Comfortably Numb

Long time no blog eh. *deep breath* Well, here it goes.
Crazy, crazy, crazy life. Last week was a roller coaster ride. Monday my fabulous father took Mik, Shay, Kelc, and myself skiing at Deer Valley. He says I've been there before but I think he's getting me confused with their favorite daughter, Tristan. I say this because that place did not seem familiar to me at all. I skied a bunch with Kelcie and then after lunch Shayli joined us. Miki is a party pooper and ended the day earlier but that's ok because I've mostly forgiven her for that. It was a lot of fun though, and I'm glad we were able to go. The rest of the week wasn't as grand. Mostly because I'm emotional and fail at remaining calm.

Here's the scoop. So one of my good school pals, Kelly, was planning on graduated this semester with me and then going on to PA school(physicians assistant, for those who didn't know. I didn't know but I guess that's not saying a lot...at least I know what W-2's are) but because she wasn't accepted she decided to postpone her graduation, retake some classes to get her GPA up, and re-apply next year. This got me thinkin' see, because my GPA is much worse than her's and I was thinkin' about maybe someday applying to vet school, see. Vet school is in some ways tougher to get into than medical school, see. Ok fine, I'll drop the accent. Party pooper. I asked my dad what he thought about me doing the same thing, postponing and retaking classes. He said to talk to my counsler. "First, veterinary school is one of the toughest graduate programs to get into... very competitive, because there are so few Vet schools. Tho' they may set 3.0 as the minimum GPA for admissions, I would expect most admitted students have much higher GPAs (>3.7). Most grad schools, on the other hand, have 3.0 as there minimum GPA... and there are good programs where the median GPAs of admitted students are in the range of 3.4 to 3.5. That means half the admitted students would have GPAs <3.4-3.5. When I served on admissions committees, it was not unheard of to petition the grad school to admit a student with a GPA < 3.0. So it happens.." Is part of what my counsler said to me. He went on to say that if I retook all my classes I got a B- or worse and and did better in all of them then I would have a 3.1(I currently have 2.9 cumulative and 2.7 major) cumulative. This upset me because it seemed like there was no chance of ever getting into either one and I had always planned on doing one or the other. By having to retake classes I also felt like I had just burned all that money my parents put into my education. I still feel really awful about that. Anywho, my parents consoled me and I talked to some friends. Now things don't seem as bleek as before. I have postponed my graduation until further notice and will retake classes starting fall 2013. Very sad but I have to try.

As far as the internship goes I haven't heard anything back from them. I'll let you know when I do. Where the little red A is on the map is where I might be going for my internship. Mooloolaba, Australia.

Horse stuff is going well and lots of fun. Hawley Bennett, a Canadian silver medalist, was in town and gave a clinic over the weekend. My friends rode in it but I just audited. Still real good and makes me anxious to really get into horses and stop wiggling my toes in it. Oh! I just can't wait for May!

Other than that things are good. You should check out Of Monsters and Men if you're into that kind of stuff.

Blurb

This is just a real quick blurb for those who are interested. I e-mailed a guy that is currently interning at Underwater World and his description of what I'll be doing makes it sound like I might be able to get the experience that I am looking for. I majored in marine biology and says it's a good test for an area of the marine bio field. I told the intern people (Australian Internships aka AI) that UWW(Underwater World) sound like a good internship for me. They said that the area I'll be staying in doesn't provide student living so I'll be taking the homestay option. With the homestay I can choose to have meals provided for me or cook my own. I'm just curious what you all think would be better so I put up another poll. That's the newest news.

Another One Bites The Dust

I've discovered that I have crap in my blogs. But only this year. Weird. What I mean about crap is a link that I didn't put on my blog. They usually are underlined with dots. To avoid people from clicking on the links I will not be posting any on my blogs for a while. So DON'T CLICK ON ANY LINKS. Hopefully this will get rid of them. If you have no idea what I am talking about just smile and like you would if you were talking to someone with a thick accent. Don't pretend you don't know what I mean.

So I have about two hours before my interview and I am so dang nervous. My heart is pumping so fast that I wonder if my dad spiked the pancakes he made this morning. If that's the case I'm glad Kelcie and Shayli will be at church for the next three hours. Those guys are craze-a! without drugs. I haven't had an interview for over three years. That's a weird but nice thing. Anywho, I'll let ya'll know how it goes once it's gone....

