ALOHHAAA!!!

ALOHAA EVERYONE!! I know it’s been forever since I’ve posted something, but I’ve been extremely busy transitioning into everything here in Hawaii. I’ve been here for like 10 days now and I’m just now getting into the groove here. There’s a lot to learn at my internship and a lot to learn about just getting around the island. I can’t get into my internship yet because I’m still waiting on my supervisor to approve what I say on here, but I can tell you all about Hawaii. I landed here last Monday and had to stay with a few friends for my first 4 nights until I could find myself a more permanent place to live. The city I live in now is called Waikiki and it’s probably the most touristy/crazy place on the island. There is everything here and its right on the ocean. There is a nice beach and the water here is beautiful. I’ve already gotten very sun burnt multiple times. I really do try to put sunscreen on, but I guess I miss some spots. I’m also trying very hard at work to avoid getting awkward tan lines from my rash guard I ware. I live in a dorm building right in the center of town. It’s a nice and safe building and even has a pool. (not that you need one with the ocean being so close) My first time in the ocean was last week and it was awesome. I saw this dark shadow and pointed it out several times to my friends but they all couldn’t see it. Once I left however, they told me the dark shadow came out of the water and was actually a sea turtle. Go figure.. I get around the island by “The Bus”. (that’s what the bus system is called on the island) A bus pass costs $30 a month, which is a pretty good deal. Way cheaper than gas! The best food I’ve had here was this breakfast plate of eggs and fried rice. It was such a huge portion, it lasted me like 3 days. It was from a place called Eggs ‘n Things. They have really cool trees here and sweet looking pigeons. The first picture is of a tree right on my beach by my building. It’s giant! Another cool thing about the city I live in is everything is open til like 4 in the morning. I think this place would be a great vacation spot, but I could never live here permanently. It’s too crazy and isolated for me. I need a place where I can drive around on the open roads and also not live such a hectic and busy life. The locals here can also be kind of unwelcoming. It makes me miss South Africa quite a lot. But all in all, Hawaii has been good. A little lonely at times because all the other interns live pretty far from me, but I’m making friends here and there and I’m sure this will be a great summer. And of course I’ll come back to Maine being the tannest of them all!

One More Week :D

We have one more week of classes left at Unity and then I’m off to Hawaii!! It’s going to be a very hard, stressful, and busy week. I have to move all my stuff into my new place, finish all my final assignments, and take my finals. I hope I make it out alive. I have a lot of genetics to do and I’m nervous for my environmental sustainability final, but other than that my other classes shouldn’t be too bad. I can’t wait to say goodbye to this semester and pick up some new classes next year. I signed up for 2 online classes that I’ll have to take while I’m in Hawaii. Hopefully I’ll be able to manage my time out there. It is still freezing cold in Maine. The wind has been crazy and it makes it so much colder. I just can’t wait to feel some warmth and that Hawaii sun! One thing I’m looking forward to this next week is our Admissions work end of the year party. All the councilors make yummy food and it’s a lot of fun. It’ll be my one escape from all my homework. I hate to spend all weekend doing homework, but it looks like I’m going to have to.. The next time I write to you it’ll be from Hawaii!!!

Elephant Project

I wanted to post something that I wrote for my Enrichment and design class. We have to completely design an elephant exhibit including an outdoor, indoor exhibit, viewing areas for guests, barriers/fences, water systems, service areas, and the indoor holding area. This might sound easy at first glance, but as we got into it, you realize just how much work there is in designing an exhibit. We had $9 million to work with and 9,000 square meters. The picture is an example of a sketched out design plan for an elephant exhibit and one we used for a reference while making our own model. We still have 2 weeks to work on our actual model (we have to build a small scaled model of our entire exhibit), but we also had to write essays for it. There are 3 people in each group and each got assigned to a certain part of the essay. My part was all about the service and indoor holding areas of the exhibit. This consists of the elephant stalls, the keeper break rooms, supply closets, and much more. Here is my paper for anyone who would like to take a look at it: elephant service paper. This can give you a good idea of what an assignment would be like for Captive classes. I can post a few more from other classes.

Here is an assignment from my Animal Training class I took my sophomore year, where I had to was given a scenario when a certain animal and I had to come up with a plan on how to train that animal to do the desired task or behavior. My problem was this: Azizi; a young female giraffe is very scared of the giraffe chute, which she needs to go through in order to debut on exhibit. Also, Azizi is interested in the other giraffes but, when she tries to follow them, the other giraffes show aggression towards her. Here is my paper:project.

