avast!

whew... finally-- some time to sit and think. (and write, of course.)


it's been a busy week. my coursework hasn't been that difficult, but the days i haven't had class i've been working my student job, so sometimes i feel like i'm constantly on the move.


limnology has been fun. we haven't gone outside as much as some of the other classes, but i think we needed to get some lecturing in so we had a basis for understanding our fieldwork... plus a guest lecturer our professor knew happened to be on the island on thursday and friday, so we adjusted our schedule so he could come tell us all about fishes.

the class did go out on friday. after lunch about seven of us boarded one of stone lab's boats and we spent a little over two hours on the lake. we familiarized ourselves with a few instruments and dipped them in the deep blue; one measured the oxygen dissolved in the water as well as the temp, another was just a painted disk on a very long rope used to measure how far down we could see. one tool was a very (very) fine mesh net attached to a jar used to strain and collect tiny little insect-like sea creatures, which reminded me very much of sea monkies once we had them swimming in our jars. after we moved to another site we also towed a net and caught a few fish for later study. last, but not least, i filled in my tan a bit.

afterwards, the captain of our little boat was kind enough to drop a few of us off on south bass island. apparently, an organization out of erie, pa, maintains a replica of an 1813 sailing ship, the US Brig Niagara [which fought the british in the battle of lake erie (war of 1812) under commodore perry] which happened to be visiting put-in-bay this week. the captain of the vessel had extended an invitation to stone lab to take a few of our staff along as they gave educational cruises... and as a student employee of stone lab, i was invited as well-- so after class on friday we stepped off of one boat and immediately on to another.

we had a lot of fun, too. we were sailing for what seemed like forever... a good five and a half hours. the captain gave some talks about the ship and about the battle that took place here at our little islands, but mostly we just sailed. it was a nice way to spend the evening... calm water, sunshine, sea breezes, a sunset over the lake... i'm glad for the experience. i don't really know how to convey the experience to you, but one thing i'll note is the smell of the ship... very woody. almost sawdusty. something about it reminded me of my time studying in finland. good memories...

and oh. we fired some cannon blanks at some "pirates". turns out cannons are very, very loud.


otherwise, i've spent a lot of my time working. well... i've spent a lot of my time at work, but not always working. for example, right now i'm working in the bookstore... but since nobody's buying books, i'm writing this entry. afterwards, assuming nobody is still buying books, i might study, or play a game on my laptop, or read a book. we'll see.

i do have mixed feelings about work sometimes, though, but overall i'm glad for the opportunity. it pays for my room and board, so i figure it's worth about $100 per workday. some of the jobs we have to do are tedious, but by luck-of-the-draw i haven't had to do much cleaning or kitchen work, mostly clerical tasks like sorting papers and organizing things. so i'm "paid" very well for easy work, plus there's that little cruise i just mentioned that was a nice fringe benefit. on the other hand, and perhaps this is a minor concern in the grand scheme of things, i'm kept busy a lot, and i get a little jealous when i see people with free time. i have my evenings free, but never before four pm.

*shrug* but again, this job is allowing me to come to stone lab without having to take out extra loans this year, and otherwise i'm not sure i would have chosen to come here at all-- and i'm very glad that i came. so it's worth it... i just get tired sometimes.


in other news, i finally got a little poison ivy... for maybe the first time in like umpteen years. usually i manage to avoid it, and there might be a change that i'm not very sensitive to it, but i was crawling around in it the other day trying to scrounge up some firewood and i now have a small blistery spot of rash on my ankle. =/ but i survive.

and next weekend is fourth of july. i'm hoping that i might convince my sister to come up and visit, as there's supposed to be one heck of a fireworks show just off the island. i'm told we have very good seats.

my mom said she might try to come up the following day, and we'll try to bum around put-in-bay for the afternoon or evening.


so that's been my week in a nutshell. one down, three-and-a-half to go!