My lab group

Here we all are in our brand-new t-shirts!
Back row L to R: Haseeb, Robert (my supervisor), Rachel, David, Tommy, Devon
Front row L to R: me, Kim (who will be leaving us on Friday), Clément, Dave

Another exhausted Monday

I'm wiped out...but it was a fantastic weekend. And it's official...I am now a PADI Open Water diver. My 4 open water dives went well. Most of the skills were easy. The visibility was about 3 meters and it wasn't as cold as I had expected it to be. I about died after getting all the gear and weights on and then walking down the damn rocks to the water on Saturday...I didn't do that on Sunday...the boys - or maybe just Shannon - carried all my crap for me except I carried my own weights on the way down. I got to see fish, star fish (one with 10 arms) and a dead octopus. We dived around a wreck so that was fun to go through...lots of sponges and barnacles and kelp. Saturday was Australia Day and I went to Rebecca's for a bbq. Sunday I came home to flatmates! - Deanna's been housing-sitting for over a month and Wayne's been at his girlfriends for a couple of weeks...I've liked having the flat to myself but it was great to hear voices when I walked in yesterday. Deanna made dinner and the three of us ate together. Then Shannon came over and we hung out and watched tv. This pic is from Sunday when we were all through...6 students, 3 instructors and 3 divemasters working on becoming instructors. I'm on my tip-toes, with Shannon next to me in the middle, and my main instructor, Tracey, is the one that's half-hidden on the other side of me.

Not working too hard this week...

Spent the last couple of days not doing a whole lot of work. Catching up on laundry and errands and rest was about it. Yesterday, I stayed home to work...never got to the working part...I slept in, cooked breakfast and called bunches of people back home since it was MLK day. Then I had my last pool dive last night. It went well. My hovering is good, well, for a beginner anyway. Since my feet are extra floaty, this time I started out sitting so I was in a reclined-Lazy-boy-position rather than the full head stand. Then we had to do skin diving - scary...you get used to having air down there and then they take it away! Skin diving is just your suit, weights, mask, snorkel and fins. My first try was decent but didn't have quite enough air to clear water out of my snorkel when I came back up. Second try was way worse and third was inbetween the first two. But the fourth was awesome - I did it perfectly - probably a combination of getting comfortable with it and getting the technique down. So now it's just the 4 open water dives...hopefully the weather will be good this weekend and we can get to it! I'm looking forward to it but am a little anxious about it as well. After dive class last night, I headed over to Julie's to say chao since she was leaving early this morning. Had tea and ice cream with her and Rebecca and hung out for a bit. She will be missed...it will be quiet around here without her!

Living, eating, breathing Scuba diving

Good thing learning to dive is exhilarating cause I'm absolutely exhausted! We did all the classroom stuff Sat and Sun mornings and spent both afternoons in the pool learning new skills. I had a hard time with not taking water in through my nose when I was completely filling my mask with water and removing it for an entire minute until being able to put it back on. Part of the problem was that they removed weights from me so I was more floaty and couldn't stay under (the top of my mask was above the surface so I had a hard time filling it). But I did that lots more on Sunday and was able to easily swim without my mask on (with the instructor guiding me cause I can't stand keeping my eyes open in the chlorine water). Still don't have my buoyancy under control...I did hover yesterday which was hilarious...my feet are way more floaty than the rest of me (thinking I'm gonna need some ankle weights) so when I hover in mid-water completely relaxed, my feet float up. So there I was in mid-water, doing a headstand, but they'd stuck an extra weight in one of my pockets so one side of me was heavier so the headstand was at an angle. It was fun being upside down; I just gotta learn how to control it better. Another pool session on tuesday night, and then, weather permitting, we'll be out in the ocean all next weekend. Communicating anything other than with the usual hand signals under water is difficult, and I'm proud that I made a "joke" with my actions and made one of the assistant instructors laugh so he had to clear his mask. I forget that I'm the one with the accent around here since I'm always working hard to understand what Kiwis are saying and what their words/phrases mean. Togs = swim suit; sweet as = good, great, awesome; and many things I'm starting to figure out what they mean but couldn't spell the word properly. Leaving the dive center yesterday, one of my instructors commented on the wind, I complained that it must be Dunedin and his response was "well, you couldn't have been here very long with that accent." Oh yeah, I'm the one with the accent, not him. Most people like my accent and want to know where I'm from, as they can't tell whether I'm American or Canadian and a good chunk have no clue where MN is.

