The last week of my internship has come and gone, and I’ve never been so sad to leave a place. Los Angeles was a dream come true for me. In the last week of my internship I had a fox lick peanut butter off my finger, feed a sloth an egg, held a legless lizard, and watched one of our lizards poop in the diet prep room.
On my last day, as I begin to make diets, one of the interns feed one of the Lizards. This particular lizard was Sweet C heeks, a Red Tegu. Personally I have never seen a lizard go to the bathroom. Well Sweet Cheeks definitely put on a show for us. He began peeing and by this point me and the girl were looking at each other with dread. He then farted so loud I would have thought it was a person, well this makes me and the intern start laughing so hard there’s tears in our eyes. He then poops all over the floor leaving diet prep smelling so bad you have to breath through your mouth. People kept walking in and out and the faces they would make when they walked in were almost as funny as the actual situation. I ended up being the one to clean it up and it was the kind of thing you don’t watch as you do it. You just got to grit your teeth and turn your head. After it was clean the smell quickly dissipated but the memory will never be forgotten.
The rest of my final week was mainly feeding out and making enrichment. This was the best way I 
could think of to say goodbye. I also got to feed a few of the animals I hadn’t before, like the sloth. The sloth are usually good eaters when you feed them. However, the second I try to get Lola to eat she turns her head and falls asleep. I then tried Sid, and he did the same thing to me. I tried different foods until he finally was interested in the egg. Usually they will grip the food so you don’t have to hold it for them. Well that day I guess Sid was feeling particularly sloth-ish and would not grab the food. So I sat and held this hard boiled egg as he slowly ate bit by bit. Honestly I would do that all day, but eventually he took the food and finished it without my help.
My final goodbyes to my host family was pretty much playing a card game called 500. We played this a lot while I was there, it was my host mom’s favorite game. I even got them a new deck of cards with animals on them. We also spent the last week saying goodbye to friends going off to college and spending as much time together as possible. I will miss this family so much it hurts. The second I can go back and visit I will. They were so kind to me and I will never forget the time we spent together and the memories we made. I love them so much and can’t wait till I see them in December.
I would like to give one last thank you to everyone who helped on my internship. It was most definitely unforgettable. It reinforced how much I want to be working with animals and how much I love biology. Thank you so much I am go grateful for such an amazing experience
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