Tavishi An Arizona autumn is not marked by anything seasonally except the changing of the calendar page and scores of Halloween decorations. Maybe temperatures drop to 70 degrees in the morning rather than the usual 80, but honestly, there is nothing that feels like a transition. London, however, has the fall of my dreams. It's cold enough to wear flannels and coats and actually be comfortable, but it's not quite cold enough to make enjoying the outside impossible. I definit

Tavishi Happy October! I'm kind of a white girl about fall, and so October is a national holiday for me... Anyways! Also, today is my FDOC, so that's fun. I am officially starting my second year of college. That's kind of insane. I started this blog when I was like fifteen. I like teeth as a concept. In practice, I am immensely grossed out by human saliva and mouths. I don't mind animal saliva and mouths, but I have a visceral reaction to other people's saliva, or my own (som

Tavishi Confession: I am a born and raised horse girl. This is, actually, how I managed to fracture my femur at the ripe old age of ten years old. I do have some pretty sick pins that were put into the bone to aid in the healing process, which is quite cool to think about. Anyways, I like horses! I don't ride anymore, but when I am back in Phoenix, I enjoy spending my time volunteering at this incredible horse rescue: Healing Hearts horse rescue! Highly recommend checking the

Tavishi Anyone who has spoken to me/kept up with Kradigan this summer has heard of my most recent adventure. I got to spend the past few months living in Niagara Falls, New York and participating in a full-time marine mammals and birds internship at the Aquarium of Niagara. It goes without saying that this was a profound and life-changing opportunity. It has always been my greatest dream to work with pinnipeds, and after all these years, this is the first time I got hands on

Tavishi I need to live by the beach. When I say this, a lot of people think I want to go somewhere warm and tropical. I think the warmest beach I could live near might be California. No, I need the doom and gloom of the UK, or Alaska, or the PNW. I have been thinking more about where I'd like to live when I'm older. Perhaps I am growing up. The future seems more and more real. Is this aging? PINNIPEDS! STELLER SEA LIONS.. I would love to live in Alaska one day, primarily for

Tavishi This Saturday, my brother/the Kradigan social media man booked an impulse flight to come visit me that day. (To be fair, he is in NYC and I am in Niagara Falls, so it's not that crazy. It's like a one hour flight.) we are new yawkas I still haven't processed the whole living-in-Niagara-Freaking-Falls thing. It's surreal but a really cool experience. I have discovered I really enjoy these solo sidequests. Taking a break from my regular life to go work with pinnipeds at

Tavishi I had written like half a blog post but scrapped it because it didn't feel right, but I was on the phone with Nandini Goel and I was having writer's block (actually I have too many ideas and I can't bring any to life because of decision paralysis). She kept throwing out ideas and she wanted me to write about stingrays, and then the octopus from Finding Nemo. Anyways, I decided to sorta indulge Nandini by talking about the way stingray and octopus toxins work. BLUE-RI

Tavishi I have been told I have three personality traits: pickles, pinnipeds, and metal. This is... moderately accurate (especially) if my personality is the t-shirts I have. I have managed to accrue three different pickle t-shirts. the excellent graphic of excellent graphicals My love for the sour, salty, and fermented is a core tenet of who I am, and my refrigerator shelf. My flatmate (now former flatmate) Mary can vouch for this. We had a beach picnic once with other snack

Tavishi Hi! So I fell off the face of the earth for a little... I got really swept up in end of year stuff. Also, I'm in Niagara Falls right now? For the next two months? I was in Phoenix briefly, but yeah. yup this is Phoenix, Arizona I'm very confused time-wise. Rest assured, I didn't forget about Kradigan! Anyways, I guess it's like, a tradition now. to make a snippets post at the end of term. Wow! Without further ado... APRIL The majority of April was spent on placement

Tavishi This might be the STUPIDEST kradigan post yet, and that's really saying something, because I made a skibidi toilet post. who up at the parasite party Anyways, I was thinking about the concept of Buzzfeed quizzes, and also how much I love parasite taxonomy. Have fun, and follow my instructions: Which of the following best describes how tall you are? a. Below 5' 2" b. 5' 2" - 5' 6" c. 5'6" and above If you chose A, you're an anopluran, or a sucking louse, because you're

