ncur

NCUR, otherwise known as the National Conference of Undergraduate Research, is being held this weekend up at Weber State University in Ogden (otherwise known as the middle of nowhere). I was set to present my research, carefully compiled into a colorful poster full of beautiful pictures of pigeons, on Thursday morning at the second poster session of the conference. I woke up at eight, got ready and put on professional clothes (aka slacks vs jeans), and then set off for Ogden, which is about an hour away. I had a little bit of trouble finding out where I was supposed to park, since I was following a van full of other students dressed in professional clothes with poster tubes that led me astray. I eventually found the correct parking area and got on a shuttle for the union building, which is where registration and the poster sessions were being held. The first thing to learn about scientists is that many are antisocial. SOOO antisocial. There were a couple of people with poster tubes also getting on the shuttle and I asked them brightly, "Is this the right shuttle?" and they all nodded solemnly and then ignored me for the rest of the shuttle ride. Upon arriving, I registered, got a shit ton of swag (lanyard, bag, water bottle, awwww yeah), and then hung out for awhile before setting up my poster.



Back to the antisocial part of science. For some reason, a lot of scientists (undergrads especially) try to avoid any sort of contact with people when prowling around poster presentations.



I'm all for having conversations with people about their research and making new friends (well, most of the time), but apparently not very many other people were. After about half an hour, however, I started getting people who would actual engage in conversation with me. One was a statistics professor who asked me the one question no undergrad ever wants to hear, "can you explain the statistics you did on these graphs?" I tried my best, since Jessi had been over them with me the day before, and finally he took pity on me and explained who he was and why he wanted to know. We discussed survival curves for awhile until another sassy undergraduate named Johnathan came up and started asking me about the antibodies that the pigeons create against flies, since he was interested in immunology. An hour later, I was allowed to tear down my poster and was officially FREEEE!!! I stuffed my poster back in its tube and then decided to attend the next poster session to see if there was any cool research going on. When I go to poster sessions, my bleeding heart makes me talk to people who look lonely and have no one asking about their poster, even if I am not interested in their poster AT ALL (or if I have no idea what's going on). Because of this, I learned about stuff I never would have inquired about, like geology, biochemistry, and psychology. I won't go into details about all of the SCIENCE I learned about, but it was COO. The best was when I found people with other BIRD RESEARCH!



There were a lot of east coast schools that study climate change and other effects of humans on birds and their habitat. Unfortunately, the people from these schools seemed a bit terrified of my enthusiasm and were not exactly...talkative. As much as I tried to make friends with them because we both loved BIRDS, they weren't interested. Oh well! I grabbed some lunch down in the cafeteria and then headed back to the posters and the grad fair, where I obtained some more stuff.



I had a lot of swag by the end of the day. I finally left the conference around four and went back to the shuttle, which was full of dicks. I escaped Weber State and went home to take a nap, glad to be done with my presentation. Later that night, Gabi came over so I could give her some velcro for her poster (to hang it on the presentation boards, since she was presenting the next day). She persuaded (aka begged) me to come with her to the conference the next day as well, so I woke up at 6 AM so we could get there before her presentation time at 8:30 AM.



Gabi was not pleased by Ogden. The ride up was fun because we had snacks and powerade and then ended up getting the ultimate car food: McDonald's breakfast. When we reached Weber State again, we registered Gabi and got me another lanyard (so I could get free stuff again) and then set up her poster. During her presentation time she explained to me her poster, which sort of went over my head, and then our old BioURP advisors and UROP advisor came over to visit us. We got our pictures taken (which I'll post once I get them; there are some special ones of me) and then visited some more until Gabi's session was over.



So we went to lunch. Downtown South Ogden is actually rather cute and vintage. Rooster's Brewery didn't open until 11 AM, so we wasted time at a cute boutique until it opened and then wasted some MORE time until 11:30 when we could get BEER. Then we decided we were about to pass out, so instead of returning to the conference we headed home to take two hour naps. It was delicious.

