Where did the time go?

I am so far behind I don't even know where to begin. Here are the highlights:

1. I'm teaching a lecture at UNCW next year as well as a lab. This will put me on the path to eventually becoming a college professor way down the road. 
2. I got instate tuition for this year :-)
3. I adopted an adorable kitten (not the one I originally planned on) named Seraphina, Phi for short. 
4. I went to Tennessee for the National Marine Educators Association Conference and got to see lots of wonderful people including Steve Flack and Tammy Browning. My presentation went very well.
5. We went to Ober Gatlinburg and saw bears, otters, and rode the alpine slide.
6. I went to Dollywood Splash Country for the first time. It was actually a lot of fun with decent lines.
7. I've been asked to work with a local high school teacher to put together a group of students to take to a Student Summit on Climate Change in Washington DC.
8. Becky came down to visit and we had a wonderful time. We went on a very interesting bird walk with Audubon North Carolina.
9. The Glow Worms (my volleyball team) is actually doing very well for a change. We're playing our end of season tourny tomorrow and then changing our name to the Isotopes.
10. And lots of other things. 

Up coming:
UNCW Alumni after work, going away party for almost half of our education department, Carolina Beach Beerfest with proceeds going to the Pleasure Island Sea Turtle Project, and off to Florida for 4 days to see Colleen before school starts.

And at work today I got to watch them carry a 7 foot alligator through the aquarium. It took one aquarist per foot. Then we had someone bring in a baby sea turtle off the beach. That is very very illegal. They were worried it was going to get eaten. I wanted to start singing the circle of life.... cold, but true. Both it's fins are broken so we don't know how long it will survive..... But on a lighter note, some pictures.
Miss Phi:

Glossy Ibis on our bird walk

Looks good doesn't it?

Great Smoky Mountains

The bear looked like it tried to escape and fell to his death

The cute otters

I met Eugenie Clark, shark lady. This is me with her best friend Diane Nelson, the water bear lady

You'd think I had never been to Ripleys before with all the pictures I took

The new penguins:

Huma huma nuka nuka apua'a or the picasso trigger fish

Love it!

lazy girl

It's been almost 20 days since my last post and since I started the new job. Sometimes I worry that I'm never going to make the transition from being part time to full time. I feel like I should just automatically know what to do and have big projects to finish. I've written up two programs since I've been there. One was my interview presentation on freshwater mussels (which are much more interesting than you think, especially when I dress someone up like one). The other is on climate change.... It's just a few simple need to know facts about what's going on in our world and why but the majority of the problem is things we can change to help the problem. Whether or not you believe the world is changing it doesn't hurt us any to make some lifestyle changes. So I focused on that part of the program, especially because we don't want to horrify all the kids with "we're all gonna die!" One article I read pointed out that when we learned about the hole in the ozone everyone freaked out... but we quit using cfcs and it's disappearing.... we can fix things if we don't leave it too long.

Today I started working on a new program for teachers. We really don't offer much for teachers to bring their students on field trips. We don't get many high schools and I think a lot of it is that we don't offer the programs. So I'm working on changing that. I was going through the North Carolina Standard Course of Study today trying to look at what goals we can cover at the aquarium. I started thinking about a program on fisheries. I'm pretty excited about it. I think it will be a great program. It will cover 1/6 of the biology goals in one field trip. Go me! ;-)

Today I met with a high school teacher who's doing an internship with us this week. It's my job to help him come up with a lesson he can teach at the aquarium. He has a great idea and shown me some neat new technology. I'm pretty excited to put it to work, especially because I put it in my workplan to use more technology in our programs. I think this will work well with our smart board.

Nicole came down to visit this weekend. We had the most beautiful visit to the beach.

The water was absolutely flat and I played with my waterproof digital camera.

Kathryn was there too. All three of us went to high school together and now we're all in NC. Go figure.

In other news, I'm waiting for a new kitten. I decided to get charlie a friend. We've been waiting for him to go to the vet and get checked out because he just got there the day before I went to visit. The lady is bad about returning phone calls. Hopefully I can get him this weekend. I'm calling him Spartacus.

