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This week I had to register for classes for Fall term this year. I got to work early to do it Monday morning only to find that I still hadn't received an e-mail from my advisor with my PIN to register. Meg and I spent the morning sorting cheetah poop for the genetics lab. We were a little annoyed because after sorting them by date into the bins we were then told they needed to be put into other bins. Had we known that we would have put them there in the first place. Then we went with Theo to help him count all the items in the two kitchens for inventory. I discovered from the list we were marking it on that it was very difficult to really determine what was considered a medium dish, or a miscellaneous tea spoon. Naturally after we finished I decided the best thing to do would be to create a whole new list using an excel spreadsheet. I spent the rest of the afternoon making sure it looked good and could be sorted by type like cooking utensil, plate, bowl, etc. It took a long time, but hopefully it will make doing the kitchen inventory a lot easier for the next person.
Tuesday I attempted registering again only to discover that the classes I needed to sign up for wouldn't let me in. The honors class said I needed approval, and another class said I didn't meet the pre-requisite requirements. This was after two hours of just trying to get each page to load so I had to give up. I sent an e-mail to my advisor saying I couldn't register and since I have such limited internet, if she could help at all. For the rest of the morning I did observations. I discovered why Little C is such a pre-Madonna. He gets so pampered by the other two boys with him. He will be sleeping while the other two will come and groom him. That afternoon I finally caught up with all my data entry projects and things before I went on the Game Count that afternoon. I felt like I had accomplished a lot, although registering for classes was still an issue.
Wednesday was Meg's 19th birthday on the 19th. I had to work on the Annual Fundraising Gala all day which was not all that exciting. I had to make calls to over 200 people asking if they received our e-mail and would be willing to donate anything to the auction this year. I've done lots of customer service work and a little of telemarketing so it's no wonder why Laurie wanted me to do it. It wasn't exactly fun being stuck in a small room making calls all day though. It would have been better if the phones didn't have such bad connections. Some people couldn't hear me at all so I just had to try and call them back later. It's surprising how exhausting that can be. I wasn't quite so chipper when I was done, but then Kate came and took Meg and I to pet the Stars: Quazar, Phoenix, and Sariah for Meg's birthday. That always makes my day. Afterwards Anais asked us if we wanted to go to the big field with her and Veronika. We jumped in this teeny car named Barbie with our legs smashed in the back and drove out to the big field. We just talked and watched the sun go down (also called a sundowner). Veronika and Meg are both 19 and Anais and I are 24, which I thought was funny, but made for a good group. On our way back we ended up seeing a mom and baby ard wolf which were so adorable!! You rarely get such great sightings with them so we were lucky. Also we saw about 3 porcupine, and a barn owl. It was awesome! Then to top it off we watched Wall-E at Boskop with the girls since James was out late for a night drive with volunteers. The day certainly ended much better than it started.
Thursday wasn't extremely exciting. I was able to feed the scars in the morning and then I had to finish making calls for the Gala. It's amazing how long calls can take! Other than that I can't remember anything else I did that day. When you make calls all day things sort of blend in with other days. That night I was really frustrated because it sounded like I wasn't going to be able to do observations much more because there were other important things to do. Monday I'm going to have a meeting about it though and see if we can fit a few more in before I go at least.
Friday I finished up the Gala stuff. At this point we had discovered the list I was using had not been updated in some time. So I had to make a new spreadsheet with lots of notes on my calls so whoever takes over when I leave will know what numbers don't work, who to talk to, etc. After I did that I went to Cheetah View with Theo to work on the house out there. People are coming to stay there for the International Course so everything needs to be cleaned, beds moved, and showers working, etc. It's really far past Boskop, but very pretty. I went with Engelhardt as well who was born there. He was telling me about how they used to have chickens and a magnificent garden. As we moved beds around he said they used to play games in that room and this was the master bedroom. It was fun. Now I have seen all the farms at CCF except one. Maybe I will get to that one at some point too. Theo was really funny too, because he knew that I had had a bad day the previous day so he thought this would be a good way to get me out of the office. While there he gave me a flower which I responded to by saying "Oh Thanks, Joe gave me this yesterday too." Engelhardt laughed and said he was trying to be romantic, and of course I just blew that right out of the water. Haha..well Theo already knew I didn't come here to meet men. That doesn't mean he stops trying though.
Saturday was really chill. I still can't register the classes I need to, and my advisor hasn't e-mailed me back. I just started signing up for whatever so I can count as full time, but most classes are closed or full now. We'll see what happens. I was able to go out and do observations again that morning. They went well except for I couldn't find Cruise anywhere so he was missed that day. Meg had to do something in the afternoon so I stayed with her instead of going back to Boskop. I ended up falling asleep on a bench in the sun while I was reading. It was a nice nap. I found Meg and since we had a lot of time to dinner we thought we might watch a movie down by the hotspot at the common room. There we found John (from Boskop) who had just returned from dropping off Bruce at the airport. So in the end we were able to go back to Boskop and watched Princess Diaries 2 in our room. When it was dinner time it looked like everyone was napping. Luckily Gail was awake so we were able to go eat. Some people were going to have a fire and drinks, but we decided to have our own fire at Boskop so we could just go to bed when we felt like. It was a nice night as we all sat and talked by the fire.
So this week hasn't been too bad, but I certainly hope I will be able to do more observations next week. My time here is going by fast. It's definitely getting colder here so I am looking forward to summer in the states.
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