I also got my graduation cap, gown, and stole yesterday. Scarryyyyy.

I will post about spring break next, I PROMISE.

curse this week

I have been SO BUSY, holy shit. I have the National Conference of Undergraduate Research to go to this weekend that I'm presenting a poster at this Thursday, which required a majority of last week's input and hard work. Now it's getting printed (though my special pigeon drawing got a little bit pixelated when it was blown up, but I'll worry about that later). This week I had two tests (behavioral ecology on Monday and biochem on Tuesday), so I have gotten about eight hours of sleep in the past three days (which is as much as I require each night, since I become an infant when I don't sleep). As such, I bawled during an episode of 20/20 tonight while watching it with my mom. Also this week we have our IACUC inspections for our pigeon rooms, so we need to scour and scrub every inch and surface of those rooms, which is what's up for tomorrow. Tomorrow night is book club, even though I most definitely have not read the book for this month (even though I totally had spring break to do it...which I still need to make a post about).

COOL things that have happened though (besides spring break, which is what's up next) include Alice being home for all of last week! We did a ton of cool things, including:

-dressing up as people from the capitol (aka ridiculous) and going to the midnight premier of HUNGER GAMES!!! Review to come soon...maybe.
-"studying" at Nostalgia
-going to the Festival of Colors, which is the largest celebration of Holi in the western hemisphere, apparently. It was beautiful, and I loved the thought that we were welcoming spring by throwing the colors. We all looked hilarious by the end of it, since we attended for two throwings and then were targets for people tossing their colored powder about with gay abandon (good thing it was fragranced, everything smelled so good). It was tons of fun. Maybe next time I'll try to take more pictures
-went to JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS concert in Wendover! We basically drove two hours south, turned back after a couple of hours there, showered for an hour (and SCRUBBED), and then drove in the opposite direction for another two hours
-drank strawberry daiquiris, danced to loud rock music in the front row (my ears just barely recovered yesterday), caught a Joan Jett guitar pick that was thrown into the crowd, was taught gambling by a sage old woman and won $5, and finally transferred Seamus to Alice (who we renamed Seamus Gnolland O'Leary). Don't worry, we also took his picture gambling in Wendover and we're going to photoshop him into pictures from the concert.

Basically this past weekend was EPIC and I'm super glad I got to see Alibus :D

Some eye phone pictures



So cooool. I really liked it. I think two hours is a good amount of time, especially in the morning before it gets TOO swamped with people. When we started trying to exit, we found out the line was HUGE to get out, so we just jumped a fence (HARDCORE! In fact, people cheered us on as we did it). Then as we walked back, we got spanked by some guys riding a vespa along the road and, since we had like five more miles to walk, we hitchhiked and rode in the back of a truck to our car. SO MUCH FUN. Plus I hugged like one thousand strangers (aka 20) and everyone was super friendly. It was just nice.



The llama farm that was right next door to the temple. We kept gravitating towards it after we got tired of our burning eyes and noses and dancing and chanting since it was like ten degrees cooler out of the bodies of people and the llamas were all jerks and I loved them. We would feed them grass and hay and try to sneak pet them when they were distracted. Some people didn't wipe their hands before petting them, so a lot of them had splotches of random color on them. I didn't want them to feel left out, so I threw grass at them so they felt included (since I was throwing color at everyone else and sprinkling it onto every little kid's head I passed).



Springtime weather! Less so now, as it's a bit cold, but then it was delightfully warm and I went outside with my blanket, dog, and iced tea (and biochem, blech) and intended to nap in the sun (I only brought the biochem to assuage myself). Yummmmm. The rest of that day was spent eating a burrito at Costa Vida, drinking Cordina Mar-GO-ritas and Daiq-GO-ris (which doesn't super work...) in Claire's backyard and then watching Fright Night (which is so gooood). Then it was off to the Hunger Games premiere!



