Day 1

It happened! My first day as an official employee of the Aquarium! I arrived late (not my fault- just putting it out there now) and rushed out to the Morning Update all the floor staff members attend. The Morning Update consists of any news from the other departments (husbandry, management, special events, etc.) and features an Animal of the Day which the aquarium has been donated and either cannot have on display for one reason or another, or is brand new to the aquarium. This particular morning we met out by the Lorikeet Forest because it was such a nice day outside, and our Animal was a beautiful hawk which obviously could not be indoors. The bird had been donated to the Aquarium, which does have a terrestrial animal program (the lorikeets and wallabys are on display, several animals like the hawk are not because we don't have a place to put them. There is a large 'barn' on the aquarium grounds where the animals are kept and cared for, but isn't available for visitors). We also learned that the sponge display had been disassembled and that the halibut in the 'Sex Changing Fish' gallery don't actually change sex, we just needed a bottom feeder in the tank. So you know, basic stuff.
Then I got my uniform! Trotting nervously after the Day Captain, Steve, a man who manages to be several places at one time, we whisked around various back rooms so quickly the memory is a blur- the first stop was some back room where they took a terrible picture of me that got put on an official looking badge. I later learned that this badge is my key to the kingdom- it allows me access to any room, free parking, free admission, discounts in the store, and I must wear it at all times, even if I am visiting the aquarium on a day I am not working. I cannot help but feel particularly smug about this. We then found the name tag station, where there, etched into a beautiful magnetic piece of plastic, was my name and the title 'Exhibit Interpreter.' There were lots of other new volunteer badges on the board, and they all had really dopey looking ribbons attached that said 'Employee in Training.' By some divine providence I did not have one and Steve seemed particularly concerned about this because he was afraid I would get asked questions. I politely told him I was not worried about being asked questions, and would be happy to defer any I didn't know to the person I was going to shadow for the day. I took the job to be asked questions!!!! Remarkably enough the hardest question I was asked that day was where are the restrooms... I know marine organisms much better than the layout of the aquarium. Then I was whisked to another closet of an office where a bunch of ladies were sitting at computers among stacks and stacks of clothes. Finding my name on a list they held up various shirts to me with an alarming speed, and tried to sell me other pieces of clothing at the same time. I eventually just took one and ran out of the chaos, probably with more shirts being flung after me.
Steve waited outside as I assembled it all together. I had my 'stone' colored pants on already. The ladies locker room in the back garage has huge floor to ceiling mirrors, buckets of free tampons, and lockers for our extra junk. I put my things away and put on my uniform, clipped on my badge, attached my name tag, and pinned on my little shark pin that says 'commitment to service excellence' (you get rewarded for excellence by different animal pins. The shark is given to all new volunteers. The starfish is a pretty big deal, and I hope to get it someday!). Then I inspected myself in the mirror. Yes its cheesy and yes it sounds dopey, but it was a pretty incredible moment. I really liked what I saw. It fit, and I gave a silent nod to the small girl somewhere inside who touched a slick fish and dreamed of being a mermaid. I don't live in the ocean, and I don't have a tail, but I am now a teacher, and as such I am also a protector. That is good enough.

Breathless and ready to go- I met Jim, a kindly retired man I was supposed to shadow all day. Jim is friendly and about 1000000 feet tall, and told me that he will remember my name only because he has a daughter named Lauren. I laughed and told him that the only way I was going to remember his name was because I once had a horse named Jim. We became friends. First half hour was at the plankton station!!! We collected a sample of seawater from the bay and put droplets under a microscope which is hooked up to a projector which displays all the nifty microorganisms swimming around. People don't really seem to find plankton interesting, I have discovered. Either that, or they think the touch tanks on either side of the plankton lab and the sea otters across the room are more interesting, but I didn't have any interaction the first hour. This was fine- it allowed me to get my feet wet (no pun intended, various parts of me got soaked all throughout the day) and just become a pair of eyes. I watched the staff at the touch tanks and listened for what kind of questions are asked. Then it was Jim's and my turn to man the touch tank station. It was supposed to simulate temperate pacific ocean environments, and thanks to CIMI I was already familiar with lots of the species. While busily trying to detach a crab from a sea cucumber, I heard a small voice on the other side of the tank. "Um...excuse me... whats that?" she said. A tiny Hispanic girl who barely reached the top of the tank motioned at a brightly colored anemone swaying just below the water. I froze. She looked at me expectantly. Jim looked at me expectantly. I knew exactly what it was... it was a rose anemone from northern California. It eats small fish. It has thousands of tiny stinging cells. But I couldn't formulate a single word. For a long moment I was paralyzed with nervousness. Jim acted quickly, he leaned over and prepared to take the reins, but somehow that movement caused the last little piece of whatever was missing to slide back into place. "ITS A ROSE ANEMONE!" I nearly shouted at the poor thing, and Jim leaped back like he'd been lit on fire. "Its an animal, and an invertebrate, which means it has no bones. Would you like to touch it?" She nodded eagerly and I showed her how to gently let it wrap its sticky tentacles around her small fingers. "Wow!" She giggled. And then, "Guess what?" "What?" I said. She smiled shyly. "My name is Lauren too." I returned her smile, and for the second, but not the last time, I remembered little me and my long ago encounter with the fish. "Oooh! Whats that?!" Lauren said again, this time pointing to something else. And I told her.

