3 posts tagged “zoo”

Ya, the last post was a tad too enthusiastic for its own good. So shoot me.

Anyway ... more updates.

A couple of weeks ago my great aunt Ingrid came to visit. She stayed with grandma for most of the week, but we had her on wednesday. She's been living in America for the past 50 years, but she still sounds charmingly Swedish. I can't believe I've never met her before. She's an animal trainer and always has been. And she's so nice and friendly and loves everything. Particularly my dogs. =D
We took her to the Wallaby Yards and showed her newborn wallabies - little tammars. So cute. Then we went to GWSC so I could get them to sign a thing saying I can do my exams there, and all the teachers talked to me and said "Come back if you need help anytime! Really! Or just visit! Anything!" Nice to be missed :P Then we went to Melbourne Uni, but the O-week bbq was already over (aw). We ate at the union building, then went to the zoo. I got a couple of good pics of a snow leopard. The Orangutans were SO COOL - one of them swung up the the viewing platform, saw us all watching, and covered itself in a box. From time to time it would peek out, see us still watching and try to hide better. Eventually it gave up, waked over reaaally close to the glass, staring into the eyes of a little boy, hypnotised with his nose pressed against the window. Then a little girl came and shoved him out of the way, and the orangutan got bored and went and got it's box, then lay down to watch the other orangutans - but it got too absorbed and leant too far over, and it lost it's box over the edge! He was like ... crud. I love the zoo : )
Then we went to see the wild bat colony. Bats are great. Like huge, flying rats (with big sharp pointy teeth : E3  < emoticon with teeth.).
On saturday we went to the zoo agin, so Viv could get more pics (she went to the zoo with school on friday). I drove there and the traffic was soooo shithouse. Of course dad and Viv insisted on sitting still for half an hour everywhere to get the perfect shot. I was a tad bored by the end of that. But oh well. They did get some good shots.

Last thursday I took my dogs to TAFE for show and tell. Everyone loved them =D

On saturday I Marie and I went to Jess's place to watch Torchwood (why can I never remember the name of that series? Argh)
And today I went to Josh's place. I got there before he did, and his dad had NO idea who I was or why I was there. That was kinda funny.
Josh helped me with maths and we ate way too much. He spent ages trying to convince me to eat fish. He lost. I am the champion of obsinance. Then we played scrabble and cheated (why would you play if not for the fun of cheating?). And one of his rabbits is seriously aggro. It is the monty python rabbit. Yay! ^_^

And apart from the normal paraphenalia of stuff I do (like fat pony walking, yoghurt-drop-feeding rats and getting my dogs to tell me whether they prefer Mama Mia to Sex Bomb), that is mostly all. Toodles!

PS heat is bad. I dislike heat muchly.

PPS driving is now 44 hours, 15 mins and counting. I have my first lesson on wednesday.

Have had a RA - THUR good weekend. Have done NO WORK even though FINAL EXAMS start in only SIX WEEKS and we haven't even STARTED unit 4 in biology.
Oh well. I am happy, and that is becoming an increasingly rare occurence these days, so it was worth it.
On Saturday Viv and I tagged along on mum's feild trip to Werribee Open Range Zoo. First we made a stop at Readings, and mum told me I could buy books. I asked one of the staff where Arundhati Roy's non-fiction stuff was, and she said in the political section. Mum was like "... er, Political, Steph?" and I raised my eyebrow at her and said "Yeah, her writing *is* political." and I could see mum's mind ticking over <aw crud, our constant cynical attitude towards modern politics has somehow had some kind of effect on my child ... does this mean she's actually *serious* about her opinions? Now she's going to go all obsessive ... Aw crud.> So I bought "The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire", which is a book of speeches, and "The Chequebook & The Cruise Missile", which is interviews with Arundhati Roy.
The bus driver was really nice. Only about half of the students turned up - there were meant to be forty, and 23 were actually there. On the bus I managed to get mum addicted to Arundhati too. I'm good at getting people addicted to things.

IT'S RAINING! YAY!