THIS. IS. WENDOVERRRR. So many drunk peeps. Some guy asked me where the pisser was because his friend had to take a leak (so charming) and then some lady in the bathroom started stroking my hair and saying I was so cute. She took quite the interest in what I'd been up to this evening and when I told her I'd been at the Joan Jett concert she was ecstatic. She told me to live it up and have fun. Thank you drunk bathroom lady!



JOAN JETTTT! So good. I really enjoyed her entire set, the guitar was amazing, and she was seriously DIRECTLY IN FRONT OF US. It was also FREE because Alice's grandma is a high roller and won the tickets and then just gave them to us. Sweet.

So that has been my past weekend/week sort. I have journaled my spring break (cool, right?) and will scan it in soon (hopefully). Also I want to update my blog layout because I'm getting bored of it.

Time to draw and watch How I Met Your Mother, toodle pip!

exciting

The other night my dad told me that he was planning on getting me a DSLR for graduation.

I. Freaked. Out.

I am SO SO excited. I seriously can't stop smiling thinking about it. I really love photography and I'm so psyched to be able to learn how to use my new DSLR and be able to take even more beautiful pictures with more contrast, colors, brightness, lens flares, etc. I've been looking at photography blogs all during my break today and even found a beautiful camera bag/purse double that I could use to house my newest child and carry around all my other necessary shit too (and even extras like my beloved point and shoot and my instax mini)



My dad originally wanted it to be a surprise (which would have blown me away, honestly, as I wasn't expecting it at all), but he said he'd rather have me pick out the camera I want. So I'm going to have to start doing research on a good beginner DSLR. He even offered to buy me a lens EEEEEE!





(photos from weheartit.com)

fortbuilding 101

On Sunday night I decided that I wanted to build a blanket fort. I haven't built a fort in years, despite telling myself that I would many times during breaks and weekends. Little did I know how much effort goes into building a fort.





I'm not lying when I say that I was panting and sweating as I lugged blankets around the room, trying different combinations to see what would work and what would actually remain standing.

rule number one of fort building: tables and chairs create the best framework

I first tried to use a clothesline to hold up the blankets and then spread them out by pinning down the sides by books on my bed, but the line was not able to hold up the weight of my purple fuzzy blanket that I draped over it. The other difficulty was that I was using thumbtacks to hold the clothesline up, which just wasn't cutting it. My second attempt was to use our TV trays as a framework. It worked until the fort was completed, taking up 80% of my floor and forcing me to creatively crawl around on my desk and bed to get to the back of my room. I finally army crawled inside my fort and was immediately met with the terrified experience of having everything cave in on me. It was like an avalanche of books, TV trays, and blankets trying to smother me. I yelped for help, but my brother was too busy playing minecraft and ignoring me, so I was forced to dig my way out. After that endeavor, I decided that I needed chairs, even though my room didn't seem like it was big enough to fit any other sort of furniture in it. I managed to squeeze in our family's card table and one other chair to serve as support, along with my desk chair, bookshelf, and bed. With my brother's help (who wants to be an architect someday so now he was interested in what I was doing), we pinned down one side along my bed with heavy books and clothespins, the other side tucked into a network of chairs, and the third also pinned down to my bookshelf with heavy books and my owl figurine. I had already covered the floor in blankets and pillows, meaning that there were literally zero other blankets and pillows throughout the rest of the house. Forts require A LOT of material.

rule number two of fort building: use clothespins to attach blankets together to avoid sketchy patchwork

I like forts to be completely covered, though I have seen a few that are "open air" that also appealed to me. Mostly though, I feel safest when in an enclosed space and more excited when I feel like I have this secret space all to myself. This is why I used clothespins and chip bag clips to pin together the network of quilts, blankets, and duvets to ensure more stability in the roof. In order to lift the part of the fort where we could enter, we ended up tying the clothesline around a section of blanket and then stringing it tight by tying the other end to a coat rack in the hallway. Resourceful! I then army crawled my way inside once again and was pleasantly content to find that it was not falling down on me this time.

