A day in the life..

So this cruise is going like so...

I roll out of my bunk around 12:30 pm. Eat whatever leftovers of lunch is around.. perhaps a bowl of cereal if there is nothing of interest / vegetarian. Then I sit around.. read.. browse the interwebs.. write my paper (soon).. study for the GREs (soon). Around 3 or so I decide it's time to get my work out on. So I row and run for about 40 minutes. Treadmills on a ship are not so easy. Definitely increases the calorie burn when you're trying to not faceplant. Then I do that shower thing and then it's dinner time! Dinner is served, a buffet style of salad and stuff. Pasta, grilled veggies, some meat stuff I don't notice because I don't eat it, rarely fish, we're not really catching anything edible, most unfortunately. I... might dare to say I miss scallops. Might.

So then my watch starts at six. We usually start by deploying a CTD but, the hydraulics on the crane broke this morning so... we'll see if we keep doing that. Pity because my entire project is kind of relying on a working CTD to get me water samples... hmm......

When the CTD was working.. it went kind of like this. Open the bottles. Cast it out while trying not to get crushed. Wear hard hat and PFD just in case. Sit in a chair and tell the winch operator to send it down to 1000m. Now bring it up to 200. Now 150. Now 100. Now keep doing that at intervals until I say stop. Cool now lets bring it to the surface and try to not get crushed again. Yaay. Now lets empty the bottles into other bottles that we can bring into the lab. Now lets pour the water in those bottles through little filters. Now lets put those little filters into bottles with 90% acetone in it, or bits of foil. Now lets freeze it at -20. Yeeaaahhh.

Okay, break time, eat some rice, with chopsticks. Get some coffee, make it mocha, with some nesquick.

Now it's time to trawl! Take little time-depth recorders (TDRs) out of their little cases. Hook em up to the computer. Program them. Put them back into their little cases. Put them on the net. Open up a bunch of computer programs spread across four monitors. Watch the net go out. Press buttons. Tell the winch when to stop. Haul some back fifteen minutes later. Stop. Haul some back fifteen minutes later. Stop. Haul some back fifteen minutes later. Stop. Haul the rest back fifteen minutes later. Get the TDRs. Load the data. Help sort some little fish and squid and shrimp! Maybe. If you don't have to do fluorometry.

If you do have to do fluorometry, take the little filters in acetone you froze yesterday and let them warm up. Blank the fluorometer. Mix up the vial with a cool vibrating mixer thingie. Pour into cuvette. Put cuvette into fluorometer. Read the number. Put some 10% hydrochloric acid in the cuvette. Mix with cool vibrating mixer thingie. Put cuvette into fluorometer. Read the number. Repeat ten more times. Get tired of the respirator hurting your nose.

Oh hey look, just in time for you to be done with fluorometry, it's time to do a trawl again!

And then it's bed time.

Ta-daaaa

Well well it's been a while

What's happened since the last time I posted here?

Not too much really...

-Sailed a couple regattas on a Benetau 40.7, got a sick free t-shirt and some beers out of it
-Visited an organic farm
-Went on a tour of all the NOAA facilities, and the fish auction, where I ate a swordfish omelette for breakfast. Yum.
-FINALLY went surfing.
-Worked a three-day Aquaculture workshop and learned a ton about why native Hawaiians don't like white people
-Hiked up Maunawili Falls
-Sat in my office a lot
-Was temporarily homeless due to the delay of my cruise, but ended up being able to sleep on it last night

And now I'm on a boat! I shall update more as the cruise trucks along.

Laterss

Thunderstorms?

Hello all... much business the past week and a half!

So.. I moved into a new house. Right next door. I've got a real bedroom now, with it's own bathroom! Which I share with one other girl. Everyone here is older and much nicer and more friendly so I'm happy here.

The rest of the interns came in and we've been weekend warriors together. Last weekend was a beach weekend, though I went out to my favorite bar, Arnold's, with one of them. This weekend we went out to dinner and then hung out playing card games for a while... before going back to the bar lol. I'm actually starting to like beer...

What else what else...

So work has been.. all right. The project I'm working on really doesn't get into swing until the cruise I go on so most of what I've been doing is sitting in my office (yes I have my own office... in a trailer.. but it's super air conditioned! As opposed to the rest of the place) and reading papers / preparing some report about stuff.

I met up with the director of aquaculture at UH Manoa on Thursday and ended up spending the rest of the afternoon going to meetings and a lecture and then out to dinner with him and his colleagues. The lecture was about aquaponics.. pretty much a combination of aquaculture and hydroponics. The lecturer, who runs an organic farm here on Oahu, showed how you can grow fish and plants with a setup that fits in a rubbermaid container. And it's a self-sustaining system... ie, the plants feed on the fish who feed off the plants and it goes over and over again. If I end up settling somewhere tropical I'm definitely investing in a backyard system. I'm all about the organic stuff but unfortunately my wallet always is; this is a great way to do it yourself!

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Speaking of organic stuff... since I have so much money left over between my housing stipend and what I'm actually paying.. I'm definitely spoiling myself at the Hawaii version of Whole Foods lol. It's so worth it though.. the food tastes SO much better.

But, I digress.

It's taken me way too long to write this by the way.. so busy! And the internet doesn't work too well here.


So I'm walking EVERYWHERE. I walk over three miles a day just to work and back. Can anybody say quadriceps?

