Day Three

I had Friday and Saturday off, so getting back in the swing on Sunday was a little difficult. It's a little like the "Monday blahs" when you have the normal Monday-Friday work schedule, or are in school.

It was a pretty regular day by any means. Since I'm now writing this three days after the fact, I can't remember much of what we did (whoops). However, I was with the large animals, it was pretty fun.

I have short term memory loss. I seriously cannot remember what we did.

I'm sorry.

In exchange, I thought it would be a good idea to make suggestions for what a summer intern could wear and carry to make their days easier.

First of all, pants. It is necessary to protect you against bug bites, poison ivy, or animal scratches. While you can wear jeans, it is honestly much more comfortable wearing lightweight pants.

These are the pants that I got. They're basically frumpy old-lady pants in real life (nothing looks as nice in real life as they do in ads) but they do the job. I'm a little bit vain so I bought a size up since in my size, I had a slight muffin top. Yes, I know. Nobody cares about muffin tops. The sucky part is that I keep forgetting a belt and my pants are always falling down.

As for shirts, I usually check the forecast before I leave the house. If the day is going to be ridiculously sunny and hot, I will wear a tank top or a racerback. They are usually light colored like bright blue or yellow or red (but mostly blue and red) although I have a black one in my car ready to be changed into. If the day is not going to be ridiculously hot (which never happens in NC), I will wear a short sleeved shirt. The neck style of the shirt honestly doesn't matter. I have worn both crew-necked and v-necked shirts with no problems.

There was one morning where it was cool enough I considered wearing a jacket, but then I realized I only had my really nice sorority lettered jacket in my car, and didn't want it to be stained, so I went without. It wasn't that bad anyway.

As for shoes, it is entirely up to you. Many interns wear sneakers and others wear hiking boots. If you wear sneakers, be prepared to get your feet wet. Hiking boots, in my opinion, are better. I have a bum ankle and I haven't felt a twinge while in my boots. The pair that I got is waterproof with a steel toe. I've got my feet stepped on and run over (oops), then walked through puddles or got my entire lower half soaking wet, and my feet have been dry (aside from sweat). They rock! It hurts to break in but only takes a couple of days of walking. I suggest you buy your boots well ahead of time to break them in. I initially bought these boots for my class trip to Pt. Pelee in Ontario. We walked something like twenty miles (maybe that's an exaggeration? maybe not) in two days, and by the end my boot were perfectly broken in. The best part? I got them from Walmart at a ridiculously low price (yay Walmart and yay being a broke college student/graduate!).

What about miscellaneous items? The staff at the Center advise you to get cloth gloves to wear. I didn't get a pair, and I sort of wish I did. It would make handling chickens much better, and I'd be able to wear gloves in the compound when I do heavy lifting (splinters suck). However, I do well enough with latex gloves while doing chicken prep. They get super sweaty in the summers, and I absolutely hate getting latex gloves wet (the texture... ucccch) so if I have to wash buckets or something and I'm wearing latex gloves, I have to take them off, go to the field kitchen, throw them away, and come back. Not a big deal, but it can be a pain if you're in a time crunch.

What I do strongly advise getting is a good knife. While the Center has their own knives in the field kitchen, it's pretty nice having a pocket knife to carry in your pocket if you have to do emergency gutting in the compound. They also come in useful for cutting chickens open to put vitamins in, which we do right before giving it to the animal (so that the right vitamins are given to the right animals), and if we have to do some emergency cutting (which hasn't happened yet, and I don't know what we would cut anyway) for whatever reason. I would suggest getting a knife of good quality. The one I have has a cheap plastic handle and the blade used to go dull quickly (before I went insane with the sharpener. I already sliced open my finger. Do not do) which makes sense since it was a freebie... (for anyone curious, I took Ecology of Hunting and Fishing winter quarter, and we had to make our own fire kits for whatever reason. My professor didn't spend much time on the ecology portion. Anyway. He gave each of us a knife so that we could whittle our sticks for the fire kit. That's how I got my knife)

I wear a baseball cap, since my eyes are pretty sensitive to the sun. In the four years that I've lived in western New York, I developed an allergy to NC. I will start randomly sneezing and stop only after five, six, or seven sneezes. And they hurt. Combine that with my photic sneeze reflex, and I'm done for. A hat helps counter the photic reflex, and I can just focus on my allergic-to-NC sneezes, which I have realized only happens when I'm at the Center in the compound... uh oh. A cap also protects your face from sunburn (mostly).

I also very strongly advise sunblock. Like, seriously. The keepers will yell at you if you get sunburned and shove a tube of sunblock at you.

A photo is coming. Stay tuned!

Ta!