Lastly, here is an assignment from my first semester at Unity. We had to pick a species and write-up an entire paper all about its natural history, behavior, zoo adaptations, and turn it into a final presentation. I picked the Koala and here is my paper: Koala Paper

I hope these assignments give you all a little insight on what some of your assignments will be like if you choose to come to Unity. Just please don’t save and keep these and try to turn them in as your own one day You will get caught! As you can see, they are fun assignments and relevent to what you want to study and work with once you graduate. You can also use these papers and projects in your professional portfolio one day during a job interview. There will be times when you’ll have to write-up boring, useless essays, but for the most part it’s all about stuff you actually enjoy learning about. You almost always get to pick your topic, for example I chose to design an exhibit for an elephant because that’s the animal I want to work with once I graduate. So I hope you’ll take some time and glance over these assignments, if nothing else, you might learn some things about some really cool animals!

How Things Change..

Lately I’ve been realizing how different things are around here now from what they used to be like back when I first started. Not in a bad way at all, but its crazy how much different your freshman year is from your upper class years. Back then I didn’t have a worry in the world, I spent all of my free time outside, meeting new people all the time, and just doing all kinds of the typical crazy freshman things. I look around on campus and I see all the freshman laying out and they just look so young. And I can’t help but envy them. My freshman year was the best year of my life and I didn’t even know how great it was until it was over and things started to change. Almost all of my friends from freshman year no longer go here. It’s terribly sad when you people leave or graduate. You become so incredibly close to the people up here because you spend so much time together. It’s so completely different from any high school friendship. These people are your family and every time someone else leaves a little part of my is lost. The hardest was my best friend, who was also my first friend didn’t come back this year. It wasn’t because she didn’t like Unity, she just didn’t have the funds to come back. I’ve seen her a few times since, she’s come up to visit and I visited her a few times too, but it’s not the same. She’s no longer right here whenever I need her. I can no longer run down the hall to her room and up and decide to put on some roller skates and attempt to state to our local grocery store, Edwards.  It’s also hard when people graduate. My two roommates last year were both seniors and when they graduated it was so weird when they didn’t come back. I can’t even imagine what it’s going to be like when I have to graduate and leave everyone and leave Unity. This place is my home.

Being a junior is so very different from being a freshman. As a freshman, everything is new and exciting and you really have it easy here when it comes to classes and homework. As a junior, my roommate and I are always doing homework and stressing about tests and essays due. We still have our fun and manage to work in some time to do other things, but its difficult sometimes. It’s preparing us for the real world. I don’t mean for this to be sad or for people to think I hate my life now, I’m just writing this to describe and get out how I feel about growing up. It sucks but its life. It’s also exciting and scary. I have no idea what I will be doing a year from now or even this summer. I know I’ll be in Hawaii, but I don’t know who I’ll meet or how I’m going to afford to live there. It’s all on my own and that scares me, but I can’t wait to face it. I wish I could post a slide show showing some pictures from my freshman year and show you all how happy I was and how different my life was. I was so young. I feel like I’ve really matured over the last two years and I’m very proud of myself for that. During my first internship I goofed off and never took things too serious, but I can safely say that will not be the case this summer. I take each job I do seriously and take in as much as possible so that it will help prepare myself for the real world and what my career might be like one day. I also know that I still have a lot more growing up to do before I’ll be ready for the actual real world. I feel like my student teaching will help me with that. I’ll no longer be taking classes and I won’t be around Unity much. I’ll be in a complete different location with actual teachers and professionals who will be watching me every move. They will also be teaching and passing on their wisdom to me. I feel like I will learn a ton from that just like I’ve learned from all my internships so far.

Well tomorrow is New Student Experience so all the accepted students for the fall of 2012 will be coming up and doing all kinds of fun activities. I’ll be working that so if any of my readers are attending, I’ll see you tomorrow! Lets pray that it stays sunny and won’t rain like its supposed to

Easters on it’s Way!

