get-up-and-go sparkle

k I know it's been a while but . . . UPDATE

2010-11-10T20:35:00.000-08:00

K feeling bloggy again so we shall see how long this lasts. Things are going really great right now. I spotted my first whale for the season the other day while I was taking the ferry to Lanai, which was awesome! I have slowly been moving all my things one bag at a time to Lanai because I am moving there! Why you ask would a 26 year old 6' female be moving to Lanai with a population of 3,300? Well I recently traveled to Utila Island in Honduras and got my PADI SCUBA Instructor certification and Trilogy the company I currently work for offered me a full time SCUBA diving position on Lanai. I decided to take it and it will save me a lot of time and hassle as well as give me a lot more job growth opportunity to be living there. I still have to meet with the hotel people but it sounds like they want me to offer naturalist talks to guest at the hotels there and I will be up at the pool offering free SCUBA/SNUBA experience to sell to our beach dives and our 2-tank dive trips, which I will be guiding. So wish me luck and come visit me!

Whale Season 2009/2010 Lahaina Maui

2009-12-26T14:10:00.000-08:00

The Whales are here and I think it is going to be a fantastic season! I am really looking forward to working a lot and making some money!!! I am also looking forward to some changes in my life, being single again of course is a big one but mostly just growing and learning from decisions that I have made.

In addition to Trilogy Excursions, my full-time job I am also still working on Mondays and Wednesdays at Jean-Michel Cousteau's Ambassadors of the Environment at the Kapalua, Ritz-Carlton. They have added a new program for the winter during which I get to paddle in a 6-man canoe with the guests and talk about the islands, whales, turtles, and coral reefs AWESOME!

I am living with my best buddy Jill B and we are actually sharing a large room right now which has been tons of fun. We are both trying to save money so it is working out great. We are looking at other places with 2 rooms but are taking our time to find the right place and a good deal.

4477 508th st, Pine City MN 55063 is for sale on the Market finally!

2009-08-21T11:05:00.000-07:00

It is finally official! Fin's house is on the market. The listing is linked to the title. So who knows if it will sell but we are keeping our fingers crossed.

Today I am contemplating applying for a job at the Aquarium at the Mall of America. Is sounds like they have naturalist jobs similar to what I have done in the past. The main problem is that it is 1:30 commute and I don't have a car and what is the point getting a job for 2 months . . . However I am going crazy not working or doing anything productive and who knows it could be a cool place to work . . . hmmm maybe I should just give them a call.

Minnesota

2009-07-24T10:47:00.000-07:00

Ah Minnesota. So I have been here for about a month now. I am here because my boyfriend John is from here and owns a house here. We meet about a year ago in Maui where we were both living and working at the time. John is a carpenter and his Minnesota based company Custom Drywall offered to send him to Maui with all expenses paid to work on the Ritz-Carlton Residences in Kapalua, Maui. So John went and was only going to stay there for 6 months but ended up being there for 15 months, which may have had something to do with me :) Eventually John's job finished and I agreed to spend the summer in Minnesota and help him try to sell his house so he could move to Maui permanently. Lots of people think I am crazy for leaving 2 great jobs that I love in times like these. I probably would have thought I was crazy too. There are a lot of thing that you wouldn't think were possible until you fall in love.

So I am here until around November. I want to be back for my high school friends wedding on the Big Island and my uncles ash scattering sometime in December. I also want to be back to work for Whale season which usually starts mid-December. So that is my deal and whether or John comes at the same time depends on if his house sells and if he gets the bonus from his last job.

While I am here my goals are to: take the GRE (a standardized test I have to take to be able to apply for graduate school), help John sell his house.

6 week Mainland Adventure

2008-10-05T17:33:00.000-07:00

sea creatures

2008-07-16T10:14:00.000-07:00

These are some sea cratures that I found at work recently. The crab is only about the size of a pea and I found it floating on a piece of foam in the channel between Maui and Lanai. The other thing is a spanish dancer nudibranch, kind of like a slug. This one is called a spanish dancer because it swims by furling is sides like the skirt of a Spanish dancer.

Ultimate Frisbeeness

2008-02-28T19:56:00.000-08:00

Well I have had 2 4-day weekends of Frisbee fun, I saw a lot of old faces and made a lot of new friends. Last weekend I went to Oahu for the 21st annual Kaimana Klassik tournament for the 3rd time. I picked up with a womens team from Hilo called Bella Go Ho. I got in on Friday and went shopping at Alamoana then my highschool class mate Emma picked me up and not only gave me a ride to the fields in Waimanalo but let me borrow her tent and cot as well, thanks Emma! It was really nice catching up with her too. Then it was frisbee, frisbee, frisbee and a little bit of partying in between :) My team won a few games and I think ended up 2nd in the bottom (beer bracket) pool. It was awesome camping at Waimanalo too and the weather held up very nicely.

Kaimana picts http://kardanphotography.com/p46399304/

Then I came back to Maui and worked Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and then flew to the Big Island on Friday for the Hilo Hat tournament. A hat tournament is a tournament that you just register for and then teams are made when you get there. I got put on the white team dubbed team Punia which quickly regressed to team Punani :) I went home on Friday and took some Maui frisbee folk with me for the day and said hi the the folks and wreseled the goats and patted the animals. Then I drove back to Hilo for registration and the party and camped at Kole Kole beach park. I actually just slept in my hammock and sleeping bag since the mosquito's were surprisingly absent. Then played frisbee all weekend and stayed at Rowena's house with some friends Saturday night, thanks Row! It was nice to catch up with her and hear about what's going on with my old work. Then on Sunday my team ended up in the finals! Which we almost won but in the end were defeated by the green team. So all in all it was an excellent second weekend on Ultimate. I feel very fit now and wish that I could do that every weekend! Oh well back to the daily grind now!

some photo's from the weekend http://www2.snapfish.com/share/p=603271204133936764/l=352220891/g=22878376/otsc=SYE/otsi=SALB Arjun was also around ant took some pictures which he will hopefully put up at some point . . .

Project Malama Honokowai

2008-01-22T12:46:00.000-08:00

So last weekend I went to volunteer in Honokawai Valley. It was really amazing to learn about native Hawaiian plants and culture and see all of the archaeological cites. It was really peaceful to hang out with nice people and weed out the invasive species. I am going this weekend too and anyone interested should come! They meet every Saturday at 900am at the Sugar Cane Train stop at Ka'anapali, the guy in charge is Ed Lidsey (808 572 8085).

good day, no . . . GREAT day

2008-01-12T10:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a great day. I was working all day on this private/exclusive charter. We were basically a glorified ferry service for this group of tractor sales people from Canada. I told them that my Grandpa was one of the first tractor sales people on the Big Island and they though that was cool :) They were nice group of people all staying at the Four Seasons on Lanai. So we drove over from Lahaina with no people on the boat, which means you can nap or whatever which is always nice at 6am. Then we picked them up and served them breakfast on the way over to Lahaina and dropped them off where they went shopping for 4 hours. During that time all the crew decided to to to Honolua Bay and go surfing, so I tagged along with Kiko and took pictures. Then we went back to work and picked them up and took them back to Lanai. We tried to do a bit of sailing, but there was no wind. We saw whales, spinner dolphins and bottle nose dolphins though which was awesome. Then we dropped them off and and headed back to Lahaina with all their left over alcohol and food (blackened shashimi, cocktail shrimp etc. . .) Sinclair and some of her massage friends also caught a ride with us instead of the ferry as well as the crew from the other boat. So it was like an impromptu party!

Haouli Makahiki Hou!

2008-01-01T16:33:00.000-08:00

Awesome sunrise one morning at work.

The "Orphan" Christmas which consisted a bunch of friends from work drinking and playing the Surfer Edition of Monopoly which was really fun.

"Jill,
A kind of romantic wistfulness characterizes your approach to life now."

Well that is what my horoscope on Facebook says and I can't help but agree. I don't really have any New Year's resolutions other than to continue to challenge myself and grow and learn. I have been really happy the last few weeks. I have been working almost every day, making good tips and even though I usually have to wake up around 5am I love it. I am still working on making some good friends but there's always some one from work to hang out with or Sinclair and her friends. I need to try to make some friends of my own too though, outside of work, so I guess that is next on my list of things to do.

I had a good New Years, I just went to a bar with friends from work and didn't stay out that late. I had New Years Day off and ended up kicking it around the house and watching the Sugar bowl which was a little depressing, but I am still very proud of the Rainbow's! I am working later today on a couple of Whale Watches. I dropped Sinclair off at the ferry early this morning so she'll been gone 'til Friday because she's doing massage at the Four Seasons of Lani now, "the perfect room mate" :) I also made the most disgusting green smoothie this morning, I have no idea how it came out so bad, but I only papaya and no bananas so I think that had something to do with it, not sure. I really need to go grocery shopping :)

typical day at work! (Humpback whales, spinner dolphins and a shark!)

