June 12, 2007

So my internship is nearly half over already. And I've gotten to do a lot of different things over the course of time since I last wrote a blog for you guys. I've been very busy trying to get my behavioral write-ups done on time - there are soooo many of them do every week. It's a big pain, but I'm trying hard to keep up with all of it. My first public otter presentation didn't go very well, but then again, no one's ever does. But it wasn't terrible either. You can check out a short clip of that presentation below...

So I figured that the best way to overcome my fear of doing presentations is to be excited about it and do it every chance I get. And that kind of a mindset has totally worked! I've been doing the morning and afternoon otter presentations pretty much every time now and I absolutely LOVE getting out there and talking for the public. People really look to you for honest answers to their questions, and it gives me a warm fuzzy feeling inside to be able to answer those questions with a smile on my face and my voice booming over the sound system, haha. I'm going to start practicing my dolphin presentations this week so that I can narrate for the dolphin shows, too. I can't wait! :) In other areas of my work lately - I've had lots of practice in helping with Indy's painting behavior down on the platform. I've also participated in a number of husbandry sessions in holding Indy's peduncle for the drawing blood behavior, or free-feeding Indy while someone else holds his peduncle, and scrubbing Nicholas' scars on his back from the sunburn he received as a baby. Another intern and I actually got to stick our feet in the water and support him while we scrubbed his scars with betadine and whatnot - ALL ON OUR OWN, but under the trainer's supervision. It was pretty neat. Let's see... I've also gotten to free-feed two of the otters through feeding windows into their exhibit under supervision. My only issue is with reminding myself not to call out the otter's name when he drifts from his position to get him to come back over - that would be reinforcing him for drifting. But other than that, the trainer says my technique looks great. A different trainer had me free-feed our river otter pup by hand directly inside his exhibit, while she held him in her arms. I guess we're trying to reinforce him for not being so squirmy while being held. Before I left for the evening yesterday, the trainers had me free-dive down to the bottom of one of the dolphin pools to retrieve a toy that was being suctioned to the drain. The dolphin I got in with - Winter, the baby dolphin without a tail - was not very happy that I was in her pool. She tried to fluke me, except that she doesn't exactly have flukes anymore. So she resorted instead to pushing her body forcefully into mine every chance she got while I was diving down. It didn't hurt, as she is still fairly small. But she truly is the Miss Attitude of the group of dolphins we have, hahah, it's almost endearing. Last week, some interns and I jumped into the pool that the divers were cleaning (no dolphins) for a quick swim before we left for the night. The dolphins were gated into the two other pools, so I grabbed a mask and dove over to the gates to check them out. With the boys, I could hear and feel them echolocating on me through the gate. It was incredible. They were very interested in knowing what in the world I was doing in the water on the other side of their gate. They kept swimming by, looking at me curiously and trying to stick their rostrums through the round cutout holes in the gate. I then swam over to the other gate we have, where Winter was gated off with Panama. Winter had positioned herself parallel to the gate with her eyeball looking out perfectly through one of the holes at me. She is a very tactile dolphin - she let me swim up to her gate and rub her rostrum and her side through the holes. I never noticed it until then, but her irises are blue! I was astounded - it was an amazing experience. I hope to obtain an underwater camera of some sort really soon so that I can take some pictures to show you guys. Until then, I have an entire slough of photos of everything else in one of my facebook photo albums, so feel free to add me as a friend on there (search for Ashley Holmes in Gainesville, FL) and check the pictures out. After that afternoon, I was never more positive that I had made the right decision in what I want to do with my life. Being away from your life (as you knew it before) is very altering. You meet a lot of new people and you're faced with a lot of new ideas. I've discovered a lot of things about myself that I never noticed before, including a good portion of my strengths and weaknesses. It has forced me to re-evaluate everything that I previously thought I wanted out of life. Most of all, it has enabled to discover myself as a person. I am so very glad that I came out here to do this.