Dipping your hand into the ice-cold water, but not minding the chill up your spine because your fingers are soon met with the slimy and squishy top of a jellyfish. Watching the lions at the zoo for a solid hour as they interact with each other and on a happy occasion acknowledge your presence. Feeling a connection with a butterfly when it lands on you, and appreciating the bees for never stinging you—even though being ridiculously attracted to your curly blond hair. Growing up, it was moments like these that molded a passionate and vocal animal lover, activist, friend, and researcher. As a writer, and someone who deems them self relatively creative, I consider animals my artistic and academic muse, my inspiration and my passion. Throughout my life, I have found myself consistently basing projects around doing what I could, however how minuscule, to in some way help their well being. Finally, around seventh grade I realized zoology was something I wanted to pursue. Because of this, throughout high school I've have seeked out any opportunity I felt would help me get closer to that goal. This internship will be the biggest stepping-stone yet. As I soon plan to embark on my next educational journey, college, I believe this internship will help steer me in a more educated career direction. The next seven weeks will be filled with educational lectures from speakers, which I plan to effectively describe and share on my blog throughout the seven weeks. Avalon Winter Session, 2017