Time Flies

Apparently it has been almost 6 years since I posted last. I have long finished my masters, had an amazing 5 years at the aquarium, and moved to Raleigh to start my PhD. In fact, I've finished my first year of my program already. I can't believe that went by so quickly.

The reason I'm restarting the blog is because I have a lot of fabulous adventures going on. I have hated leaving every full time job I ever had because I worried that I wouldn't get to travel the way I did with that position. Ripley's sent me to Boston, Savannah, and New Orleans. Then I started at Fort Fisher and went to too many wonderful places to list: Alaska, San Francisco, and Woods Hole to name a few. Then I decided to go back to school (again) and mourned the loss of work travel. Haha, was I wrong. The fall semester was mostly local travel but I did get to see Neil deGrass Tyson and Bill Nye speak. I met the head of the International Whaling Commission and discussed my work on informal education. He offered to help me make contacts in Europe if I was interested (which reminds me, I need to find his card...).

This spring has brought some amazing travel opportunities. In March I went with Ecology Project International to Baja California. I flew down early to check a big one off my bucket list: swimming with whale sharks! You can check out the first half of my trip here:

Once I came back from Mexico, it was wedding and conference season. The weddings were fantastic and the conferences were great as well. I went to my first AERA conference in Washington DC followed by NARST in Baltimore. My goal for NARST was to meet John Falk and Lynn Dierking. They have literally written the book(s) on informal education:

So I made it a point to meet them at the conference. They were super friendly and supportive of my work. They even invited me to the party they were throwing in honor of their awards they were winning! I had a total fan girl moment which only makes sense if you work in our field. I asked to take a picture with them and they were very gracious:

I learned a lot at NARST and met a lot of people doing great things in my field. Now that the semester is over, I'm working on finishing some papers, doing new research, and working on IRB proposals. But the big excitement, and reason for restarting this blog, is that I am going to Finland in 10 days!!! Our department is traveling to make research collaborations with the University of Jyvaskyla. I will be talking about lifelong learning and the role that informal science centers play. I am really hoping to develop some great connections. I was awarded an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for the next three years. Part of that fellowship is the potential to travel abroad to do research. I'm hoping to develop a project with someone while we are in Finland in the hopes that they will host me to do research. So the trip will be amazing and hopefully beneficial for everyone going. However, because I couldn't pass up the opportunity, a few of my colleagues and I will be traveling to Estonia and Iceland on the way home. So it will be work and a little play. I can't wait to share the adventure with you.

The best fortune I got this year.