rule number three of fort building: make sure there's some sort of light source in there

It might seem that the pictures one sees on weheartit.com with forts covered in fairy lights are pretentious and hipstery, but those fairy lights actually serve a purpose. In my case, at least, it was pitch black inside my fort. Even with the light on in my room. I ended up just using my laptop as a shining beacon, but it would have been handy (and possibly magical) if my fort had fairy lights inside of it. It crossed my mind to hang them inside, but I was too lazy to have any desire to destroy my room any more just to put lights inside my new fort.

rule number four of fort building: make sure to build the fort big enough for more than one person if more than one person desires to play in the fort

I assumed I would be the only one hanging out in my fort, but my brother really wanted to watch Disney movies in it with me, so I relented. Unfortunately, the Disney movie I REALLY wanted to watch (Hunchback of Notre Dame) was not working in my mini TV that I use to play Gamecube on, so instead we went to Dreamworks and watched Road to Eldorado on my laptop. There was not enough room for both of us in there. I contorted my body in a way I thought impossible in order to give my legs enough room to stretch with the both of us in there, which also resulted in being in contact with the freezing cold metal of the table's legs at all points during the movie. Eventually, our bodies sort of melded with the fort so we could ignore it, but at the beginning it was ridiculous.

Halfway through the movie, my brother declared that he was going to bed and slowly backed out of the fort. I gathered the dogs (my parents were out of town) and shut them in my room as I tried to find a version of Hunchback on youtube to watch (I really wanted to see it). Taffy and Winston hung out in the fort for awhile, but then Taffy started gazing around at her surroundings and sort of panicked, panting and whining. Finally, she found a weak link in the outer layer of my duvet and instead waited outside the fort. Winston followed her lead and also decided to lay down outside the fort while I found a version of Hunchback that I could tolerate and started watching it (completely random, but the version I found was one that a guy made for his sister's birthday where he re-dubbed all of the male voices AND songs in his own voice. It. Is. HILARIOUS. But it's the only full version of the movie on youtube and also turned out to be of great comedic value, especially since he couldn't really fluctuate emotions...at all). At about 3:30 AM, I decided that sleeping in the fort was a no-go since my back was killing me and ripped it down before curling up in my bed.

Still, fort time was fun! My plan is to make a bigger one next time not in my room (because trying to get to other things with a fort dominating the floor is a bitch).

Here are some fort ideas that I might utilize in the future (to make my fort experience even better)











To end

love life

There are so many things I love about life. It's spring break, it's warm and fairly sunny outside, and I feel so good.



batty sunsets



fossil storerooms



fairy lights



hilariously named fish



water illusions (but not more than real water)



miniature scientists/artists



museum dioramas



owl eyes



dinosaurs that look like they're saying "COME AT ME, BRO"



being so obsessed with something you hate



silver water sunsets



watercolor valentines



non-traditional self portraits



narnia snow



fabulous extinct megafauna





class doodles



seeing this face first thing in the morning



first row :: log cabins that are lit-up in the midst of a blizzard//instagram sunsets//latte art

second row :: seeing your name somewhere unexpectedly//mouth explorations//angry birds

third row :: more sunsets (I love them a lot)//floating lights//drawing pigeons on everything

fourth row :: kids who are excited about science (and cockroaches)//pokemon that follow you//wintery nights



first row :: ice-cream sundaes with lots of bananas//beer served in frosted goblets//vodka gummy bears

second row :: saturday night shots//begging dogs that go a little bit further//my lab's way of labeling things (clamps x thing-a-magigs)

Other things that rule
-netflix
-purse puppies
-this blog
-glitter dinosaurs
-drawing in my sketchbook at Nostalgia
-creating screenplays for the film SNAKE! THE! MOVIE!
-selling things on Etsy
-learning how to ballroom dance from a short, feisty, german man
-the app Draw Me
-naming pokemon after my favorite cartoon characters
-neon colored nail polish
-buying new shorts
-pictures of bats (with feelings)
-lectures from inspiring conservationists
-forts
-dog cuddles

My plans for the next few days involve going to Moab with some friends for hiking and camping, trivia night (Geeks who Drink) at Piper Down, craft sleepovers, more adventure days, designing a T-shirt for the biology department, and PARTYING DOWN on Saturday for St. Patrick's Day!

