Retirement

I've now finished work with the Devil Program. It was very strange to be officially finishing, but I had a really great last day and spent most of the day cuddling devils while we did health checks and photographed their markings for id shots. I haven't felt upset or sad about leaving work yet, but I'm pretty sure at some point I'll really miss working with the devils and a couple of my workmates as well.

 Me releasing Grumble on my last day

My days since retirement have been relaxing, but busy. I haven't had a chance for a proper sleep-in yet, but I'm scheduling that for tomorrow morning.

I've been spending a lot of my time (both before and after I officially finished work) working on the paper that I've been writing with some of my former workmates for the Australian Wildlife Rehabilitation Conference. Its been quite a lot of working putting the paper and the conference talk together, but in a strange way I've been enjoying doing something a bit more academic. I'm looking forward to the conference itself which is in Hobart in May, because it'll be really good hearing about all the research other wildlife carers and rehabilitators have been doing. I'll be really nervous before our 30min presentation, but it will definitely be worth doing. The paper and the presentation will both be really valuable additions to my resume and are things that frequently come up in the selection criteria for the sorts of jobs I am interested in.

Tomorrow it is 3 weeks until I zoom to the other side of the world to play with cheetahs. There is still quite a lot to do before I go, but I also intend to really enjoy some relaxing time with my family and friends. I'm going to start with a sleep-in tomorrow and see how we go from there.