Ms. Animal Teacher Lady

That's what I was known as to a bunch or 3-5 year olds at camp last week. Alison has too many syllables I guess, so they just go with Ms. Animal Teacher Lady. I'm cool with it though. It makes me happy to think that by telling them yes, spiders have 8 legs, I'm seen as a genius in their eyes and I must know everything about animals. Not only did they assume I knew the easy questions, but they also assumed I knew the answer to questions like, "What would happen if you fed a wolf that was on top of your house a whole pig, and then your house exploded?" I had to get creative.

So now, for all of you who have been asking, that is what I do at my job. I answer very, very, VERY hypothetical questions. I also hold snakes, touch spiders, and feed squirrels from my hand.* I am conquering my fears at last! If I can do all that, I think I can manage any thing else this job throws at me.

No, but in all reality I've been helping with things around the park like taking care of the animals, working with visitors, organizing papers, and making "pretty" fliers (since apparently guys can't make fliers "pretty").  Whenever work is slow, I make random sentences with the refrigerator magnets. One day of work consisted of kayaking, shooting arrows at a target, and running a transit of Venus program. Fun stuff! When the summer really gets rolling, I'll be doing more camps. One camp I'm doing is basically a chaotic week of helping 7 year olds make spears and bows and arrows out of anything they can find in the woods. The adult supervision besides me and the other intern? A man who wears deer skin and tells the children it's okay to eat bee larva. Character alert! I'm super excited for that week, though! I kinda love chaos, and so far, every staff member I've met has been beyond awesome. I already feel like a small part of their family, and I've only been working for 3 weeks. This will be a good summer, I can already tell:)

*Disclaimer: All of the animals at Riverbend are very friendly, so just because I am feeding squirrels doesn't mean I'm about to go befriend all the squirrels at JMU. Those squirrels throw acorns at you. Riverbend's do not. Big difference.