For the last two days at the Missouri Botanical Garden, I spent some time doing some general stuff, and I got to visit and talk to the Audio/Visual department. They’re the people who operate all of the screens and support all of the events that the garden holds. I also finished up that laptop, which was great because I didn’t want to leave that project unfinished.
Really enjoying my time at Danforth! After spending time learning how to use the VR system I have crafted a user protocol explaining how to operate it. I have also helped with a few other task around the lab and am now preparing soil testing packages to be mailed.
Yesterday was my last day at Emmaus. I spent most of the day at Tiffany Court which was the home at which I spent the most time over the course of these two weeks. I really got to know the three guys at that house very well and I was (and am) sad to not be able to spend as much time there anymore, one guy, Ron, was pretty mad that I was leaving.
Over these two busy weeks, I learned so much about caretaking, responsibility, and human services in general. I did not think that I would be that interested in this career path, but as the days went on I found I really loved what I was doing. It´s hard, but rewarding work. You are giving people who may not be happy a chance at living a good, happy, and independent life. I met a lot of staff members that were so passionate about the work that they were doing, the people they cared for were their family. Discovering that really inspired me and made me want to pursue some career like this in the future.
On Wednesday I went to the State Capitol in Jefferson City to advocate for Emmaus. I spent the day meeting one on one with senators, representatives, and legislators. It was really interesting but also very stressful. I have never been in such a politically charged environment before. It was very new and eye-opening to the world of politics.
We were advocating to get the Emmaus budget from 20million to 40million. This is the money that the state grants Emmaus to keep it in business. For our organization to run perfectly we would need at least 76million dollars but the state refused to pass that. So, we advocated for the senators to reevaluate the bill and increase our funding. I got to sit in the room as the bills were being moved on from the Senate to the house, and luckily Senator Eigel objected to the original bill and asked the chairman to keep the bill open to increase the finding to 30million. So, our campaigning and advocating worked!
Yesterday was my last day at the World Bird Sanctuary. I spent the whole day helping out in the bird hospital. It wasn’t very busy so I pretty much did most of the same things like laundry, cleaning cages, and helping with food prep. The highlight of the day was after I finished at the bird hospital, I got the privilege to meet and pet baby emus!
For the first Day and a half, I shadowed some of the programmers, which meant that I was at a desk for the entire time. Near the end, there was some work that they let me do, which was mostly copy/paste work.
Today, I worked with the server administrator and got to see everything that went into keeping the servers running. I got to go inside of the server room, where there was less hardware than I imagined there would be. It is also a very loud and windy room.
Yesterday, in the morning, I helped out in the bird hospital again. I did a lot of the same things I did last time like, observing feeding the birds, cleaning cages while the birds were being examined, laundry. I also washed the food bowls. In the afternoon I helped Mike clean up after a service group he had in the morning.
Today, I helped clean up a construction site for a new bird enclosure. Then, in the afternoon, Mike and I started painting the new enclosure.
My time at Danforth has been amazing. My first day I was able to hit the ground running, working in the greenhouses, receiving my own security badge and navigating the center on my own. Primarily I’ve helped around the lab, while the rest of my time has been spent creating a presentation for a seminar taking place this summer. In the next few days I will be testing and helping setup a VR system called Oculus Rift and researching more data for the presentation.
Today I did more manual labor. I helped with taking out the trash and recycling, as well as helped my supervisor, Mike, clear trees that were cut along the road. At the end of the day I got to see the feeding of the baby barn owls. That was my favorite part of the day.
For the first two days and Friday, I worked with two guys who helped repair the technology used at the garden. This included learning how to remote control computers with two different programs, resetting a printer to the proper settings, as it had gone back to default, and getting a hands on lesson in replacing a laptop screen.
On Wednesday, I followed around the telecommunications director as he set up new phones for people. A wireless access point, used to spread WiFi, had stopped working. We went to check it out, and learned that it had likely shorted due to water inside of the machine.
On Thursday, I spent the day with the firewall manager. He showed me some of the programs that are used to manage firewalls, and how to set them up. Most of this day was spent at the desk, unlike the other days where we went out into the field.
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