Aquarium Day 3

Before I get into the aquarium...

I'm doing poorly in biology. :( Precalc and organic chemistry are a walk in the park (so far!), but biology is just freaking hard. I don't know if it's the professor, the way he teaches, the fact that I haven't had a biology class in 12 years, or that I still haven't found a good way to study... but it just SUCKS. We had an exam on Wednesday, and I got a 78%. Unfortunately, I can't exactly blame the professor for my poor grade, because my grade ended up being the median. :( The good news is, if that's the lowest exam grade that I get, he'll drop that exam from the final grade. But I still have 10 weeks to go through with this crap, and so far, I'm only .1% away from having a C. GAH.

I'm finding organic chemistry a lot more intuitive for some reason (I have a 97% average in orgo, and a 95% in precalc). Maybe it's the professor, or maybe I just have a pretty good understanding of chemistry--for example, the professor showed us a reaction that I never realized could happen, but before she even explained it, I automatically understood how it happened AND why. Biology, on the other hand... I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on all of the concepts, but then he goes into the tiniest of details, which is where I tend to lose points. What really killed me on the exam was the stupid essay questions, which I've NEVER been good at--I got an 86% on the multiple choice questions, and 60% on the effing essay questions. ARRRRGH. It's really freaking discouraging.

Anyway.

Saturday was a mess. I arrived at the aquarium at 8:00, and searched all over for Tony. I was told he was in the Vern exhibit (where George the octopus resides), so I had to borrow someone's access key card to get in the building, but when I got inside, my own key for the exhibit didn't work. I knocked on the door, but nobody answered... I knew someone was in there, because I could see a pole in one of the exhibits being used to clean the glass, but he obviously didn't hear me.

I had someone else come over to try to open the door, but he couldn't find Tony, so I went back to the main building again. I had a guy named Dan page Tony, and Tony said he already had a volunteer helping him out, so I could find something else to do. Sigh. By this time, it was 8:30. So, I started off by cleaning out one of the exhibits that Tony used to work with (but now Dan is). A bunch of the starfish were getting pretty close to one of the drains in the exhibit, so I had to move them. I'm still getting accustomed to the various species, and having to touch them, etc., so when I tried to move one of the bigger starfish (maybe 5"-6" in diameter), I was surprised to see how strongly it clung to the rock. I called Dan over to help, as I didn't think I had the strength to pry it off, and I was also afraid of doing damage to it. Dan was surprised to see how hard it was to pull him off, and a bunch of the starfish's suckers were pulled off. He said that was normal though.

After that, I moved on to clean the sand of another small exhibit. I had to use a big siphon, and again, I couldn't get the stupid thing started. I must look REALLY helpless sometimes. A biologist (or volunteer, not quite sure) I'd never seen before saw me struggling, and came up to help me get the siphon started. Sigh. At least he didn't get a mouthful of water, though. HA!

For the next couple of hours, I was stuck doing food prep! I was lucky in the past in that I never really had to do much of it, but now I at least know how to do it. And I'm sort of getting accustomed to the grossness of the ordeal. I think cutting up the fish is the worst. The knives sometimes don't make a clean cut, and guts are always spilling out onto the cutting board. The large krill is a close second, mostly because they're thawed out before "serving" (:::shudder:::), so their bodies are all moist and jello-y. They're like the worms of the sea. In a bowl of pinkish krill bodies, the only other color is the black of their eyeballs, and it makes my skin crawl. Yech!

After lunch (well, not really lunch... I had half a protein bar, and couldn't finish the rest, what with krill bodies and fish guts swimming in my vision and ruining my sense of smell), I helped Dan feed a bunch of the fish in the various exhibits. We started with turtles. I think it's amusing--annoying, actually--how a horse could easily bite off my fingers, or turn around and kick me, and yet I'll hold out my hand to a horse without even thinking, but I flinch when a turtle reaches for a piece of fish between my fingers. Heck, even when I had a little feeding pole for these little 4" fish, I jumped a little when the first one took a bite of the food on the pole!

I guess Double Spot was moved out of quarantine and in with the main tank... so I didn't get to visit my favorite tiger shark, haha. I'll apparently be working with Dan from now on, which is fine with me... I like Tony, but he isn't as personable as Dan. All the guys I work with are total clowns, though! ;) As much as I want to leave Philly, I really will miss this aquarium when the time comes to leave.

More and more, I'm feeling really lucky that I was chosen to volunteer. Every other new volunteer that I've spoken to already has a biology degree, and has worked with fish to some extent (not including little 20-gallon tanks like I had, lol). I guess they kind of use this experience as a stepping stone to getting a job.