So today I looked out my window and saw the beautiful sun and dressed in a cute skirt and shirt and got outside and BRRRR. Once again, I was tricked by Maine’s brutal coldness. I heard this weekend its supposed to get into the upper 50s, but I’m going to be in the great state of Connecticut for Easter. I’m going home with my roommate to her house there. It’s 5 minutes from the ocean and this time of year all the trees are blossoming pink and it looks like the land of doctor sues! I’m excited to get away from here for the weekend. I didn’t get to leave for Spring Break so this will be nice. And also, my mom called this morning to tell me she’ll be in Washington DC that weekend so she is going to drive up and see me for Easter! I could not be more excited. I miss my mom so much and its been 3 years since I’ve seen any of my family for Easter.

Tonight is our annual Sports Banquet for all Unity athletes. This is one of the main reasons I play a sport up here. It’s a free 3 course dinner followed by a very entertaining slide show and awards. The food is always great and its fun to sit with and talk with all my team mates again. Tonight is also the start of intramural soccer. I’m not on a team, but most of my guy friends are so my roommate and I like to go and watch. They play 2-3 times a week for about 3 weeks.

Other than that, classes are going pretty well. I have to give a small speech on Friday for my Conservation Biology lab about my elephant poaching essay I wrote. I also have to schedule for my LAST semester of classes tomorrow, which means a very stressful day is ahead of me. I have to make sure I get in everything I need because I only have one semester left to get them all in. The semester after that I have to student teach, which means I’ll have no time to take any classes. It’s all very stressful and crazy, but at the same time very exciting. I’m ready to be done with this chapter of my life and start a brand new one somewhere completely new. However, I can’t even imagine leaving Unity. Leaving all my friends, who basically are my second family. I still have a good year left so I’m going to try to not think about that yet.

Discovering the Heart of Unity

Instead of going anywhere on Spring Break, I decided to save money and stay here in Unity. What I thought was going to be the most boring and lonely 2 weeks of my life, turned out to be one of the greatest eye-opening experiences I’ve had up here. I ended up meeting several locals who have lived in Unity their whole lives and they showed me parts of Unity that I never knew existed. They took me back on these tiny dirt roads that went on for miles and even turned into 4 wheeler trails. It got really warm up here for a couple of days and I took full advantage of that and laid out on the beach of Unity Pond, spent some time on the coast, and did a little 4 wheeling. Unity is a place that is so completely different when the college kids go away. Its like when we are all gone, the locals come out and give the town a whole new attitude. 

So the reason I stayed in Unity to save money is because I got accepted into the internship at Sea Life Park, Hawaii!! Here’s the link to the park: http://www.sealifeparkhawaii.com/ My job will be working with sea lions, dolphins, and penguins in the theater and facilitating guest interactions and training sessions. I could not be more excited, but it’s going to cost a lot of money. I’m applying for this scholarship that my school gives out each year for a student needing money for an internship.

We started back with classes yesterday and its a little weird getting back in the groove of things, especially with my mind totally on Hawaii! There is one assignment however that I am actually really excited about. It’s for my enrichment and exhibit design lab. I have to construct and build a complete model for an elephant exhibit. So far my group has decided on an exhibit that holds 3 female and 1 male Asian elephants, it’s going to be in Massachusetts, we’re going to have both inside and outdoor spaces for them, and we want to make sure the male can at least see and hear the females, without having too much interaction.

The weather up here has been pretty crazy and all over the place. There were 2 days last week that it reached 80 degrees and less than a week later its -2 with wind chill (today). In my environmental sustainability class, we are learning about how some scientists are using this crazy weather as proof of climate change. I do like that its cold again because I’m not done skiing yet. The colder it gets, the more snow Sugarloaf can make! We have Spring Open House this Saturday if anyone is interested in going, call Unity College Admissions!

WINTER HAS FINALLY ARRIVED!

There’s finally some snow in the Unit-Y!!! We got around 6 inches last Friday and Saturday and a little more yesterday. And we’re supposed to get more on Thursday. We all hope it just keeps on coming! Skiing last weekend was absolutely amazing. So powdery! This weekend is going to be even more great because my little brother and my grandpa are coming up to ski with me all weekend! I could not be more excited. This picture is of our sugar shack in our wood lot I took today, showing off our snow! The sugar shack is home for the Sustainable Sweeteners Club, who produce maple syrup each spring from the Maple trees that are tapped on campus. They also host pancake breakfasts, serving freshly made maple syrup. 

