2011...in a nut shell

Well, I've handed in my thesis! I submitted it for examination mid-January. It feels good. It's only been 6 weeks and 2 out of 3 of my examiners are done already. That is good news...I just need the 3rd one to finish and I should be able to have the hard-bound copy submitted in time to go through the May graduation ceremony. I am glad because if I don't meet the deadline, then I don't graduate until August and I don't expect to be here to go through the ceremony.

But life never seems to slow down much. I took a couple of days off and then was full on with prepping and teaching a 2-day lab for a high-school science camp. Then I spent a week in the Catlins at a camp lodge helping with the Field Ecology course. 39 3rd-year students...they all design and conduct their own projects...on sea anemomes, snails, seaweed, sand hoppers, exotic weeds, stream inverts, spider abundance, crayfish fighting, etc, etc. It was a fantastic group of students and staff, who worked hard and all had a lot of fun. Other than that, I've been submitting my thesis chapters to journals for publication and am waiting to hear back. My first chapter has already been accepted by the International Journal for Parasitology and should be printed any day now. I've been applying for jobs all over the U.S. Lots of community colleges...Normandale, one in Sacramento, one in Washington state, and have another in TX that I want to apply for. There's a teaching and research one for 1 year at a women's university in Virginia for which I am preparing my application currently. I've also applied for a post-doc research position at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Maryland, but I'm not too keen on that project. However, there's a post-doc in Tampa on palm trees and their parasitic mites that I am very excited about! Other than it's not on trematodes, it fits me perfectly. Most of these jobs would start in August. I'm happy to at least find some jobs I'm interested in!

And finally got to take a trip last week (photo album link on the right). I went to Stewart Island (south of the South Island) with Carlos, Isa and Daniela (who handed her thesis in 2 weeks ago!). We packed a lot into 5 days...check out the photo album link on the right. We flew into Mason's Bay and spent the first day doing a 5-hr beach walk to see the stranded pod of whales...very sad, but were surprised and glad to see some biologists there collecting samples from them. They even collected parasite samples for my labmate, Haseeb. We tried to see kiwi that night, and we heard them but didn't get to see them in the dark (they are nocturnal), under the ferns. Day 2 we walked from there to a river to meet a water taxi. I was not prepared for it to be so warm! It was a beautiful walk, through a wetland...lucky for us it was surprisingly dry...only a few little patches of mud...not the knee deep stuff this track is known for. The robins were soooo much fun! They are extremely friendly and curious with no fear of mammals because they didn't evolve with any mammal predators.


...and on my boot...


The 3rd day, we took a water taxi to another island where they've removed all introduced mammalian predators (mostly rats, although they've recently discovered rats on the island again). Many threatened birds have been released on Ulva Is and studied by some of my friends in the department. The 4th day we went kayaking, and the last day before taking the ferry back to the South Island, we went cod fishing.

What traveling with the Spanish is like...


So now you are wondering what's next...and so am I! LOL I am hoping one of these many job applications will pan out! In the meantime, I am busy trying to improve my CV and teaching. I plan to leave Dunedin around May 20th or so and hopefully see a bit of the North Island before leaving NZ. Then I head to Cali for a day or two before going to a conference in Alaska on the 1st of June. I'll spend a week or so there, before returning to Cali to spend time with family and friends for a couple of weeks. I plan to be in MN for all of July...and hope to head off for a job in August...my fingers are crossed!

Melbourne

Wow, where does the time go? It looks like it's been over 2 month since I've last posted....I've gotten bad at this. Or maybe just too busy. Well, I just got back from a parasite conference in Melbourne. So up until then I had been trying to collect as much data as possible and put together a good talk. My talk went really well and was on the first day of the conference so I could just relax and enjoy the conference the rest of the week. It was the largest one I've been too with over 1800 attendees, 10 of us from my lab went. We had a great time together and I loved Melbourne. It's an easy city to get around in with great public transport. I went to the aquarium, zoo, Queen Victoria Market where I bought some wonderful cheddar cheese (YUM!), ate a lot of gelato and good Italian and Greek and lots of drinks with the lab. There's a new photo album link for a few pics.

