Today was my last two finals of summer semester, meaning that I’ve survived! I did it! I quickly found out this summer that I had gotten in over my head with two internships, three classes, and other writing commitments, but I wasn’t raised a quitter.
Any time you double the pace of a course, it’s going to be harder. I know it’s a little corny, but I’m so proud of myself for what I’ve done this summer. I’ve worked hard to advance myself in my education and my experience and it’s going to pay off. It’s already paying off, and I’ve come out of this summer much stronger than when I went in.
I feel entirely confident in my ability to handle stress and a busy schedule, to commute a long distance on little pay to better not only myself but to better my country and the welfare of animals around the world. I feel confident in my abilities as a marketing professional, as a social media professional, and as a constant student.
While I’m glad this semester is over and that I’m moving onto my next adventure (Disney World!) ends are always a little hard. See ya in January, Georgia State!
Since World Elephant Day was today (Saturday) at the Zoo I’ve decided to talk a little about my girls. Kelly and Tara are both African Elephants and they’ve been at the Zoo since I was a little kid. I’ve gotten the opportunity twice to meet Kelly, and both ones have been some of the best experiences I’ve had.
When I went to Thailand in 2015 I set out a goal to see an elephant (my friend wanted to ride an elephant but I wasn’t so sure about that). My host family took us to a botanical garden near Pattaya where I got the chance to see several Asian Elephants up close and even feed bananas to a calf. While there, though, it became very obvious that these animals were being abused and it was a hard truth to swallow that I had just paid to contribute to that.
Asian elephant in Thailand (2015)
That’s why my time watching Kelly and Tara at the Zoo has been so amazing. These two girls are cared for extremely well and it’s always so wonderful to see how much the elephant keepers love them. Honestly I would love to have the chance to work with them through a keeper internship, but I don’t know if that’s in the cards for my future.
While at the Zoo I’ve gotten to learn so much about elephants and conservation affecting them. Obviously I’ve not learned as much information as the education interns or the elephant keeper intern, but working social media has a sure way to make you learn about several topics, and elephants have came up several times. At the Zoo we work with 96 Elephants, which is a wonderful conservation organization to help African elephants in the wild. Additionally, not buying ivory or supporting the ivory trade are excellent ways to reduce the killings that are happening.
Today was the day we’ve been looking forward to for a while: the panda twin’s birthday! Mei Lun and Mei Huan, the only twin pandas born in the United States, turned 3 today in Zoo Atlanta. Since this is their last birthday in the US, we decided to make it a big celebration.
This is the first event that I’ve got to be intensely involved in during my internship. I was involved in the early research about what other zoos had done for birthdays as well as other events in AZA organizations. I helped with different creative aspect brainstorming and I got to help actually run this event!
It was a very busy day that seemed to start as soon as I got in the office. We set up the decorations around the Panda Veranda early, including the adorable panda paper lanterns that a coworker created. I helped coordinate volunteers around our crafts table as well as helped with the crafts themselves. We had birthday hats with ears that kids could make as well as postcards that they could color and then send to the pandas!
At noon we had a visit from our zoo mascot and I got to play character attendant for a while, helping with meet and greets and making sure he got to go inside for break on time. Atlanta’s pretty hot for pandas, so he had to go inside pretty often. At two the pandas received their ice cake, a thing I didn’t actually get to see.
Throughout the day we were working with a new social media, Periscope, to help bring a more live feed to guests that couldn’t make it to the Zoo today. We were also making very quick posts about what was happening, and it was overall a very brisk, exciting pace.
Working the twins birthday today really helped to solidify the decision I made this week to go to Disney for a fall program. I love working in park, even if it is a lot of work, and I’m looking forward to be able to do that again doing something I love, especially for the big events that will be happening this fall.
July has felt like life is just continually trying to punch me in the face. Great things are happening! I’m doing really cool things at my internship! I love my coworkers and I love working for such a great organization! But I’m so stressed out it’s getting hard to even sleep at night!
My university classes are really starting to ramp up with what seems like a test every other day, and covering four to five chapters on the days we don’t have exams. Keeping up with readings and assignments feels like a full-time job on its own. Thank god for the calendar app in my phone because I would be struggling to keep everything on time.
The zoo is a blessing as always and I am continually glad that I’m working with such amazing people. Not only do they care deeply about animals and conservation, but they care deeply about every they work with. I know that if I’m feeling overwhelmed at work (which honestly is very rare) that I can ask anyone for help. If I ever get too stressed out or bogged down, I can always go into the zoo and take photographs to social media, too!