I'm also taking an online grad class this week. This is so I can drop my Monday class next semester. The head of my program has asked me if I want to teach an actual class this semester instead of the lab. I guess there's 1000 students on a waiting list to get into the class. The biggest I'd be able to teach would be 200 students. It'd be a night class so I can do it around work and they'd give me all the lectures and powerpoints since I won't have time to make them. But I'd be teaching a college level class. I think it's pretty cool because I think I may want to teach college somewhere down the road and this will be a good way to really decide that. It's not for sure yet because the school has to approve it... so keep your fingers crossed....

So life, as usual, is pretty wonderful. :-)

New Job

Today was my first day at the aquarium as a full time employee. It's the first place I've ever worked where I've gotten promoted as opposed to hired fresh. So it was an interesting introductory day. Everyone I've worked with in the past was really glad to know that I was hired. It was a great day. I spent most of it going through what the last educator left for me. I'm going to move into the office pretty slowly since I have to paint the office before I really settle in. It's currently lime green. It definitely keeps you awake.

In other news, we've started playing volleyball again. We actually won a game last night. I scored about 6 points on one serve. It was pretty fun. I went to a winery called Noni Bacca on Sunday with my friend Velu. It was a lot of fun. They do free tastings every day but they had free food on Sunday. After that we met up with some girls at Fibber McGee's. They were doing half price bottles of wine so the girls had a good time. I was driving but still had a lot of fun. Earlier in the weekend my old roommate Dan and I checked out a new bar called Whiskey Creek that's very close to both of our houses. We may go again with the rest of the team after volleyball tonight.

I chopped off my hair before I came back to NC. It's really cute and much more comfortable. Mom and I had a great time at the farm and I wish I had had more time at the lake but my trip home was wonderful. So now I'm going to work on getting into the swing of things at the Aquarium. Live is so very very good. I quoted one of my favorite authors the other night. She talks about the full cupboard feeling: the way you feel when it's snowing outside but the cupboard is full of all your favorite things and you don't have to go out in it. I am so happy lately. I sat in the pool reading the other day and watching the wind blow through the palm trees. It doesn't get much better than this.

Home Sweet Home

This weekend was pretty low key following the announcement of my job. I spent all day Saturday and Sunday at work. We closed early on Sunday to have staff bonding on the north end of Carolina Beach. We drove out onto the beach with a truck full of surfboards and paddle boards. I was going to try out the standup paddle board but the wind was so rough that even the surfers who have lots of practice were having trouble so I opted out.

Monday morning I got up bright and early to fly home. Yesterday we spent most of the day catching up. I also got to see the new house my parents bought. Today we got to do a lot of work on the house. I raked, dug up weeds, helped my dad cut and put up bead board in the new bathroom. The house will look great when we're all done. I'm looking forward to the party this Saturday. Erin comes home tomorrow and then the gang will be all here :-) Stay tuned for all the Ennes Family Adventures.

Ta Da!

So on to that news I've been alluding to for a while now. I am pleased to announce that as of today I am the newest full time educator at the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher. I had my interview a few weeks ago and felt really good about it. I had to give a 15 minute presentation on anything in the world. I chose freshwater mussels. It was a great presentation if I do say so myself. I taught the director of education something new and turned Ruth, the other educator, into a mussel. She loved it so much she asked if she could have the program. So I've been reading into everything they've said for the last couple weeks trying to figure out what they were saying. So I start June 2 after my trip home. I get my own office and I even get to paint it! It's currently neon green. So we'll have to calm that down. So YAY! When I graduate I get to stay in Wilmington. I am so happy. I've tried to downplay this and not get too excited because I was afraid to jinx it. But worry no longer!

In other news, today was Painted Bunting day at the Aquarium. Dr. Rotenberg, who I'm working with next semester for my project, was catching and banding painted buntings today. They caught one before I got there but it was already banded. Here are some shots from the day.