Saturday evening was Julie's going-away party...she was here for 3-months as a research assistant...maybe she'll be back for her PhD before the end of the year... Anyway, the potluck was great - especially since I was starving after the diving class - and Julie and her friends held a Capoeira holda for their fun and our entertainment. Capoeira is the Brazilian martial arts-music-dance combination. They were pretty awesome...wish I would had my camera to take some video but Tommy gave me copies of his pics.

Sideways air flip


Julie and another doing head stands


Julie fighting this scrawny boy


My supervisor, Robert, playing with the musical instrument like he knows what he's doing

What an un-believeably fabulous week!

OMG! After my first confined pool dive last night I was on such a high - giggling, aloud, to myself, after I got home (Deanna was at the Sting concert and Wayne was at his girlfriend's so I had no one to share it with besides texting a couple of friends). There are 5 of us in the class and 2 instructors. After the introduction, they got us all suited up and in the pool. Man, was it freaky at first! I was having a hard time with breathing...not used to the resistance and after complaining twice one of the instructors looked at my regulator moved a switch and it was much better. It's so weird at first I was very nervous about trying any skills but after the first one I realized how easy it was. I learned how to clear my regulator (the thing you hold in your mouth and breathe through) of water, how to recover it if it's dangling behind you, how to clear my mask of water and how to share air with a buddy who's out of air (or if I'm out of air) all in water only deep enough to kneel in. I was in the middle of the group and the instructors started at the ends watching one person at a time do a skill so I had plenty of time to practice the last skill and get comfortable with it. I kept getting cramps in my calves from kneeling cause of the awkwardness of the fins and being tense and just being prone to them anyway - but that went away when we moved to the deeper part of the pool (3.5 meters, I think) and I could stretch out and relax. And that was sooo fantastic!! At the end, one of the instructors said I had the biggest smile he'd ever seen and that he had felt bad when he had to tell me it was time to come up...too much smiling under water means lots of time spent clearing water out of my mask...I think I'll be doing that alot! We'll spend both of the weekend afternoons in the pool and don't head out to the ocean until the last weekend.

This week has been absolutely beautiful in general. I was told it never gets in the upper 70's but it was 3 days this week. I took off early on Wednesday and took my reading for diving to the beach for a couple of hours. I did get in the water but only up to my neck for a brief moment and then was back out. After working all weekend it was great to take off a couple hours early and wonderful to relax in the sun! Have I mentioned I sent a draft of my manuscript to Bob? I'm way happy about that!

I got a package from Kristi yesterday! It was so unexpected and wonderful...coffee mugs, a travel mug, starburst, skittles, a candle and my fav - Chipotle sauce!! I can't wait to have it on enchiladas for lunch today as my mouth has been watering for it since I opened the box!

Research is going GREAT! My genetics stuff is off to a great start...I'm getting lots of and pure DNA from my parasites...Devon even did a little dance the concentration was so awesome! And...AND, I still haven't been able to find any local snails infected with my parasite, BUT I found another girl working on the same species (but doing a completely different project) who emailed me today saying she's found several locations on the north part of the south island where the parasite has a good prevalence in the snails. Woo hoo! So it looks like I will be planning a trip shortly.

Excitement over work - yes, I realize I'm weird

I spent most of the weekend working on my manuscript...I've got a draft nearly completed that I am happy to send to Bob...I am soo frickin' excited about that I can't even explain. I get a lot of flack here about how much I work on evenings and weekends but I guess I'm a bit of a work-aholic...it's just that I feel like I have sooo much that I need to be doing right now and would find it extremely overwhelming if I wasn't putting in so many hours. I'd rather work more and thus be less stressed. I did watch the last few episodes of the 1st season of Heroes...Deanna's got me hooked at the end of the 2nd season and she borrowed 1st season from a friend so I've been playing catch-up. And Sunday eve I finally took a break from the manuscript, and Rebecca and I got fish n' chips and took it to the beach for dinner. The video is of the beach that is closest to my house - the one I run along. There were quite a few surfers out but I couldn't capture any catching a wave.