Now I've got less than 7 weeks til my exit seminar....which means finishing all data collection, all analysis and all figures and put together the talk. I will pretty much live at the dept over this time...lots to do before the end of the year. Ok, I'm off to teach a lab, where we are dissecting sharks and possums...fun!

Wine and myBirthday

After the glacier, we headed to Wanaka, one of my favorite towns, checked into our backpackers (which as excellent) and went straight to Amigos for dinner. Had a fantastic Mexican dinner. Yum! For my birthday, Emily made me an wonderful omelette with bacon. We wandered around Central Otago, stopping at lots of wineries. Then the long drive back towards Dunedin.

We stopped at Fluers for my birthday dinner. I had a whole cod with caper butter almond sauce.

West Coast!

Leaving Dee's we headed towards the west coast. We stopped at the longest swing bridge in NZ - 110meters, also the sight of a major earthquake and you can see the fault line with a waterfall pouring out of it.

Along the coast, we stopped at the pancake rocks, these cool layered rock formations. We got there right after high tide, but still got to the the blow hole "blow"! Em and I bought each other green stone necklaces for our birthdays. I absolutely LOVE mine! It's a koru, which is the shape of a young, curled up fern frond (or fiddle head) symbolizing new beginnings, growth, life.

Then to Hokitika gorge where we crossed another swing bridge for views of THE most beautiful turquoise-colored river I've ever seen! The color was amazing!

We continued down the coast to another river and, following some vague directions, found ourselves some hot springs! I thoughtfully brought a shovel along for this very occasion and we found some spots were the steam was rising, dug a hole and lounged around in the hot springs!

After heating up, we decided to test the waters of the river...the river coming from mountains...mountains with glaciers...I was a wimp, but Mike actually fully laid out and immersed himself in the water! Crazy!

Next was Okarito lagoon, which was disappointing, but we hung out at the beach waiting for that ocean sunset.

Then back to the car to head to Franz Josef for our glacier walk the next day. First it was a couple of km hike to the glacier, then we had to climb this huge gravel hill that came out of the glacier a couple years back, before stepping onto the glacier. Glacier ice feels very crystalized and is blue. We had to squeeze through crevaces sideways and then pull yourself up these carved steps with a hand rope. The views were fantastic and for some reason it felt oddly comforting, hmmm, kinda like home, hmmm...

More beaches

After kayaking we headed to Deanna's through Marlborough wine region and got several bottles for the weekend to go with all of Matt's wonderful cooking! We spent Friday night at Dee's and then the 5 of us plus Savie (their new lab) went up to Golden Bay for the weekend and stayed in a Strawbale cottage. Spent time at the beach, fishing, going for walks, making pizza and drinking wine. I truly enjoyed catching up with Dee...I love her positive energy and realistic outlook on everything! We went to this fabulous beach - Wharariki - beautiful landscape and baby seals.

Hiking and Kayaking

After the dolphin swimming, we headed further north to Marlborough Sounds where we spent one day hiking and one day kayaking on Queen Charlotte Sound. We got a wonderful sunny day for our hike. We got a boat ride out to the beginning of the track, walked about 4.5 hours, had 5 minutes to down a beer at the lodge before catching the boat back. On the way back, we found some bottlenose dolphins. These guys are soo much bigger than the duskys we swam with! It was a gray, cloudy day for kayaking but still warm. We got fairly close to a couple little blue penguins. I got a free t-shirt from the company cause I helped them brain storm a motto - Marlborough Sounds Adventure Company knows just how you like it - what do ya think? Inspired by our guide Paul's great cup of coffee! I posted an album of my pics, but here's a couple more from Emily...