2007-12-13T00:30:00.000-08:00

I had a good day at work today. It is the first day of work that I have had for a week because there have been huge storms and the boats have not been able to go out. So it was nice to be out on the water and making some money. I am still in training so I have two more days 'til I can test for deckhand and hopefully get a pay raise! The trip I did today is their most common trip called "Discover Lanai" during which we motor to the next door island "Lanai" and jump off the boat and go to the beach at Manele Bay. On the way we saw some humpback whales (nothing to close though) and stopped to see if they would stay at the surface, they didn't, but while we were stopped a large shark swam up to the surface for a few seconds which was really cool! it was like 10ft and everyone thought it was a tiger shark but I am not convinced . . . we also saw a large pod of 200 or so spinner dolphins on the way back, which was really lucky. Manele Bay is gorgeous and as soon as we got there the people went on a van tour for an hour while I and the rest of the 2 crew chilled at the beach. I plan on playing Frisbee during this time in the future but today I went for a snorkel to check things out and also tried out the paddle board which I was not very good at and fell off of into the water a lot, but it was fun and I hope to improve my skills at it. Then the people came back and I had to help distribute snorkel gear and help them get into the water without getting rolled by the surf. Then I took 2 ladies that had not been snorkeling before to some tide pools near by to check things out and showed them some fish, hermit crabs, sea cucumbers and a urchin. So not bad really . . . I got $60 bucks in tips too!

Lahaina, Maui Ultimate Frisbee or Disc pickup game

2007-12-06T13:15:00.000-08:00

Hey, anyone interested in playing Ultimate Frisbee in Lahaina please contact me. I would really like to start a weekly pick up game.

My new digs!

2007-12-05T10:03:00.000-08:00

Check out my new digs! I got the job at Trilogy and will start renting from Sinclair officailly Dec 15th. It's been raining a lot the past week so a lot of the trips have been cancelled at work, but it has been nice to get some rain for a change! I have no idea what I am doing for x-mas maybe working, I don't know.

I'm living in Lahaina, Maui now!

2007-11-21T14:10:00.000-08:00

Hey well I actually made the move! I flew over last Thursday Nov 15th with my new bicycle boxed up and Sinclair (my sister's friend) picked me up at the airport. She is letting me stay with her 'til I find a job and get settled, she's awesome. I got my bike reassembled and went to Trilogy (very similar to Ocean Sports) and put in my application. I finally got an interview with the head guy yesterday. Things sound pretty good but might take some time to start getting lots of hours. I might get my Master Diver certification and work on the boat as a master diver to get paid more. I go out on the boat of Friday, so wish me luck! I am having Thanksgiving with Sinclair and some of her friends at their house, I am in charge of mashed potatoes, so that should be fun!

Love you all, I will try to keep you updated.

The Weli Weli experience

2007-11-07T13:33:00.000-08:00

Here are some picture from my 10 day stint at Weli Weli with Sinclair, Cassie's good friend from high school.

Weli Weli is a place as well as an experience, both of which are hard to explain. When you are there you just get this feeling of barren wholeness. You either get it of you don't. I don't know if it's a type of personality, genetics or how your were raised. What do you think? If you do have that, whatever it is, you automatically share a kind of "inside joke" kinship with anyone else who gets the joke. It is the kind place you can go to and really get brought back to center. Its a place where you find out how little you really need in life.

I was fortunate to spend a good amount of time there and just chill. I was still working so had to leave periodically, which was hard, because once you get there you really don't want to leave. It was really nice having a 20min commute instead of an hour and 20min one though. I watched the sun set and rise every day. The moon was also amazing while I was there, it was the harvest moon which is the brightest full moon of the year. I went snorkeling most mornings and tried spearfishing but couldn't find much to go after. A pod of spinner dolphins passed one morning and I swam out and caught the tail end of them. They swam straight by me though. Some paddlers came by while I was out there, they were following the pod and I recognized one of them as my 79 year-old co-worker at Ocean Sports! His name is Chuck and he has worked at A-bay doing Ocean Sports maintenance for the last 30 years. He only works part time now so he can spend more time paddling! I hope that I am doing something like that when I am 79! I saw him the other day at work and he was like "what were you doing out there?" and I explain how I was staying at Weli Weli with Sinclair. Then he said, "You know, I remember Mrs. VonHolt walking back along the beach at A-bay from Weli Weli and I asked her how long it took her her and she said, 'Oh, about 2 beers'!" She would have been Sinclair's grandmother and back then I guess there wasn't a bulldozed road to Weli Weli through the lava and you had to walk along the beach and rocky lava quite a ways.

I also did some arts and crafts, like making hats and bowls and new shower baskets out of coconut leaves. I also made some coconut heads for Cass and Nick because they couldn't come, even though they would have loved to be there. It was nice to give something back to Weli Weli which will hopefully be useful in the future.

So thank you to Sinclair and her family for keeping Weli Weli so beautiful and "real" and letting me come along to enjoy it.

Crazy fires and lots of driving

2007-10-29T16:33:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

So in case you haven't heard on the news there have been crazy fires in North Kohala on the Big Island which is where I live. Some very malicious arsonist decided to throw flares out of his car along all the main roads and created several very large fires that closed many of the roads.

That morning just after 5am I was driving down the Mountain road through Waimea to get to work. I had spent the night at Ponoholo ranch because I went to their Halloween dinner party. The morning trip was a private ash scattering for George Watson on Alala, our largest sailing catamaran.

On my way to Waimea I looked down at the coast and could see all the street lights in Waikoloa and then noticed all these other orange lights along the coast and was like, "What the heck is that?" So I stopped on the side of the road and took a good look and realized there were all fires! I could just make out all of the smoke rising up and blowing out over the ocean in the dark. I wasn't sure what to do but decided to just keep driving because I couldn't tell what side of Kawaihae the fire was on. I got half way down Kawaihae road and got turned down by a policeman because they had closed the road. So then I called Captain Chad, who was driving from Kohala, and we decided our best bet would be to get permission to drive through Kohala Ranch Road, which is private property. So I drove back all the way I had come and talked them into letting me drive through the ranch and managed to get to the harbor at 6:45. Captian Chad showed up a short while after me and we kayaked out to the boat and opened it up.

Then the harbor master decided to close the harbor so we had to drive Alala to A-bay and run the trip from there. The trip went quite well considering, we just left a bit late. The fires were a sight to see while we motored over, and while we were moored in A-bay there was ash falling on the boat!

After we finished the trip and got back to Kawaihae I had to go to Weli Weli because I had left a few things there and I wanted to help Sinclair clean up. I had been staying there for the last 10 days because, besides being totally awesome, it is closer to work for me.

I will try to post some pictures soon but the Internet at home is not good enough and I was going to go to the Waimea coffee shop but they were closed and had a sign that said "closed until further notice" which is annoying but totally Hawaii.

got some good stories this week in Nagoya, Japan

2007-09-30T15:48:00.001-07:00

Hello Everyone,

Yes, it is true, I just got back from Nagoya, Japan. I realize that some of you might be wondering to yourself, "When did she go to Japan?" Well it should comfort you that it came as a bit of a surprise to me. A few days after I got home (Sept 4th) from my various adventures on the mainland, I ran into my old teacher Marc Rice from HPA and we had a nice chat. During our chat he mentioned that he was organizing a last minute trip with some students to Nagoya, Japan and that he was looking for a female chaperone, and I said, "well I am available . . ."

To which Marc replied, "I'll have to check that you are suitable first but call me tomorrow morning."

So I called him the next morning and he said I could do it but that he could only pay for my airfare. I had been under the impression that I would get everything paid for, but in the end I decided to just go . . . "why not, right?"

So I went and it was definitely worth it! The trip was 7 days and there were 2 students: Alex ( aboy) from Venezuela and Kathy from Ireland. The purpose was to help George Balazs, from the National Marine Fisheries Service, attach satellite tags to 25 one-year-olds and 2 adult loggerhead turtles raised at the Nagoya Public Aquarium and release them into the wild. It took a few days to get all the tags attached with fiberglass and then we took all the yearlings on an overnight ferry to Sendi and released them early in the morning into the Tokyo current.

We all got off the 24hr ferry ride in Sendi and took a bullet train back to Nagoya which took about 3 hours. Then a few days later we took the adults to Akabane beach by truck, which took all day. Back in Nagoya, we had free access to the Aquarium and got some awesome "behind the scenes" action. I got to kiss a beluga whale named MaMa, pet a penguin and some other baby turtles. The beluga was by far one of the best smooches I have ever had (wet, salty and squishy :) ) I also did some sight- seeing and went to some cool markets and the Nagoya Castle. It was easier than I thought it would be communicating with people. A lot of people spoke some English or you could point to things on English menus or at pictures. Most street signs and subway stops were in English too, so that was really helpful; it was however really odd to only see 2 other blond people the whole time I was there!

