TGIF #5

TGIF is hosted by Ginger at GReads!

When You're Not Reading:

What occupies your time when your nose isn't stuck in a book?

It’s been a few months since I participated in TGIF, but when I saw the topic for today I just couldn’t resist! This is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, since I’m currently in a very transitional time in my life, so it’s definitely something I can talk about. :D

In terms of a career, I’m currently doing a program with the Smithsonian Institute, living and working at one of their conservation research facilities outside of Washington DC.  I graduated from college in the spring with a biology degree and I’m interested in animal conservation, so this is an awesome program for me and I’m so grateful to be able to do what I do. When I’m not attending guest lectures or going on field trips, I get to work with four amazing species – clouded leopards, red pandas, maned wolves, and cheetahs. So basically, I feed them a lot of rats and pick up a lot of poop (which is often color-coded with glitter, haha). Just kidding, that’s not ALL I do. It’s awesome and I love it, but the program ends in a few weeks, and after that I have no clue what I’ll be doing. Aahh!!

I’m also a huge live music junkie, and I go to concerts all the time (I generally have a two hour driving radius for shows, but I have been known to drive about five hours if it’s a band I really love). Depending on who is playing, I can also sometimes be found helping out behind the merch table. Go to certain shows enough and people will get to know you and start putting you to work! :P Depending on how my luck plays out, there is the possibility that I might get to go on tour with a band in the spring and be a more permanent helper, which I would LOVE. :)

Dancing is also a pretty big part of my life, although these days it usually consists of me just dancing around my room (or getting a group of people together to do informal zumba sessions). I started off as a dance major in college and I’ve never quite been able to let go of it.

Other than those things, I love television and movies (way more than I probably should), and just hanging out with friends and family. However, we all love to travel and we’re spread all over the world most of the time, so it’s really hard to get together with all the people I love. It just makes it that much better when we do see each other though. And then we have lots of stories to catch up on!

This was such a great TGIF topic! It’s fun to get to know bloggers outside of their book activities. Although admittedly, I’m known for carrying a book with me wherever I go even if there’s almost zero percent chance I’ll have the opportunity to read, so reading is never far from my mind. :)