Week twelve (and a half)

Hi everyone!

Fun things:

• Still working on improving both my French and Spanish skills, so I was super excited when I had a much more involved conversation in French at our Flamingo badge than I am usually able to manage.  I often stick with talking about flamingos being pink and helping them by working to keep waterways clean, but for this conversation we went into why a flamingo has a beak shaped the way it is and why all birds don't have the same beak. 
• Kabocha squash and Japanese sweet potatoes are so delicious. 
• Two especially fun times at Gorilla: first, one morning all the females and the two babies in our family group were sleeping near the viewing area, so you could see them close up.  And see the little boys just absolutely conked out.  Sleeping baby gorillas are unsurprisingly adorable.  The second time that was interesting was when there was a small snake in the exhibit, and the boys were on their moms' backs and all of the gorillas were looking at the snake and trying to figure out what to make of it. 
• Had a Senior Wilderness Explorer ceremony (when someone gets all their badges, they become a Senior and we celebrate) the other day where the two girls (probably early teens) just could not stop smiling at me and it 1) made it so I couldn't stop smiling either and 2) gave me goosebumps. 
• I led a preshift (our meeting before work each day)!  I talked to my coworkers about Gorongosa National Park (where I conducted my senior thesis research last summer, feel free to check out my blog about it if you're interested) and some of the research I did there.  The presentation went well, and I was really happy to talk to everyone at work about a place I love. 

I got a food processor!  Which means, most importantly, that I can now make banana ice cream.  Those of you who know me well understand how amazingly wonderful this is. This was an ice cream sundae, with a vegan brownie, coco whip and chocolate nice cream :D

I met Rapunzel and Flynn Rider together last night! It was a special event for College Program people and PIs living in Disney housing, and it was fun.  A bit of a long wait, but they almost never meet together anywhere else, so worth it :)

That's pretty much it for now.  I'm going to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party this weekend and I'm really excited, so look for a post on that soon. 

Good night!

Certified diver!

Guys guys guys! I did a thing!

I'M A CERTIFIED SCUBA DIVER! 

This weekend I did my checkout dives for my SCUBA class.  On Saturday, we went to Blue Grotto for our first day of dives.  It's a freshwater spring that's a common dive resort.  The actual diving and practicing of skills was totally fine, the main not fun thing for me was the temperature.  The water there is 72 degrees, which sounds fine but is actually freezing.  I was wearing a full body wetsuit and I was still shaking and super cold when I was in the water.  Coolest thing I did on Saturday was hang out underwater upside down. That was awesome.   

View of the spring and the deck where we put on our gear

The spring!

So official

Andrea and me

On Sunday we drove down to West Palm Beach for an ocean dive with Little Deeper Charters.  Until the two dives we did in the ocean, I only kind of understood why people were so hooked on diving and why it was so fun.  After those two dives, I get it.  You literally go down to the bottom of the water, check out all the coral and fish and other animals that live there, and you don't have to surface to breathe.  Like, what?  Obviously I knew this before I actually went diving, but I didn't fully understand what it was like/how cool it would be until Sunday.  Things we saw: a ton of reef fish, a sea turtle, two nurse sharks, several lionfish (we even caught one of them--I mentioned before how terrible they are for Atlantic ecosystems, so divers often catch them to remove them from the reefs), and a very large lobster.  It was a super long day because West Palm Beach is pretty far from where I live, so with driving and being out on the boat and getting dinner before coming back, I didn't get home until midnight.  But overall it was amazing.  I loved being underwater for so long and seeing everything that lives down there, and I'm excited for a lifetime of getting to explore different marine environments with SCUBA. I'm not sure if I posted it on here before, but getting to do this class was a Christmas gift from my grandparents last year, so I want to say a huge thank you to them. Love you both, this has been incredible. 

Where we went out from

The group (me with other students and our instructors)

There were some pictures taken underwater, which I'm hoping I'll have access to soon.  If I do, I'll post them!

I need to share some fun stories from work from the last week or so, but I'm going to end this here. 

Hope everyone's doing well at home and hopefully enjoying some cooler weather!

Weekend fun

Hi everyone!

Finished my first weekend of SCUBA class! We actually only had class on Friday and Saturday because the class is small enough that we finished all the pool skills with only one day. 

With Andrea, one of the other girls in the class

Only having SCUBA Friday/Saturday meant that I got to sleep late and then hang out with Connor, another explorer, on Sunday!  I was randomly able to get us a fastpass for the Frozen ride at Epcot on Saturday night, so we went to Epcot and had fun exploring. After the ride, we did Ellen's Energy Adventure, a ride that opened at Epcot in 1982 and has both Ellen Degeneres and Bill Nye. It's really long but I enjoyed it and it had good info.  Then we went and explored The Seas and got to see a lockout chamber presentation, talk to Liana and some of her co-workers, and watch them feed a ton of fish.

Lionfish!  Cool-looking fish, terrible for native fish in the Atlantic Ocean

Unintentional pseudo-twinning

I took yesterday evening to do some big girl things at my apartment, and started Week 12 today.  Working Monday-Friday this week, with two days of open water dives next weekend and then Monday off.

Good night!

Week ten! (and a half)

Hi friends!

First: Happy Birthday Fairma!  I'm glad you had a good day and I'm super excited to see you soon and I love you lots :)

So I survived my first kind-of Florida hurricane! Which I'm pretty sure wasn't actually a hurricane by the time it reached us. And was actually just a ton of rain. But. Whatever it was, it happened and I'm still here. Just maybe a little wetter than I was before. 