Anyway, I am kind of tired, I stayed up all night reading the last Harry Potter book (I seriously couldn't put it down!). I am only working 2 days this week, but fortunately I got two days of teacher subbing at the middle school for PE which should be pretty good money I think and I am still tutoring 2 days a week.

Later for now,

Jill

New Pictures, New Camera, New Life . . .

2007-08-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

Well I finally decided to bite th bullet and buy myself a new camera. I left my old one at home because it wasn't working well and it is technically my Dad's. So I am now the proud owned of my very own Canon 1000, 7.1 mp, and I love it, I would definitely recommend it. It is a great point a shoot and just crosses over to the more advanced side of things if you want to. I have been playing around with color filters and stuff. Anyways. I am in Denver, got here last Thursday, hanging out with my oldest sister Alexa who is almost 9 months pregnant and her son Wyatt. So I have been trying to help her out while I am house/dog sitting for my other sister who lives here, she is on vacation in Hawaii with her family. So I have just been bringing her dog Pawnee over to Alexa's. I think I am falling in love with Pawnee she is so big, fluffy and lovable. Then I leave for Hawaii next Thursday, I can't believe that is is a week already.

New York, New York review

2007-07-26T11:13:00.000-07:00

Hello New York, New York!

I have been here for a week now, but don't worry I am not going to suddenly decide to move here and "try to make it," which seems to be the general assumption. I don't think I could live in a place where there's a store with a $850 dress inside and a man with a kid and a stroller outside asking for money to buy a sandwich. It's just a bit depressing. New York is certainly a sight to see though, there are just endless miles of buildings which are impressive but don't inspire as much grandeur as I thought they would. Sure it's cool when you look up and see a building reach almost 1,000 ft towards the sky but many of the buildings just aren't that especially pleasing. I knew New York was a old city so I guess I expected more . . . character? To me New York is just uncomfortable, it seems to have out grown it's self; stores and aisles are ridiculously small; there are people selling things everywhere crowding along the street; and there are people absolutely everywhere going in every imaginable direction. If you don't know exactly where you are going you end up going in circles. The street vendors are convenient but I don't understand how they are all so similar, they either sell pretzels and hot dogs or sunglasses or knock off bags or souvenirs. It's amazing how similar they are. There are a lot of tourists here too, which also surprised me for some reason, it is hard to feel out of place here with such a combination of cultures and people from different walks of life.

I hope that I am not sounding too judgmental . . . like anyone reads this anyway. I am however getting flash backs from my Fiji post's . . . I got so many random responses about that saying that I got the wrong impression. Who knows maybe I do and my pessimistic judgementalism is just a reflection of the fact that I am running out of money and still don't have a job or know what I am going to do with my self :)

Today I think that I have finally made some ground. I think that I have decided that I am going back to Australia. Starting September 1st I will have enough points to get an Independent General Skilled Migration Visa, which would make me a permanent AU resident for 5 years and I could work an/or study as a domestic student. So I have to wait 'til Sep 1st and apply online and then wait to get it. The other problem is that it costs $5,000 and so I might have to stay home and work for a while before I can move there.

Let me know what you think!

Rhubarb Festival, Denver

2007-06-19T23:03:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

Well I have been in Denver for a while free-loading off my 2 older sisters Cass and Alexa who both conveniently live here now. I have been helping babysit Alexa's 14 month old son Wyatt and Cassie's 2 year old daughter Ava as well as painting primer over the pepto bismol pink room in Alexa's recently purchased house. I have also been biking around Cherry Creek where Cassie lives and staying at her house most of them time because it is in a better location. I also caught up with some high school friends Alika and Arrien and have been hanging out with them some.

Last weekend we all went to the Annual Rhubarb festival in Pine about an hour's drive to celebrate national strawberry-rhubarb pie day. One of Cassie's friends is from there and her parents still live there so every year a bunch of her friends go up there and camp out in the yard and go to the festival. It was quite an experience and pretty entertaining.

Atlanta, Georgia

2007-05-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

This is a pic of my sister Cass and I eating ice cream from a real ice cream truck, a first time for me, I was quite excited.

Well incase you didn't know I have left the Big Island and have been in Atlanta Georgia since May 6th. I am staying with my Mom's sister in Peachtree City. This is my first time to the South and I really didn't know what to expect. I haven't had that much time to see the site's and such and my main priority is to spend time with family. My Grandmother also lives near here in Macon and my Mom's brother lives here too with his wife Carol, along with some other extended family. Most of us went to Warm Springs the other day which is where President FDR spent a lot of time. I am not the hugest history nut but one thing I did find interesting is that he married his distant cousin Eleanor Rosevelt who was also President Teddy Rosevelt's niece! My favorite part was this long walk way that has a flag from every state along with a piece of native rock from each state, there was even lava rock form Hawaii. Some of the rocks were really nicely polished and engraved with the state map and rivers and such. Unfortunately I don't have a camera should really get one, my old one was acting funny so I left it at home. I have been wanting to get a nicer camera anyway, it's just rationalizing the money! I leave next Tuesday the 22nd for Denver to spend time with my sisters and help Alexa, my oldest sister to move into her new house.

Julia Campbell

2007-04-23T13:41:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to let you all know that something terrible has happened. I know that there are other terrible things happening in the world but this one is close to home for me, which is why I am making a post about it.

Julia Campbell was found dead last Wednesday due to blunt force trauma in a shallow grave in the Philippines where she was serving her last few months as a Peace Core Volunteer. Julia was a relative and family friend, though I only meet her once. I meet her during Christmas of 2005, my brother and sisters were all home visiting my parents for Christmas and we went to Hapuna Beach on the Big Island and just by chance bumped into her and some other Campbell's. If you read her blog at http://www.juliainthephilippines.blogspot.com the second to last entry mentions going to Hawaii for a week before going on to her new assignment, that is when I meet her. We all hung out at the beach for most of the morning. Julia and I chatted a lot because we had a lot in common, I was especially interested to hear what the Peace Corps was like because I have always been interested in possibly joining it. She was an absolute joy and inspiration to chat to. Someone who was following her dream, living in the moment, and helping others. That is what I hope to strive for in my own life. We even exchanged email's and blog sites. I haven't kept up with her blog until today, I wish I had. She was an excellent writer and has experienced some amazing things. I just want everyone to know that she inspired me, and that her advice and life will continue to influence my life as I continue to pursue my dreams.

sorry I have been soooooo slack

2007-03-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

K so a lot has been happening and such and I haven't been poasting about any of it so I will try to catch you all up :)

Well Rowena really likes Hawaii and is staying 'til April 19th now. She also has a boyfriend now and is living with him in Hilo. His name is Mike and was a friend of Brett's through Hilo frisbee. Mike is actually in New Zealand now so Row is kind of House sitting for him, he is also letting her borrow a car. So she is pretty lucky, she's also working for cash at Ocean Sports, the same place I work.

Rena also came to visit the week before Kaimana and she really likes it here too and Ocean Sports offered to hire here as well, especially since she can speak Japanese. So Rena is staying 'til March 22 and working 'til then.

The HughJ, Girls from Oz played at Kaimana and we had an absolute blast. We won the first 3 games that we had, then the next day we lost the first game, which was really close and everything went downhill from there. We still had tons of fun though! Then most of the girls from the team came to the Big Island for 3 days and stayed at my house. Tom and Nath also came from Brett's team. Nath's girlfriend Sarah also came over. There were 11 of us total I think.

Since then Rena and I have been working lots, even picking coffee for my parents and having fun. We've made friends with some people at my work and had a bonfire party at the cabin Sunday night which was really fun.

Home

2007-02-01T21:09:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

I have been home for a while now and setteling back into the island life style. I have been working at Ocean Sports again and have also started for tutoring a kid at my old high school. The weather has been not very nice the last few days and all of the boat trips at work have been cancelled, which is a bummer.

Other than that is has been beautiful and very relaxing. Rowena has also been visiting the last few weeks and we have been having fun. She has also started working for cash at Ocean Sports too which has been convenient.

Denver

2006-12-20T19:28:00.000-08:00

Then I went to visit my other sister Cassie and my niece Ava. I went with them to Ava's day care which was really cute. Then for the weekend some of Cassies friends had rented a house up in the mountains to go snowboarding in Keystone, so we headed up there. It was a awesome house with an outside hot tub. I also spent a whole day taking a beginners snowboarding lesson which was really fun.

