Nach(eetah)o Time?

I made it back to Cincinnati after about 21 hours of travelling. Not much exciting to write about in the whole travel arena...I didn't sleep that much, thus the reason why I didn't post last night. I was not very coherent due to jet lag. While on said jet for the 16-hour stretch from Johannesburg to Atlanta, I ended up watching four movies - Slumdog Millionaire, Ides of March (set here in Cincinnati!), Hugo, and Chronicle. That's a lot of movies. I've already seen Slumdog, but not recently and I like that film quite a bit. Ides of March was very well done, but did not restore my faith in politicians. In fact, it made me even more wary of the upcoming elections in real life. Hugo was fun to watch, and much better than I thought it would be. Chronicle was...weird. I'd never heard of it before. Basically, it involves three teens who obtain telekinetic powers from a mysterious rock in a cave. One of said teenagers is mentally unstable, with an alcoholic dad and a dying mom...you can guess where the film's going. [SPOILER] It ends up with 2 dead telekinetic teens and another world-traveling and weary telekinetic teen. For the purposes of entertainment on a really long plane ride, it did a good enough job. But I digress. Back to cheetahs, even though I don't have access to them anymore.
I don't have any updated news on Tippy. When I left on Sunday, she had been to the vet and was diagnosed with a broken T3 vertebrae, which is definitely not a good thing. Estelle and Pieter are keeping her comfortable and hoping for the best. The best would be her spine healing itself. I don't know how likely this is, considering how hard it must be to keep a frightened and stressed cheetah cub on bed rest. But I'm rooting for you, Tippy!
I am going through severe cheetah withdrawal. This afternoon I went down to the basement and had Nacho time. For those of you who don't know me very well, Nacho refers to my cat, not to the food. We adopted Nacho as a kitten, and he came with the name. His full name is Nacho-san, because he used to be a crazy ninja cat who thought hands were meant for playing with, not for petting. In the last year or so, however, he has turned into a giant cuddle bug. Today he exfoliated my arms, just like Nala used to do! The only difference is that his tongue is a lot smaller and it hurt a lot less. He's never done that before, so I like to think he is picking up vibes from the cheetahs over in Africa.
The time at the Dell has really helped me to sort out what I want to study and pursue. The day I got home from Africa, I received an acceptance letter into the university I really wanted to attend. I go in with the intent of studying biology and art together. They are not as mismatched as they may seem - this way I can take really good photos while I am out in the field studying cheetahs or wolves or servals or what have you! Also, studying anatomy is very good for the artist as well as the biologist. A win-win study situation, if you ask me. Because I miss working at the Dell so much, this summer I am volunteering at Red Wolf Sanctuary, which is a bit closer to home (only an hour away, in Indiana!). So I will keep writing, but not as regularly.
I am going through my 4700+ photos right now, and photoshopping some of them because I am making a photo book on Snapfish. It is taking a bit of time, and my brain is starting to fry. Luckily, I don't think it's possible to get tired of looking at photos of cheetahs and Africa. So back to that task I go!

Taylor