Fun things from last week:

• On Wednesday, we had a team builder at Epcot after work.  It was a scavenger hunt throughout the park, which was awesome. It was also pouring, so we were soaked from the time we got there pretty much. 

So wet. Visiting a troll in Norway

 Fun fact: they still run the fireworks show even when it's raining!

The wilderness must be explored! Whatever the weather

• I already posted about my dinner on Thursday, and I had a really nice day before that.  Erin and I hung out for the whole day, and we watched The Little Prince.  Which might be one of my new favorite movies.  It was absolutely wonderful, and I highly recommend that you watch it. 
• After work on Saturday, I went with some friends to Magic Kingdom.  I know I've said this on here before, but it still blows my mind that I can just do that--say, "Hey, I want to go to Magic Kingdom after work tomorrow" and then make it happen. The park was crazy crowded (Saturday night of Labor Day weekend), but still a lot of fun. We watched Celebrate the Magic and Wishes (castle show and fireworks) and I rode the Peter Pan ride for the first time since getting here!

The castle is so beautiful

"I only hope that we don't lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a mouse."

Wishes

Ready for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party! (I'm going at the end of the month)

Friends!

• On Sunday afternoon, I went out to lunch with Maggie and her boyfriend Jacob.  Ten points to you if you can guess where we went?  Correct answer: Ethos. This was the first time I was there for lunch, and it was super yummy. 

Breakfast skillet: tofu scramble with veggies, potatoes, cheddar cheese, breakfast sausage and a biscuit

And a cinnamon roll!

Finally got pictures of more than just the food there!

Third wheeling like a champ

• Finished my e-learning stuff for SCUBA!  The class starts on Friday...
• Also survived my first real car issues/flat tires/broken valves. Huge shoutout to Uncle Greg for coming to my rescue last night! Thank you so much. And to Erin for keeping me company at the car service place today :)

And some of my favorite stories from work:

• Didn't happen to me, but this afternoon I heard a little girl tell another presenter that her favorite animal is cheese...
• In one day, I got told off by two different little girls for addressing the first one as "friend" (her response: "I'm a PRINCESS!") and the second one as "princess" ("I'm not a princess!").
• On one of the days that was so wet, I watched a small child be pushed by me in a stroller pretty much wrapped up in a Disney shopping bag
• One morning, while I was helping her children get started with our program and the macaws were flying by the Tree of Life (Winged Encounters, a show that happens at the park) I heard a woman say to herself "This is amazing." And I get to do it every day :D
• Also in one day, I met three separate Katies from NJ... Including one from Roxbury Township
• Met a family who had completed their books over several trips in a number of years (they said 11 trips in 5 years, but our program didn't start as Wilderness Explorers until 2013, so that can't be quite right).  One of the things the little girl told me that she'd learned from the program, as part of a list of facts she shared with me, was that "wilderness exploring is awesome."  And she gave me a hug after I got her the senior badge and celebrated, and it was fantastic. 
• Learned that all crocodilians have tongues that are attached to the bottom of their mouths along the entire length of the tongue.  Also learned that not only is trying to speak while keeping your tongue attached to the bottom of your mouth quite amusing, but asking others to do the same is also adorable and fun :)

And that's all for now. As we get closer and closer to Princeton heading back to school (classes start one week from today), not being on campus is feeling stranger and stranger.  Also as we get closer to actual "fall," it's going to be weirder and weirder that it's not colder. I'm still learning how to be a non-college student not living in the Northeast.

Bye for now!

Bonus photo: where do I live now? This was taken during a run at the intersection of "Wild Strawberry Run" and "Wild Black Berry Tr"

Trail's End Dinner!

Hello!

I'm going to do a post covering fun stuff at work this week, but first a post about my dinner on Thursday.  Which was amazing and fantastic and delicious and any other positive food-related (or not) word you could think of.  Because I went to Trail's End with my roommates on Thursday evening, which is where Chef TJ works.

Chef TJ is a truly wonderful chef who's been with Disney for a while.  He's from Indonesia, and he's known online as someone who does a really great job handling dietary restrictions.  I'd read about this before Alex's and my trip down here in May, so we went to Trail's End for dinner and it was incredible.  Chef TJ cooked me a five course vegan meal, with plenty so that Alex could enjoy the regular buffet and taste everything I had.  I knew I wanted to go back and visit him again, so I invited my roommates to celebrate not going back to school with me and we went :)

On Thursday night, Erin and I ate what Chef TJ prepared and Liana and Haley enjoyed the regular buffet.  He outdid himself by making us a six course vegan meal. 

Course One: vegan nachos with his own homemade vegan cheese sauce

Course Two: spinach beet salad with a really nice sweet dressing on it

Course Three: potato and pea samosas

Course Four: corn chowder. Holy cannoli this was good

Course Five: a vegetable, tofu, rice dish. Which was delectable.  We asked what the flavoring was on it, and he said it had some sort of Indonesian ketchup-y thing that was sweetened with palm sugar; soy sauce and spicy mustard.  Erin and I had been trying to describe it, and it made total sense to me that we weren't able to name all the flavors because I've never had  some of those things. 

Final course: a dessert tower. Chef TJ brought out these two beautiful creations and then doused them in Hershey's syrup at the table. 

Behold...

And a very happy Katie 

Very happy roommates :)

This is certainly not the last time I'll visit Trail's End during my internship--I already have plans to bring my family there for my birthday dinner, and I'll probably be back sometime before then as well.  It's just that good. And Chef TJ is just that nice, talented, humble and awesome. So, I highly recommend eating here, whether you have someone in your party with a dietary restriction or not.  I've heard really good things about the main buffet, both for breakfast and for dinner. 

Nom nom nom :)