Two thirty came and went with no word from Underwater World. Yes, I was stood up by a  prospective employer. I guess that just goes to show that even when you're as well endowed as me boys and employers will stand you up. Good luck to all you not-so-well-endowed kids, life's hard. That was just because of your talk the other day, Tara. I emailed the intern people and let them know that nothing had happened and they replied saying they had tried to contact me but couldn't for some reason so they would try tomorrow. They got a hold of me yesterday and I'm not really impressed with them. It doesn't sound like, to me at least, that if I interned with them I'd leave having accomplished my goal of investigating what a marine biologist does. They said I would be cleaning tanks and making sure the fish were healthy. They also told me that to work in their big tank I would need to get my dive master certification.

I have my open water dive certification and that was about $150 with 45% off. Expensive shtuff man. I would only be working with the reptiles and fish. I was also told it would be a Monday to Friday/Saturday (I can't remember which) day gig where I would work from 7-3 and need to find my own way there. They said that they would have this fellow that's been interning there for about four months email me and let me know more about the job but I haven't heard from him yet. I'm a little disappointed because it doesn't sound like I'll be getting much marine biology experience just plenty of minimum wage experience. Don't get me wrong, I don't mind doing the crappy jobs as long as I walk away with the experience I set out to get. I want to leave my internship with a good understanding of what a marine biologist does so that I can decide if I would like to further my education in that field. I decided I won't make up my mind 100% until I hear from him so until then, Ciao. Oh and happy Valentine's Day or something like that.

Smells Like Teen Spirit?

Man all mighty!! There is a stench at my work that creeps up the sink like death creeps up on small mammals just before they become dinner. I wonder if Kurt Cobain had this smell in mind when he wrote that song. x_x I think I might suffocate....

I have some good internship news. I got an email from the intern people and they scheduled me an interview with the curator and exhibits manager February 13 at 7:30am. Because of the time difference that's about 2:30pm on Sunday for me. It's at this place called Underwater World which is "a marine mammal park, oceanarium, and wildlife sanctuary."(Wikipedia) Pretty much, it seems to be like Sea World® but in Australia. When I first read the e-mail I was buzzy. Being buzzy is being really jittery, excited, and unsure all at the same time.

As surprising as it may be to some of you, the picture above was not what my face looked like. For the first time in my life. Hey, everyone's thinking it, I just typed it. I was unsure because I was so excited, a little tired, and always Austined (aka dyslexic) that when I read I was going to be interviewed by the curator I was a little upset because for some reason I thought the curator was kind of like the janitor and I was afraid they'd be having me sweep the floors and such. Now that I know that's NOT what a curator is I feel a lot less unsure. I still feel unsure because part of me expected to be placed somewhere doing research out on the ocean not in an animal park sweeping floors...or whatnot but I'm not so unsure that it takes my excitement away.

I think it's fitting that Squidward Tentacles showed up when I googled for 'happy unsure face'. Because he's a marine animal. All you horrible people thinking it was because I'm grumpy like him should give your selves swirlies for such a dirty mean thought. Hmph! Underwater World is located in Mooloolab. It's a touristy coast town with a population of about 7300 as of 2006.(Wikipedia) It's about half an hour from the Australia Zoo, which I've heard is amaz-za-zing! The average high temperature for Mooloolab for this month (being their summer) was 28.7°C and the average low is 21.1°C. In July (their winter) the average high and low is about 20.8°C and 9.4°C. That sound like a pretty good weather change to me! For those of you who are stubborn, old, and possible anti-science in Fahrenheit those temperatures are the following 28.7= 83.6°F, 21.1=69.9°F, 20.8=69.4°F, and finally (phew! *wipes sweat off brow* The work you people make me do!) 9.4=48.9°F. As we can all clearly see now (now that I've copied and pasted more than a person should in a day...*glares and screen pretending to glare at all*) the weather is very nice.

That's about all I've got for that. School is going alright. Slowly killing me, which is different than said smell. It's killing me like a python squeezing it's prey. Well, I guess not all death by squeeze is slow. Shayli proved that with Coco. My mistake, Kelcie was right because Tati didn't lie >:( The gerbils name was Loco not Coco. Anywho, I just have to remember to take it day by day. I had a test today and I'm pretty sure I didn't do so well but I'm not too worried (though I keep thinking that maybe I should be more worried than I am...*shurgs* senioritis) because we get to drop one test. I have a math test on Friday that I need to practice for so I'll cya all's later. Some of you this weekend. Yay weekend! Yay Merlin!!