july, july, july never seemed so strange

It's July already! That's preposterous. It's not allowed to be July. In an effort to not be nearly as boring as I was in my last entry, here are some quick tidbits of life lately.

Last weekend was the Oregon Country Fair. It was a wonderful, magical day of friends, hippies, tutus, delicious food, and amazing people watching. One of my favorite summer events, for sure. Lots of people wanted to take pictures of me, Anna, and April because of our bright colors. It made me feel like we succeeded in making cool OCF costumes. Also, some guy creepily told me I was beautiful. It was annoying because I think people should tell each other stuff like that more often, so I wanted to be nice about it, but he did it in such a creepy way. So, dear guy at country fair: thank you for the kind compliment, but perhaps try to do that less weirdly next time. Involving less stroking of my arm with a peacock feather. Instant weird.

ZooCamp is continuing to be really rad. I spend most days holding my breath for some kind of catastrophe but then instead hanging out with adorable kids and excellent staff and having lots of fun, getting things done, etc. This week, there is a French child in the first grade camp. It makes me want to die with happiness. I love speaking French so much, and I love feeling like my French is improving and both of those things have been happening a lot because of this kid. I feel validated in my ability to speak French when he comes to me and asks me for things because I feel like that means he trusts me to help him. Today, whenever I walked into his classroom he would say "Bonjour, Kathayoon!" or "Salut, Kathayoon!" And it made me really happy because sometimes he would do it when everyone else was quiet and also he knows my name. And when he left camp, he said "A demain, Kathayoon!" and his mother goes, "Oh, this is Kathayoon?" And I died again. In conclusion, I love working with kids.

There's lots of other stuff going on in my life that I don't want to talk about but that last thing I will mention is the re-initiation of conference stress that has suddenly set upon me. Follow me on this emotional roller coaster. Forever ago, I got a poster accepted at this year's AZA (Association of Zoos and Aquariums) conference in Houston. Emotional peak! Very exciting, but was not sure if I would secure the necessary funding. Emotional valley. This week, got some funding (emotional peak!), but found out that I would have to miss orientation at Stanford (emotional valley). Now trying to figure out if I can even miss orientation at all. Stay tuned. Then, last night, found out I got an oral presentation (read: not a poster) accepted at IZE (International Zoo Educators) in DISNEY WORLD (emotional peak!!!), but it's two weeks after AZA (emotional question mark). Now need to secure a LOT of money to attend that conference (emotional annoyed). I feel like I'm juggling a lot of conference balls and they are all up in the air at the same time and every time I think I catch one it goes up into the air again. And I would just like to catch them all, put them on the ground, and arrange them nicely so I know what I'm doing.

And that's everything for now. I'm going to go off and do mid-July things like petting my cat, eating barbeque, and seeing if Claire wants to get cupcakes. Au revoir!

are you all grown up yet?

Today, Krist showed me a breakdown of his daily tasks. It was insane. He told me that if I tried something like that, my day would be equally insane. I don't know if I remember it all but I'll try.

Let's recap.

7:45-8:30 Prepare for day, hang out with Penguin Camp at early care check-in.
8:30-9:30 Help check kids safely cross streets, check into camp, and begin seemingly normal day.
9:30 Receive cryptic phone call from Anna.
9:35 Find subject of cryptic phone call to be eight ducklings that fell into a storm drain. Cutest tragedy ever.
9:35-9:55 Call bird keepers and maintenance people to rescue ducklings. Rewarded with the sight of nine ducklings following mama duck into the sunset.
9:55-10:15 Attempt to track down gluten-free treat for a camper. Fail to find RKT. Succeed in finding fruit leather. Secure fruit leather and give to camper.
10:15-11:00 Check out cape buffalo skull. Abscond to Discovery Room with cape buffalo skull and relocate skull to cabinet therein.
11:00 Go to Red Ape Reserve.
11:00-11:30 Proceed to freak out for a half hour over general magnificence of Red Ape Reserve. Swing from ropes designed for orangs, climb over branches and planks, and climb to the top of a terrifyingly tall enrichment tree. Pretend to be orangutans with Kristen for a group of Tiger Campers on the other side of the glass.
11:30-11:45 Take a group of extremely enthusiastic, extremely thankful Wild Design campers through the Red Ape Reserve behind-the-scenes.
11:45-1:00 Insane hour of breaking staff to go to Red Ape Reserve within the allotted time frame.
1:00-1:30 Take first real break of the summer.
1:30-2:30 Help Kristen prepare lunches for Wild Design trip to the coast.
2:30-3:00 Meet randomly with various people about camp.
3:00-3:30 Tie up loose ends, like making label for cape buffalo skull.
3:30-4:15 Help kids cross street safely, check out of camp, etc.
4:15-4:30 Drive ancient 15 passenger van down to Gate A.
4:30-4:45 End of day conversations with staff.
4:45-5:30 Set up AIC dinner
5:30-6:15 AIC dinner, consume too much pizza, talk to 6th graders.
6:15-7:00 Cougar Camp dinner, consume no pizza, talk to CC staff.
7:00-7:30 Clean up dinner
7:30-8:15 Walk around dino trail with AIC campers
8:15-8:30 Set up ice cream for AIC
8:30-8:45 Banter with snarky 6th graders
8:45-8:47 Requisite two minutes of absolute silence before ice cream party.
8:47-9:30 Ice cream in AIC
9:30 FINALLY LEAVE THE ZOO.

That was probably the most boring entry ever. The duckling and Red Ape parts were pretty cool. The rest was pretty cool if you were there, but probably not if you were reading about it. Sorry about that. Next time I will write about something far more interesting and ground-breaking. I promise.