A Culmination

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I present my Capstone this Wednesday. It is a culmination of my experiences in high school, and a chance to share a topic I am passionate about. For my “project,” I fostered kittens. Not only will I share my experience, but I hope to educate others on how to care for animals and why it is a community responsibility.

Fostering is vital to the life of every cat. The Humane Society is filled with kittens, yet nobody considers where those kittens were for the first eight weeks of life. Every kitten was either raised outside by their feral mom, or they were fostered by someone who sacrificed their time to raise a kitten.

Fostering kittens gave me firsthand experience with the issue of finding homes for cats. While I “foster-failed” and ended up keeping one of the kittens, I did not have room in my then five-cat household to keep another. I named her Blue, and we took her to the Humane Society where she was adopted.

I look forward to sharing my experience and enthusiasm with my school, and I hope to inspire others to foster kittens and save lives.

Image Credit: Hannah Shaw

Cool Pool

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You know that feeling.

Like when you sense something move in the cool stagnant water

underneath the surface,

where it shouldn’t,

it is.

Like being away,

the opposite of home,

and even as you jerk your leg away 

you can feel it cramp,

ripping hot.

You can feel the vessels crimp;

doubled,

twisted,

restricting you,

keeping you just within reach,

within reach of the cool,

the cool of the bottom of the pool

where the water doesn’t move

or isn’t supposed to.

from terra galleria

Racing thoughts

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Often at night, I find myself just laying in bed and not being able to shut off my thoughts. There are so many things just racing through my mind. While I lay there, listening to the rain hit the roof of my room, I think about how funny life sometimes is. It can be amazing, you are happy and everything is perfect, and then the next day everything just comes crashing down on you. And when one thing goes wrong suddenly everything starts going wrong and it feels like you are drowning. But then there are those people that just pull you out of that hole. It might take a while to get out, but these people make it so much easier.

Honestly, sometimes you just need someone to listen to you. They don’t even need to say anything. It can feel amazing to just get everything off your chest without being judged for it. And once you make it through rough times you have so much to be proud of. You can reflect back to the times where you were at you lowest and look at yourself and say “I made it through this” and it proves how strong we are as a person.

So I lay in bed, and think about all the things of the past weeks, and I just think about how lucky I am to have people that support me in anything I do.

https://stories.jotform.com/the-art-of-thinking-5-steps-to-improve-your-life-and-business-da3a817903a5

Sick

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Gross…

The annoying feeling of being icky and sick, it’s not comfortable. Having your immune system compromised- coughing, throwing up, and sneezing- makes you feel miserable.

Being sick during COVID- 19, is horrible. You do not know if you have corona, or if it’s just the common cold. It’s a scary feeling for both you and everyone around you. They wonder if you have Covid and you have to tell them that it’s just a frog in your throat. Being sick during Covid just makes everyone on edge.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT6cAddd_WmIU9wXwIY1ePurGES35doHqanlw&usqp=CAU
Speciality Medical Dialogues

I despise being sick, it is the worst feeling ever. I got so sick one time that I had to go to the ER. The ER is the one place where I would never ever want to go back to. Although it is very clean, it grosses me out and the ER causes me to have shivers down my spine. The feeling of being around other sick people worried me.

me and her or me… and her?

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Her Ivory skin was compelling

Eyes a sea of green that yearned for me

Caught in her rip current

Fighting temptation

Fighting to maintain the person I was once thought to be

But her eyes, green specked with hazel flakes

Like the falling leaves of autumn

Warm drinks by warm fires as the world swirled with cold

She was warm

All my problems settled next to the flame that she lit in me

Seeming to melt away

As passion and understanding burned my mind

It still left me wondering where I go from here

After she leaves who will I be

Was it a blip?

A bug in the “perfect” system?

Honestly i’m not sure.

Image found on Dreamstime.com

Camera Trapping

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One thing I have always been very interested in to improve my wildlife photography is wildlife camera trapping. With camera trapping, you set up a camera in a small box and place two movement sensors where you expect the wildlife that you want to capture to walk by. Once the animals walk through these sensors, the camera will take a picture. Sounds pretty easy but in reality, it is one of the hardest ways of taking pictures! But it is an extremely powerful tool in wildlife conservation. Through with camera trapping, you can get pictures of very shy animals that you usually would not be able to get close to. 

One photographer that does a lot of camera trapping is Steve Winter. He especially focuses on big cats. Through his camera trap images, he was able to capture never before seen behavior of snow leopards, clouded leopards, and even the rarest cat on our planet, the beautiful Amur leopard. 