Happy Spring Break

homer is me

G P O Y

sunday night survey

It's Sunday night and I've spent the day cleaning my birds' cages, doing bird care, weighing vials for the experiment, and studying conservation biology. Though I only got about half of the stuff done I meant to (though the bird cage thing was an additive that was, admittedly, desperately needed).

1: What do you put on hotdogs?
Cheddar cheese! I dislike most condiments, so if I get it from a street vendor or something I take it plain, and if made at home I snuggle slices of cheddar cheese next to the dog in its bun.

2: Do you say “anticlimatic” or “anticlimactic”?
Anti-climactic. Because otherwise you would be refusing the existence of an atmosphere.

3: Do you check flyers before grocery shopping?
Ha! No, I just go to the store and buy extras if there happens to be a sale. For instance, 10 for $10 Annie's white cheddar mac n cheese? ALL 10 BABY.

4: Blue, black, or some other colour pen ink?
Blue-ink pens make me irrationally irritated. I prefer black, liquid ink pens.

5: Do you use your parking brake?
Awwww yeeeah! I don't trust the whole first gear brake business.

6: Look to your left. How many framed pictures are on the wall?
I have two paper-framed pictures, but the rest are just free-floating snapshots or prints or drawings people have done for me.

7: Do you know how to play chess?
Yes! My dad is a huge chess nerd (or at least he used to be), so one of the first things he taught me was how to play chess. He wanted me to play competitively and bought me a book on strategies, but I dodged that bullet.

8: How often do you clean the interior of your car?
Never. I really need to though. It's disgusting.

9: Do you ever read the last few pages first?
NEVER! Even though sometimes I want to know DESPERATELY how the book ends, my self control (which is practically non-existent) somehow wins in the end.

10: Ever fallen in the shower?
I've had close calls where I slip in bathtubs that don't have grips on the bottom.

11: On a scale of 1-10, how likely are you to swear at other drivers?
9.5. Pretty damn likely.

12: What’s the worst thing you’ve ever called someone you care about?
When I was little, I used to call my mom a bitch in my diary to make myself feel better when she did things that made me angry. However, one day I left my diary out and my dad read it. He argued that I left it open to that page (so maybe I subconsciously wanted attention) and I argued that I did NOT and that he read my personal property, and in the end I felt really terrible about ever calling my mom a bitch. So never again.

13: Do you have a Snuggie?
I WISH.

14: Are you allergic to anything?
I'm allergic to pineapple, fall leaves, and horned lizards.

15: Do you have any TV shows on DVD?
We have a lot of seasons of The Simpsons, some Futurama and Spongebob, all of Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, Invader Zim, and maybe some others I can't think of at the moment.

16: How many times do you hit the snooze button before finally getting out of bed?
Honestly, probably four. I'm trying to decrease it down to two or three so that I can spend more time grooming myself before school.

17: Ever driven away in anger?
I did once when I lived by myself. One night while visiting my parents my dad and I got into a huge fight and I just got in my car and drove to the end of the street while screaming and crying. Then I couldn't do it, so I turned around and went back to the house to apologize and everything was fine.

18: What’s your favourite freezie colour?
PINK OTTERPOPPPP!

19: Are you a vegetarian?
No. I tried to be once but it didn't work out.

