I'm Cringeworthy

So, yeah. I get excited about stories and try to explain them to people. And I generally do a very bad job of it. My friends are mostly used to it. But occasionally I can't keep it in and try to explain it to someone I don't know quite as well. It doesn't happen too often, but once or twice... 

For example, soon after I got my idea for Beauty and the Beast, I was talking to the big cat keeper at the zoo. And I'm going, "I have this idea for Beauty and the Beast, but Beauty is a Zoo Keeper!" 

I mean, that's not exactly what I said. That's not really what I meant either. But the aftermath left me cringing. 

Why do I do this to myself?

Elevational Attitudes

There's more than one way to make your audience cry!

 

 

 

From Ireland to Italy

I don't think I ever actually said where I went from mid November to mid December. After I left the zoo, I wanted to take the opportunity to travel. My cousin invited me to stay with them for three weeks in Italy. They have a neighbor that runs an animal rescue, so I decided to use the trip as a volunteer opportunity. 

I'll upload a proper travel log at some point, but I haven't even finished doing so for my Peru trip (which was over a year ago).

These are the basics of my trip. The place I most wanted to go in Europe was Ireland. I decided to fly into Ireland, and then boat/train across Europe to my cousin's house, stopping a few times along the way. I had less than two weeks to plan the trip, because I wanted to get home before the Christmas rush (and before winter started to hit hard). It was a stressful couple weeks, needless to say. And the travels across Europe were rather hectic too - I only spent a couple days in each place because hotels are expensive, and I had no income. And despite Europe's excellent train system, there are still some very chaotic things about it (one asshole conductor threatened to give me a ticket because he refused to believe that my ticket was real, until some random strangers came to help me).

I flew into Ireland and had three days in Dublin. It was awesome. I hope I can go back some day. Especially since I missed two of the four things I really wanted to do. 

I took a ferry over to England and spent a couple days in London. 

Rode the  train under the English channel and spent two days in Paris. 

Took the train to Switzerland and spent a day in Bern. 

And finally got on a train to spend just over three weeks with my family. And I made best buddies with a wild boar (she'd been rescued as a piglet and was hand-raised, so she was friendly). She loved belly rubs. And my roommates were two older kittens. 

Accursed Fingers

I feel like this is a newer problem. I keep starting a ton of my sentences with "and" and "then." It comes out of my hands in some sort of automatic pilot. Whenever I go back to edit, I have to cut out so many of them!

Sob. 

Hopefully I grow out of it. The same way I grew into it...

Nubian goats (my BFFs)

Animal Stories and Endings

I recently read "H is for Hawk."

While it was a good book, she said something that made me think. She loved animal books as a kid, but the animals always seemed to die. I started thinking of the older animal books I'd read (or at least the less new ones). And she's right. The main animal generally seems to die. 

(Spoilers for several books/films)

In Watership Down, Hazel has lived a long and full life, so it's not so bad when he joins the Black Rabbit. 

But most of the deaths are pretty gruesome.

Sometimes it's to deliberately highlight how humans treat animals. Like in Black Beauty, which was written to draw attention to the cruel treatment of horses. It's not the main horse that dies in this instance, but one of his friends.

Most of the time, the author seems like they're killing off animals just to teach kids a lesson about life. 

I haven't read The Yearling yet, but I saw the movie. That at least said that wild animals don't make good pets. Which is true, except for a rare person who knows exactly what they're doing. In this book, as in life, humans interfere with wild animals and the animal usually ends up paying the ultimate price (animals that are too friendly with humans generally end up dying for various reasons - for example, at the zoo there was a young squirrel who was apparently very friendly and was climbing on people and letting them pet him. Then he bit a girl, who had probably scared him. Staff had to catch the squirrel and send it in for rabies testing. You can't do a rabies test on a live animal. That squirrel had probably been hand-raised illegally, and released as a tame animal. Only to die shortly after. And the girl who was bitten was told to go straight to the doctor). 

For Old Yeller and Where the Red Fern Grows, the dogs die fighting a dangerous enemy. Yeller saves several people from a rabid wolf. And while he doesn't die in the fight, he's bitten by a rabid animal. Which is a death sentence. The dogs are heroes in these cases. 

Sometimes it's hard to tell why the animal suffers such an awful fate. In The Red Pony, the young horse caught a chill which lead to a long and painful decline. When we first see the dead horse, a vulture has just torn out his eye. The boy smashes the bird to death. Then he gets a new foal. Well, actually he gets a mare that's about to foal. But there are complications. A horseman bashes in the mare's head and cuts the foal out of her stomach.  From that point on, we never really see the foal again. Considering how important the red pony was to the boy, it's baffling that the second foal would completely disappear once he's born.

So, the Zoo

I've had to explain this so many times that I've resisted writing it on the blog. 

I loved working at the zoo. I never wanted to leave. But for over two years, my boss had been bullying me. Accusing me of things I hadn't done and making up ways to get me in trouble. Finally he submitted an official report against me because I didn't understand a new schedule, which he didn't explain to anyone (It was a deliberate setup-it was so obvious). 

And Human Resources wouldn't do anything about it. Because they're also incompetent. The lady is nice, but doesn't do anything to help anyone. And the guy has very unprofessional behavior - for example he spent a couple minutes shouting at me for something he knew wasn't my fault. Then he stopped and told me it wasn't my fault. Then he continued shouting at me again.

Unfortunately the upper management is extremely corrupt. The director hires her friends for ridiculously high-paying jobs where they don't really do anything (they're posted on the public tax papers- one rich friend gets paid over 100,000 a year to hand out parking passes and answer questions). My boss is one of those people. I worked under him for over five years, and I still have no idea what he does. Nor does anyone else. Which is why everyone says that nothing will happen to him, even though he's done stuff that should get him fired. (The director also doesn't do anything)

In October, I left. I was so stressed that I'd often have trouble sleeping. I miss the animals so much. Especially my goat buddies!

Luckily people are banding together finally, to fight this mess. Because I'm not the only one who's suffered because of all the rot in there. I'm just one of many. 

So, I'm trying to use this as an opportunity. Beyond a trip to Europe (where I volunteered at a wildlife rescue for a couple weeks in Italy). 

Let's see how it goes.

Pet the Beast

A little while ago, I watched Beauty and the Beast (the Disney cartoon) with my cousins. I said it was to help me get pumped up for my story. 

They have a dog named Buji. They're teenagers, and have seen the movie before. But one of them had comments which beautifully reflected the way the audience is supposed to view Beast.  Beast starts off as a nasty monster, and you grow to like him more and more as the movie progresses. Farther on, my cousin said, "he looks like Buji." And by the end, he said, "I want to pet him."

There you have it. A perfect audience.

Fossa (pronounced "foosa")

2024

 Happy New Year everyone! 

Red panda, playing with his tail