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.