20: Do you have a garbage receptacle beside you? What’s on top?
I have a green trash receptacle that says ERROR on it for some unknown reason. Nothing is really on top of it.

21: Do you cross out your mistakes or erase/whiteout them?
Erase if I'm writing in pencil, but scribble out if I'm writing in pen or marker.

22: Ever torn something up that you instantly knew was too important for such treatment?
Nah, I've never let anger get that far while I was holding something like that.

23: Do you think that things will get better?
Yes! I am confident that they will, though things are not particularly bad right now (knock on wood)

24: Do you have an unpopular opinion? What is it?
I guess I have unpopular opinions to conservative republicans, since I support women being able to make their own choices about their own bodies, I support equality for everyone, I support a non-capitalistic society, and I EXTREMELY support conservation.

25: What’s your favourite quote?
I have several favorite quotes. I particularly like "ADVENTURE IS OUT THERE!" :)

26: Did you/are you going to go to prom?
I went to prom with a bunch of my franz. I can most definitely say that our prom was amazing (because Maddeh was our prom queen and she wore the pinkest, fluffiest, CUPCAKIEST DRESS you have ever seen).

27: What’s the most physically painful thing you’ve ever experienced?
Getting stitches in my ear with no painkillers or anything after I'd fallen down a cliff when I was in first grade.

28: What’s the most emotionally/mentally painful thing you’ve ever experienced?
Falling in love and realizing that he didn't love me back.

29: Have you ever legitimately saved a person’s life?
Nooo, once when I was little I was convinced I'd saved my brother's life because I pulled him in on his boogie board as the tide was pulling him out (plus he was freaking out).

30: What’s your favourite book genre?
Good question! I like all sorts of books, though I am more inclined to read something if it's spooky or creepy or mysterious at all.

31: Did you like “Gigli”? Be honest.
I didn't know what it was until I googled it two seconds ago. It sounds like an...interesting movie premise.

32: Have you ever walked out of a movie at the theatre?
No, what a waste of money. STICK IT OUT MAN! Plus my favorite thing ever is to make fun of movies, so I can usually have fun no matter how terrible a movie is.

33: Do you peek between your fingers during the scary scenes?
Yeah, haha. Well, sometimes. When I watched The Ring with my friend in 8th grade (which was the most scarring movie I've ever watched), I closed my eyes during the parts where she'd climb out of the TV screen and didn't peek at all because I was so scared.

34: What was your reaction to Tatum getting killed whilst stuck in the pet door in Scream?
I was pretty disappointed by it because I liked Tatum. Even though her name is stupid.

35: Do dogs like you?
Dogs love meeee.

36: Would you say that you project an air of authority?
Nope. Not at all.

37: Do people listen when you speak?
Unfortunately, not very often. Something about me must prompt people to talk over me. I was the listener for so long and have just barely started wanting to talk during conversations a couple of years ago, so maybe that's the reason why.

38: How are your elbows? Are they okay?
The feel pretty great, thanks! A little dry I guess.

39: What is one thing that you do exceptionally well? Be honest.
I think I'm pretty good at empathizing with people. I can usually tell what someone is feeling or thinking by their actions and aura.

40: Do you use torrents?
I honestly can't really figure them out, so I mostly use mediafire to download the occasional song.

41: When was the last time you paid for music?
I bought the songs from the pilot episode of SMASH.

42: Are you addicted to technology?
Probably. I can't be off my laptop for longer than a couple of hours or my energy levels start to DEPLETE.

43: Pick a person (you don’t need to give their name). How do you feel about them? Be as honest as you can get yourself to be.
I don't mean to be repetitive, but I did love you. And knowing that you didn't feel that way about me really hurt and continued to hurt for far too long. I'm trying my best to get over you (for real this time), but it's a hard road. I still think I love you, but I'm trying to make it easier. Especially since I'm leaving.