This past weekend the interns and I hiked up Koko crater... and oh man was it a hike. I did Diamond Head last time which seemed pretty tame even then. This... well you'll see the pictures. It's pretty much a staircase straight up the side of the mountain. We had to stop to catch our breath a good number of times and going back down was terrifying! Well, so was being on top of it, but that's just because I'm terrified of heights. Lovely view though!

Sunday I went out on a sailboat with one of my roommates and her boyfriend and a couple friends from work. What I thought was going to be a little leisurely sail was just one giant party on a 65ft.. pirate ship.. pretty much. Gettin' some serious tanning on!

Yesterday at work we took a field trip to the research vessel I'm going to spend a couple weeks on. The Sette measures up at 224 ft! Now that's what I call an R/V.

I've been neglecting my camera but I promise I'll take more photos.

They're all on facebook and public so check 'em out =]

Hawaii!

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Some of my favorites





















Sergey putting his hand on my head freaked me and I screamed haha. Totally terrified up there. Don't be fooled by the smile.

I'm Back!

Hellooo Hawaii! So nice to see you again. I've been counting the days since my return and now that I'm here it's soo lovely :)

Sucks I don't have a rental car this time though...

I definitely feel more like a vagabond now than before. Probably because I'm practically living in a hostel... Sharing a house with 7 other girls. I haven't met them all yet and everyone pretty much keeps to themselves so far. Everyone is young and a traveler though and either here for school or work or just to explore. But that's totally fine with me. Besides... it's only $15 a day to be here. Who can complain at that price?! And I'm going to get to hang out with people from everywhere. The whole complex (it's a bunch of townhomes... eight of them I think?) is girls-only and apparently there are 60 or so of us. I wondered for half a second if I was walking into some brothel trap but I don't really think that's the case. Nobody seems to fear for their lives haha. It's more just like a dorm complex.

The fridge is pretty full of other people's stuff.. there's a mini one in my room that apparently is one of my 2 roommates' (neither are here yet) and my landlady (who is super super nice and from Thailand originally) said I can use it. I guess I shall...

I'm really close to Japan-town (as opposed to China-town which is in downtown Honolulu). There are all these asian supermarkets. I'm pretty stoked to check out what's in them. I need to find someone who can translate and tell me what all the food is though haha. Who knows Japanese??

Speaking of food.. I'm gonna experiment here and see how long I can go vegan.. ish. Yeah I'll still eat seafood on occasion because.. I just have to. But no more dairy and eggs if I can avoid them. I made spaghetti and tofu last night! Yum.

So my plan today is to get more settled in.. go shopping and buy some thangs.. unpack.. all that shizzle. And totally go to the beach. Probably go for a run/swim. And then I'm going back to my favorite tiki bar - Arnold's - to catch up with the friends I met here last time, and make some new ones!

Work starts on Tuesday so I've got some time to get everything in order before getting on a schedule.

I've gotta start making my places-to-go list.

Oh and my landlady's friend owns a helicopter tour company and she was telling us how she might get free or really cheap tours for any girls that want to go check out the big island from the air.

Yeaaaaah.

Okie doo, I'll take and put up some pics later.

Have a super daaaay.

El Paso, TX

This has been by far one of the craziest trips of my life.

Besides the fact that this town is every definition of God forsaken...

Here are the highlights:

-I can see Mexico!
-And there is a lot of Mexican food
-It's pretty good
-The Chinese food, not so much

-There are sandstorms
-And snow
-And rain
-All in the same day

-Band kids are crazy. I'll leave it there.

-UM Football is....... ugh.
-The Sun Bowl should have been named the Snow Bowl
-Port-o-potties REALLY need lights
-UTEP's stadium is built into a mountain

-Band kids are CRAZY.

-Notre Dame's mascot does backflips!

-Did I mention band kids are crazy?

Day 4: Honolulu/Waikiki

Was nothing really exciting... I was supposed to go snorkeling, but it didn't happen. Then I was supposed to go surfing, then that didn't happen. I forgot I had to check out at noon and got a call from the front desk asking what was going on. Oops! So I did that. After I was all checked out I went to the park and walked around taking pictures, and just vegged out in general.
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These are the closest thing to shorebirds I saw in Hawai'i. Are there not any? I dunno!

Whattup algae!
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I had nothing to do and didn't want to spend money on anything. I climbed a tree.

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Read a book on the beach. My flight was that night so I couldn't do anything that got me dirty or too far away... nowhere to shower!

I tried again to catch the sunset and I sort of did...
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there were clouds again though. I caught a sliver of sun as it ducked below the horizon and attempted to catch that elusive green flash... but didn't. I think it's a myth... I've yet to see it.

After that I went back to Arnold's... obviously my hangout of choice. I chilled for a few hours before I had to go to the airport and bounce back home. =[

Pumped my own gas! First time ever. I'm from NJ, we don't do that.

Gave my car back, had my apples taken from me in the airport, and off I was for some loooong travel.

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California? Either that or Mexico
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Now I'm back home and it's a blizzard =[

Is it summer time yet?


Until next week, when I'm in El Paso, the NJ Vagabond is out!


Mahalo =]

Day 3.5: Honolulu/Waikiki

Went back to Arnold's and it was open! Saw one of the guys I met the first night and hung out, met other cool peeps there too. Hung out, had a couple dranks, you know hows it goes. Definitely my favorite spot to go here at night... thus far. It's conveniently walking distance from my hotel so I haven't had the chance to check out anything farther. I hear there are some cool spots up near the university too. Guess I'll find out over the summer!