MIA

So I went MIA this week... partly because I had a nasty virus and had to wipe my computer. I spent all night reloading everything back on. Thankfully I followed my gut last month and bought an external harddrive to back everything up. So nothing was lost except the virus (Thank goodness).

This week's been full of ups and downs. I realized on Tuesday that my windshield got cracked on Sunday on my way home from Raleigh. A car was throwing up rocks on 40 and so I changed lanes. Apparently it wasn't soon enough. It was a small crack and easily fixed. I spent all morning on Friday waiting for the guy to show up... but it's done and didn't cost me anything. Thank goodness for insurance.

Also on Friday I had a meeting with my old bosses at Surf House. I start back to work when I get back from Bermuda. It's a great cafe/surf shop. All the food is local produce and organic.... and amazing. They were slow starting off so had to let go of all their front of house people but now that's summer's rolling around, they're back in the swing of things. It's a great place to hang out and a lot of fun to work at.

I also got a call this week to schedule an interview at the aquarium on Tuesday. It's to be a Special Activities Instructor. That will involve running summer camps, hosting birthday parties, and leading sleepovers. So keep your fingers crossed.

This weekend's been productive. I spent 6 hours yesterday in the library trying to get projects done before I go away this week. I have a large paper due right when I come back so I wanted it done ahead of time. I'm almost finished. I went to the men's last home game last night and we lost.... we got a technical because the ref felt we dunked too hard and hung from the rim. Then William and Mary took the ball back and dunked even harder. They didn't get called on it so the same guy who got T'd the first time dunked and blatantly hung on the rim to dare the ref to call it again. Next year can only be better.

Today I dove at the aquarium. I finally got to try out my new camera to make sure it's going to work for Bermuda. I made a great choice on this new toy!

Weekend in Raleigh

It was a big weekend here in North Carolina. I drove the two hours up to Raleigh on Friday night for a weekend of fun and excitement. I started with dinner with my Aunt, Uncle, and Cousin since I don't see them very often. They got the weekend started off right with margaritas all around. After dinner I met up with my friend Nicole. We've been friends since 5th grade and like to get together whenever we can. Friday was a quiet night in with friends.

Saturday was a different story. I got up early to drive to Holly Springs for a workshop on Salamanders. I'm working on my North Carolina Environmental Education Certification. This class talked all about different types of salamanders. There are over 500 species in the world and our state is home to at least 50 of them. That's a pretty big deal. The Smoky Mountains are considered the salamander capital of the world. We learned about salamanders and then created our own:

After we created our salamanders we went out in the field to look for them. We spent a lot of time mucking around. These are my very professional hot pink rain boots. Most everyone else had on boring gray or green. The salamanders saw me coming from a ways off. We finally had success when one of the girls caught a couple bull frog tadpoles and two eastern newts. Someone else caught a couple crayfish that are local to the area. I had to break up a fight when the crayfish tried to eat our poor little newt. It was a great workshop.

Then I made my way back to Raleigh we made plans to meet up with some of my friends from college who are living up there for school. The evening started off great, but I have to say it was the worst service I've ever had. We got there at 7:30, got seated about 8:30 and didn't leave til 11. Not because we wanted to sit and chat, our waitress was just that slow. We had all sorts of tables around us come and go in the time it took to get our food and check. At least the company was great!

On Sunday Nicole and I went to the flea market to get some ideas for her new house. There were lots of ideas and lots of junk! It was interesting to poke through though. Afterwards we headed for the main event: the megalodon exhibit at the Museum of Natural Sciences. I've been to the museum for a cold water corals workshop but I've never been through the exhibits. I was actually kinda disappointed with the sharks exhibit but the rest of the museum was amazing! It was four floors with live animals (lots of salamanders), live butterflies, and lots of interactive exhibits. I'm glad Nicole's about as big a nerd as I am! We had a blast! What a great weekend!

Traveling and New Toys

After Christmas break I came back to Friday Hall (where my office is) the day before the semester started for a meeting. As I walked in the building, I saw a flier on the door advertising for a spring break trip to Bermuda.The application was due in a couple days so I filled it out and sent it off, even though the class was just for undergrads. Surprise surprise, I was accepted as one of five people to go on an all expenses paid trip to Bermuda. It includes snorkeling in the mangroves, sea grass beds, and coral reefs. We will be working with students from the University of Southampton in England to collect data and come up with a research project. The trip is 9 days at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (their website).

We leave two weeks from today so yesterday we had to take a snorkel test to make sure we know how to swim, etc. The test was a piece of cake: swim a few laps, tread water for 2 minutes with your hands up, and then show them how to do a surface dive in your gear. Well, all of this is second nature for me but there is a girl going on the trip (who I think is only about 19 or so) who has never been snorkeling. So I ended up teaching a snorkel workshop just like the ones I used to lead down in Florida. Last week I had to tell her how to get a good mask etc. She went to Target and bought a cheap set... So yesterday I got to teach her how to snorkel properly. I was surprised how difficult she made it look. She was trying to do frog kicks in her fins which was pretty silly. We got her straightened out though. She said I should be an instructor and I told her that's what I used to do. It was nice to use those skills again.

But even more exciting than spending the afternoon snorkeling in the pool at school was the package that arrived last night. When I went to Florida in high school for the marine bio trips we took those disposable underwater cameras that don't take very good pictures. I wanted something better for this trip as I may never have an opportunity like this again. So I did some research and ended up ordering a waterproof digital camera. It's an Olympus Tough 8000. It's waterproof to 33 feet, shockproof up to 6 feet, freezerproof, and crushproof (one guy told me you could run it over with your car... I think I'll avoid that). It finally arrived last night. I am so excited and can't wait to start using it. So everyone can look forward to some amazing pictures from this trip.

I'm ready to head to the island, because even though it's pretty much straight east from here, it has to be warmer than it is in Wilmington. Even my office is freezing because the heater's broken in our newly renovated building... So on that note, I'm sending you thoughts of sunny beaches and warm breezes.

Welcome to my world

I wish I had thought to start this last semester with all the great stuff I had going on. But I finally have a place where everyone can come learn about all the great adventures I'm having in grad school without waiting for someone else to pass along an email. Tonight's great adventure is going to be making myself study when I really have no motivation. I have my first test of the semester and just can't get worked up about it enough to buckle down. So I'm off to class and once I return it's nose to the grindstone. I shouldn't have started this today because it is one more way for me to procrastinate. I really have a lot of adventures coming up but I will make myself wait til a slightly later time to write about them. Hopefully after I get to work. So, welcome, it's gonna be a great adventure.