Midterms are like half over. I still have my take home genetics test and also my take home environmental sustainability test to finish up and turn in. Genetics is definitely turning out to be my hardest class. It’s not bad when you have someone explaining the material to you, but when you’re on your own trying to figure out these take home questions, it’s very tricky. For my Enrichment and Exhibit Design class, we are finishing up with the exhibit part of class and now we are switching to exhibit designing. For the past 2 labs we’ve been working on designing these hammocks for primates. The sewing machines have been giving us a lot of trouble so its taking a little longer than expected.

We are all counting down the days until spring break! Just a week and 1/2 more to go and then we get a full TWO WEEKS OFF! This semester really isn’t all that bad, I really enjoy my classes for the most party and am really learning a lot. I do miss being in a classroom teaching though. I miss my 8th graders from last semester so much. They were the best kids and I learned so much from them and my cooperating teacher. Next semester I’ll be taking Practicum 2 which will have me in a high school classroom all semester and getting to teach again. I’m a little nervous about being in a high school though. Those kids aren’t much older than me and I feel like it’ll be tough to separate myself from them and have them actually listen and learn from me. Well I have a ton of homework to do today so that I can go support our Unity Hockey team play KVCC tonight!

Midterms Already!

It seems we just got back into the routine of classes and already, midterms here! I have my first one tomorrow for my enrichment and exhibit design class. It’s all about enrichment because that is all we have covered so far. After the test, we will be starting the exhibit part of the class. For my last lab for that class we worked on building hammocks for the primates at Zoo New England. We had to use the sewing machine. We haven’t finished them yet, so we have next week’s lab to finish it all up. I really am enjoying and learning a lot from that class. I have been getting good grades on my quizzes and homework assignments, mostly because I love what I’m learning about and I can remember it really well. My last homework assignment was designing a type of physical enrichment for a certain captive animal. (physical enrichment means toys or something put into their exhibit they can “play” with or use for shelter) I designed a small pool hidden by tall vegetation that a tiger could use to get away from the hot sun and relax in some water. Tigers are most tired during the hottest part of the day and try to avoid the sunlight when possible. They also love water and swimming. So my pool provides them with a shaded area to cool down in. The more I read about tigers, the more I realized that I would extremely love to work with them someday. I can’t wait to get into an internship and start being around animals again! I have an interview Friday with Zoo Miami for their elephant house internship position and my Sea Life Park in Hawaii to work with dolphins interview next week. I applied to a bunch more places so hopefully more will call me and want to schedule interviews. I spent some time the other day looking up interview questions and wrote down exactly what I should say to them. I wanted to be completely honest, but also be prepared to have a good and smooth response.

We just had Winter Preview last weekend and it went very well. I met a lot of really cool prospective students and maybe even some of my readers. We have our Spring Open House at the end of March so I encourage you all to look into that and come up and check it out. Tonight I might be going night skiing down in Portland with a friend. It’s only $15! One midterm I’m a little worried about is my Environmental Sustainability one. It’s a take home, which means its tough and I’m going to have to write a lot! Next monday we’re taking a field trip to a Salmon Hatchery for my conservation biology class. It should be really interesting. Still no snow up here which is really depressing, but my hopes are still high!

 

Why I picked Unity

I was asked to write a blog about why, out of all the schools in the world, I picked Unity. I remember the day I got a brochure of Unity sophomore year sitting in home room. The first thing I saw was this girl petting a giraffe on the front page and I was like “This is going to be me one day!” Little did I know that it was going to be me a lot sooner than I would ever have dreamed of. The picture to the right is of me feeding two of the giraffes I worked with at the Cincinnati Zoo for my first internship. I instantly starting flipping through the pages and everything I read I fell in love with. What really caught me and actually got me here was the description of what Captive Wildlife Care and Education was.

“Use your knowledge of science and society to become a caretaker of wild, exotic, and tamed animals. Work with individual animals to solve global problems concerning animal welfare and species survival. Observe animal professionals in wildlife centers and write and deliver papers to the public on endangered species. Help bridge the gap between humans and animals and become an advocate for the humane treatment of captive wildlife.”

