America Day! Whoop whoop for the US. We have some things we could be doing way better, but that's what the future is for, right? Anyway, the day was really nice, filled with chilling out and planning the family three-week Spain trip (!!!!!) in September (!!!). I went on a run with my mom, and promptly died, as I am, um, not the greatest runner, and my mom is in pretty amazing shape. Goals.
My family did celebrate the Fourth of July, surprisingly, with America's number one staple (especially on the fourth obviously): burgers. Well, besides the fact that they were soy burgers, and my mom had a soy hot dog, it was exactly like a typical American's dinner. And oh my goodness the grilled pineapple was amazing as a dessert! Nothing beats that except for West Wing, an awesome tv show that EVERYONE should watch--but we watched a couple episodes that night, so it was great.
Tuesday-Friday, July 5-8, 2016
It's so cool to have a job. My sister and I have been doing various volunteer/internship stuff with the NC Museum of Natural Sciences, and our mentor, John Gerwin, decided that since we're 18, we should get paid for the particularly tedious jobs we do. Fine by me, especially since the things we get paid for I actually enjoy immensely. The huge project that we are working on with mainly Edward, as well as two Young Naturalists named Andrew and Ashley, is eggs. Egg collecting was outlawed in the US in the early 1900s, so almost all of the eggs in the museum are from the late 1800s and early 1900s. However, there are exceptions of ones from mid-1900s of collectors still illegally collecting these eggs or those who just happen to find abandoned eggs and send them somewhere. The Museum received a huge collection that UNC-CH had acquired but no longer needed, so it's our job to identify the eggs that have lost their labels (almost all of them), and record any data that we can find. Organization, patience, and attention to detail is required for this, because you have to look at the egg, see if there is a tiny number on it to indicate the date it was found, number corresponding to a know numbering system for eggs (to determine what species), or set mark, a number telling us how many eggs were in that clutch.
If there is any data regarding location or date, we write it on an official Museum slip so that it can go into the archives where scientists or artists can loan them to do research or draw them. The others are still fit with a label, but it’s just a slip of archival paper. All of these eggs go into little plastic or cardboard boxes. It’s pretty great, doing this, staying down in the bottom level of the museum, and getting $$$ ;)
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| Hummingbird egg! |
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