#wildeles

[zoo-packys]

Time for the end of the day update. But before that, a little story: about a year ago, I uploaded elephant pictures from a handful of sanctuaries. Afterwards, my friend wildeles told me about a sanctuary I had not heard of at the time. It was called BLES - Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary, located in Thailand. In continuing “Sanctuary Month” & to give my friend wildeles a special treat, I’m going to be uploading elephant pictures from Boon Lott’s Elephant Sanctuary next week. I hope you guys look forward to that!

[wildeles]

@zoo-packys said: Congratulations! Do you consider me one of your “few new friends”?

You bet I do, zoo-packys! :) And, thank you!

[Per this post.]

[wildeles]

@aboxofelephants said: Congratulations and great going!! :) Have a wonderful year two.

Thank You, aboxofelephants!

[Per this post.]

[wildeles]

WildEles is one year old today.

One year ago today, on World Elephant Day 2013, I began this blog. It was my way of doing what I could to bring awareness to the current plight of African and Asian elephants. I wanted to examine the good, the bad, and the ugly about how we humans treat elephants, but I wanted also to add in a dash of fun. Elephants are the first not to take themselves too seriously. :)

Along the way, I've made a few new friends. I've laughed at silly elephant antics, and cried at some of the photos of brutal slaughter and cruelty that we humans inflict on these species.

I have 933 followers 365 days later, and I couldn't be prouder. I've even managed one viral post, complete with my quickly written caption with poor grammar: "Baby Elephant Drinking". I learned soon enough that one does not always get credit for one's original posts. I learned not to mind too much.

After all, it's about the elephants, not me.

Thank you all for giving me your valuable time to read what I have to say.

Thank you for sharing this journey.

Trumpets and Rumbles,

Jewel/WildEles

[Image Source: Woodmansterne Zagazoo Elephant Thank You Greeting Card.]

[zoo-packys]

How did you decide to focus your blog on zoo elephants?

The main reason why, obviously, is because elephants are my favorite animal. They’re just such amazing creatures! But more specifically, the reason why I focus mainly on zoo elephants is because people can get great photographs of elephants in zoos. It’s not always the case in the wild, because elephants can be quite unpredictable. Sometimes you can’t find them, & other times they’re in a bad mood & will charge at you! So it’s mainly because of the great pictures people take. I also hope that by promoting different zoos with elephants, people will be encouraged to go & visit these animals, & when they do that it encourages more people to help their wild relatives. Anyway, I hope I answered your question well enough.

[zoo-packys]

Today was a really successful day, I'm so glad I uploaded the cherry blossom elephant! So next week, I plan on going to the land Down Under to bring you all photos of the elephants from the Australia Zoo. Oh, & wildeles if you're reading this, thanks for the nice feedback & support, & I'm a boy by the way.

[zoo-packys]

Another successful day, I would say! First of all, I'd like to thank wildeles for all of her likes & nice feedback on my posts. If you're reading this, thank you! Next, I've decided that for next Saturday, I shall be uploading pictures of elephants from various zoos in Japan!

[yourdailyelephant]

wildeles replied to your post “No tree trunks is in more than one episode and she's super cute and ASDFGHJKL I just love that show. You can watch it for free online c:”

I wish I had your discipline. I just watched the entire season of House of Cards, Season 2, last weekend. Yikes! Like I don't have a dissertation to write! :

AHHHAHAHAHAdisciplineHAHAHA. You're a comedian! After blocking tumblr with the Self Control App I find anything and EVERYTHING to do to procrastinate. Exhibit crap show this past week: I had 50 pages of the thesis to write by Friday. Well, from Thursday-Sunday the week before I was making questionable decisions in NOLA. I told myself that was my last hurrah before buckling down... then of course I needed Monday to recover from NOLA, and then Tuesday rolled around and my friend and I always do the Chick-fil-A First 100 things, and we found out one was last week, so Wednesday was shot, so that meant Thursday was ruined because I was exhausted from the chick-fil-a thing. Then Friday comes around and I still have 50 pages to edit/write. Thank goodness on Thursday evening I came up with a genius way to revise the first little bit of my paper and I knew it would take a while to get it done, so my advisor let me extend my due date to Sunday, since I'm pretty sure he was appalled at the state of 'draft 1' of my literature review. Then Friday I vacuumed the entire house, did ALLLL my laundry, organized my closet, washed my car, windexed the windows of my car... cleaned EVERYTHING... & Saturday I wrote 25ish pages. By the time Sunday rolled around I had 25ish pages left to write. I stayed up until 6:30am Monday getting that beast done. I have no discipline. I just don't like TV, or cartoons, haha... i shouldn't be laughing, this is all after getting a letter in the mail that basically said, "Oh, we know we said the thesis was due April 16, but that means you have to have the entire thing done by March 16" MARCH. NOT APRIL? WHAHHHHT? no. I'm so stressed that I don't even know how to start working on this thing until it is ABSOLUTELY THE LAST MINUTE. MAKE IT END. wildeles, I sincerely hope you're dissertation is going more smoothly than my thesis. I am 99.98% sure is going to end with a massive discussion section covered with tears, explaining how I am going to have to reject my hypothesis.

Also, I'd like to thank Nick Grimshaw and the entire breakfast show team for keeping me awake. It's an excellent motivator for studying late (In the US, at least) when it comes on at 12:30 and goes off at 4. The show meant to wake up the English keeps up the procrastinators in the US, haha :)