Hello hello! I'm back in Texas and am slowwwwly starting to get out of panic mode. My big lab sister, Carrie, picked John and I up at the airport at 9:30pm on Tues. and I had my first class on Wed. morning. Finding my way (read: running the halls of 2 confusingly adjoining buildings with my backpack bouncing on my back) to an unfamiliar classroom didn't exactly make me feel like a cool new grad student..and being around tons of students (50,000!) in the library and walking around campus was quite bewildering. It would have been shocking enough just coming from being a senior at UNCW, where I knew every inch of campus and couldn't go 2 minutes without saying Hi to someone I knew, but I'd just come from directly from remote parts of Alaska and wasn't quite adjusted back to being around lotsa people.
But by time of writing, after a second day of classes and just a touch more of familiarity with things, I am feeling considerably calmer. Especially calmer with the ample tea drinking, a couple of work-outs, and the thought of my Saturday..I have declared it Slumber Saturday, where I will lounge on my lovely lovely bed all day listening to music and watching movies on my iPad, reading my fav mag, The New Yorker, and calling and catching up with my friends whom I miss a lot! Then I'll be more mentally ready to start catching up in my classwork for 3 tough chemistry courses I'm taking this semester.
Our work at the Kasitsna Bay Laboratory wrapped up nicely, and I didn't get too terribly sleep deprived. Nice dinners were cooked each evening, and I cooked a nice pasta meal for us one night. After 2 days on the boats, I worked in the lab which had pretty much the best view of any lab/office/generalized indoor working location that I can imagine in the whole wide world. Please feel free to challenge, folks.
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| Incredible snowy peaks beyond the spit across the bay |
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| (Terrible photo, just proof that this is in fact the view I got to take in) |
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| The ramp up from the dock has a really low slope in this pic b/c it was high tide--20+ ft. tidal swings here! |
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| Me, working away running samples on the Gas Chromatograph |
And OH MY GOSH!!!!! I can't hold it in any longer-- I got to see my first whales!!! We came upon a pod of humpback whales in the water-taxi I was taking to Homer when we left KBay Lab on Monday a.m.. I didn't take any pictures..I didn't wanna interrupt the best moment of my young life but now I wish I had one.
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