Better than Christmas!

So I got 2 boxes of things from my mom today. It was way better than any Christmas I've had in a very, very long time - getting things you already love! A couple of my favorite sweaters, loads of long sleeve shirts (which I had regretted not packing more of), wool socks, slippers, my favorite statistics book (yes, I do have a favorite!), a parasite book, and a coin purse (they have $1 and $2 coins here). :) I couldn't be happier!

Busy this week looking for a place to live. I do like a house close to the beach and really like two of the flatmates, didn't meet the third - only downfall is sharing a bathroom with 3 other people, 2 of which would be leaving the flat at same time I do in the morning. I looked at another and that's definitely not an option as I would freeze my ass off in that place. The lady told me she often goes to the pool/spa to warm up! Heating is a huge issue here. They don't have central heating systems. The best thing around here is a heat pump, which works like a reverse air conditioner. And you think that'd be spendy right? Well even more crazy is that electricity here is outrageously expensive!! Even being extremely frugal in the winter these homes have $200/month electric bills easy! And that's not running the heat when they're gone and most flats don't have dryers because, as the lady with the cold house put it, "that's a real power sucker"! Anyhoo, I'll be looking at a few more this weekend, so we shall see...

Had to go back in the field this week to find some "bigger" little fish. Robert was expecting me to get bigger ones last week but I didn't know that. So we headed to my field site on tuesday, but to no avail. We found no fish. The water level was up and it was extremely murky. The way to collect bigger guys is to move a rock and if you see a fish dart away, wait for it to come back and try to catch it with dip nets. Well, with the murky water you couldn't even see if there was a fish. So we went to a lagoon and walked along this stream not finding anything...lets try the other side of the road before we go...alas, I moved a rock and a fish darted away! Yeah! We found one! We put on waders and flipped over rocks covered by eggs - that's what these male fish are doing is guarding their territory and eggs - and with loads of effort and patience we ended up with 6 whole fish for me to take back to the lab. So now I'll be dissecting them looking for the parasites and figuring out how to ID them. Loads of fun!