I have seen more and more that work can have crazy busy times and super slow times.  I have been working for 7 days straight and will continue to work 3 more days.  Yet, these hard times at work will bring me a long awaited vacation of 5 days.  I have bought train tickets to go to Vancouver, British Columbia and Seattle, Washington, more about that later.  At work, I have been doing various things such as estuary walks and ocean quest.  There have been some amazing days at work.  There were days this week where I was completely amazed by the public and it made me feel on top of the world.  I had one couple in particular that went on my estuary walk and asked millions of questions that I could actually answer and they said they were so happy with my tour and welcoming attitude.  They talked to me constantly in the visitor’s center, I even talked them into staying for the eye level tank feeding and ocean quest.  They even went up to McKenzie to say how happy they were with me and how this experience was one they would not forget easily.  That day, I felt like I was really accomplishing something this summer and making a difference in people’s lives.

For challenges, the public was a large one; whether it was trying to understand the public in general or dealing with them in my project.  We had many foreigners come to Hatfield this week including Portuguese researchers and Japanese researchers to see our wave energy areas so I had to put on the shmoozing and know my wave energy research.  It was definitely a challenge when someone who knows way more about wave energy and shore erosion is asking you questions about your project and the goals of the exhibit.  Especially when there’s a 5 year old right there not following directions and basically destroying your project.  Yet, it  did make me feel empowered when I could fully answer their questions and get my point across clearly.

While I work for the next couple a days I mainly am looking ahead and seeing what I can improve upon at my job.  My project will need some more work, especially one how to keep the water from getting so dirty and murky after only one day.  I’m hoping the tsunami tank will be ready to go by Monday or Tuesday.  I’m also excited for more aquarist work such as seeing how the nudibranch  eggs develop and figuring out more about salmon.  Things like this keep my job interesting, I only await more fun to begin.