Then I finally flew home to the Big Island and that is where I am now. I just had my first day of work today and it was pretty fun. We took about 30 people out on a snorkel cruise, we saw 2 whales too which was cool.

Scripps

2006-12-20T19:11:00.000-08:00

While I was visiting my sister Alexa in Riverside, CA we drove down to Scripps Institute of Oceanography in La Jolla for a day. I had a meet up with a student and a professor that I meet is Australia. It is a absolutely gorgeous campus right on the water I could definitely see my self studying there. I am not sure if I am going to apply this year though. I am not exactly sure what I would want to do for a PhD and I would have to take the GRE and stuff.

Riverside

2006-12-15T20:28:00.000-08:00

On Thursday I flew to Ontario to visit my oldest sister Alexa, nephew Wyatt (9 months) and my brother-in-law Brent. They are just living there temporarily while Brent is on a job. On Sunday we drove up into the Mountains to Idlywild to visit my friend Al Newman who is teaching at an Arts Academy high school. It was a really cool looking school. We also went into town for lunch, which was incredibly yummy. I had grilled cheese sandwich with tart green apple in it and avocado cream soup.

Palo Alto

2006-12-15T20:23:00.000-08:00

After Thanksgiving I stayed with my Uncle and Aunt in Palo Alto for a week. I did more shopping and Maryanna took me out down 17 mile drive then to Carnel to a really nice Italian restaurant. Uncle Dave also took my to University drive near Stanford where we went to Cafe del Dodge, where my cousin Chris is working. So we got some incredibly yummy free coffee and walked around.

Thanksgiving in Palo Alto

2006-12-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

Then on Wednesday Diana and I drove to Palo Alto to her parents place. Almost all the family meet up for a big Thanksgiving feast on Thursday. I hadn't seen some of my family for 10 years! My parents also flew over, which is a big deal for them. Here is a list of all my family members that came, to my memory :) Significant other in ""

Ed and Diana (my parents)
Alexa "Brent", Cassie "John", Nick (my siblings)
Ava and Wyatt (my niece and nephew)
Amber (Brent's sister, my step-sister in-law?)
Barbra and Dave (my Aunt and Uncle, they hosted this lovely event)
Maryanna (Dave's mom, my step-grandma)
Dave "Marisa" and Diana "Luke" (my cousins, Barbra and Dave's kids)
Don "Cele" (Divorced, my Uncle and Aunt, Don is my Dad's brother)
Courtney, Chris (my cousins, Don and Cele's kids)

That's 22 people. I hope I remembered everyone!

It was tons of fun seeing everyone and the food was excellent.

San Fran

2006-12-15T19:39:00.000-08:00

After worlds I went straight to San Fran to visit my cousin Diana on my way to Thanksgiving with all the family in Palo Alto. There's a pic of me her and her flatmate Steven. We went out the first night to a gay bar on Caxton street. That was really fun and we also went out for banana pancakes which were really yummy. The next day we meet up with Uncle Dave, Cassie & Ava, and Diana's boyfriend Luke. We also went some gardens too and saw tons of squirrels, which I found exciting. I also did lots of shopping is the biggest mall's and stores that I have ever seen.

Worlds!

2006-12-15T19:18:00.000-08:00

After diving the first day I was pretty busy volunteering at Worlds. I decided early on in the year to volunteer, instead of playing on a team, because of money and time (I probably saved around $700 AUD). I was a team leader so I helped organize the other volunteers and assign roles. The main thing we had to do was make sure there was a volunteer at every game to keep score. There were 22 fields and up to 20 games going on at one time! It was a bit stressful at times, but I ended up getting a bunch of extra free stuff at the end which was cool. I also won a prize with a special limited edition disc and $100 at Gaia. I got free food for the week too, which was very nice.

The picture of me above is after the Mens final that I scored, I am holding the score sheet and have a walkie talkie (very official :) The final was Thong v Buzz Bullitz, BB won, I had a bunch of friends on Thong so it was really fun to watch. I also traded jerseys with one of the BB team members, he wanted a volunteer jersey!

Click on the link to see Thong doing push-ups after they were awarded their medals!

Rotnest Island

2006-12-15T18:38:00.000-08:00

Well I got to Perth and did my "team leader" training as a volunteer for Worlds on Thursday. I had another day of training on Friday with the rest of the volunteers. It was pretty cool we scrimmaged each other and and practiced timing and scoring, which was our main job for the tournament.

For the whole 10 days I stayed with Bec who was on the Perth mixed team, Sublime. She was really nice and gave me rides to the fields most days, since she usually had to get there around the same time anyway to play. I had told her that I wanted to go diving at Rotnest Island on my day off but when I found out I had Saturday off (the opening ceromony) I wasn't sure I would have time to plan it or if I wanted to miss the opening ceromony. I was pretty bussy all day on Friday and so didn't think I was going to be able to go SCUBA diving, but at the end of the day I got a call from Bec, who is awesome because she had called the people that she usually goes diving with and they were going out on Saturday, the next day and had space. So I got to go out on a boat the next day and went on 2 dives and had a really yummy lunch. I saw some pretty cool stuff. Loads of sponges and sea grass, and I found this really cool abolone shell but I forgot it at her house when I left.

Sydney stop over with Peter

2006-12-02T07:34:00.000-08:00

I stopped over in Sydney for 1 day on my way to Perth for Worlds. I sat next to two really cool older guys that owned the oldest Australian backpacker magazine and were going to Sydney for a huge convention. They gave me a ride to my hostel, which was really nice and told me to say hi to the manager, who they knew of course. I dropped off all my stuff, took a shower and then went out to meet my friend Peter for dinner. He moved to Sydney from Brisbane last year. He is doing well and enjoying Syndey. We had a nice dinner and walked around Sydney, went to the Opera house and ended up spending a bunch of time in this really cool book shop, that was open at 11pm! I bought some cute Australian kids books for my niece and nephew.

pictures from Surfers

2006-11-01T05:14:00.000-08:00

Much needed weekend at Surfers Paradise. I turned in my thesis on Friday then my friend from frisbee, Brian, and I took off on Saturday. We caught the train down and walked around the main strip for a while then layed out on the beach for a few hours, I got horribly sunburned! Then I decided I wanted a celebratory drink at The Hard Rock Cafe, so we went there and had cocktails and really yummy pineapple, chicken quesadillas. They were seriously so good we tried to recreate them for dinner and they weren't as good but still really good.

We stayed at my friend Guy's house Sat night. He has this awesome place on the beach, we made him french toast for b-fast and then went out body surfing for 3 hours, then headed back to Brisbane.

I got my thesis in!

2006-10-31T19:42:00.000-08:00

Well my Birthday was a blast, a bunch of friends and I took over 3 lanes at the bowling alley, with 6 people at each lane. There was also plenty of food and drinks to go around. I unfortunately do not have the pictures yet, I had to take them on a friends camera because mine was out of batteries.

Shortly after my birthday I slipped into a ultra-caffine induced thesis writing mode, also accurately described as climing into a cave with a computer and never coming out. I was pretty behind when I finally started getting into it and the day that it was due my supervior suggested that I redo my statistical analysis and then I talked to someone else and found out that I didn't exactly do my stats wrong but that I should have done them differently and that it was to late to redo them. So I finished writting up with my original stats and ended up submitting my thesie 2 days late, so I got 4% off.

So that was a bit of a bummer but I finished! Then my friend Brian and I took off for Surfers Paradise the next day and spent the weekend at the beach and spent the night at my friend Guy's house. It was fantastic. I do have some pics from the weekend that I will put up.

B-day party plans

2006-10-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

Hey all,

I have also just planned my B-day party, which is this Friday, I turn 22!

It is going to be at the Milton ten pin bowling club starting at 6:30. I am paying for snacks and it's only $16 to rent shoes and get 2 games. There are also going to be flashy disco lights and live music. It's B themed, Bowling, Beer, Birthday . . . So everyone's supposed to wear something from the Big Island, hawaiian print, or red (the official island color).

I will let you know how it goes :)

Jilly

some much needed picts from AUG's

2006-10-11T06:38:00.000-07:00

First day on the field. Go LOVERS!