44: Do you check your computer’s dictionary for the definition of words you’d otherwise feel confident about using during in-person interactions? Just to be sure?
Sometimes when I'm in conversation with a person I know really knows the meanings of different words and who would judge me otherwise (hahaha).

45: How heavily to you rely on spellcheck and autocorrect?
Autocorrect sometimes plays heavily into my texting, especially since touchscreen eludes my finger-skills (and also when I'm drunk), and spellcheck is good for when I'm typing fast. I'm good speller though.

46: Have you ever gotten into an argument on the internet? Did you win?
I got into an argument just last night! On facebook there was a whole post talking about the hunting of wolves from helicopters and it got into a debate about the ethics of eliminating keystone species like wolves from the environment. And then a bunch of people ended up backing me up and the guy stopped responding, so I consider that a victory!

47: Do you pause movies/TV shows if you have to go to the bathroom or the kitchen, or do you just let them keep playing?
I pause them if I haven't seen them before, but if I have then I usually let them play.

48: If you use a regular alarm clock, do you have it set to music or that obnoxious beeping?
MUSIC! I can't STAND alarm clock beeping. If an alarm goes off in a show or something and I hear it, I automatically feel like punching something. Also I hate it when I'm sleeping over at a friend's house or am somewhere where I can hear someone's alarm clock going off and they don't wake up and TURN IT OFF. It makes me want to murder someone.

49: Peter Pan?
...yes?

50: How often do you fall up the stairs?
Quite a bit. I miss steps a lot for some reason.

51: Do you pronounce “anti” as ant-eye or ant-ee? (Example: “That scene was very anticlimactic.”)
Usually ant-eye.

52: Do you pronounce “via” as vee-uh or vie-uh? (Example: “We can get there via Tremont Street.”)
Vee-uh. I have never heard someone pronounce it vie-uh. Do people actually do that?

53: How often do you forget to close your parentheses?
Only when I'm writing sometimes. I remember when I'm typing (because I can see them more easily).

PENGOOS

YOU GUYS

LIVE. PENGUINO. CAM.

Maddie introduced it to me today and I haven't stopped watching for an hour. It's so captivating, just seeing penguins going about their lives in captivity. I just stared at one King Penguin preening itself for twenty minutes until another Emperor Penguin waddled up and just started standing directly in front of the preening pengoo.



There was also a little bit of a brawl going on behind them where the penguin pictured snapped at another one and drove it into the water. Good times.







Then the camera view switched to a bigger field with no water in the background.









Scratch scratch scratch!



The best part was when penguins would stand reeeeally close to the camera because they were either inspecting it or they just didn't give two shits.







There was one Adelie Penguin that would march directly in front of the camera and just stare into my soul. Unfortunately, I didn't think to screencap it because I was too busy staring into the eyes of a freaking Adelie Penguin. ON MY COMPUTER! This live cam is so awesome. Then there was also a Gentoo Penguin that wasn't QUITE done molting running around spastically.



Sometimes I would be watching the pengoos just serenely grooming and hanging out when suddenly crazy Gentoo Pengoo would come zipping across screen and then disappear for a few minutes before booking it across the screen once more.



This is my representation.

Things I saw:
-penguins preening
-penguins scratching their heads with their little feet and having to bend down reaaally low to do so
-penguins pooping
-penguins slipping because they were running too fast on the ice
-penguins rocketing out of the water like little torpedoes
-penguins squabbling
-penguins running with their flippers flowing freely behind them
-penguins eyeballing the camera creepily
-penguins teetering between wanting to dive into the water and wanting to stay on land and then ending up getting shoved into the water by another penguin anyway
-penguins laying on their stomachs and chillin'
-penguins moving around on their stomachs because they can't be bothered to stand up
-penguins following a trainer around

Basically, it's really cool and definitely cheered me up. I've been feeling overwhelmed today and like I can't possibly do what I want to do in life, so when I feel like that I usually go swing up at the park. But today there were ONE MILLION children there, so I came home instead and watched the pengoo cam.