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!