As my study abroad plans to spend a semester in Costa Rica fell through I had to begin looking for an apartment back in Dallas. I was not thrilled because, as much as SMU has done for me, for a while it wasn’t my favorite place. I probably shouldn’t have chosen a school known for business and not at all for science, but at the time I was desperate to get away from Florida for a little while. But my plans of transferring were not looking bright and I was hoping to find a ray of sunshine to make my stay in Dallas more appealing. Enter, the Dallas Zoo.
My friends when I spent time in our “base camp” building
The second semester of my freshman year of college I was desperate to transfer. I wasn’t a huge fan of the social scene and I would do anything to get out of Texas. I had planned to go abroad for a year to Costa Rica to live at a research station in Monte Verde Cloud Forest. I was leaning away from studying medicine and changing my major to biology and journalism. I wanted to study animals and write about them! What kinds of animals? Well, I just wasn’t so sure yet.
Photo by me of a lemur at the Dallas Zoo I took for my monograph
I was sitting in my parents room watching animal planet when I watched a group of volunteers rescue fourteen cougars, five lions and one tiger from a neglectful home in Poetry, Texas. The floors were covered in feces and many of the cats were without water and on the verge of starvation, then these people came in in their lime green shirts and took them and gave them a better home.
I was devoted to animals growing up, but I also have always had a fascination with medicine. I spent weekends during my senior year of high school either working as a hospital volunteer or shadowing an emergency room doctor, and even got the chance to sneak around and follow a neurosurgeon, much to my delight. I loved spending time in hospitals and especially ER’s. Everything was moving and random and yet so organized. I can close my eyes and smell the cleanliness and hear the beeping machines. Even now, so far removed my medical past, it gives me a sense of calm and I can honestly say I miss the nights spent in scrubs.
Endangered Living 