It is starting to become difficult for me to do my job and Jose’s. He continues to avoid everyone for the most part. I have not seen him since he once again gave me his paperwork to do last week. Maria keeps giving me more work and Jose keeps not doing his work and I am reaching the limits of what I can accomplish in a day. I am trying not to let it bother me. I am focusing on the jobs that affect the well-being of the creatures in our care first. Then I focus on my jobs, which are usually in the lab helping Maria with her research. And then I do any other jobs Jose has not done that cannot wait any longer.
As the list of jobs has become longer, I have had to limit my leisure time. There are only 1436 minutes in a day, and I had been spending too many of them playing with the grungles to keep up with the increased workload. Even without taking leisure time, I cannot do all of my work and Jose’s. I have been avoiding bringing this subject up with Maria. She has been less angry recently. Yesterday, when I briefly entered the office in search of some work gloves, she even complimented me on how hard I have been working recently. It is nice to have my work recognized, even if it is work I should not have to do.
It is perhaps because of my limited time that I had not noticed my new favourite grungle until recently. When I brought in the food buckets for the grungles a few days ago I was greeted by an especially bright grungle. It dropped out of the trees right on top of me! It then tried to wrestle one of the buckets of grubs from my grasp. I always try to make sure all the grungles have equal access to the food, so I pushed it away and waited for the other grungles to gather before I put the buckets down. Then I noticed that the other grungles give this one space. I have not caught it bullying the others, but it seems to have made its way to the top of the pecking order in the enclosure. The others will not come near it unless invited.
If I was simply a visitor, I might think that we had acquired a new grungle, but I know this is not the case. This grungle has just reached maturity and therefore has grown a new coat. I have seen other grungles do this before, but this particular grungle has an especially beautiful adult coat. This will make it popular during breeding time. I am worried that our normally peaceful grungle enclosure might have some fighting as a result. I have mentioned this to the other caretakers so they can help me watch for any aggression, since I cannot spend a lot of time in the enclosure at the moment.
I think this is enough blogging for now. Mohammed needs help with repairs of some sort.
Nushi
