Shingwedzi

In the past 4 hours I have seen over 50 elephants, a ton of buffalo (zitch buffalo!), been charged by elephants more than 3 times, had to pull over to let Giraffes cross multiple times, saw two honey badgers (the only honey badgers many of the South Africans have seen that’s how rare they are; also they super badass I would like the youtube video keith showed me but no youtube out here L ), drove parallel to a leopard for about 10 minutes and watched it eat a hare, sang songs with guitar while watching the sunset over the savannah from a fantastic 360 vista.

TIA and MLISFA (like MLIA but with super fracking)

It hasn’t all been fun and games. This morning I was bent over by the stats test … I studied plenty and think I did fine on the written portion (worth most of the “marks”) but the excel part killed me! Oh well the afternoon more than made up for it.

I have been having a lot of fun with the people here. I have learned all sorts of campy new games that I wanna bring back and picked up some jokes and lingo from all over the place. If Singapore was a fantastic meeting of like minded super awesome people this is a fantastic meeting of awesome people who are very different. It made me pine for Singapore and home for a bit but by and large it has been enlightening and fun.

Oh and I’m now the resident: a)baker and b) go to for random knowledge person. I have made so very well received baked goods for people birthdays. Yay baking! And people have started coming to me for stuff like : “how do I get rid of headaches?’ “how do I fall asleep” “what is the back ground on…” And I’m also a go to movie person thanks to Keith. My hard drive has been very well circulated, and probably has had more people read through it than the student drive with all of our resources.

Also people here are cuddly! I have got almost as much cuddle action as I used to get in high school! It is soooooo nice! Aside from that there isn’t much on the romantic front here. There’s like 2 guys who I would be happy if something were happen with but I have to say I’m still nursing those Singapore crushes.

Away about to embark into 5 weeks no internet! At least a week of which will be spent without power (NOOOOOOOOOOOO!) But w/e life has been pretty cushy so far and I’m happy about it.

Academics have definitely been intense as  promised… but I’m slugging through

Anyway having a great time!!!

Can’t wait for more!!!!

skukuza part1

Skukuza part 1

Field work! Its much better than lab! However a lecture of vet science has got me all excited about medicine again. Ahahaha

Anyway here Skukuza we have access to internet so I figured I would try to get this up.

Food here is really good, but I miss Singapore food. L Today I crocodile and it was pretty good but not as good as beef (or Kudu for that matter). Anyway I have discovered that I love bats, feel bad and accomplished when I hack up tree for bark samples, and am irrevocably in love with cheetahs.

But one at a time: We did a few big field days recently where we collected bat call data and bark thickness data. The tree work was hard chopping, cutting work in the sun and I’m covered in scratches. Also I felt kinda bad cutting huge branches if trees….

The bat data is really cool though, and we even caught one little bat. We called her Babs and all got to hold her. She was sooo tiny! And cute!!!!

Also we’re gearing up for our insect collections. I have discovered that I love insect hunting. Stupid butterflies they mocked me flitting about with all their colors- WHOSE DEAD IN MY FREEZER NOW BITCH?! Ahem… anyway catching insects is fun, but I feel bad when I kill them by hand, which is dumb because I’m catching them to kill em anyway.

The other day we did a memorial for 9/11  and at the end we got surprised by an elephant who got ridiculously close to us. So close that we had to all get back into the cars until she passed. It was crazy! My heart was thudding so hard!

A few days ago was our day off and we went to Moholoholo animal ancuary. We got a 3 hr tour from a pretty cute Afrikaner. But the man who stole my heart was Bullet, the cheetah. I am in love with them. They are just so … beautiful handsome cute majestic…. Everything awesome. I love em! We saw all sorts of animals and got really close (but there were fences between the animals and us) We got to touch a bunch of stuff like the cheetah (kya!), vultures (I got ambushed from behind by one, he only hit me with his wing while landed on my arm so I was more surprised than hurt), eagles ect. It was cool!

Today we ran around collecting and pinning our insects. I am a champ when it comes to catching insects! I wish i had done this sort of thing more as a kid. its waaay fun. I think i am starting to specialize in betterflies :D

Anyway… yeah I have been enjoying my time here. I like the people a great deal. I miss my Singapore crew though, I felt like I was more like minded with them. That doesn’t mean people here aren’t supper cool, just a little different than me but at the same time more similar (than my older part of my sing crew at least). There is a lot I can learn from these guys and hopefully a lot I can give back too!

SOUTH AFRICA!!!!

SEMSTER IN SOUTH AFRICA!!!!

And thus beginnings the 2^nd proportion in my Saga of S alliteration!

A week has passed since, I arrived here. The people all seem cool ( if not as cool as my Singapore crew, but really I doubt I mean meet a collection as cool as them ever again).  No internet… GAH! Just kidding I’ve been so busy i have hardly had time to touch my computer. Anyway there are about 25 students here, and about 5 instructor type people. My favorite and (probably everyone else’s) is David. If Snape is one side of the coin he is the other. He has much of Snape’s mannerisms in movement and speech, but he’s funny, jolly and very paternal. He lived through the end of Apartheid and was a happening revolutionary back in the day. He has such great stories!!!!

We have been running around Nyslvely park this week and have seen all sorts of birds, bok (buck in American English), Wildebeest, Zebra (pronounced Zehh-bra not Zee-bra) Giraffe and all that. There is no big 5 here which is mixed because everyone wants to see them but since they are not here we can wander without armed guards. I find myself strangely fascinated by scat, and prints. I have already begun learning to ID various species by what they leave behind. I want a track book and I want it to be called : Pooh and Prints hahahahahaha

My current roommate is a very nice young lady named Amy. She is so sweet. She dances back home and like many people on this trip is pre-vet.

Last night we had a Jersey Shore party, in people delighted in trying to dress trashily. My two wife beater’s wound up on 2 of the guys who then drew chest hair on their exposed skin, it was hilarious.  There was much drinking. I drank a single Hunter’s Dry (cider) over the space of 2 drinking games, kings and fire and smoke, which did not have near enough alcohol to inebriate a flea. I would say about 50% of people got pretty drunk, 30% stayed fairly sober, and the last 20%... were in a bad way. One girl who I will not name destroyed the chances of this being a vomit free trip, and provided much amusement (earlier in the night) by shameless pursuing a few guys 2 of which were trying very hard to get away. Overall I find I am still wholly mostly able to respect people this morning so I guess it wasn’t so bad.

Also did “the amazing race!” which is a euphemism for running around the savannah for 4 hrs in the hot African sun. It was fun. I have blisters…. Anyway my team won 1^st place! I made up for my lack of physical prowess with my mental prowess by answering all the questions for my group (well not all but most *puffs up*). Anyway the blisters are healing up well.

Also I will probably not post very much anymore since internet is bad here (THIS ALSO WHY THERE WILL BE NO PICKS OOPS CAPS)