Pinch Me, I'm Not Green

Howdy all. I know I've blogged a lot the last few days and you may be sick of me but I don't really care. Throw me in your junk box if that's the case. Actually one of my old roommates boyfriends said that kaiya is the word for garbage in Thailand or somewhere like that so putting me in the junk box would be a fitting place for me. I hope all of you had a real great St. Patrick's Day yesterday. We had a pretty good time here. Kelcie and Shayli dressed up as leprechauns and we got ourselves some european snacks from Pirate O's down the road. Pirate O's is a international shop that sells food from all over the world. Kelcie and I got some Mars bars and Apple Beer. Mars bars are exactly like Milk Ways except way better because its european and lets face it, US chocolate sucks. Kelcie's pen-pal Noel a.k.a. Leo had told her that she should try a deep fried Mars bar. Leo is from Belfast which is in Northern Ireland. He's a pretty cool guy. Anywho, we tried deep frying the candy bar and after words Kelcie felt like she was an old fat man. I took pictures of her to document how accurately she felt. It was pretty great though. After that Kelcie mixed up a horrible concoction from our fridge that we played some Irish drinking games with. *shudders* It really was awful *shudders again*. It had stuff like jalapeño juice, tabasco sauce, worcester sauce, sugar, salt, pepper, some kind of sweet syrup for sodas, and other really nasty, bitter, vile things in it. Then we did some Irish jigging. It was a very good day. Pictures and some video can be seen here.

So this is the latest news with the internship. I asked if anything had been heard from UWW(still the same underwater world) and this is the reply I received "We have been following up but they said they are too busy at the moment to finalize the Training Agreement for you. However, they have confirmed verbally that they are definitely offering you the internship placement, so you can go ahead and book your flight. I will send you the Training Agreement to you when it is ready, hopefully soon, we will keep on following up." We won't book our flight until they send us my training agreement because I'm not exactly when they'll expect me to be there but it's a step in the right direction fer sur.

Six more weeks until school is out!!!! WAHOO!! Two more weeks til Merlin is over...*sniff sniff, wipes tear out of eye*

Coonzilla

This guy that I know, Tom, told me this story. Tom is a crazy guy I know from work. He has all kinds of nutsy stories. My mom briefly brought this story up on Sunday so I thought I'd share it all with you. 

ps. Sheryl is his wife.

Coon Hunting in Rose Park Part 2: Attack of Coonzilla

Tom here! Sheryl told me I need to write more blogs but I haven’t really had anything worth talking about until now. You are probably all familiar with the previous raccoon incursion into our little flock. After I dispatched that coon I thought we would be safe at least for a couple of months, but alas, it was not to be. An evil was lurking, a devil coon that would make the last one look like a pathetic mouse. Coonzilla.

Before I continue I should warn you, this post is graphic, if you have any children I recommend you read first before letting them read this brutal and bloody battle for our very lives!

I woke up about 430 to the sound of Ms Chickchick clucking concernedly (yes I can tell the difference between my chickens voices) It was not the shrieking sound of the previous attack, but still, chickens should not be awake at this time of night. I grabbed the gun, my trusty flashlight and ventured outside. As I opened the back door and entered my yard, the crisp cool autumn air held the faint hint of danger, mixed with the garbage that I forgot to take out from last week, but that is another story. I turned the corner to my coop, the shadows of my flashlight spilling ghostly shadows and images in front of me. Then I saw it. My light pierced through the gray mist of darkness that seemed like it would swallow up everything if I was unlucky enough to run out of AAA duracell batteries. and there it was. The demon coon. Coonzilla, in my coop, with his head fully inside the door trying, desperately, to push his large girth far enough into the chicken sized opening to satiate his massive hunger on the soft warm bodies of my egg laying pets.

Hearing my steps he stopped, backed his head out of the doorway and looked at me. Surprised to have been discovered, he ran up the tree next my bedroom window, not a hurried scared run, but simply a non chalant, slow jog to make sure he was in a more superior position. He didn’t go far. At 7 feet up he stopped, he turned and looked at me with derision, as if to say "ya you found me, so what" I was only 2 feet from the tree, I could almost reach out and touch him, yet he showed no fear. In his mind, he had nothing to fear, he was Coonzilla. I stared in awe of his massive girth. “my gosh" I thought "he is the size of a dog!" quickly I regained my composure, I lifted my rifle, pointed only feet from his enormous heaving chest, sure of his imminent death, and pulled the trigger.

