Are you oriented?

I got asked that a lot today, since I finally had my official "orientation" class. It wasn't tremendously exciting, but they managed to keep it from being boring at least. Since orientation took so long, though, I didn't do very much real work. I was in the dome for an hour, mostly by myself, but I talked to Fred and his new girl a bit (Fred is our resident Red-legged Honeycreeper, who has a new girlfriend since his old mate died, but she's still in a Hello cage for today). I also was called "beautiful" by a little girl, and that pretty much made my day. It wasn't bad for a "Friday". I just hope my "weekend" is as good.

Another full day in the insectarium. We weren't too busy today, which was nice, and visitors were much kinder than they were yesterday (holiday weekends + summer somehow makes people very irritable and rather mean). I had a brush with an assassin bug in the back room, though, which was a bit frightening, since they are highly venomous, but Dan took care of it. Later I got surprised by Steve showing up after lunch, so he got a tour of the back room, and the insectarium.

Tomorrow is an earlier day, because I have my orientation finally. However, it means I get to leave earlier as well, which is nice since it's my "Friday".

Not much of an expert...

But I have been working for almost two weeks now. I've learned a lot, and hopefully this can start to be a daily (or at least almost-daily) updating of what's going on in the Insectarium. For now, I'm sadly too tired to write much.

~ Rebecca, your friendly insect keeper

American burying beetle expert

Coming soon, this blog will feature one of the world's premier experts on the American burying beetle, a fascinating endangered insect. She will also conduct virtual zoo tours and tell you all about what to do in the event of a bumblebee sting!