Tower Fish – Blanco & Winston

I am a resident assistant at a residence hall called The Tower Hall, in case you didn’t know. We recently had our Winter Training session in early January in which we went to different sessions throughout the day to learn more about better ourselves or our working habits. There are sessions such as eating healthy, creating eye-catching advertisesments, using Pinterest to come up with programming and decoration ideas, and even classes on sexual health. At one of these training sessions, though, our hall won an unexpected prize, fish.

In the residence halls here on campus, the only pet you can have is a fish, so it makes sense that Bexar Hall decided to hold a game in which fish were the prize. Our hall ended up winning three fish, all goldfish, though two are gold and one is white.

In honor of Bexar Hall for giving us the fish, we named the largest of the three BexarShark, since “BexarShark” is the name of Bexar Hall’s mascot. The other gold-colored fish, we simply named Winston, and the white fish we named Blanco, in honor of Blanco Hall, here on campus. (In case you don’t know Spanish, “blanco” is Spanish for “white.”)

Although it was our RA, Graham, who actually won the fish by answering the winning question, it’s RA Syd, (my floor partner,) who primarily takes care of them. The first day we acquired the fish, Syd went out to Wal-Mart and decked out their jar with neon pink rocks and a neon pink plastic bush to give their jar a little life. Now their jar glows with neon pink and even the fish reflect the bright color off of their scales.

In order to insure that the fish survive, we came up with a strict feeding schedule for them. The fish reside in a very small jar at our Front Desk in the main lobby and it’s the responsibility of the person who works the first desk shift to feed them each day. It took a little experimenting to figure out how much food the fish actually needed each day as we started with 10 pellets a day but have slowly reduced down to 5 pellets a day. This has seemed to work well for the fish over the past few weeks.

Unfortunately, after about the first week, BexarShark, the largest of the three passed away. I’m assuming that the jar was just too small for him. Fortunately, though, Blanco and Winston, who were much smaller than BexarShark have continued to live and are still alive and well today, over a month later.

I really enjoy having the fish at the Front Desk as they provide company and entertainment. I love to stop by the desk and say, “Hi” to the fish and see how they’re doing. I know they’re just fish, but spending time with animals really makes me feel less stressed and happy. I also enjoy having them next to me as I am working at the Front Desk, just as they are now. It makes it easier to work when I can look to the side and watch the fish happily swimming about their jar. It really entertains me to watch as they surface and continuosly appear to “drink” the air. It definitely makes my shift more enjoyable to have our fish.

Even the residents seem to like Blanco and Winston. When they’re jar is sitting on the Front Desk, people will comment on them and spend a little time watching them, bringing their faces close up to the glass, unable to resist the urge to poke the glass with their fingers. Everyone seems to enjoy having our new pet fish, including myself. I really have come to enjoy Blanco and Winston and I hope that they continue to enjoy their home here in Tower Hall.

More on Blanco and Winston: Tower Fish – Nevermind

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