The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

Well folks, yesterday was a very long day. I got up early so I could get to the office by 8:00 and start my experiments. Each experiment takes at least 12-15 hours, and I was hoping I wouldn't be up too late if I started early. But no such luck. I had to find some more equipment and calibrate everything, so I started later than I planned. To make things worse, I had weird or bad data all day. I'm not sure if that's because I'm conducting the experiments at a different temperature or because the samples were frozen and then thawed out before the experiment. Anyways, because the data was so noisy, obtaining it took longer than usual. I didn't drive back to my apartment til 5:00AM, and let me tell you, the Bio building is kinda creepy at night. Most of the hallways are dark, and there are always noises from various equipment turning itself on and off or adjusting itself, like refrigerators (remember the frig at my house Whitney? heheheh). Also, the coke machine was completely sold out.

I took 2 hour long naps before driving back to my apartment, looking forward to at least 4 hours in my nice warm bed before I would have to return to the lab again. Alas, no. Adriana had kindly left a light on in the apartment for me, but she had also, absentmindedly I"m sure, bolted the door, so that I couldn't actually enter my apartment. My other roommate, Dipa, is in NYC for a few days, so I assume Adriana got freaked out being by herself in the apartment and bolted the door, forgetting, of course, that I would be in much later that night. I banged once or twice on the door, but of course, Adriana didn't hear me. Even if she had, she probably would think I was a crazy person, and be grateful she had thought to bolt the door. Luckily, I always keep a blanket in my car so, cursing my roommates (since they still occasionally forget to even lock the door, but managed to bolt it on this night of all nights) I put down the passenger seat in my car and slept off and on, until I awoke at 8:15 and saw that Adriana's car was missing. Then, I got to sleep in my own bed for a precious hour before returning to the lab to start my next experiment.

And so it will continue. I will pretty much be living at the lab this summer. I pretty much sit in a room and watch my equipment and a computer screen, it's extremely fascinating. I don't mind it so much now, I've got interesting books, but I"m sure that, as this continues for a full month, I"ll start to get sick of it. So if anybody ever gets bored or lonely, give me a call. I can probably work you into my busy schedule of sitting around. :)

Ship Terminology

Two posts in one night! Go me! I can't sleep because it's storming outside, so I might as well churn out another post. Here's a little vocab I picked up on the cruise. If you've ever taken sailing lessons or read a book that takes place on a ship, you'll probably know most of these, but what the hell, maybe there's be a new word or two you can add to your vocabulary:

RV: short for Research Vessel

Port: the left side of the ship when you are facing the front (fore), also the place where the boat docks and the majority of the crew abandon ship for the excitement and freedom of walking on land and consuming alcohol (only 1 beer a night at the most allowed on a ship, you have to keep your wits about you)

Starboard: the right side of the ship when you are facing the front (fore)

Fore: the front of the ship, also known as the bow; an excellent place for star gazing, whale and sunset watching, and thinking in general

Aft: the back of the ship, a lot of trawl equipment is kept back here which means that "safety comes first"

"Safety comes first": a phrase that generally means that everyone must have a lifejacket on, and that 6 people will be called out to do the work that 2 people could easily do

The bite: Loops of rope that lie on the deck and seem harmless, but which are actually attached to heavy equipment that goes overboard. You have to pay attention and NEVER get your foot in the bite, or you'll get dragged overboard as the rope tightens around you (Remember that scene in Jaws when the rope tightens behind Richard Dreyfuss's legs and he barely gets them out as the rope's tension grows? Like that, but with you going underwater and drowning.....)

"Man overboard!": A phrase not to be used lightly, this is yelled when someone falls overboard. Actually, Rui fell overboard while we were squid jigging one night. Luckily, we weren't moving, and the net he was using was tied to the boat, so he just held on to the net. In fact, he was back onboard in about 2 minutes. But if we had been moving, I don't like to think what might have happened....

Galley: the ship's kitchen, meal hours are early (breakfast 7:15-8:00, lunch 11:15-12:00, dinner 5:15-6:00) and snacks are always left out. I don't want to know how many Tootsie Pops and bite-size Hershey's bars I ate....

Head: the ship's bathroom. Reminiscent of dorm days, with numerous people sharing tiny bathrooms.

Navy showers: Showers that preserve fresh water. You turn on the water to wet your hair and body, then turn it off to shampoo and soap up, then turn it back on to rinse. It really wasn't annoying, and would probably help people save money on their water bill.

Cabin: the closet where you sleep, also known as bunk. Seriously, my room was a closet before they converted it to a bunk so they could squeeze two more people on board

Wedding Season

So apparently wedding season is here. Amy's best friend, Leslie, got married this weekend in good ol' Huntsvegas. My brother Dave's getting married over Labor Day weekend (just got the official invite!) and Mags and Spence are getting married in January (just got the Save the Date)! Geez, there must be something in the air. I"d say people are just getting twitterpated, but it's summer, and twitterpating is more of a spring event. At any rate, I hope the weddings go well, there were a few snags at Leslie's wedding.

