In A Galaxy Far, Far, Away.

Monday:

Yeeeaaahhhhh, I haven’t written in ages. My bad.

Mostly, I’ll write little bullet points down so I remember what happened, but I didn’t do a very good job for Monday apparently. Haha. It was rainy on and off. Not too much though. It was meant to rain heaps all week long.

The rain sucked because the cars were sucking on Monday as well. We have three cars that we use around the zoo. There is the big Land Cruiser that usually has a trailer hooked up to the back and we use it to get branches out in the bush or to take rubbish and dead branches to the tip. There is the little zute, which is just this little zebra striped suzuki mini ute type thing, I’ve driven it a few times. We use it for feeding out usually, and it’s been the only reliable car we have, even though it’s quite old, as well. Rob recently bought this little Toro thing. It’s like a tiny golf cart, but it’s got a little tip tray on the back and no roof. It’s also got the steering on the proper side! So Adam and I took the Toro up to the tip to dump some stuff off because the cruiser wasn’t working properly. He let me drive! Woo! As soon as we got there though, the Toro stopped working.. So we had to walk back to the zoo from the tip. Later Adam got the cruiser working, so we took that out to the tip only to have to walk back again because something was popping under the hood. Hah. I’m pretty sure I’m bad luck. No one else ever has to walk back. They can always eventually get the cars working again. Not when I’m there though. Sighhhh.

I saw a mangy wombat when I was walking back home. It’s so sad. There’s heaps of wombats around with mange. They look like creatures from a horror film. They lose chunks of hair all over the place and then it scabs over where they lost their hair. This one that I saw had half of its face all scabbed over and nasty looking. Basically, it looked like a zombie wombat. How terrifying would that be? Zombie wombat army! Eeekk. I told Azza about it later and he was like, “Well did you kill it? You’re meant to kill the mangy ones because it’s really painful for them...etc.” I was like, “NO! I could never kill one! Plus I don’t have anything to go about killing mangy wombats with anyway.” He goes, “Kill it with your bare hands!” Ha.

That’s about all I remember that was significant and not repetition of past weeks.

Tuesday:

Rainy days mean that we have to do inside esque tasks. The management does not like us getting wet. I don’t really know why, but it makes rainy days lazier and it’s nice.... except it means super crap jobs.

The only areas that were really inside jobs that hadn’t been done lately were the aviaries and the nocturnal house and the monkey dens. Justine and I were saddled with the task of going through the zillion aviaries and sweeping them out and tidying them up and what not. We had to wear these little masks while we did it. They got real hot and sweaty and disgusting. It’s probably the most miserable job I’ve had here, maybe on par with raking the paths. Ha. Some of the birds are real noisy, which sucks. Particularly the Sun Conures. Noisy freaking birds!

Leia is doing really well. She is definitely way less scared of people. She comes straight up to me and grabs at my legs to get picked up and doesn’t even need me to stick the bottle in her mouth. She’s so intelligent. Takes after her mama. Heh. I sing the star wars song to her. The tribute song, or whatever. “Kiss a wookie. Kick a droid. Fly the Falcon through an asteroid, til the princess is annoyed. This is space ships, it’s monsters, it’s Star Wars. We love it!” I think she enjoys it. Hahah. She gives me kisses too. She licked my nose.

Azza said he had never heard Spanish before, so Justine and I were telling them some Spanish stuff. I’m so bad at just saying things, so he was like, “Well just say stuff. Like if you were having a conversation in Spanish or something.” I can’t just have a conversation by myself. That’s just absurd. So instead, I told him what things in the groceries were in Spanish. Ha.

Wednesday:

I started my paper on Wednesday. Two thousand word paper about international internships with three different sources. I hate writing papers. I’m so horrid at them. I got some done on Wednesday though.

We were talking about finding a Mexican restaurant to eat at, and Adam was saying there’s this really amazing Spanish restaurant in town. Justine goes, “Oh Caitlin when your parents are here make them take me there. I want to bum some free expensive food off of them.” Uhmmmm what in the world makes you think that I want you to come hang out with my family at all, let alone let you bum free stuff off of them. So rude. However, she did say that Leia is definitely my baby girl because she wouldn’t eat as easily from her. Sucka.