In shock and horror I watched, not as he fell dead like I knew he must, but as he ran farther up the tree! Higher and higher he climbed, his movements more frantic now. He now knew I could hurt him. As he reached the apex of the trunk 30 feet up where it splits into 3 main branches, he stopped, and stared down at me. He was in the same spot as the last coon foolhardy enough to take on me and my chickens. With a strange feeling of de-ja-vu, I lifted the flashlight and my rifle up to position. I aimed at one of his demonic glowing eyes, now brightly burning into me with anger, and fired. With a terrible snarl, he fell from his perch. Through the thick blackness he fell, bounced off my neighbors shed roof, and into the corner between my house and the fence.

I moved in to make sure my foe was dead. He has to be dead now, he has to be! He was on his back, his chest still heaving but looking like he was in the last stages of life. Yet, as I got close his head jerked up, he stared as if into my very soul, and let out a snarl that would scare the most hardened murderous criminal. Shocked, yet prepared, I placed the nose of my rifle right up to his chest were a year of AP bio told me his heart should be. For the third time, I placed a Remington hollow point .22 rimfire lead slug into his body. In strange and bizarre fascination I watched him roll over back to his feet, and he began to walk towards me. With the barrel of my gun between Coonzilla and me I backed up and he slowly walked toward me. His once clean white teeth were stained with blood, he was wheezing like some sickening asthma attack, but now I had the beast head directly in front of me! I placed the gun between his eyes, he spat up blood but didn’t stop his inexorable march towards me. I pulled the trigger. Nothing! My gun had jammed!

With visions of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone running through my head, I gained a new sense of determination, intent to crush his skull, I grabbed and barrel of my gun and swung it like a club with all my might into the bloody face of the demon zombie creature sent from hell! But it wasn’t enough! Although I changed his course away from me now, he was still alive. He turned to the right, he began to climb the fence. The puny reed fence I put up wasn’t enough to hold his great body and it began to fall back towards me. Just when I thought all was lost, a pickaxe swung from my peripheral vision and smote the great beast! The cavalry had arrived just in time! Sheryl swung with all the determination of a frontier wife defending her very children from ravenous wolves! She turned the coon around and he walked off about 10feet, and then collapsed.

We watched him for another 5 minutes until his barrel chest stopped moving...the beast was dead. I dragged his body to the porch and placed him in a large garbage bag. I debated whether or not I should behead the beast, burn the body and spread the ashes to make sure he didn’t come back, but instead I think will make a coonskin hat out of him, maybe two.

The Break of Spring

WAHOO!!!! I heart spring break!!! No school this whole week!! Totally freakin' rad man! Ahhh, :) I already love how summer is going to feel :) I ALMOST feel like giggling I'm so giddy. Monday was a very good way to start off the break. I mean what better way to kick off a party than with a party? Monday was my birthday and for those of you who sent emails, calls, texts, or all of the above I thank you very much *puts hands together and bows Chinese-like*. For those of you who didn't, it's going to cost you twice as much if you still want me to like you. *narrows eyes* you know who you are...I got money, some clothes, and the first season of Arrested Development. Good show. Monday I rode a horse, went hiking, bowling, and watched some of Arrested Development. My mom made a really yummy dinner of chicken marsala and garlic potatoes because she's the best that's why. On this day of my birth, I purchased my very first bottle of alcoholic liquid from the liquor store. There sure are a lot of types of alcohol. The best part about buying the wine was they put it in a brown paper bag before they gave it to me. Classy. What's in the bag? Not alcohol ;) My mom used the wine for our gr-r-r-reat dinner. I was told that Tony the Tiger is blue in Chile. Is there undiscovered areas of Chile we don't know about where the cats are blue or do Chileans really like brownies? Stay tuned for next weeks episode of "SMRT: Where's my 'A'?"

School is goin' alright. I had a test before the break and I think it went alright. We'll see though. I have three tests next week. wa-hoo....

I still haven't heard anything back from the Intern people. I've emailed them once asking about if UWW(underwater world) accepted me but they said they were still following up on it and hadn't heard anything back from them yet. ??? I was able to reach them from Salt Lake City, Utah! They are an hour away from UWW, so what's the hold up? If I ever find out I'll let you know. *shakes head with frustration*

I have a jump lesson today, which should be interesting. I haven't jumped since October and even then I sucked majorly. If you had tied a rag doll on the horse, you wouldn't have known the difference between the two of us. Anywho, I'm excited and ready to give my best, because really what more can a rag doll give? :)

Not super long I know. Here's a link to some pictures Kelcie took on our hike if you'd like to see them. Nothing special. For those of you who are still looking for the link, click on the coloured word 'link' above.

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!!