First off, they completely forgot about the rings for the ceremony until a month ago. Yeah, hard to believe they had forgotten to order the actual rings, but I guess with so much to plan, a few things can slip through the cracks. Luckily, the rings came just in time. Then the flowers were the wrong color, and ended up slightly clashing with the bridesmaid dresses, instead of complimenting them. At the last minute, whoever was going to provide the thing that keeps the cake cold (giant cooler? I have no idea...) said they couldn't have it. And they ended up one keg short for the reception, so my Mom kindly ran to the commissary and bought one for them (saved them a bundle too, cause almost everything's cheaper at the commissary). Of course, at some point during the day of the wedding, Leslie had a meltdown (who can blame her with all the problems?) so all the bridesmaids had to rush off earlier than expected to cheer Leslie up and help her regain her sanity. Apparently though, the ceremony itself went off without a hitch, and my Mom said you would never have known all the last minute problems everybody had to deal with.

Here's hoping my brother and friends don't have to deal with similar issues. Of course, if Mags has a meltdown, the bridesmaids will definately mass to support her. By the way, the Save the Date magnet? Very cute. Essentially stick people wearing a tux and veil. Simple. I also got the engagement invitation for "a night of espionage." I"m bummed that I can't go, and even considered flying down there to make it, but it's over $500, and since I"m already flying to California in a month for Dave's wedding, I don't have a lot of extra cash available. Speaking of Dave, here's his official wedding page : web.mac.com/ssaless. If anyone's interested, you can go to the page, it's a fun site with lots of pictures (including some older ones where Dave still has long hair) and information. Of course, very few of my friends have met Dave, since he's 7 years older than me. In fact, I think only Whitney has met Dave, so those pictures may not be interesting at all. But hey, if you need to kill some time, this website will do it for you!

Now, bring me that horizon......

Hello! This is one of the cruise posts that I promised I would post. I know I've been neglecting my blog lately, but we don't have a computer in Cooperstown and the library has started charging for internet access. And as much as I enjoy updating my blog, I'm not willing to pay to do it when I can easily put it off for a week. Never do today what you can put off until tomorrow. So here we go, the journey to Mexico (Prepare to be dazzled):

The flight to San Diego was uneventful, except for the fact that it was the first time I had been on a flight long enough to see a movie and get 2 snacks. Since the only other time I've flown was to Alabama and back for Christmas, that's not saying much. But I was excited. We got to watch Hoodwinked, which was clever and fun, although I picked out the bad guy way too soon. In case you haven't seen it, Hoodwinked is a CGI cartoon, the story of Little Red Riding Hood from multiple perspectives. I'd say it's worth renting. Anways, we got to walk on the beach for a while and then enjoy the hot tub at the hotel. The next 2 days were spent unloading equipment onto the ship. The really heavy stuff was craned over, but the rest we had to carry ourselves, which was either accomplished by handing things over from the dock straight to the ship, or carrying boxes from the dock to the ship and down steep stairs without tripping on cables to get to the lab room. The second night in the hotel we were all very grateful for the hot tub.

June 1st, we spent the night on the ship, since we would be leaving the dock at 7:00. The night before, we got to check out the harbor, and there was this cool ship next to ours. It's called the Flip, and it's very long and skinny. Apparently, the Flip is used for oceanographic scientific teams, when they have to do research in an environment that is completely stable. To accomplish this, ballast water is shifted, and the Flip flips straight up in the water (hence the name, scientists are so creative), so it looks like a giant straw sticking out of the ocean. Apparently, everything is on hinges, since what is the ceiling one day may be a wall the next day. I'm told that there's some video where an Asian woman is interviewing people on the Flip when it starts to flip, and that she starts screaming in her native language. Maybe you can find it on the internet if you search google, my professor said it was hilarious. Our ship was just a normal RV (research vessel) named New Horizon. The name suited the ship well, since, once we left harbor, we never saw another boat on the water, all we could see was endless waters and the horizon. Of course, that made me think of the life from Pirates of the Caribbean. I don't have any pictures with me now, but one of my friends is making me a CD, so maybe I can post some pictures of the boat and stuff.

The 5 day trip down to Mexico was pretty uneventful. Basically, we organized the lab, unpacked and tied things down. I learned two knots, the Trailer's or Trucker's Hitch and something else, but I still suck at tying things down. We got pretty lazy. People would take naps every afternoon, and nights were ours to do with as we pleased. The entertainment room had tons of books and movies, and a couple of us had brought cards, so we were sufficiently entertained. There was also some exercise equipment on the ship. I worked out once, but once we started taking samples I didn't have the time or strength to work out again. The water was pretty calm, except for one night when we rounded the point, and all of us woke up at 2 AM because we felt like we were being tossed around. I felt like singing "Sit Down You're Rockin' the Boat!" Especially since I was in the top bunk. I shared a room with Leanne, belowdecks in the center of the ship, so it would be the most stable. It was also the smallest. It was about the size of 1 1/2 O'Leary closets, and I am not being sarcastic. As we approached Guaymas, Mexico, where the rest of the scientific crew would join us, we started to see peaks sticking up. We were far enough away for Mexico to appear old and mysterious, like uncharted islands in the days when pirates sailed the seas. That's what originally made me think of the Pirates quote.

I see that once again I've managed to write a rather large post, so I'll sign off for now, but more cruise posts will be coming (hopefully, some with pictures!)