I finished the fourth Seven Keys book. I’m burning my way through them. Good books. I really like Garth Nix.

It wasn’t really rainy, but it did rain a bit on and off, so we had to do rainy day jobs. I didn’t think it could get much worse then tidying the aviaries. I was wrong. We were still working in the aviaries, but we had to scrub all of the perches in them. You know, like where the birds all hang out and poo on. Mm. Fun. So we had to get gloves and little scourers and hot buckets of water. It took ages and by the time we were done, the scourers were basically non existent. They had holes in them and were super nasty. The water looked like mud, basically. It was sick, but the aviaries have never looked better!

I touch so many dead things at the zoo. I didn’t really think about it, but I was wrapping up dead rats (that, by the way, had been alive the day before.. but had been put in the freezer..) and putting them in the freezer for the snakes and Justine and I realized that we touch soooooo many dead things. Dead chicks, dead mice, dead rats, dead birds, dead wallabies. No big. Ha. Aaron came in while I was wrapping up the rats and he picked one up and was like, “Hey! This one looks just like my old pet rat!” and he was talking about how cool his rat was. It would sleep with him and stuff. It made me want to get a little pet rat.

Dick is crazy. He gets mad about everything. He just tries to find reasons to get mad with people. He decided that Aaron doesn’t pick up the devil poos fast enough for his liking and was saying that Aaron had to time himself and then Adam had to do the same job and time himself. So insane. Aaron doesn’t even take a long time to do it. He also told Erin that she is the worst teacher ever because Aaron didn’t come out backwards from one of the bird aviaries. You’re supposed to go out backwards so that you can watch the birds and makes sure they aren’t going to escape. I don’t see how it’s Erin’s fault that Aaron didn’t come out the proper way. Aaron has been working at the zoo just as long as Erin pretty much. The management at the zoo is one that I would not want to deal with for an extended period of time.

We got a new quoll! She’s real cute and little. I was worried that they would stick her in with the big spotted tail for breeding, like they did with the other little girl spotted tail that got killed, but they didn’t. We have a full nocturnal house now. We got a ringtail possum, as well.

I finished my paperrrrrr Wednesday night. Two days before it was due. I’m awesome.

Thursday:

Suuuuuper rainy day. Didn’t let up at all. Rob kept saying, “Looks like it’ll let up any minute now.” It ended up raining so much that the gorge flooded. Hahah. Good eye Robbo. There is a pool and stuff at the gorge and it got completely flooded over. It flooded up to where the bathrooms are.

So I don’t have a good rain jacket with me, so they handed me Alicia’s big rain jacket to use for the day. It was real comfy and big. I felt bad doing all these dirty jobs in someone else’s nice jacket though. Well, really I didn’t do that many jobs. We went home early. Haha. The only thing we did pretty much is feed the animals in the morning and clean the nocturnal house. They sent Justine and I home because they didn’t really need us there. Erin and Adam spent like two hours just doing nothing, but pretending to chop up food. Hah. I fed Leia, and she gave me a nice muddy, wet snuggle. Such a good little kangaroo. I’ll miss her when I leave.

Reid came to Lonnie this weekend, so he got here on Thursday. We invited Erin for dinner, and paid for her so that she would pick up Reid at the airport so that he wouldn’t have to pay for a seventy dollar taxi. We went out to a Mexican restaurant. I got an enchilada. Strangest enchilada I’ve ever eaten. It wasn’t anything like what an enchilada actually is. It was more like a really hard shelled burrito. It was tasty though. Erin didn’t much like it. I guess Aussies don’t have the taste buds for Mexican food. We went home after that, and I passed out because I was real sleepy, and also because I didn’t really want to sit in the living room and watch tv with Justine and Reid. I haven’t watched tv at all since I’ve been here, and I didn’t really care to start with them because the tv here seems to be real boring.

Friday:

Justine made breakfast Friday morning because Reid was here. I made sausages, really they are called chipollatas or something, but they are mostly like sausage. They tasted a little different. Still delightful. Justine made bacon, which is different than our bacon, but also tasty. She made eggs and english muffins and potatoes. It was yummy.