And at the zoo we went on a bus and the tourguide wasn't particularly engaging or competent, but the animals were prddy. We saw giraffes and scimitar horned oryx and hippos and emus and rhinos and zebras and cape barren geese and various kinds of antelope. And then we walked around and saw the meercats and the lions and sculls and things. And then we got food, except it took a reaaaaally long time and we were getting late so everybody ate on the bus and the people with chips had to put them in bags so that they didn't stink the bus up.
Next stop was an Alpaca farm. Alpacas are awesome because they're like llamas, only cuter. And there were very very cute ones when we went, little young ones with booffy heads and big eyes. Awww! We gave them injections and trimmed their toenails and learned about alpaca farming. One of them really didn't want to have the hair over its eyes trimmed, and it spat up its stomach contents and it stank. And then we just went in and patted them. The little ones were covered in burrs because there's been a drought there for five years so they've had to buy in lots of feed which has burr seeds in and the little ones roll in it. But they're still adorable. Pretty much everyone aproached them head-on, standing straight up, and reached over the top of them then patted down onto their heads. HOW SCARY CAN YOU BE?! They flinched away and got freaked out. So I went in and knelt down and gently stroked down the sides of their necks to calm them down. And then we had biscuits and Viv found that the people had German Shepherds so I went and said hello to them. Sooky babes! Then the alpacas saw the bus driver and gave the alarm call, which sounded like birds. (If I really was christopher I would find a sound clip and stick it in, but I am not so very pedantic.) I felt ill and had to go sit down for a while, but apart from that it was cool.
And some of the students said that it was the best fun they've had since coming to uni.
And I went, oh shit.
I guess because I have been blessed with that most rare and wonderful of gifts - good parents - a trip like that is a somewhat more everyday occurence than it would be to most. And I also know that learning SHOULD be fun, because we learn things so much better that way. When you DO things, you learn how to USE information. But never mind.
Maybe one day I will make the system change, with my wonderful research papers revealing things which any animal trainer worth their salt is fully cognicent about.

A rat trap just went off.
I don't think it caught a rat though.
Um.

Anyway, Jess and Gity and AJ and Marie and (a tad late) Josh came over today. (You know you did, but I am writing for my imaginary audience here, okay?) Aparna didn't come because she was STUDYING. Her brain is going to melt with the stress of constant study, I just know it. And Bharat didn't come either, but he had a reason and so is forgiven. And we watched the end of the Umbilical Brothers, and then we played monopoly while Doctor Who was on in the background. Monopoly takes a Very Long Time to play. Jess and Gity had to leave before we had finished. Josh wouldn't sell me Liverpool St Station or that green property that I have now forgotten the name of. But then he went bankrupt and sold me all his stuff for $20. And then I landed on  Park Lane and I really wished I hadn't sold Mayfair to AJ, and I mortgaged all my properties and soon after went bankrupt, and AJ won. And then we played Uno, and I won. Then I got Mystic to play, but they wouldn't let her win because she couldn't say Uno. I thought that was unfair descrimination, but they wouldn't back down. Meanies. And Marie had to go home, but AJ and Josh and I played Upwords, and one of AJ's words (she won, btw) was Smut, so I showed them Tom Lehrer's Smut song. And then everyone went home. We had a LOT of chips today.
Mmm, junk food ...

OK, it's 10:20 at night and I'm going to quite extraordianary lengths to avoi doing anything constuctive.

On Saturday we went to the zoo, mum dad Viv Marie and I. Marie and I wandered off on our own. Admired the monkeys and orangutans. Shook our heads at the needlessly unurgonomic elephant enclosures. Failed to get trapped in the Great Flight Aivary and watched a bear eating leg of goat. It was fun.

On Sunday we decided that Merry was off heat by now so we would take her to the trial she was entered in. First was snooker. I chose to do Jump 4point tunnel jump 2point tunnel jump 2 point tunnel and then the closing sequence. I cajoled an very distracted Merry around and around, finished and verbally poked mum until she gave Merry her cheese. Mum told me that I had forgotten to do the last jump-tunnel ... so it wasn't a pass. I had thought it was and was a bit dissapointed. Then was novice jumpers. It was straight after excellent jumpers which was a really *nasty* course and with a very hard time. We hoped he would make it simpler ... but it was still hard and with a hard time. Merry went jump, jump, jump oooh, will you look over there ... *Merry GET OVER HERE* oh ok tunnel tunnel ... but doesn't it smell good ... wanders around a few jumps to the other side of the ring, squats and pees, and pees ... I pick her up ... and she keeps peeing. So I carry her at arms length all the way out of the ring, with her peeing the whole way. Gave everybody a good laugh. We went over to the snooker ring which had just finnished to make sure she hadn't got a pass and that we could go home - and she HAD got a pass! Silly mum, getting me all dissapointed for nothing. Just one more snooker pass to go and she'll be the first papillon snooker dog. I'm hoping to gat that pass at a trial in geelong on the 28th this month.
And then we went to Jullian's for dinner and he gave us viennetta and chocolate for esert. Lots of chocolate. Muahahaha! So it was easter after all!

Anyway. And today I had work, and it took more than 2 hours and lots of cats needed pills and one I couldn't give its pill because I held its jaw closed for aaaaaaaaaaages and I knew it was never going to swallow so I let it go and it hacked it up but I didn't dare be more forceful because its jaw was bloody and sore and I didn't want to hurt it.

And now I'm doing nothing. I joined MySpace, simply to avoid doing anything constructive.

Well done
to me