Everything about that description describes everything I’ve ever wanted to do as a dream career. I remember thinking it all sounded a little too perfect and also a little too far away. I never forgot about Unity through my college searches and as I traveled around to different campuses with my dad, none of them even came close to how Unity made me feel. Also, the schools I looked at only had broad majors like environmental studies, biology, and a few had zoology. How could I pass something up that seemed too perfect just because it was a little far away. So after all my other searches failed, my dad and I hit the road to visit Unity. It was February and there was at least 4 feet of snow on the ground, which is way more than I’ve ever seen. I had strep throat and had just spent around 20 hours in the car. I was miserable, but very excited to be there. Seeing Unity was pretty cool, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the winter or coldness. I liked it, but still wasn’t totally convinced. When it finally came down to making a decision, I took the biggest jump I could into the deep end and decided to go for it. You only get a chance like this once in your life and why not go for your dream school. Why stay close and stay safe. College is the time for making leaps Even though its scary, it was the best decision I’ve ever made and I’m so glad I am here today.

I was also asked to talk about my NOVA trip and what to expect going in as a freshman. There is actually a whole post about my NOVA trip way back in my earlier blogs (you just have to search for it). But as for what to expect as a freshman… Expect the greatest year of your life. You won’t be alone or friendless because you will have your NOVA buddies. Typically, for the first couple weeks of classes, the freshman tend to stick to their NOVA groups and then start to break away and make new friends. The picture is of my NOVA buddies, we called ourselves SOCK. (standing for the first letter of all of our names). We were inseparable for the first 3 months of school. You will meet all your dorm-mates right away and become super close to those people too. The student center is also a great place to make friends. The first year for me, class wise, was pretty easy. I didn’t procrastinate as much as I did in highschool so that was a big help. The difference in college is that you have these big breaks between classes in the middle of the day which you can use to do your homework, so you have your nights free. Making friends for me, was so easy. The people here are amazing and we are like a big Unity family. This helps me not be home sick. I didn’t get home sick until about 3 months into my freshman year, and even then I wasn’t really home sick, I just started missing my family more and getting excited to go home for vacation. You will never forget your NOVA experience, I still wish I could go back today with that same group of people, and do it all over again. I remember that whole week like was yesterday. Seeing a moose on the road and thinking it was a horse, trying to share a sleeping bag with my tent buddy (who ended up being my best friend), falling asleep by the fire watching shooting stars, and having my first bagel with peanut butter and jelly.  The winter is a big shock and adjustment but you will get by just fine. If I can survive this winter wonderland, everyone can Freshman year will be full of firsts and you’ll never forget any of it. It’s exciting, scary, new, a little stressful at times, and so much fun.

Career Fair Day

Today is the career fair at Unity. This is an event where our entire gym is set up with booths from different organizations who are looking to hire Unity students either for a summer time job or after graduation. This is also where you can find internships. Some example of places coming today are Acadia National Park, Avian Haven (a bird sanctuary 15 minutes from Unity), Maine Department of Marine Resources, Marine Mammal Patrol, many different summer camps, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Outwward Bound, and Waldo County sheriff’s Office. When coming to this fair you are supposed to dress nice and bring several copies of your resume. This fair happens once a year at Unity and is a great opportunity to look for jobs and see what kind of work is out there.

I don’t have much going on right now so I’m just going to post some really cool pictures of my time here at Unity with description. ENJOY

 

 

This picture is from freshman year, my first and only time fishing on Unity Pond. It was a beautiful boat ride and we got to watch the sun set. My friend Sasha, who is next to me caught several fish (she let them go) and I caught a mussel.

 

 

 

This next picture is from freshman year when I went surfing down in Wells, Maine with our outing club. It was late October and the water was absolutely freezing! Luckily they provided us with wet suits. By the end of the day I managed to stand up once!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is from a field trip to the Maine Wildlife Park for my introduction to Captive Wildlife Care and Education class freshman year. This is an albino raccoon. On this trip we also got to see a baby and daddy moose, an albino porky pine, and several bears and foxes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture is of my first lobster I ever ate. They served them in the caf one day and each student got their own lobster. I didn’t even know what to do with it. It was so giant and I had no idea how to open it. My friend actually ended up helping me break into it and get the meat out. I wasn’t the biggest fan of this lobster, but since then I’ve grown to love it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This picture is of my one and only “hunting” experience. My friend Dave dressed me up in all camo and even painted my face. He was going deer hunting and we sat in this little stand thing and waited for about an hour. It didn’t last long though because I couldn’t sit still or be quiet. And I told him if I saw a deer I’d yell, “Run Bambi, Run!”

 

 

 

 

 

Lastly, this next part goes out to my readers. Is there anything you guys would want me to write a blog about? I need some good ideas. What questions do you have or what would you like to hear about? I look forward to hopefully hearing from some of you!