I went in to the zoo to use the internet after breakfast to turn my paper in. It was the only assignment that I’ve actually turned in on time. Hah. I checked out classes and stuff for Fall because I have to register while I’m here in Tassie. Sooo I’m not sure what time I’ll have to register at, but I think I know, but I’ll have to sit at the zoo on Wednesday after work next week with my computer waiting until it’s midnight in Utah. So that’ll be interesting. I got to skype with Heather Rae and Dylan and Ashley and even saw Amber and Tiberius for a second. It was real nice to see some familiar loving faces. It would be a lot easier for me here if I had been able to keep in touch more with people.
Reid and Justine came up to zoo after a while. We walked around and told Reid about different stuff, and what we do around the zoo. It was fun ish. We waited for Erin to get off or work because we were all going to Georgetown to go on a penguin tour! We were going to stay at Erin’s house again and sleep in her brother’s room. Unfortunately, Erin’s brother was home for the weekend and took his room back. All four of us had to sleep in Erin’s room. Hah. Oh plus Max, her adorable dog. The penguin tour was real cool, though! We got to stand on the beach while the penguins came in for the night. They were walking right by us, like inches away from our feet! Little wild penguins! So awesome!! We saw a baby one. They look exactly like the adults, because the penguins in Tassie aren’t very big. They are the smallest penguins. Fairy penguins. The babies just have this weird fluff around areas. So funny looking.

After that, we went out to the pub. Hurray. Drunk people. It wasn’t too bad. I got bored after a while. Some girl in the bathroom told me that I have perfect teeth and that I didn’t belong there. It was so funny, and made me feel good about my teeth. Thank you parentals for all the orthodontia. My teeth are envied in Georgetown. Rad. Later some really drunk guy told me that I was “seriously gorgeous” and that him and his friends had been over there talking about it. Even later, I had another really drunk guy experience. This crazy drunk guy would not leave us alone. He kept following us around and trying to get us to come to some party with him afterwards. He told me that I have the greatest smile ever and I have massive eyes and my hair is, and I quote, “sooo straight and strong!” Bahah. What does that even mean? I have really strong hair. Thank you crazy man. He also said that I should be his first model. Justine was being annoying about all of this. She kept saying, “Oh I just can’t be around you anymore. You’re just way to gorgeous. Haaaa.” Like she really meant something along the lines of, “He obviously just thinks this because he’s drunk and a probably escaped from a mental institution!” Whateverrrrr. I’ll be glad to not be in this environment anymore. Hah.

We went back to Erin’s house. Erin wasn’t tired, so when Reid was laying on the floor and saw that she had heaps of diaries under her bed, Erin decided it would be a good idea to read some entries. They were sooooo funny! She’s been writing in her diary every day for YEARS. I was really impressed actually. I could never do that.

Saturday:

I chose to be lame on Saturday, and didn’t want to be around anyone anymore. So I stayed home when they went to check out the flooding at the gorge. I cleaned instead. It was exciting. I actually really enjoyed being away from people for once.

I have to write a “reflective journal” to turn in for my internship, so I got completely caught up on that.

At night, Justine made pizza and we watched The Mummy. Reid had never seen any of them. I actually enjoy all of the Mummy movies, even though I don’t particularly like Brendan Frasier. I think he does a real good job in those movies. I got sleepy towards the end of the first one, so I went to bed early. Hah. I’m such a wuss. I go to bed at like nine thirty or ten every night. Lame, lame, laaammeee.

Sunday:

Reid was already gone by the time I woke up and Justine was at work. I had the house to myself! Hurray!
I went to church with Jess. Cute boy, whose name is Hayden, gave a talk, which is the only reason that I know his name is Hayden. I can’t figure out how old he is. He HAS to be older than me. He’s adorable. I wish I had an opportunity to talk to him, but he goes to a different class than I do, or he teaches one, or something that is obnoxiously keeping me from talking to him. One of the bishop ric pulled me out of Sunday school to catch up and make sure I was doing well with everything. We chatted for most of Sunday school. It was pretty fun actually. Jess had to leave church early, so I was sitting with this nice lady in Relief Society. We had to get in pairs and talk about something. We had a really enjoyably spiritual chat about what we were learning about. The lesson was on one of Uchdorf’s talks. I don’t think that’s how you spell his name.. Oh well. Anyway, it was a really good Sunday. The talks and lessons were all really amazing. It was a delightful end to my weekend.