Tavishi When I was fifteen, I visited the Marine Mammal Care Center for the first time. At this point, I'd already been hooked on pinnipeds, but this was my first visit to a pinniped rehabilitation centre. Upon finishing this visit, I was completely and utterly hooked. that is the face of someone who has realized their passion for the first time. As a sad little landlocked child (the children yearn for the seals), I would have done ANYTHING to work with pinnipeds. Because I w

Tavishi I miss taking math and physics classes. Luckily for me, we had a biomechanics class, and we did calculus during our kidney lectures. However, and I might propose: For starters, pinnipeds are basically just birds flying when they're swimming; they follow the same basic principles of aerodynamics, but with a side of being in Water. Anyways, but pinnipeds follow the same basic principles of drag, lift, and thrust. According to the Coanda effect, fluids follow a curved pa

Tavishi Whoops, it's been almost a month since I posted... I swear, this will not become a habit, the month of April was just hectic. I spent the first two weeks of April in Boston and Stickney, two small towns in Lincolnshire. I was staying in Boston, and doing a zoo placement in Stickney, which is like 8 miles from Boston. Anyways, I was doing a placement at Ark Wildlife Park! I want to pursue a career in wildlife conservation medicine (Wild Kratts maxing), and this work ex

Tavishi Oops... kinda fell of the face of the Earth. I'm in the middle of the British countryside doing a brief placement at a zoo? Anyways. I am BACK. Trust, there will be a post about my zoo experience veeeeery soon. However, I have been cooking this post for a few weeks now, so this has to come first: . . . Everyone has a few go-to, half-assed, overused jokes. Every time I see a "road work ahead" sign, I say, "I sure hope it does!". My brother's go to crappy joke is, "The

international SEAL day !!!

Tavishi My second term of university comes to a close, and yet again, I can't decide on what to write about. I'm starting to notice a pattern, because this is exactly what happened at the end of last term. So far, this term, I've had 3 modules: Integrated Physiology I, Integrated Physiology II, and The Moving Animal. IPI and IPII are just anatomy and physiology, but a lot more in depth, and has the fun of comparative anatomy. Our labs for these have been less microscopy, and

Tavishi I like birds. A lot. I also like games. The two combined gets you Birdle, but I don't like birds that much. i won't reveal the answer. i will absolutely pretend like I know what it is (I gave up.) The middle ground game? METAZOOA ! I love Metazooa, and I've put all my RVC friends onto it, too. Basically, it's taxonomy wordle. Not to flex, but.. this is me flexing. Anyways, I am consistently tripped up by the absolute hell that is bird taxonomy. There are too many bir

Tavishi The RVC library is my dream. As someone interested in a fairly niche area of biology, I've grown accustomed to finding online versions of textbooks because they're either, a, 300+ dollars, or b, not available in any libraries near me. The RVC library, though, has every textbook I could possibly want. Not only do they have my favorite general biology textbooks (Vander's, Albert's, Lehninger's, etc.), but they have all the highly specific veterinary textbooks I'm intere

Tavishi I was talking to my friend Russell about what I'm thinking about writing about for Kradigan this week and mentioned wanting to write about thrombus and embolism formation. In response to this, Russell said, "oh, like the shapes with the parallel sides?" Apparently, Russell was trying to troll me, because he then insisted that rhombuses are not parallelograms. Fun fact: rhombuses are definitionally parallelograms. Russell has forgotten math (as a MATH MAJOR). First, t

Tavishi I've developed a new hobby: weightlifting! It kinda started as a joke, but I've rapidly gotten really into going to the gym and bodybuilding this past month. I now go to the gym 4-5 days a week, and have like an actual routine. Good news; I've definitely gotten stronger, but I still have a long way to go. First thing I noticed is how as soon as I stop paying attention to my nutrition, my diet becomes woefully devoid of protein. Lately, I've been legume and yogurt maxx