after that my day was sticking labels on cockroach boxes, helping to clean the cockroaches... by cleaning fruit fly maggots out of their food dishes :S the snake talk and furries (where I held a guinea pig that weed on some poor retarded guy, who was really sweet about it, and made a valiant attempt to dive head first in the opposite direction from a sweet little girl who really wanted to cuddle it - ah well, what can you do? other than what I did which was make up excuses about the greedy guinea pig thinking it was his tea time already XD) and then I was breaking up chicken carcasses, as far as I remember.
Friday:
Ordinary day really, Can't remember what I did exactly, but I think first of all I cleaned the squirrel monkeys with Jemma, and maybe I cleaned the smaller monkeys before that actually, but I definitely did the tortoises - which I blatantly got lumbered with because it was a scorchingly hot day and it's 30 degrees in the tortoise house and they're heavy so and sos that have to be shifted about a lot. Anyway I got some great pics :) and then did guinea pig fishing before lunch and I think I did furries and got to walk Mr P afterwards bless him :) I don't really remember the rest of the day except that there was a lot of freezer stuff involved - maybe that's all I did do - Oh no, I lie because after furries I was grass picking and then went to help with the freezer stuff for the rest of the day - including getting to saw a slice of a horses leg that I was impressed I got through, seeing as I couldn't lift it to get it out of the freezer. Then doing chicks and chickens til home time really - that and washing up - the fun! :D Out in the car park also met Steve once again and he showed me and Dave his Gambian Pouched Rat (he's taken it to a talk) which is really enormous and cool :D
It was definitely an interesting three weeks and I wish I was the kind of person who can just click into an environment and rub along with people like they've known them forever because it's just enough time for me to feel like I'm beginning to find my feet but I got what I wanted out of the experience and think it is definitely something I would like to go into, although I think I would like to progress into something with more of a footing in behavioural research - speaking of which I'm disappointed me and Amy never got to do that project :/ especially as it doesn't reflect well on us not following through but there was simply no time in the end - we needed to dedicate a good few days to it and nothing else :( I also found that I was pretty low for about a week of it but managed to keep a cap on it and get on with things, I can't help but think that being outdoors and busy helped that, which is definitely an upside if there were no others. Messaged Amy to see if she got a place there in the end, but haven't heard back as of yet. Would be nice for her if she did.