Well. Life has been crazy. Ever since the internship started I've been too busy or much too tired to post anything other than mindless facebook whines. Thinking in full sentences seemed just too much work. I'm certain the grandparents are rather annoyed that they haven't received an e-mail. I got two very important e-mails from friends on my first day and it took me two weeks to respond! I thought about them every day but pretty much fell asleep the moment I got home every night. Eventually I forced myself to form coherent sentences early in the morning so that my bad-friend-ness would be put to an end.
But, anyway, however exhausting and time consuming it is I love my internship. The hours are either 6-2:30 (or 4:30/5 if I'm feeling kind and well, incredibly needed) or 8-5.
My main duties are the following:
** Getting two rounds of coolers of fish from the fish house. You'll get a lengthy explanation about the fish house further down. This consists of approximately hmm... 3 Dolphins, 3 Sea Lions in one area, 3 penguins, 5 Sea Lions in the other area, and 4 monk seals. 3 Dolphins get 8 coolers. The 8 Sea Lions get 14 coolers. Penguins get one and MSeals get 7. That's 30 coolers total. Now I know. Back to the duties... Oops missed two sea lions for interaction so add 4 coolers. 34!
** Prepping the fish for morning feeds, shows (prior to the shows only), and other feeding times. This requires getting the ice out, putting the fish in different containers for the shows, and cutting them up if need be. Also pouring out any juice made from the ice and fish throughout the day.
** Getting hydration tubes ready, and assisting in this process. Basically the dolphins get water from fish, frozen fish lose water percentage so therefore we hydrate them to keep them healthy and strong.
** Washing surfaces before this is all done
** Changing out chlorine in the foot baths and sponge holders
** Learning sound for 3 different shows. I have two down but need to memorize something before I do the third
** Memorizing the monk seal lecture, the Sea Lion show narration, and learning the 80's show narration
** Assisting with the four shows we do every day, sometimes 5
** Helping count the respirations of the dolphins to make sure there are no problems (I like this. You get to sit and watch the dolphins for 5 min each. It's peaceful unless they're being brats and you have to start over)
** Cleaning all the coolers once their done. Cleaning buckets once they're done
** Weighing out food portions for one of the dolphins and cleaning out the bucket used to measure and the extra cooler for that fish
** Cutting up herring
** Getting refills of supplies
** Taking care that the fish remain in healthy sanitary conditions
** Cleaning the pouches and tupperware from the shows
** Cleaning the tubes and such from hydrations
** Cleaning whatever needs to be cleaned and might have scales all over it
I'm certain I do even more but I can't always think straight. I'm usually very busy, but the days when there are a lot of interns gets slow in the morning since we all pitch it.
Fish house is where you sort fish. This is where I go on the days when I have to be there at 6 am. I go in and help sort the good capelin (and eventually herring, squid, and smelt) from the ripped up and potenially bad capein. They can be scraped but if they're female (eggs get messy throughout the day), soft bellied that will pop during the day, or mauled they can get bacteria in them easily and possibly make the animals sick so we sort out the bad fish. This takes 3-4 hours. Other people then weigh out all the fish according to the diet of each animal and puts the fish into the animal's specific cooler. After everything is done we completely scrub down both rooms and then chlorinate the entire area. It's as sanitized as humanly possible. We then get breakfast for 20-30 min while the chlorine takes effect. Once breakfast is over all that's left to do is take the fish for the next day out of the freezer and into the refrigerated fish house to thaw over night for the next day. I'd say this takes about 30 min. We then look over both rooms for missed fish scales and head off to our different sections of the park. Lately we've been getting out around 11.
If you work fish house you're allowed to leave at 230. I've stayed twice on Tuesdays until 4:30 because Azu, one of the head trainers, has been understaffed and seemed absolutely stressed out. I couldn't just leave her when I didn't have anywhere to be so I stayed to help out. Long days but when someone is obviously stressed out, I have to do my best to help out if possible!
Sooo that's my job. In addition to the 4 or 5 shows we have 2 interactions a day. We don't always have people for them so we sometimes have extra time, but that's what's schedule. I'm supposed to also learn the correct way to pick the guests up, tell them safety concerns, and get them prepared for the interaction. I'll also be able to go into the water with them and pet said sea lion.
Throughout the day I'm sometimes asked to help with husbandry of the animal. This happened the other day with Moopuna, one of our interaction Sea Lions. I helped her get prepared for a vet visit so that she wouldn't be bothered by whatever the vet was going to do. Just a routine check up of course. It's very interesting to take part in such things. I was also given the chance to throw miss Puna some Capelin afterwards which was fun! Yay Sea Lions! So far I've gotten the opportunity to pet sea lions and dolphins and feed both as well. It's very exciting.
Hopefully I'll be able to post more often. Things are about to get crazy again though and you'll see why in a post I'm about to write! Lol so it also might mean you've already read it. Who knows?
I love my internship though. It's pretty fabulous. I'm not looking forward to the public speaking portion though. Eek!
Oh, P.S. My commute is 50 min so I generally leave the house at 7 and get home by 6 or 5 and 330/530. It's unpleasant
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