Arctic Dip

I am now the newest member of the arctic chilled interns -- I was pushed into the med. pool of the whale exhibit today! I was caught completely off-guard and did not even see it coming! Since it was my last day working with my newly appointed mentor Justin, he made sure I took the beluga plunge and get thrown into the water. We went out to do a quick mini-feed with the whales. And as I was walking back across one of the gates, Justin came up to me and asked me "do you have your phone on you?" Crazy blonde me thought nothing of it and responded "no its in my locker." And as soon as I was saying locker, Justin said "good" and threw me right into the pool. I had no time to act or resist getting thrown in. And right before getting pushed in, Kim (another trainer) had very slyly took the fish bucket from me. That should have been another clue to myself that sometime was a little fishy. But as soon as I hit that water, it took my breath away! They keep the water around 50 degrees...so it was no dip a hot tub thats for sure. It was slightly hard to breath swimming in that water, but then again I was so caught up in the moment and amazement of what just happened that I really couldn't tell I was freezing my rear end off in that water. All this took place in front of visitors at the exhibit. Some people gasped as I got pushed in and then they all clapped after I climbed out. I of course then proceeded to give everyone wet hugs as soon as I climbed out. It was just unfortunate I had no extra change of clothes with me...

Presentation

Well my whole internship research came down to this one day. It was my big final presentation day today. I was a little nervous going into today but my nervousness actually subsided once I began my talk. There were quite a lot of people there to see the interns presentation and it was really awesome to have support from everyone in the aquarium, not just the whale team. Some people from my whale team even came in on their day off to see my presentation which was beyond amazing. I couldn't thank them enough for coming out just to hear my project talk! I feel I did very well with my presentation. Everyone commented on how well I did and that 'I killed it'. So I take it everyone had enjoyed it. And I too am proud of myself for coming this far with my project and giving the presentation. I didn't say too many 'umms' and was pretty animated during my talk -- major improvements from all my practice presentations I had given :) Now all thats left to do for my project is finish up some last minute editing on my paper. Then its smooth sailing from here on out.

My internship is officially over in one week. One week. I'm still in shock that it has come down to this already. I really don't want to think of it ending and just want to enjoy my last week here. I have so much planned during the last week too that its just going to be one fun last hoorah week before I make the journey back to Michigan. And til then I am going to enjoy as much whale time as possible :)

Crunch Time

Well, I am down to less than 2 weeks of my internship. A sad thought really. I can't believe the time is almost up and I still feel like I have lots to do and learn yet. I am starting to feel the pressures of getting my project finished. My presentation to the aquarium staff is on Friday so I have been working on getting that ready. I am excited to present my findings to everyone yet extremely nervous at the same time. There will probably be lots of people there since 3 of us interns are presenting projects. All my hard work and project observations during my internship have come down to this one day...so I hope it all goes well!

Other than frantically scrambling around trying to wrap up this project, I'm still having such a blast working with the whales. Kela has been in such an awesome mood lately and everything you bridge she does her 'weeeee' vocal. So stinkin cute! Her tongue rubs at duck pond window (where they do the Whales-Up-Close program) have been going amazing! I was watching one of the trainers do a program with her at the window and he had them all do tongue rubs. And sure enough, the guests reached their hands right over the glass one-by-one and Kela came right up to them so they could give her tongue rubs! It was so awesome to see something I had been helping work on become a success! I was so proud of Kela for doing that and it felt awesome to watch her do it -- I was like a proud parent! Naku is Naku...pretty much an amazing, solid whale with everything she does! She too likes to vocalize after everything behavior she does. And she LOVES doing tongue rubs after the feeding/training sessions. She would stick around all day for tongue rubs if she could! Its so funny during tongue rubs when she starts giving you her pec to touch and then she whips her head around for a tongue rub. I start to wonder if that has become a fun little game for her.

I had the chance to help with one of Junos 'lip sessions' -- the 'lip' where the encounter programs are. So I got to do some fun stuff with Juno in the water like his mimic spins, different vocals, and touch his squishy melon! And then I got to help with his hugs and kisses. For his hugs, he has a tendency to lean onto you when he comes up. I had to kind of stand with one leg behind me to support myself when he lunged forward. So I got him the hug Ds (cue) and sure enough he came right up and leaned on my body. It was a lot more force than I had expected! But it was cute -- I got to give June-bug a hug :) But thats not all...after that, I got to ask for his kiss behavior again. I was expecting a forceful pec on the cheek similar to what happened last time. I pointed to my cheek and waited for him to come bolting to my face. But to my surprise he came up nice and gently and very softly 'kissed' my cheek! Much improvement from last time when he almost took my jaw off :)