Kalysha Clark

I cannot think of a signle person who thoroughly enjoys the process of enrolling in classes. Personally, it never fails to stress me out.

I always plan my schedule out only to find that the classes I planned are either not offered or are closed because everyone has already filled up the seats. In the case of the latter, I am always having to go back and check the portal, hoping to get lucky and hop on the wait list.

As of now, I'm enrolled in four classes: Ecology, Animal Phylogeny and Diversity, Nonprofit Leadership and Development, Explorations in Creative Writing, and Fundamentals of Grant Development for Nonprofits.

I'm disappointed because I really wanted to take Captive Animal Biology, but the class fills up quickly and it was already closed by the time my enrollment period opened.

I'm also disappointed because my original planned schedule allowed me to have only three days of classes, giving me two days to work, but it now looks as if I will have to take classes and work on every day of the week. College problems.

Hopefully, it'll all work out in the end. I'm just concerned with making sure I get all my required classes so that I can graduate on time.

Anyone else have a pleasant or unpleasant experience with enrolling? Let me know in the comments. :)

What a great way to start my Junior year in college! I went for a job interview at a coffeehouse on campus, called Port City Java, this morning at 10:00 AM and BAM! I got the job. I start training tomorrow morning at 9 AM! I'm very excited to take on the adventure that comes with being a Barista. I have experience making drinks from my time at Sonic, but PCJ has a lot of different drinks and sandwiches that I'll have to learn. I'm sure I can do it, it will just take some time!

In other news, school starts on Wednesday! Where did the time go!?

I posted a little while back reflecting on the first part of my ten week summer class. I was able to improve my test grades from the first exam and ended up making a B in the class! And to end my summer, the class successfully transferred back to State and officially shows up on my transcript! Yay.

Only another week of summer until it's back to the grind!

As of July 25th, I finished my first ever internship. After 10 weeks of turtle tracking, raptor training, spiderwebs to the face, and mosquito bites, I am happy to have gained many relevant skills toward my career and to have expanded my professional network.

I'd like to give a huge shout out and thank-you to the following people, who donated their hard-earned money to help support me through my unpaid internship. Your contribution was truly appreciated and helped me greatly!


Check out some of the photos below from the internship.

Kellogg the Corn Snake and I.

Nessie, the Bearded Dragon.

Otus the Eastern Screech Owl. He was having a small retreat inside the cabin while his blood feathers grew out.

An outreach event at the Nature Research Center.

Myself with Jade, the Greenish Rat Snake, at the outreach event. The Greenish Rat Snake is a mix between a Black Rat Snake found in the triad and the Yellow Rat Snake found on the coast.

Myself with Pigwidgeon, our newest Eastern Screech Owl. As you can see, his is missing his left eye, which was removed at the Blue Ridge Wildlife Institute (part of Lees McRae college) after being hit by a car.

A large part of my internship was marking box  turtles and recording their information as part of the Box Turtle Connection. To find out how to  become a citizen scientist and to help with the Box Turtle Connection, click here. This turtle is likely a female, because of its muted colors, brown arms (versus yellow on males) and brown eyes (versus red on males). Also, based on the number of annuli (grooves in one scute), she is around 11 years old!

Overall, my internship was very rewarding and I'm very glad I was able to have such a great experience. I plan to continue raptor training so I can progress to the other Barred Owl Lily, our Red-Tailed Hawk Ivan and our Kestrel Artemis.

Some of the staff witnessed one of our transmitter turtles laying eggs. They saw her lay two.

Just laid the eggs.

Covering the nest.

To protect her eggs from predators, one of the conservation interns and myself built her a nest cage.

We used left over chicken wire, zip ties and sticks to build it. Check out the pictures below. I also laminated a sign that reads: BOX TURTLE NEST - DO NOT DISTURB.

View from the top, with the sign.

Side view.

My goal was to take my required statistics and chemistry II at the local community college in Raleigh, but I was only able to get into chemistry. So every Monday and Wednesday I am on campus from 8:15-1:25. The class is going well though! We have open note quizzes before each lab to make sure we've looked over the material and I've made 100s on all but one (which was an 80). We also have informal lab reports, which is good considering I haven't written a chemistry lab report since high school. The one formal report we had to do has already been done and my lab partner and I made a 100 on that. Next week is oral presentation week for the lab sections. I am doing my presentation on the chemistry of depression. It's got a nice biological aspect to it so that's why I picked it.