I was up to my waist in hundreds of children from 10 until 2. The most frequent questions I was asked were "WHATS THAT?!" "IS IT ALIVE?" "CAN I TOUCH IT?" "WILL IT BITE ME?" and "WHERE IS NEMO?!" Remarkably, adults ask the very same questions. I met lots of children who knew more about the animals than adults did. Maybe when we are children we are less focused on 'adult things' and therefore are closer to nature, but it made me wonder what kinds of things I knew as a kid that slipped away as I reached adulthood. Of course there are some questions that were closer on adults minds. "How does it reproduce?" "How can you tell if its male or female?" and "What eats it?" were things only grown ups asked. Squeamish noisy women were hardest to be patient with. They squealed and screamed "GROSS" and splashed water everywhere after poking anything... even starfish, which don't even have texture. Babies splashed alot too. A bunch of mothers with small babies came by the touch tank station and with the combination of splashers I was soaked in minutes. Teenage boys want to pick animals up and hit their friends with them.

My very favorite part was looks on their faces when people touched unusual animals. Anemones for example are in the jellyfish family, and people don't ordinarily touch those. They feel like congealed jello but move of their own volition, wrapping delicate tentacles around extended fingers and balling up to protect themselves from harsh pokes. Aside from some women who scream, people's faces light up with wonder at the sensation. A few children would try, and then snatch their hand away and unabashedly tell me they were scared. Another amazing feeling was seeing the looks on people's faces when they learn something new, or especially when you help children figure out something for themselves. Again anemones are a great example. I would say "They feel sticky to touch, don't they? But did you know they are actually stinging us? The skin on our fingers is too thick to feel the sting, so its jut sticky. But to a fish that doesn't have skin, just thin scales, it would really hurt! But there are some kinds of fish that don't get stung and like to live in anemones. Can anyone tell me what kind of fish that is?" And the school group in front of me all frown and think hard while the anemones are busily stinging away at their little fingers. Then I give them a hint "Maybe a fish you've seen in a movie recently?" And then it hits. A look of complete victory crosses their faces- theres an excited intake of breath as the revelation is reached, and a chorus of little voices scream at me "NEMOOOOOOO!!!!!!" Its hilarious, and wonderful. Then I get to tell them all about clownfish. Everybody wins.

I spent alot of time at various touch tanks that day, as you can tell. But I did other things to- like man the Whale Cart, where I show off Orca skulls and pieces of baleen, and explain phenomena like echolocation and the use of blowholes. My blue whale friend suspends majestically over me and I make lots of references to her. I also manned the Shark Cart, where I display a fully extended jaw of a great white, try to ease many fears about the vicious nature of sharks, disprove the movie Jaws on several counts, and stamp sticky fingers with "Sharks are cool!" stamps.

Lunch. I hung out with Topaz, the aquarium cat, which I think is ironic. She was a stray living in the empty lot before the aquarium was built, and since they were putting her out of her home they figured they might as well provide one, and here she is to this day. She is ancient and sneezes alot. I rushed back out to the Bat Ray pool, where I spent the rest of the day. Bat rays are often confused with manta rays because they are both black and don't lie on the bottom like sting rays, but glide around flapping their wings like slow motion birds, but bat rays are much smaller, and have big sweet eyes and a smiling mouth. They swim in circles around the ray pool and I sat on the rocks in the middle or hung out around the edge talking with visitors. I learned how to use the microphone to address crowds and how to teach the infamous "Two finger touch, from nose to tail." When Steve came out to tell me my shift was over and it was time to go, he reached into the water and pulled out a small pearly flat rectangle the exact color of the sand. It was a bat ray tooth, and he gave it to me as a present. Its on my desk.

And that was my day. I drove back to school, exhausted, still damp, really hungry, and smelling very strongly of fish. It was amazing. I go back tomorrow.

Thank you for reading!

Did You Know: Whale calves gain about 5 pounds an hour when they are newly born because their mother's milk has a higher fat content than butter, and they drink about 100 liters of it a day.