I think the majority of my stress is stemming from two sources. The first of which is my video internship. This started out seeming like it was going to be simple and structured. It’s turned into a nightmare of sorts. I’ve been doing these videos for roughly two months now, producing something like 4 or 5 final products. I don’t believe that there’s been two weeks or two cycles that have had a similar path line, and they are continually changing the formats on videos and when things are due and what you need to turn in before/during/after the shoots and it’s just getting to be ridiculous to keep up with. I feel like I can’t even move forward because I’m constantly having to go back and re-edit something in my old videos.
I understand these edits are stemming from analytics on what is performing well in videos on social media. I know that this is to get my videos better traction, but it’s so frustrating and disheartening when it happens every week. It also takes an incredible amount of time as they usually involve completely redoing the video! I’m debating what to do as to this amount of stress in my life, so we’ll see how that goes.
The other recent source of stress is that I have applied to and been interviewing for a pretty competitive internship in Atlanta. I’m not sure why I applied to this (that’s a lie. I do. It was in one of my fits of “No I shouldn’t go do another college program at Disney. I should stay and graduate.”) but I’ve very, very quickly moved through the interview process.
I applied on Independence Day, got approached for a phone interview on Tuesday after, did the phone interview on Thursday during my lunch break, and was approached Friday for a follow-up in-person interview the following Tuesday. The application deadline for this particular one isn’t until late July, too, so I’m not sure why I’m being streamlined through. It might be because it’s at the only other AZA accredited organization in Atlanta, and I do have experience in the nearly exact type of organization doing much of the same things that I would be doing for them. Being pushed so quickly through this process for an internship that I assume is highly competitive because of the organization’s rank in Atlanta as well as internationally is amazing and I’m blessed.
But.
I have this other opportunity in Orlando that I’ve known about for months now. Going to Florida for a semester has its benefits and drawbacks, while the other internship in the city does as well. Ultimately I will just have to decide what I want most and what path I want to follow.
My internship with the Zoo is two months old now. My classes are one month in, with 3 weeks to go. My internship with Spoon University is also meeting it’s half mark. It’s weird how the centers of all of these things have converged around this weekend, but I figured it would be a good time to look back on everything I’ve accomplished and worked towards.
At the Zoo I’ve become much more comfortable writing and producing social media content to where now it’s an enjoyable routine rather than an anxiety inducing task. Looking back to see which posts get the most interaction (pandas) has helped me to be a better content producer as well. I no longer feel overwhelming dread making paid social advertisements on Facebook and I’m slowly getting used to Google Ads even though they are still intimidating. My research projects have always been my strong suit, but the one I’ve been working on for the past two weeks has been exceptionally rewarding as it pulls together a lot of information from not only Atlanta but across the United States.
My classes don’t have pandas so they’re obviously a little less fun. Regardless, I feel like I’ve done well with the situation that I’ve been faced with. Since Korea I’ve felt more “myself” than I have since I started university. I’m back to the fantastic student who’s always prepared and knows what’s happening (although this takes so much more time in university than it did in high school). My grades since my return from Disney have been fantastic and I’m looking forward to my last 7 courses (3 of which I’m currently taking) being just as fantastic. They’re not easy classes at all, but I’ve learned that if I apply myself during lecture regardless of how tired I am that it pays off.
Spoon is what I’m least involved with right now, but that’s because the role is constantly evolving. I’m glad that I’ve gotten the opportunity to do so much content creation this summer between photographing for the zoo, producing videos for Spoon, and writing for Odyssey and Spoon. Even with the weeks that it’s hard to churn out yet another article on top of all of my school work and internship work, I’m still glad that I’m doing it. Writing takes practice and time and the best way to get better is to just continually write.
Overall, am I happy with my summer so far? Yes. It’s not the fun adventure packed trip that some people in my university seem to be taking right now, but it’s engaging, it’s enriching, and it’ll be good for me in the long run. I’d rather be busy doing things that will help me in the future than sleeping and sitting on my hands for an entire summer.
Today was my last two finals of summer semester, meaning that I’ve survived! I did it! I quickly found out this summer that I had gotten in over my head with two internships, three classes, and other writing commitments, but I wasn’t raised a quitter.
For The Sleepless Nights 