The rest of my picts are from the parties :) I was too busy playing during the day to snap picts. This was a shot of something, can't remember what it was.

and it didn't go down too well :)

The party animals Chris (dressed up as Al) and Blake as and Alien. The theme was to dress up as something A U or G. I wore an extra jersey (with a unicorn on it) and was an American Unicorn Girl, creative I know.

and this was the mechanical bull, lots of fun :)

Uni Games Silver Medalist

2006-10-02T02:22:00.000-07:00

Well I am back from the Australian University Games in Adelaide where I was playing mixed Ultimate Frisbee for a whole amazing week. My team (the UQ Ultimate Lovers) finished with the silver medal. I am pretty happy with it, though I know we could have won. We took half with 8-6 but then Macquarie came back and scored 3 in a row, then ended up winning unfortunately. I am not sure exactly what happened, we were playing so hot and sexy most of the week then we all started making some mistakes in the final. Oh well, silver isn't too bad I guess, it's the best any QLD team has ever done. The parties were super fun as well and our hotel was straight across the street from one of the main pub's. It was really great to have a week away from Uni, even though I was really bad and didn't get any of the work I was supposed to get done, done. I now have 3 weeks to finish my thesis and turn it in, crunch time! Yikes!

I just found out that a lot of my family is meeting up in San Jose for Thanksgiving and I am going to try to be there. I am really freaking excited about it! Though that means leaving AU earlier than I was planning. I also won't be able to go to my graduation, which I am not that bummed about. The one annoying thing if that I will not know if I will be getting the scholarship to came back or not, so I am not sure what to do with all of my extra stuff . . . store it or get rid of it? I will probably store some if no matter what, and if I don't end up coming back I can have my friends get rid of it.

funny tredmill movie

2006-09-10T02:17:00.000-07:00

Yes I have been spending way too much time on the internet, but this a freaking awesome music video from a band in Chicago.

I guess they are actually pretty popular in the US but this is the first I have heard of them.

You should check it out!

Hi Mitchell whoever you are, if you are reading this :)

The Global Consciousness Experiment

2006-09-09T04:10:00.000-07:00

The Global Consciousness Experiment
Will this mode of communication catch on?
What are the different types of message that people will write?
Will the collective stay intelligent if not weird?
Will the message queue ever fill up?
Can we promote thought?
Where will the messages come from? Mind, body or spirit?
Is there such a thing as communal thinking?

Is humanity at the most basic level good or bad or both?
Can this project raise the bar?
What will be next?

cillaxing weekend

2006-09-08T16:18:00.000-07:00

Well most of my friends are in Melbourne this weekend for Frisbee Mixed Nats and my other friend that I was supposed to go to Noosa with cancelled 'cause of the swell. So I am looking forward to a nice relaxing weekend, which is fine by me.

Right now I am off to Dan's house to pick up my mail, hopefully my new bank card is there, I kind of need it. Then I will probably walk around the indooroopilly shopping centre for a while.

I have been pretty busy, but I submitted my proposal for a PhD scholarship at UQ starting next June. I am also looking at applying to Scripps at UCSD, but that's not due 'til January.

I still have to buy my one-way ticket home, yikes! That is a bit scary for me. I guess I have to just work as hard as I can and apply to as many places as I can for Phd scholarships and good jobs and trust that I will get into somewhere I am meant to be and will be happy. I am not sure what I want right now or where I want to be. I am kind split between moving some where new and being in a new environment and staying in Brisbane. It might not be up to me though so I shouldn't stress about it, though if you know me at all you know I will.

Have a lovely day everyone!

I miss the ocean!

2006-08-29T04:58:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to make a quick note and let everybody know that I dearly miss the ocean. I would go down the coast but I think I would just be disappointed. I miss the aqua blue coastal islands and soft sand. It is makeing me depressed and unfullfilled knowing that it is doing just fine with out me since it is an inatimate object.

That is all

Halibut Frisbee picts

2006-08-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

I organized a team and played in a Mixed Frisbee tournament the other weekend. It was awesome, we took 9th out of 12. Not our best preformance but it was ton's of fun. We played 4 games on Sat and 3 games on Sun. My entire body was sore for 2 days after. It was great though.

wild koala's exist!

2006-08-04T22:56:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone I went bush walking the other weekend with my friend Pottsy. We saw a wild koala, it was cool.

One Red Paper Clip

2006-07-23T04:10:00.000-07:00

How much do you think one red paper clip is worth? Well apparently with some ingenuity a house! This is a really cool story you should check it out!

http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/

freash strawberries anyone?

2006-07-20T05:15:00.000-07:00

Well I was heading home after working late . . . again and there was a guy selling freash strawberries on the side of the side-walk at 9pm. So I bought some because they looked really yummy, and they were. There was this really cool mutant one.

It's alllivveeee

2006-07-17T06:24:00.000-07:00

The MicroMill is working! I am a genius though I still can't get the test program to work properly but I think I just need to spend some more time tweaking with it.

Sorry in my excitement I forgot to explain. The MicroMill is a $5,000 machine that my co-supervisor ordered for me to help process my samples, however he left and no one knew how to set it up. So I was left with a 60 page user manual and 2 boxes full of heavy metal things. Well that was last Monday and after some reading and thinking I got it assembled. Today I got the software working with the machine, it runs off of DOS!

That is all . . . .

Active Parks

2006-07-07T22:09:00.000-07:00

Well yesterday I took the day off Uni and worked for the Queensland Ultimate Disc Association. They are taking part in the Brisbane Governments Active Parks campaign. Basically they are trying to get kids to be more active over the holidays so on certain days and at different parks they put on a bunch of activities for kids to do like rock climbing and playing around with disc's. So I spent the day throwing frisbee's around with little kids. Lucky we have these squidgy disc's that are really soft and don't hurt when you get hit in the head :) It was nice to be outside in the sun and make a little money. Man am I sore though, my legs are sore because I spent most of the day crouching, trying to toss disc's to little kids without hitting them in the head :) my shoulders are really sore too, and I am not sure why . . . So that was fun.

This morning I ran into my friend Feras and his friend Scott at the grocery store and then we went and got a coffee and ended up chatting for ages. I ended up having 3 coffee's, so am feeling a little wired now . . . It was really nice though. I find it really surprising how often I bump into friends at random places away from uni.

So far I really like living in Indooroopilly. The shopping centre is really nice, which means I never have to go into the city and transportation in very good so it's easy to get to uni.

I'd like to say I am doing something cool this weekend but alas I am not. Who knows what I might end up doing though:) I have a ton of work to do so hopefully I will get some of it done this weekend . . .

Uni Holidays (Vacation)

2006-07-03T00:47:00.000-07:00

The Ultimate League ended well, though the purple cobras won. It was a tough game and my team was just really missing something that night.

The campus it pretty quiet now with most of the kids gone, I'm still plugging away though doing lab work. Things are going slowly and I am starting to get a little worried, but I am sure it will all be fine.

My cousin Diana was visiting for a few days the week before last. We had lots of fun together. We went to Sufers Paradise and the Australia Zoo. When I find my camera cable I will show you ;)

I have moved again to a nice 2 bedroom apt in Indooroopilly. My friend and her boyfriend, who normally live there are traveling around Africa. I am housesitting for them, feeding their fish and watering their plant. It's a very nice place and I am enjoying the time by myself. I'm not sure where I'll be after that I am thinking of looked for a place with Grace, who I lived with last year, in West End again.

I am still playing Ultimate Monday nights in the intermediate league in Yeronga and sometimes there are enough people around to play pick up on Wednesday nights.

Not much else going on at the moment, just lots and lots of work. I have started to try to plan my x-mas travels. I found this awesome flight to LA return to Sydney with unlimited stops in Honolulu for $12200 AUD but it turned out to be a mistake, which was very dissapointing because that would have been perfect.

Ultimate Finals

2006-06-06T22:27:00.000-07:00

Well tonight is the night . . . .

My team's in the finals after beating Fez last week. We are playing the Purple Cobra's (see the link to an article about them).

We are also have an end of season BBQ, which should be fun.

other stuff

2006-05-28T15:30:00.000-07:00

Right so it turns out that I am not going to get to go to Bremen. My supervisor decided that it was just too early to tell if my project is going to be interesting enough for him to send me to the conference in Germany. That's fair enough. Hopefully I will be able to go to this other conference in Mission Beach in August. It's just bellow Cairns, so much closer.

Now about my computer well the screen was getting messed up again so I called customer service and they said that I could probably get a replacement computer, since it was the forth time it had happened. I took it into the repair place and they confirmed that the screen is messed up and that I would probably need a new logic board to fix the problem. So the customer service guy called me last Friday and told me that not only am I going to get a new computer but I am going to get a macbook, since they have just replaced the iBooks with them. So it is very cool and I am very excited. I am not sure when I can get it, hopefully soon, I'll have to wait and hear back from the guy. I have been hurting without my computer. I have mostly been using the computer in the Paleolab, which is a nice computer but the problem is that other people have to use it through out the day because it has lots of nice fancy software on it like photoshop and imagepro.

