I'm excited

I just got back from the zoo orientation.

It went very well. A volunteer docent explained about the operations of the zoo and all the volunteer opportunities available.

I want to work in animal management. This entails cleaning and feeding and other dirty things.

I don't want to work with children. That was a question they asked me in the interview.

Then we went on a guided tour of the zoo. The docent we had spent many minutes talking about each animal and explained various anecdotes. It was a little tiring hearing her talk on and on, but I did. Her husband works with the elephants, and she probably spent twenty or thirty minutes talking about them.

She kept asking questions about the animals, like little facts. "What's the difference between a monkey and an ape?" "How many vertebrae do giraffes have in their necks?" I was the only one who knew all the answers. I know that if someone else stood there giving all the answers I would be very annoyed. So I guess I was annoying. Oh, well.

She didn't go through the children's zoo, where some cool animals are. The alligators and tortoises are there. So are my good friends the lemurs. Afterward I had lunch there and went to visit my friends. They weren't in the back, high up in the trees like they usually are. They were huddled together in little balls on the very bottom of their encloser. I should have taken a picture of them with my phone camera.

Apparently at this time of year the zoo keepers like to put pumpkins, or parts of them, in with the animals. We saw a lioness playing with one. She tried to keep it from rolling down a pretty steep hill, but it fell anyways. Then she fell right after it.

Days are divided into two shifts for volunteers. The morning shift starts at 8:00, two hours before the zoo opens to the public. This would be a great time to see the more shy animals come out. Of course you would have to get up super early.

I have to wait about two weeks, due to the holiday, to be contacted by the zoo and set up for another interview and scheduling. I would be assigned to what is called a string. Strings are headed by one particular keeper, in charge of several different species. Keepers don't work with just one specific animal. One string has 200 animals from 30 different species. That is the extreme though.

So I don't know what animals I would be working with.

Only eight people showed up for this. Six of us went on the tour. I didn't really know how many to expect.

I am very excited about this. I'm bummed I have to wait so long to get started. But oh, well.

When school starts I will have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off. I can work on any of those three days.

You have to be willing to work at least six months. That's easy for me. After all the training you have to go through, you need to give some of that time back.

I had to give written proof that I've had my tetanus booster and tuberculosis test done. So I did that. Most people didn't have theirs.

This could be a very cool experience. I am really looking forward to it.

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I signed up to take American Sign Language for my fourth class. You need to take a semester of one foreign language, so that's that. The other ones offered are French, Italian, and Spanish. (Boring.)