Back when I was in middle school, I had this cool school notebook with multicolored wavy lines. I decided back then, that I would fill the notebook with animal facts. I started with facts on cheetahs. Then, I used it for class when studying a disease. Beyond that, the pages had facts about broken bones in different species, what a gizzard is, how fast blood clots. It was going to be a medical notebook for when I went into vet school. I filled a little more throughout middle school, but by the time I reached high school, I stopped filling out the notebook.
During my last semester of college, I decided to not go to vet school. That notebook remained forgotten on a shelf for a while. However, come 2019, I started volunteering at my local zoo. I found that notebook and I started writing animal facts on them. Facts about Lappet-faced vultures, marbled and blue-billed teals. This notebook had life again.
Then covid hit. I couldn’t get back into the zoo. The notebook was doomed back to a shelf. Barely twenty of it’s pages were filled out. It started to look like it would never reach it’s goal of being filled with animal facts.
Come 2022, I got lucky and was rehired at the zoo. I was informed that certain online classes were highly encouraged–especially if keepers wanted to advance. These classes ranged from a variety of different zoo-related topics: animal husbandry, animal behavior, reptiles, operant conditioning, big cats, animal nutrition and many more. My notebook found new life again.
In 2025, it fulfilled the dream of the young middle schooler. It’s pages though smudged, ripped, bent, and beaten, are full of animal facts.
Now, a new notebook can take it’s place and that original one can sit on the shelf, fulfilled and ready whenever it’s needed again.
nikki diekemper 