I also went in the city last Friday for a meeting at the immigration office. I have to renew my student visa because it expires in August. This really bites because by renew they really mean apply for a whole new one, which means paying $420 and getting a chest x-ray and medical done at my own expense.

drilling picts

2006-05-28T15:25:00.000-07:00

Sorry it took me a while, I have been having some computer problems that I'll talk about later. Here are some picts of me drilling under water in Fiji. They are not the best quality because they were taken with a disposable underwater camera . . .

oh yeah I just got back from Fiji

2006-05-13T21:37:00.000-07:00

Bula!

I got back from Fiji last Friday (May 5th) It was interesting . . . . I couldn't help feeling a little depressed most of the time because Suva was so dirty, with trash every where. When I was out on the boat as well there was trash floating everywhere in the water. It was also common for people to burn their trash. I was also disappointed with not getting to eat much Fijian food. The Fijian culture is really diluted and suppressed by Indian culture, so I ate a lot of really good cheap Indian food, which was fine, just not what I would have preferred.

I did manage to experience some Fijian culture by exploring the Fijian Museum and I also visited one of the villages (Muaivuso), my supervisor and I had to do a Sevusevu with them and give them some money and Kava kava root so that we would be allowed to collect samples in their fishing grounds. It was pretty interesting though I wish I could speak Fijian.

I drilled 4 ~50cm Diploastrea heliopora coral cores from Muaivuso, and about another 4 from Sigatoka. So it was pretty successful considering the boat problems and Tsunami warning I encountered towards the end of my trip. I was very happy to get home and feel safe and relaxed again. It was the first time I had been to a second world country and I was by myself for the last week on the trip. My supervisor paid for accommodation and food and everything I needed for my project which was very nice.

I'll post pictures of drilling underwater tomorrow. The last picture is a core from Sigatoka (a very old, dead, immerged reef platform) the boulder behind it is actually a large massive coral that I drilled, you can see the core in front that I am holding.

Right now I am working on a 200 word abstract for the European Meeting of the International Society for Reef Studies in Bremen. It is due tomorrow and if I get accepted I will probably be going to Bremen, Germany the 19-22 of September! So wish me luck for that.

new Wyatt pic

2006-05-11T19:35:00.000-07:00

cute new pict of Wyatt in a shirt that his Aunt Amber (Brent's Sister) gave him.

Introducing Wyatt Cornelius Croft

2006-04-15T18:53:00.000-07:00

Well my oldest sister Alexa just had her first baby, Wyatt at 3:33pm April 12. He weighed 8lbs and 5oz. He is so cute and I wish I could have been there to help out with the rest of the family. I'll make sure that I see him around x-mas time, along with the rest of the family. I am getting so excited about x-mas this year and it is only April, that is probably not a good thing.

Ava's 1st B-day

2006-04-15T18:40:00.000-07:00

This is my gorgeous niece Ava and she had her first birthday last weekend, because my Mom was is town. Her really B-day is April 19th. She is so cute! I'll see her at x-mas again this year if all goes as planned.

back to normal life

2006-04-01T20:55:00.000-08:00

Well I have been pretty busy since I got back from Mackay. My project proposal was due last Wednesday and that took up a lot of time. I'd like to be over and done with it but now I have to give an oral presentation on my project this Tuesday to my lab group and then again on Thursday to my graders. So that should be fun.

The UQ league has also taken off this semester with the encouragement of Brett and myself and excellent coaching from this guy Piers who has just moved here. We have 6 teams, and there are 3 games going on every night. It is really, really cool. We also have a new web site that Dan has helped design at http://uqultimate.com.au that is way better than the last one, which wasn't too hard to top.

The next cool thing that I am looking forward to is going to Fiji April 24 to May 6. So that is what's keeping me going right now.

Mackay Underwater photos

2006-04-01T20:50:00.000-08:00

To end this lovely underwater series from Mackay here are some typical pretty underwater picture. Most of whick Ove took with his smanchy camera.

an other island

2006-04-01T20:37:00.000-08:00

This is another island that we stopped at, I can't recall the name at the moment. It was low tide so we had to walk across this huge reef flat and then we started walking around the island and came to this headland that looked over the westward side of the island. Is was cool, there were a lot of bugs though. We found a few turtle skeletons, which was interesting. I also found some pumic that had washed up it was probably from a volcanic eruption in the pacific somewhere and floated all the way to the island on various currents. I took some of it and maybe I get to date it or something.

Refuge Bay

2006-04-01T20:05:00.000-08:00

We stopped at many of the islands on the way to the outer reef and went exploring. Those were some of my favorite adventures on the trip. On this island a few of us hiked up to this big boulder sticking out a ridge on the island. I was a mesmeric view that the picture above can give you some idea of what it was like. It was just amazing to be sitting on this huge boulder sticking out of the ridge and hanging over the hillside. We all sat up there for a long time, just relaxing. You can see the Lara Star off in the distance down in the bay.

The Lara Star

2006-03-20T19:05:00.000-08:00

On Monday March 6th we all left on the Lara Star for 9 days of cruising aroung the Swain Reefs. The captian Warren had rebuilt the boat from a shipwrecked barge, so it was pretty unique. It had a large front drop door that is open in the picture above at Penrith Island.

Mackay Experience

2006-03-18T22:10:00.000-08:00

Well here is the scoop on my latest adventure. My new friends Guy Marion and Stacey Jupiter organized this trip around the Swain Reef system, off of Mackay, to collect some more data for their PhD projects. My supervisor got me to go a log to collect some coral rubble to look at past coral assemblages in the area for my honours year project. So I got to go along on the trip which was pretty sweet.

There were 12 people on the trip. Most of the people from the Center for Marine Studies where I am studying, (Guy, Stacey, Meegan, Verena, Michelle and myself) drove up together in a mini-van which took like 12 hours and spent the first night at Padaminka Wildlife Refuge. We also went out to dinner in Mackay and to some pubs. Is was definitely an experience! We must have looked a bit strange with 5 young attractive women walking around with Guy;) In the end though Guy got the most attention, from a older woman at the first pub we went to, which was having a karaoke night. As painful as the karaoke was we stayed there for a while to watch Guy squirm:) Then we went to an Irish pub and danced a bit. They were playing all these really old songs and when they played a song from Grease a bunch of local guys decided to serenade me which was a bit alarming but also entertaining. I didn't get a picture of that unfortunately so you'll just have to take my work for it.

and yes there are more shark picts

2006-02-22T14:27:00.000-08:00

even more shark picts

2006-02-19T23:24:00.000-08:00

more shark picts

2006-02-19T22:50:00.000-08:00

Shark pictures I promised!

2006-02-19T22:17:00.000-08:00

This is the Sea World live aboard research vessel.

This is Wolf's Rock, where the sharks like to hang out.

This is Carley and a "Hawaiian Sling" that they use to tag the shark with. I was helping her with her PhD research on the Critically endangered Grey Nurse Reef Shark.

This is Dylan on the radio. He works for Sea World and was the boat driver/videoer/cook/research helper. He is also a SCUBA stunt man. He was cool.

This is me with the tag in my right hand and the hydrophone pole in the other. They were just getting ready to go down on SCUBA and tag the shark we tracked for the trip.

Mountain pictures I promised!

2006-02-19T21:47:00.000-08:00

This is Mount Graville, supposedly elephant shaped;). The mountain (700m elev.) that I climbed up the weekend before last with some Ultimate bush bashers Potts, Keith and Martin.

This is the view from the top and me at the top. There was supposed to be a geocache up there but we couldn't find it. It was extremely hot especially since we got started at 11am! It was still fun, though I could have done with out the guy's doing a nude photo at the top! I guess it is a guy thing.

SCUBA galore and Grey Nurse Sharks

2006-02-15T00:27:00.000-08:00

Well I had an absolutely fantastic weekend on the Esperance Star SCUBA diving around Moreton Bay. I couldn't get my gear out of storage but luckily Mitch let me borrow all of his and I rented a wet suit and tank from the club. I got on the boat Friday night and we ended up staying in the harbor that night and steaming out at high tide at 5am in the morning. I got in for my first dive at 8:39 at Curtains artificial reef, full of ship wrecks. I saw some cute nudibranchs and a ray, there wasn't any coral though.

Then at 11:48 I dove on the Aarhus. There was a very strong current all the way down to the bottom. The wreck was pretty old, so there wasn't much left. Apparently it ran aground in 1894 on it's way from New York. I saw a octopus just sitting curled up on the top of a rock, a large cowry, a trident shell, a very tiny anemone fish, some wired egg sack things and a huge turtle with barnacles. Then we headed to Flinders which is just about the only spot in Moreton Bay that stays warm enough ear round for hard coral to grow.