I am planning on using camera trapping once I move up to Montana. A goal of mine has always been getting a image of a wild mountain lion. It is incredibly hard to see them in the wild as they are very shy, but camera trapping enables you to take images without you actually being there and without stressing the animal out 

https://www.naturettl.com/how-to-make-a-dslr-camera-trap-housing/

Love is a funny thing

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Isn’t is crazy, that one thing can give you so much happiness and life, but it can also completely destroy you. Love is a beautiful thing. It can make all the bad things in this world disappear. It can make you feel like you are flying and there is nothing that could take you down. But then, there is an ugly side to it. The side where it shoots you down on the ground and holds you there. You never believed that something this beautiful could cause you so much pain.

I was always scared of love. You hear a lot of horror stories from friends and social media. It almost scares you to even try and fall in love. But on the other hand, you want it. That feeling that makes you feel so special. You want someone to look you into the eyes, and you want to be their world. Good morning texts, goodnight texts, cuddles, just being there for each other.

But sometimes you grow out of love. And that, that is the hard part. I just wish it wouldn’t have ended this rough. We could’ve ended it in peace. And that’s what shatters me so much. Maybe it’s just time to go our own way and stay out of each other life’s. That would take so much pain away.

Up close with our cousins

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2 weeks ago I went on a journey back to Africa. But this time not to Kenya. We flew from Germany directly to Entebbe, Uganda. From there we drove all the way to the famous Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. This is the place which one of the most endangered animals of our planet calls home, the Mountain Gorilla. The first tracking started at 7 am. We had a short briefing with some rangers and then left right into the Jungle. There are no trails so the guides cut through the bushes with machetes. The mountain gorillas are named that for a reason, they live upon incredibly high mountains. So getting there was not only difficult because of the thick jungle, but also becauseof the elevation gain. The first day we climbed about 300 meters in altitude the second we climbed 450 meters in just 1 1/2 hours. It was definitely the most exhausting thing I have ever done in my life. But so worth it.

We started hearing the gorillas communicating from the distance. We made our way closer to them until I got my first glimpse at the huge silverback of the family. It was a group of 9 gorillas. One silverback, four females and all for females had a baby around the same age. Seeing how they interacted and communicated with each other was amazing. They were so incredibly human. We share about 96% of our DNA with them! The little ones were incredibly curious and came closer to check us out.

It was by far the most magical experience of my life!

picture by author

The five boys

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As already written in many of my past blog posts, I have spent a lot of time traveling through Africa, documenting my travels with my photography. My favorite place to visit is the Masai Mara in Kenya. It borders right in Tanzania and is part of the incredible Serengeti. When on safari you get the chance to observe some incredible behavior that can only be seen in the Masai Mara. The Mara is famous for a group of 5 cheetahs, the fast five or also known as the taco Bora. They are a coalition of 5 male cheetahs that hunt and care for each other. I have already written a blog post about them. This time I am writing about a coalition of 5 powerful male lions, “The five boys”. They come from the black rock pride and have been chased out. Male lions get chased away from the pride when they reach a certain age because they will get tendencies to take over the pride.

Once chased off, they either go off solo but most of the time they will get together with other nomads. These groups can become very powerful and are very threatening to lion prides around as they are looking to take over a pride for themselves. I have had the chance to follow the five boys for many days and observe them while playing, cleaning, and hunting. We spent three 13 hour days with them. They had found a huge herd of cape buffalo. Buffalo are one of the most dangerous animals in Africa and they oppose a very big danger to lions as well. They can seriously injure or even kill a lion. The five boys feed 90% on buffalo and they have created a strategy that works every time. Once they find a herd they will follow it for a few days and test it several times throughout the day. That means that they will charge it and try to pick out young, old, or weak individuals that will be easy to take down. Once they get the chance they will single a buffalo out and take it down together.

Being able to observe them for days at a time is something I will never forget. Truly incredibly.

Three of the five males

picture by author

Pressure of Life

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Life is hard. Life is not fair. Life has many ups and downs, especially growing up.

Once you reach a certain age, responsibilities pile up and you are expected to become more self-reliant. The teenage years are rough- balancing school, friendships, and family life. Then add the prospects of mental health and relationships.

Mental health is really important and life could take a toll on one’s mental health. Anxiety due to school and other things. Depression or sadness due to life and the tolls that life brings onto someone.

photo credit: Medical News Today

Relationships, friendships, and romantic relationships are really hard to navigate during the teenage years. Finding a connection that works is hard, and is really important to keep one sane.

School is very stressful. Teachers and parents put pressure on students and kids to do well in school, so they can do well in life. Students and kids also put pressure on themselves to get into great colleges.

Life is full of ups and downs, full of scary and fun moments.