The hand painted sign showing a painted bunting

The cage we use to trap the buntings, it's similar to a crab trap, easy in, hard to get out.

The tools used to band the birds. each bird gets its own combo of 4 bands for id

A male painted bunting chilling on the ground. They like shrubs so they don't hang out on the ground often.

And finally, one of the many flower shots I took today

Last of the American Girls

I spent today at the aquarium. I taught a bunch of 4 year olds about turtles and then bounced around the aquarium waiting to dive the 2:30. I was glad I had my camera with me because I was able to take a lot of fun pictures today. They moved the alligators back into their enclosure after 6 weeks of renovations. They're very happy to be able to get out of the water for a while. They started bellowing at one point which was really neat. I tried to get my camera in time to tape it but I missed it. It was crazy. The male's bellow is so low it does a rain dance with the water. The water on his back jumps out in drops. It was really neat to watch and listen to.

I spent a lot of time talking to husbandry today. I love hearing what they are doing behind the scenes and around the aquarium. We have a program where we give tadpoles to the local 5th grade classes and they raise them up to toads. We have to raise extras at the aquarium in case anything happens. It's a great program they use to teach the local students as well as to help a declining group of animals. We have all these tiny toads in varying stages of metamorphosis in the back.

We'll release them all once they're fully grown. That's just one of the many projects they have going on that the general public doesn't know about. We also have some animals behind the scenes that not everyone gets to see. This includes Wilson and Wilma, our wood ducks. The aquarium has a pair of wood ducks used for education. Their enclosure is hidden behind an exhibit but the staff is encouraged to go in and handle Wilson often in order to help him be a better education animal. It's a tough job but someone has to do it.

Yesterday and Monday were spent at the beach with a bunch of first graders playing on slippery rocks looking for animals and shells.

The tide was pretty high both days so we didn't find a whole lot except one crab and some sea anemones.

A lady came by and showed us a megalodon tooth she found on the beach. I was super jealous. It's on my life list: to find a meg tooth. I was debating going back after we dropped the kids off to look for one of my own. She said several people had found them. But as we walked back to the van I found a tooth of my own. I think it's a fossilized great white's tooth. I was thrilled. It was just sitting on top of the sand

It's not a perfect tooth but still pretty amazing. Life is pretty good. I have an amazing job.

The title of this post is brought to you by the greenday song I had in my head.

Strange Occurances

So I can't really say anything about the one thing that I'm really focused on right now but hopefully I'll know one way or the other soon. But until then, here's some silly things that have been happening in my life lately.

I turned in my final paper for my last class on Tuesday. Leaving campus I passed a golf cart driving down the sidewalk pulling a dolly with a washing machine on it. How trashy is that? I was going the wrong direction to get a picture.

I saw an Amish family at the beach hanging out under the pier. One of the girls even had her shirt sleeves rolled up. That same day I saw a crow sitting on someone's beach chair trying to get sun. There was also a couple of gay men taking glamor shots in several locations along our stretch of beach. They even brought wardrobe changes.

I served a sandwich the other day. When I set it down the girl looked at me and said "I thought I ordered a sandwich". I replied "you did". She picked up the top bun and says "I thought this was a bun". I looked at her with disbelieve and said "It is". Her answer was "oh". What do you say to that? Really?

I did a sleepover last night with a bunch of boy scouts. It was my second sleepover here at NCAFF and the other educator's second sleepover ever. We rocked it out. I thought the boys didn't pay any attention but today they kept asking me questions about things I had said yesterday when I thought they weren't listening. The parents loved my shark talk. (the kids did too).

The apartment is beautiful but there are still a few things I haven't found homes for so I haven't posted pictures.

I'm going home in a week. I will be there for 10 days. I can't wait to see my family. Colleen graduated from BSU yesterday and will be heading to FSU in the fall for grad school. Mom and dad are remodeling the new house. Hopefully it's done in time for the party in two weeks. I love my family and can't believe my trip home is only a week away. But for now it's off to bed so I can take some students to the rocky outcropping tomorrow at the aquarium.