I did my third dive there at 4:15pm at Flinder's and saw another octopus and lots of coral in some amazing colours. I also did a night dive there at 7:28 which was also cool. There were a lot of slipper lobsters out and I think I saw a Moreton Bay Bug. I also saw another huge green resting under a ledge.

The next day I did a dive at Gotham City at 8:08am which was not entirely enjoyable because it was basically a large rock feature that didn't have too much on it and there was a strong current that we had to swim against to get to the rock. Then when my buddy and I were ready to go up the anchor had been dragged off the rock and we couldn't find it, and we were the last ones to come up so there was no one around. So we just went up and did our safety stop in the water column, which took us a ways from the boat. At least we could see the boat when we had finally gotten to the surface. We should have swam upcurent to begin with, then we hopefully would have drifted into the anchor, but I really couldn't see it anywhere and I didn't even think of the possibility that it had just dragged off the rock face while I was down there.

Then at 10:30 I went for another dive at Flinders-Aldin's cave. There was a cool swim through in the reef crest which had a bunch of lobsters in it. I also saw a woobegong shark and a medium sized grey shark, lots of cleaner fish. I found it nice and quite enjoyable after the last dive. We also did our last dive there, not to sure why.

Just before I hopped in for my last dive the captain Trevor came out and said "No joke, someone has just called me and asked if I know anyone who doesn't get sea sick and can drop everything for 3 days and come to Wolf's Rock and help me tag Grey Nurse Reef Sharks with Sea World, would you be interested"

I said I'd have to think about it because there were a few things I was supposed to do. So I thought about it on my last dive and decided to just do it even though I had very little information about it. So the girl (Carley Basemer) picked me up from the Marina a little after we got into port and then we headed North towards Tin Can Bay were we were meeting the Sea World people on the Sea World Research Boat. It was about a 5 hour drive and we pick up another girl (Stacey) on the way.

So it turned out that Carley is doing her PhD at UQ on Nurse Sharks and also working full time at the Marine Parks Service. She had gotten Sea World to sponsor her research and they had called her early that morning (Sunday) saying that they had finished their previous project early and the weather was still good so they wanted to start hers ASAP even though they weren't scheduled until Thursday. They also said that they only had 4 people on board so she had to bring 2-3 people with her. So because it was so last minute she had to call anyone she could think of and ended up with Stacey and me, whom she had never meet before.

It all worked out pretty well though even though it wasn't really what I though it would be. For her project she is wants to track a few of the sharks continuously for 2 hours. On this trip she was hoping to get two shark done back to back, so one shark for 26 hrs then rest for a bit then do another one for 26 hours. So to do this you have to first tag the shark with a sonic pinger tag then you have to follow it around in a little inflatable boat with a hydrophone and a receiver that records the data sent up from the tag, but you have to stay with in a certain distance. So you have a 3 man team in the little boat tracking the shark while everyone else is on the big Sea World boat resting/sleeping and we switch every 3 hours for 26 hours straight. Unfortunately the big boat ran it some big problems at 12am so we had to stop tracking for 6 hours, which makes Carley data useless for publication but still interesting. So after they fixed up the boat a bit we did some more tracking from 6:30 to 8:30 and then stopped. Then we all got to go for a dive there on Wolf's Rock.

It was awesome, there were at least 20 Nurse Sharks, 3 leopard Sharks and tons of Rays. They are really passive and swim slowly around and sort of just ignore you but some times they will swim right to you and check you out and then vear off at the last second. I even go to pat one as it swam by. We were also trying to get carley's tag back which wasn't set to auto-erode off and float to the surface for a few hours. I saw the shark with is just as it swam by and had a good grab at it as it swam by but it slipped out on my fingers. I was so angry I didn't get it. Luckily she got it later in the dive and ended up having to use this special cutting tool because it was still fastened pretty tightly. So it was all cool and awesome.

The Sea World people decided not to try the second tracking because the weather was meant to get worse and they were still having a few boat problems. They had to drop us off at Rainbow Beach because it would have taken them another 3 hours to take us back up to Tin Can Bay. We were going to catch a 4WD taxi back up but they weren't answering their phone. So we all walked several blocks to the Marine Parks Service, where Carley works but at another branch and Carley got them to give us a ride back to her car. Then she drove me back to UQ, I got back around 5pm Tuesday and worked 'till 10pm. I worked all day to day too and have pretty much caught up. I get to go to Sea World with them all to on Saturday, because I have to pick up my dive gear that I left on the boat. That should be awesome as well!

I promise I will have tons of pictures soon.

crazy phone call

2006-02-09T16:50:00.000-08:00

Hey, sorry I haven't posted pictures from bush bashing last weekend yet. I still don't have my computer back yet and want to wait 'til I get it back to up load my pictures. It was pretty cool, but we didn't find the geocache.

Anyway last night my old dive club from Gatton called me and asked if I would like to go on their boat dive trip this weekend around Moreton Bay for half price! One one of the girls going had to cancel because she got an ear infection. I have tons of work to do and was going to spend the weekend working, but this is too good to pass up. So I am going. It will also be helpful to get some dives in before I start doing my research, and it should help me get approved as a restricted scientific diver. So it should be awesome. I leave tonight and get back Sunday afternoon. I let you know how it goes and will hopefully be able to borrow a camera and underwater housing to take pictures.

do you think it's odd that . . .

2006-02-03T14:19:00.000-08:00

Do you think it's odd that my doctor told me he needed a urine sample to complete my diving medical and then proceeded to the water fountain and grabed cup from the stack sitting by it and told be to fill it up, with strict instructions not to fill it too high so it didn't slosh on him.

I don't know it just seemed a bit odd and unprofessional, but he was pretty cool otherwise. I had to do this so that I can go diving next month in Mackay and Fiji. I had to do all sorts of exciting tests, like standing with my feet infront of each other, arms crossed and eyes closed for a minute. Also a hearing test, apparently I have ipod syndrome in one of my frequencies but am well compensated in other frequencies. I also have 20-15 vision, which is funny because doctors always tell me that, but when I went to see an optomatrist once he said I didn't have perfect vision but that it wasn't bad enough to get glasses. I also had to blow into this thing that measures your lung capacity.

So that was all cool, and I passed. I also had to pay $125 AUD that my supervisor should reimburse :)

Cool I am off to go bushwalking and geocaching with some frisbee guys. I'll post later about that hopfully with some picture from dan's camera that I am borrowing.

Ciao for now ;)

My disorganized life!

2006-01-26T04:21:00.000-08:00

I know I haven't posted in a while but I have been in the middle of a big mess of things and have been trying to sort my life out. I have a rough idea of what I'll be up to now this coming year and thought I'd share it with you all. The picture above is a picture that I took on the SEM the other day it has a diatom in the middle with a bunch of spicules arround it.

I am staying at the University of Queensland and doing an honours year, which is kind of like a masters degree. I do my own project and research and have to go to all these seminars and things. That all officially starts Feb 6 but I have been getting a head start on it now. I am also still working on my sponge project from last semester to trying to get it published next month. So I have been spending half my time finishing that lab work in the Otto lab (taking pictures of tyle sponge spicules with the Scanning Electron Microscope); and the other half at my new desk at the Centre for Marine Science figuring out stuff for my honours year project, applying for permits and stuff.

For my honours year project I will be studying dead coral assemblages in Mackay on the Great Barrier Reef and in Fiji. I will be going on a research cruise to 7 sites on the Great Barrier Reef off Mackay March 4-14th to collect samples, so I have been working on my permits to collect those samples, that I have to submit at the end of this week. Then shortly after that I am going to Fiji to collect more samples and take coral cores of Diploastrea coral and probably some other stuff that I don't know about yet. So that should be awesome. Then I have to do all the geochemical lab work at UQ which will also be cool but probably not at cool as the field work. So that is "what's going" in the academic sense.

I am still staying with the lovely Princess Rowena in Indooroopillly and will continue to stay here until I leave for field work in March, then we'll have to see how things are going and I might still live with her or find room for rent closer to campus, not sure yet. I am also busy organizing the UQ Ultimate Disc Club, mostly for Market Day, when we recruit most of our members, that's Feb 22. So yep fun stuff.

The Sunshine Coast

2006-01-13T22:24:00.000-08:00

Hi all. Well I have been having a lot of fun being back in Australia with no classes or real commitments for once, it feels like a real summer! I have been spending a bit of time on this sponge project I did last semester, but that is just for fun and to hopefully get it published. I have been staying with my best friend Rowena in Brisbane. We are sharing a room which hasn't been to straining as of yet, but I only have to pay half the rent and it is a really nice house with a wireless network and everything. There are two other people in the house, the owner Dan and Shawn who is from Canada. They both work full time in IT related departments and we all play Ultimate to some extent which is fun.

