lazy girl

It's been almost 20 days since my last post and since I started the new job. Sometimes I worry that I'm never going to make the transition from being part time to full time. I feel like I should just automatically know what to do and have big projects to finish. I've written up two programs since I've been there. One was my interview presentation on freshwater mussels (which are much more interesting than you think, especially when I dress someone up like one). The other is on climate change.... It's just a few simple need to know facts about what's going on in our world and why but the majority of the problem is things we can change to help the problem. Whether or not you believe the world is changing it doesn't hurt us any to make some lifestyle changes. So I focused on that part of the program, especially because we don't want to horrify all the kids with "we're all gonna die!" One article I read pointed out that when we learned about the hole in the ozone everyone freaked out... but we quit using cfcs and it's disappearing.... we can fix things if we don't leave it too long.

Today I started working on a new program for teachers. We really don't offer much for teachers to bring their students on field trips. We don't get many high schools and I think a lot of it is that we don't offer the programs. So I'm working on changing that. I was going through the North Carolina Standard Course of Study today trying to look at what goals we can cover at the aquarium. I started thinking about a program on fisheries. I'm pretty excited about it. I think it will be a great program. It will cover 1/6 of the biology goals in one field trip. Go me! ;-)

Today I met with a high school teacher who's doing an internship with us this week. It's my job to help him come up with a lesson he can teach at the aquarium. He has a great idea and shown me some neat new technology. I'm pretty excited to put it to work, especially because I put it in my workplan to use more technology in our programs. I think this will work well with our smart board.

Nicole came down to visit this weekend. We had the most beautiful visit to the beach.

The water was absolutely flat and I played with my waterproof digital camera.

Kathryn was there too. All three of us went to high school together and now we're all in NC. Go figure.

In other news, I'm waiting for a new kitten. I decided to get charlie a friend. We've been waiting for him to go to the vet and get checked out because he just got there the day before I went to visit. The lady is bad about returning phone calls. Hopefully I can get him this weekend. I'm calling him Spartacus.

I'm also taking an online grad class this week. This is so I can drop my Monday class next semester. The head of my program has asked me if I want to teach an actual class this semester instead of the lab. I guess there's 1000 students on a waiting list to get into the class. The biggest I'd be able to teach would be 200 students. It'd be a night class so I can do it around work and they'd give me all the lectures and powerpoints since I won't have time to make them. But I'd be teaching a college level class. I think it's pretty cool because I think I may want to teach college somewhere down the road and this will be a good way to really decide that. It's not for sure yet because the school has to approve it... so keep your fingers crossed....

So life, as usual, is pretty wonderful. :-)

New Job

Today was my first day at the aquarium as a full time employee. It's the first place I've ever worked where I've gotten promoted as opposed to hired fresh. So it was an interesting introductory day. Everyone I've worked with in the past was really glad to know that I was hired. It was a great day. I spent most of it going through what the last educator left for me. I'm going to move into the office pretty slowly since I have to paint the office before I really settle in. It's currently lime green. It definitely keeps you awake.

In other news, we've started playing volleyball again. We actually won a game last night. I scored about 6 points on one serve. It was pretty fun. I went to a winery called Noni Bacca on Sunday with my friend Velu. It was a lot of fun. They do free tastings every day but they had free food on Sunday. After that we met up with some girls at Fibber McGee's. They were doing half price bottles of wine so the girls had a good time. I was driving but still had a lot of fun. Earlier in the weekend my old roommate Dan and I checked out a new bar called Whiskey Creek that's very close to both of our houses. We may go again with the rest of the team after volleyball tonight.

I chopped off my hair before I came back to NC. It's really cute and much more comfortable. Mom and I had a great time at the farm and I wish I had had more time at the lake but my trip home was wonderful. So now I'm going to work on getting into the swing of things at the Aquarium. Live is so very very good. I quoted one of my favorite authors the other night. She talks about the full cupboard feeling: the way you feel when it's snowing outside but the cupboard is full of all your favorite things and you don't have to go out in it. I am so happy lately. I sat in the pool reading the other day and watching the wind blow through the palm trees. It doesn't get much better than this.