Updates on Sara's life

This past weekend I got to go to the Brookfield Zoo to the IMATA conference. It was good to see the trainers and animals again. And I learned some stuff at the conference. It was a quick trip, but it was good.

I started working at the zoo on Monday. I was getting trained on all of Semo’s behaviors…cues, what the criteria are, etc. I got to dive with the three females to clean the pool. It was a crazy experience. You can’t make eye contact with them and can’t interact in any way. When I was cleaning around the edges, they left me alone, but once I started swimming across the bottom, Spree was showing a lot of interest in me. I was once bumped by someone’s rostrum, but I don’t know who the culprit was. Rio also had a hissy fit during the dive, but Lynne, the other diver, was watching to make sure I was safe. Later that day this metal speaker cover rusted and fell off in the pool so Lynne and I had to dive again to put a new one back on. This was about 5:00 pm, and the lights are almost out in the stadium and it’s getting darker outside. We had to put these nuts and bolts on this ring. Since it was hard to see, Lynne used the Jedi force and closed her eyes to help her feel her way to putting the nuts in. It was pretty silly. On Tuesday I went over more behaviors and also went over observation stuff for when the calf is born. I also got to sit in on a staff meeting for once. I also got to do a show. Diane stayed by me and bridged my behaviors (blew the whistle when Semo did the correct behavior). I think it went really well. The girls are in the back pools so it is just the Semo and Chinook show.

Today at Vanity was my first day opening by myself. No problems. Tomorrow I close by myself for the first time. Fun stuff.