Dolphin swimming

Just got back from a week and a half of traveling the South Island with Mike and Emily...not enough time, but we did some very cool things! The best part was swimming with Dusky dolphins in Kaikora on the second day. There was about a pod of 100 or so and they drop us into the middle of them with wetsuit and snorkeling gear. They were EVERYWHERE! And so very close! We weren't allowed to touch them but they were so close that it certainly was possible! They like to swim in circles under you and if you do so, they will keep circling until you can't keep up! lol It was so much fun! Unfortunately Em got seasick and Mike also got out early due to his shoulder hurting, but all in all it was the best thing I think I've ever done! After the swimming, we got to photograph them and I shot a couple videos...

Dusky dolphin doing somersaults

Swimming alongside our boat

Uphill battle

My last experiment is O-V-E-R! Fantastic! Still need to dissect all those fish, but hey, another mile stone has past! Emily and I took a long weekend and headed up to Wanaka for a night. Stopped and got my fav, Black Ridge 2001 ReislingWe went to an excellent Mexican restaurant (hard to come by here) and stayed at a backpackers (with a couple of drunk German girls waking us up at 3am....probably my 2nd worse stay at a backpackers). Sunday we walked around town picking up some last minute things for tramping (because I packed at last minute and forgot some important items...I am NOT a last-minute packer!) and hitting the gift shops. Then into the hills for our first overnight tramp to Meg Hut. The first hour uphill was good, the 2nd hour uphill was hard and the 3rd hour up those damn hills was grueling! Every time I came over the top of a hill and saw another one I wanted to curse (and did)! Both Emily and I had the thought "This is miserable" going through our minds at different times...good thing we could commiserate and make each other laugh. I also find hiking here to be a bit boring, cause there isn't much for wildlife to see. Took quite a few photos of cows and sheep though! lol After reaching a top of the saddle, we had a short walk across and then a steep decent down to the hut...which we had to take slow cause our legs and knees were sore. The hut was great...5 others were there. We had a good dinner, read and were asleep early. Then, of course, up early since it took us so long to hike in, we needed to get going to be back in Dunedin for a lecture by a lab visitor. Breakfast, back up that very steep hill, and the walk back down wasn't as bad but after a couple hours the leg muscles for going down hill were knackered! Stopped at a cheesery to top up our lunch and again, back for that real fruit ice cream...just can't pass it up! Took a couple days to recuperate! I'll be ready to chose a less hilly tramp next time and won't trust Rachel in her advice on which ones are easy! Check out the photos!

Emily is here!

So Emily arrived 2 weeks ago. She's here as a research assistant in our lab for 4 months and staying with Rachel and I, sleeping on the pull-out couch. The day after she arrived, I took her on an overnight field trip cause I had to go back to Ohau to get more fish - the first time there wasn't successful cause of the wind and I kept rescheduling the return trip due to wind. It was still fairly windy but the direction of wind was good so we got all the fish I needed. We camped and went on a short hike - check out the new photo album. Else I've been working alot...how the rest of 2010 will go for me. All done with fieldwork, only a couple more days left of my experiment and heaps of dissecting and molecular work to get to! But heading to friends tonight for Mexican and a soak in the hot tub!

Like a bee

I been busy, busy, busy...the theme of 2010 for Kristin. I'm running my last experiment....3 weeks in now and only 1 death cause the fish jumped the tank. Fingers crossed that they last at least another 3 weeks! I'm completing my last bit of fieldwork (check out the new photo album), but need to go back to one of the lakes cause I didn't get enough fish. I may also need to redo the 5th lake...it was too windy at Lake Ohau and my nets and traps got blown around so that several traps were blown to shore or blown around on the rocks so much they ended up with huge holes. 3 of the lakes were local and 2 were about 4 hours away, so Kim, the field tech, and I got to go camping and fishing while we set traps out overnight at those 2 lakes. It was beautiful. Although I've been sick for a week and a half now and was sick during the trip and I spent a good chunk of time reading some background information for a post-doc job application that I submitted today! It would be an intriguing system...on the parasite that causes limb malformations in frogs. And in Boulder, Colorado. We shall see, next I'm looking for grant money to apply for to work with a fish guy in MN and parasite guy in Alberta on a co-mentored project.