We had our first test a week ago and I made a little lower than I hoped but hopefully now I know how to better prepare myself and plan to go by my professor's office hours beforehand. My next exam is in two weeks so hopefully I can redeem myself. I'm thinking it should be easy to maintain an A average in lab and homework, so hopefully I can pull out a B!

I found this baby frog while out in the woods at my internship. I believe it is a leopard frog!

While working outside today, two of the volunteers told me they had found a baby box turtle at the top of the path they were clearing. I had them take me to the site so I could see if I could find it. I had no idea it would be so small! It's so cute! It's pretty small so I couldn't tell whether it was a male or female. Maybe we'll find him/her again soon!

Check out the pictures below!

I've been interning for two weeks now and it's a lot of fun! I've spent some time tracking turtles with radio telemetry, which is the main objective of the conservation internship. I've also been working with raptors - feeding and handling. We have weekly raptor training where we learn to transfer and handle them on the glove so we can use them at outreach events. We begin practicing transfers with Miracle, the dove, and then move to Otus, the Eastern Screech Owl. However, Otus is growing blood feathers.

Blood feathers are new feathers growing from a follicle in the bird's skin. The blood feathers contain an artery and a vein with a circulating supply of blood. Once the feather is done growing, the blood leaves the quill or shaft of the feather and goes back to the body. Blood feathers are tender and sore so it's recommended to avoid handling them. So instead of handling Otus, we went directly to handling Athena, the Barred Owl.

It was kinda scary. I was anxious but I wanted to get her on the glove. So I was able to transfer her from my supervisor Sara, walk with her on the glove, and transfer her back. It was awesome.

I've also done some other, smaller tasks: weeding the garden, assembling WildNet handbooks to send to vets. WildNet is a phone line for people who have found wildlife. We figure out the situation and we refer them to a local wildlife rehabber if needed. We did some training for that and I'll be on call Sunday from 1-8 PM. I'm not too worried because I've had experience dealing with wildlife-related calls when I volunteered at the Valerie Schindler Wildlife Rehab Center at the NC Zoo.

All in all, it's been a blast (with the exception of the one tick I found and getting stung by a wasp!). I can't wait to see what else is in store.

Me and Miracle.

Just hanging out.

Otus the Eastern Screech Owl.

Lilly (L) and Athena (R) the Barred Owl.

Me with Athena.

AOW with his radio transmitter.

BIP sticking his head out a teeny bit.

Found this little guy in my neighbor's yard. Had to snap a picture before I put him back.

I've had my 1990 Honda Accord for 4 years. Together, we've been through a car accident that totaled the car, an engine replacement, radiator replacement, radiator hose bust, and so much more. The car itself has over 300,000 miles on it. The speedometer doesn't work, it shakes viciously when I drive, it burns oil and leaks radiator fluid.

Finally, after being two hours away from my family and having a car that was completely unreliable [I actually won the "Most Unreliable Car" superlative in high school!], I decided it was time to invest in a car that I could rely on, didn't have to keep sinking money into, and that would last me three or so more years until I got a full-time job and could start financing a fancy car.

I purchased a 2001 Hyundai Elantra from craigslist. Below are some picture.

The Harkema Fund, which was created in memory of Dr. Reinard Harkema, a former professor of Zoology at NCSU, is to provide scholarships for outstanding students in the Biology Department to participate in programs that enhance their academic experience at NCSU.

I applied to receive help in paying for the transportation aspect of my Conservation Internship at the Piedmont Wildlife Center and was awarded with $750.

I am so blessed and thankful that I was chosen as one of the recipients and know that it will be so helpful to me and my experience!

Since I want to work in conservation, it's important to realize that the biggest aspect of conservation is education! While on my trip to Asheville for my wildlife rehab workshop, I shared a hotel with a lady who is currently getting NCEE certified. She showed me the website and I decided it might be something worth doing! You have four years to complete the certification after paying the registration fee. I haven't paid yet, but I can count workshops from up to a year before I register.

There are five criteria:
I. Instructional Workshops (70 hours)
II. Outdoor Instructor-led Experiences (50 hours)
III. Knowledge of Environmental Education Resources and Facilities (30 hours)
IV. Teaching Experiences (30 hours)
V. Community Partnership Program (20 hours)

It is an extensive program, but I think it will be fun. The only down side is that I do not plan to live in NC after graduation, but I feel like the resources and knowledge I gain from the process will be very valuable and easily applied to wherever I go.

I will keep you updated!