August 10, 2002

Gollum's arms are stuck to mine - it must be love...

Tony told me again about the part time position here, and asked if I was sure I couldn't stay. In this respect, I really wish I could stay. I love the aquarium, and it's the best part of my week, and sometimes Saturdays were the only days I would smile, just because I was here.

*sighs*

It's getting really depressing, this leaving thing. I'm going to miss the work, the animals, and the people. It's been a wonderful 4 years. I love learning new things, and here I learn something new every week. I see the most amazing stuff, and I get incredible opportunities nobody else has. I know I'm going to cry when I leave.

Meh.

So today I was to mostly supervise Crystal, and help her with the few things she didn't have down pat yet. The day went really really fast for some reason, and we got everything done pretty early. We played with Gollum for awhile, and I took more pictures of me with him. I was a little disappointed at not feeding the sharks, because I really like that ray. Maybe next week. =)

I did feed the groupers, though, and that's always fun. The fish swim up to the food and stop several inches before it. Then they open their mouths rapidly and suck the food in. One of them did this right at the surface which resulted in a loud "Wumph!" and water spraying, which happened to really surprise both Crystal and me. (Nice little increase in heart rate there.)

Peanut butter.

I also learned a bit about corals and how to care for them. They're pretty interesting little things. Most people think they're plants, but they're actually a communal annimal. Each piece of coral is made up of thousands of little coral thingies. What you see is a big neighborhood of coral thingies.

At the end of the day, I just lounged around a bit and watched some people play Yahoo! Pool. Then I tried to get a good picture of these really cool jellies, but I think they have a curse on them because the pictures never turn out and are always blurry. (See example to your right.)