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. 

Merry Christmas

This year has gone entirely too fast! How can Christmas be a week from today already? I hope everyone has a happy holiday and a merry New year!

Where have you been?

I think I'm worn out and just don't know it. Either that or I've gotten very lazy. September is gone, as well as October. We're into November already and I feel like I've just blinked and missed a lot of time.

School is going great. My class has been fabulous with only 11 students. We've done a lot of things you couldn't do with a full class. Lots of hands on and discussions. The students really seem to enjoy it. I've been approved to teach it again next semester. I've decided not to teach a lab next semester so I can actually have two days off each week, not that I'll know what to do with it. I'm getting evaluated this week and next in both lab and lecture just to make sure I'm really teaching what I'm supposed to.

Work is amazing. I am so lucky to have this job. We went to Asheville last week and went to the Western North Carolina Nature Center. We learned about a cool program called Frog Watch and then met with other educators from 11 different zoos and aquariums in North and South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia. It was amazing to talk with people who are working in the same field as I am and see what they're doing differently as well as the same. I got a lot of great ideas for some new projects at work. We also went on a wolf howl at the Nature Center. You howl at the wolves and see if they call back. We didn't hear anything or even see them.... the keepers forgot we were coming and put them up for the night.... oh well, we got lots of great pictures the next day. This one's a coyote but I thought they were more adorable.

One of the projects I got a lot of ideas for is our new million dollar stingray touch pool we're putting in. If there's anything you've ever wanted to know about stingrays or wanted to be able to do with one, let me know and I'll pass on the ideas. We have a template for any new exhibit we come up with and it includes a specific team of people. I'm the developer for this exhibit. My job is to create the educational story behind the exhibit. I got to be on the team since Ripley's had Splash with the Rays. Tomorrow we're going down to Ripleys Aquarium at Myrtle Beach. I'll actually get to get in with the rays. I always had to do the educational side of things in Gatlinburg. So I'm looking forward to it.

The other project I'm working on is the Coastal America partnership. My students are amazing. We've gone up the river on a boat to see how saltwater intrusion will impact our area and yesterday we went to Baldhead Island to look at the maritime forest. They were amazing. They got it. They connected with the issue and saw how changing climate is going to impact us, here. And they are so eager to do something about it. Our film is going to be awesome! The federal coordinator for the project likes what we're doing so much that she wants to share it with everyone else. I do too. We're keeping a blog and a wiki. Make sure you check both of them out and follow what we're doing. These are some amazing kids!

In other news, I finally bought a washer and dryer. I feel like a real grownup. They'll be here Saturday. Life is good as usual. I'm going to Florida to be with the Family and home for Christmas. Can't ask much more than a great job and people who love you. I guess you could, but that'd be greedy :-)

September already?

Some how I completely missed August. School started. UNCW forgot to open my class for students to sign up for until the day before classes started. So I only have 11 students in my class. I like it, it's much more intimate. Lab is going well. I've decided not to teach another lab next semester. I've requested to just teach a lecture in the evenings. I've also decided not to take any classes. I could take two classes, teach, finish my project, and work full time to graduate next semester. That seems silly. The only reason anyone wants to finish in two years is so they can get a job and run off somewhere new. Since I'm sticking around I'm going to take my time. Makes sense to me.

I went to Florida to visit Colleen last month. It was a whirl wind trip but we had a lovely time. Her school is beautiful. We went on a car trip to a very cute little beach a couple hours away. We all had a great time.

Work is going fabulously. I'm finally moving along on my project with the students I'm taking to DC. We're creating a documentary on the effects of changing climates in the Cape Fear region. We're going to interview locals who have grown up in the area to talk about how they've seen things change in their lifetime. We're going to work with a lot of the different environmental agencies around. Especially the ones where I know people :-) I've applied for a grant to purchase a hi def video camcorder so we can do all the filming ourselves. I'm getting really excited about the project. I've already got our group signed up for an eco tour on a boat up the Cape Fear River. I love my job. My office is finally painted (teal) and I just bought a beautiful fish to go on the wall.

I've finally buckled down and decided to have my college tshirts turned into a quilt. I'm using Campus Quilts to have it done. The results are lovely and it's silly to keep putting this off. I've been talking about this since before I graduated the first time. So if anyone is thinking of doing the same thing check them out here.

So that's a quick and dirty update. I'm going to the Panthers/Buccs game this weekend with my friend Sarah, I've thought about wearing my Bears jersey just because. Then the next weekend a couple of my good friends are coming down for the weekend. It should be great! For now though, I need to put together some powerpoints for tomorrow night and start working on their review sheet for the first test next week!

Where did the time go?

I am so far behind I don't even know where to begin. Here are the highlights:

1. I'm teaching a lecture at UNCW next year as well as a lab. This will put me on the path to eventually becoming a college professor way down the road. 
2. I got instate tuition for this year :-)
3. I adopted an adorable kitten (not the one I originally planned on) named Seraphina, Phi for short. 
4. I went to Tennessee for the National Marine Educators Association Conference and got to see lots of wonderful people including Steve Flack and Tammy Browning. My presentation went very well.
5. We went to Ober Gatlinburg and saw bears, otters, and rode the alpine slide.
6. I went to Dollywood Splash Country for the first time. It was actually a lot of fun with decent lines.
7. I've been asked to work with a local high school teacher to put together a group of students to take to a Student Summit on Climate Change in Washington DC.
8. Becky came down to visit and we had a wonderful time. We went on a very interesting bird walk with Audubon North Carolina.
9. The Glow Worms (my volleyball team) is actually doing very well for a change. We're playing our end of season tourny tomorrow and then changing our name to the Isotopes.
10. And lots of other things. 

Up coming:
UNCW Alumni after work, going away party for almost half of our education department, Carolina Beach Beerfest with proceeds going to the Pleasure Island Sea Turtle Project, and off to Florida for 4 days to see Colleen before school starts.

And at work today I got to watch them carry a 7 foot alligator through the aquarium. It took one aquarist per foot. Then we had someone bring in a baby sea turtle off the beach. That is very very illegal. They were worried it was going to get eaten. I wanted to start singing the circle of life.... cold, but true. Both it's fins are broken so we don't know how long it will survive..... But on a lighter note, some pictures.
Miss Phi:

Glossy Ibis on our bird walk

Looks good doesn't it?

Great Smoky Mountains

The bear looked like it tried to escape and fell to his death

The cute otters

I met Eugenie Clark, shark lady. This is me with her best friend Diane Nelson, the water bear lady

You'd think I had never been to Ripleys before with all the pictures I took

The new penguins:

Huma huma nuka nuka apua'a or the picasso trigger fish

Love it!

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.