My feet relaxing in the sand :)


Had my medical exam for diving this morning...had a difficult time with the short blast of air you need to do but passed anyway. I'm all set to start Thursday evening - woohoo!

Helping Julie collect crabs

Took Julie out in the field again yesterday, helping her collect cockles and crabs...you can click on the photos to make them larger

Julie's field site, Hooper's Inlet

Julie collecting crabs

Video of Julie searching for her crab species

And she found it - the stalk-eyed crab...only 71 more to go

A cool looking crab species with a white band

Another type of crab

Me in waders

Arrrrgggghhhhhh!

After a long frustrating day in the lab on friday - I'm not finding snails that are infected with my parasite - I went for a run on the beach and out to dinner with Deanna and a woman who used to live in my bedroom a couple years ago. Saturday, Rebecca and I went to the farmer's market and totally loaded up...apricots, nectarines, tomatoes, zucchini, carrots, radishes, lettuce, banana peppers...lots of healthy eating this week, which is so needed after the holidays! Then we headed to Tomahawk lagoon, which is one of my study sites, so I could release some snails, get some lagoon water for my snails in the lab, did some birding and walked along the beach (link to the photos is on the right). I spent the afternoon in the lab but still haven't found my study species in a snail yet. Rebecca, Julie and I went to I am Legend last night...holy shit, I was soo not prepared for it to be a scary movie...it was good, but horrible! Don't think I'll ever watch it again. Today, I went on a cleaning frenzy. Then came into school to get on the internet to upload pics and do some brief work in the lab...I might have found my species...not sure...not getting my hopes up...hopefully I can confirm tomorrow. Now I am about to head home to make a wonderful stir-fry with all those fresh veggies!

Anton

Anton hanging out in my bedroom window, which he now loves to go in and out of...lucky for him he usually shows up at it before I go to sleep because they're SOL and stuck outside for the night once I'm snoozin'.

Post-Christmas Pics

Pics for my mom so she can see I did save my stocking for Christmas Day and what my tree looked liked...and no, those aren't all my presents...

2008

Julie, me, Rachel

2008 came with drinking, dancing, fireworks and a raging headache. Hung out at Rachel's before heading to the Octagon for the band and fireworks. We had a fabulous time! I'm not sure where I'm looking in the picture, at the fireworks maybe?, but it's the only pic where all 3 of our faces were in the frame. After the fireworks we checked out a couple of clubs...The Fever, which had great 70's music but the crowd was even too old for me...then another club, at which the crowd was a bit young and by that point I had a major headache so the music wasn't helping. So we called it quits sometime after 2 o'clock...I know Rachel and Julie could have kept on going but I had had enough. I don't know what I was thinking, not drinking any water and not taking any aspirin before going to bed, so I woke with an even worse headache. But it wasn't long before I was re-hydrated and I was feeling alright. The 1st was beautiful and I washed my sheets and got them out on the line...nothing quite like fresh sheets dried in the sun! And I celebrated New Year's eve yet again as it turned midnight in MN and I was on the phone with Mindy, Tammy and Michele...I'm glad I didn't miss celebrating with you three completely! I have been dividing my time between 2 homes for a few days while Deanna was camping...taking care of our cats and the cats De is sitting for. And the last couple of days I've spent watching the 1st season of Heroes and making scalloped potatoes and ham and pea and ham soup...trying to make use of the left-over ham from Christmas. I'm back at work today...flipped over the calendar and realized I missed my medical exam for my diving course this morning - crap! Now the doctor is on vacation for 3 weeks, so I had to run home for the list of doctors that do these exams and scheduled another appointment for 3 days before my course begins - whew! And I only have 2 weeks left to get all my studying done for the course...I'm a little (maybe alot) behind on that!