Last weekend Rowena and I went to the Sunshine Coast to visit her parents and little sister Sarah. We spent most of the time just hanging out at the house and relaxing. I did convince the girls to go geocaching one day, which is what the pictures are of. It was Sarahs first time and Row's second time and they are both getting to be pretty keen on it. We managed to find two of them, a regular one called Deltiology right on the ocean and a multi cache called Aroona. At the first one we just took a post card that I later mailed to the owners with a nice note and at the second one Row took a hat and left an US and AU dollar. For the multi-cache we had to change the coordinates we were originally given to the correct ones. The original coordinates led us to a play ground. We changed the coordinated according to the instruction by the number of swings and stuff. The new coordinated lead us to the cache in another part of the park. We also had fun playing in the park on the velocitron (see last picture above).

We also went kayaking in the lake near by their house that went by the golf course and past all these fancy homes. It was pretty cool.

We got back from the coast on Wednesday and on Thursday I meet up with John McNaughton for lunch to catch up and worked in the lab on my sponge project for the rest of the day. I also worked in the lab Friday as well and have finished all of my samples and just have to look at them in the SEM now, which I start on Monday. On Tuesday I am meeting with my honours year supervisor to organize my project for next year.

I am thinking of looking for a job next week, but other than that there are no huge developments in my life. Next week should be more eventful.

Byron Bay

2006-01-03T07:20:00.000-08:00

On the way back from Byron Bay Row took me to the Crystal Castle, which was this hippy place with lots of big Buddah statues and crystals. It was pretty cool.

geocaching

2006-01-03T07:03:00.000-08:00

My good friend Arjun and I went Geocaching for some fun and had an all time high of finding 2 of them over 2 days. For those of you that don't know what geocaching is there is a link from the title, but basically people hide little tuperware containers full of little silly things and recorded the coordinates with a GPS and then post it at geocaching.com and other people download the coordinates and try to find them with their GPS. It pretty dorky but I quite enjoy it.

The whales

2006-01-03T06:35:00.000-08:00

One of the huge perks of my vacation job at Ocean Sports is getting a front row seat for the Whales. My work, Ocean Sports, does whale watches, snorkel cruises and sunset sails and I normally work as crew on the boat. This year I just worked as land crew on the beach so I could be more flexible with my family being home. Anyways the Humpback Whales start arriving from Alaska mid December and spend all winter in the Hawaiian Islands, the females giving birth and the males looking for mates. Then they head off back to Alaska around April.

The whales are absolutely fabulous and just breataking to see in person. It is really a unique experience to see a 45-50 foot animal usually the same length as your boat glide under you in the water. They are so peaceful and majestic. They really are amazing. Then pictures here were taken last season by my friend RC who in back in Aspen working at a ski resort now I think.

my gorgeous 8 month old niece Ava

2006-01-03T06:23:00.000-08:00

Yes I am an Aunt now which is wierd but also really cool. I am so excited to see Ava grow up, she has already changed so much since I last saw her in May. We also took her swimming for the first time a Laupahoehoe. She didn't like it at first but then she got to splashing around and seemed to enjoy that, except when she splashed water in her eyes. Then she started liking her hands and anything else for the tast of salt which was extremely cute.

family at the volcano

2006-01-02T22:45:00.000-08:00

We went all went and stayed at KMC (Kialuea Military Camp) for a night and had dinner at the Volcano House. Then that same night we went to see the lava, which you can't see in the pictures. The lava was just glowing on the hill side and kind of squirting into the ocean, it also made the moon look red. I also saw some Nene geese (an endangered Hawaiian bird) on the hike back which was cool.

The next morning my sister Cassie and I hiked around while the guys (my brother Nick and her husband John) played golf. We went to sulferbanks which has a lot of steam rising out of cracks in the ground that smells like rotten eggs. It was really cool. We all used to do these things often when I was younger, so it was cool to do them again.

x-mas in Hawaii 2005

2006-01-02T22:29:00.000-08:00

Well I am back in Brisbane now. Sorry I did not post anything while I was home, my parents don't have internet and I was busy working and doing family stuff. So the following posts should catch you up.

These pictures are where I worked at A-bay. I was beach girl and talked to tourists and draged kayaks and hydro bikes around and yelled at people harassing the turtles.

back in Hawaii at last

2005-12-14T17:49:00.000-08:00

Well I have been back in Hawaii for a week and a half now and it has been great. I managed to get my old job back and have been spending all week working on the beach at A-Bay talking to tourists and dragging Hydro-bikes and kayaks around. My sister Cassie and her 8 month old daughter Ava got in Saturday and Cassie's husband John gets in tonight from Denver. Then later on this week my younger brother Nick and other older sister Alexa and her husband Brent will be visiting as well. Being home is great especially with all the family visiting, this is going to be a huge x-mas.

On my way home I had a great time in Sydney with best friend Rowena and her cousins. We spent a lot of time hanging out around the house and going to the beach. We went into the city on Thursday for a jet boat ride and the Aquarium, which some of the pictures are from. The Aquarium was really cool but slightly over run by Japanese tourists; we did see a platipus though. Then on Friday Rowena and I went to the Airport together early in the morning and she left for the Melbourne Hat (frisbee tournament). I stored my bags and and took the train back to the city because my flight wasn't 'til the evening. I had an absolutely fabulous day walking around Sydney. I started out by taking a nap in the city park, because it was still pretty early and not much was open. Then I found this really cool coffee shop and had the best chai tea ever. It was also a used book store and there were three stories of really cool used books, which I spent a while looking at. I also went to an aboriginal center and bought some presents and saw a digereedoo show, which was really cool. Then I headed for the Sydney Opera House and took a bunch of pictures, it looks really different up close. Then I walked through the Royal Botanical Gardens and stopped for a while to listen to a guy playing the sax. It was huge and just perfectly manicured, I really liked their herb garden. Then just as I was leaving I noticed some mcaws, which are common white birds with a yellow finge, but wild and usually fly away if you get too close. They were feeding on grass shoots on the ground. I walked up to them, to what I though was a safe distance and sat down on the grass to just watch them for a while, and they didn't seem to really care that I was there. After a few minutes I remembered I had some trail mix in my bag so I decided to see if I could feed them. The second they heard the rattel of plastic they swarmed me and were just all over me, climbing on my lap and bag and even landing on my shoulder which was a bit unfomfortable because they have sharp claws. So after they devoured my trail mix I left because they wouldn't stop bothering me. They were really cool though and unfortuately I didn't get any pictures because my camera was dead. So then I headed back to the airport to check in at 7pm.

I had checked in and everything and was waiting at the gate and they announced on the loud speakers that our plane had been redirected to Melbourne because of the thunder storms around Sydney. Then later we found out that we wouldn't be able to leave that night because of Sydney's airport curfew. So after a lot of waiting around I got put up in a 5 star hotel at Bondi beach and got a decent nights sleep followed by a huge brekfast and then shuttled back to the aitport at 8:30. Then we finally boarded the plane at 1pm and spent an hour taxing, then finally took off. We got into Honolulu at 2:30am which sucked and I had to go through customs and wait for the inter-island terminal to open and got into Hilo finally at 8am to my paitently waiting parents. So that was all pretty exciting I enjoyed actually getting to know some of the people on the flight and watching most of the people freak out about "loosing control" of their lives for 24 hours.

I will be returining to Australia for Uni in Brisbane at the University of Queensland.

Schoolies week Frisbee at Sufers Paradise

2005-11-23T16:02:00.000-08:00

Well I finished the semester after submitting my assignment last Thursday. Horray! Then I had to go straight to packing up my room the highlights of which were finding an enormous infestation of bed bugs on my mattress and bed frame and dropping a drawer full of clothes on my left big toe.

Then on Friday I finished up packing and went over to Brett's at Cromwell college to have a visit and watch the new episode of Lost on the College network, which was very good by the way. Brett was packing up as well for his departure the next day(Saturday). Brett and his friend Dave were also going to the movies that night I decided to go along with the hopes of picking up a car load of my packed up stuff to store at Cromwell. So we went to go and see Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which was good, and then picked up my stuff at my house to take to Cromwell. I ended up spending the night at Brett's watching movies, Brett decided that he wasn't going to sleep at all in hopes that he would sleep for a majority of his 14 hr plane ride to LA the next day, I have yet to find out if his tactics worked well.

The next day after Brett left I went out to all-you-can-eat sushi for lunch with Mitch, my dive buddy, to catch up, that was excellent. I can't wait for some Hawaiian sushi though. Rowena meet us there and had some sushi as well. Then I said good bye to Mitch and Row and I went to my house to pick up the rest of my stuff and move to her place.

Then on Sunday Row and I drove down to Surfers Paradise to volunteer for the Queensland Ultimate Disc Association. They are spending all week down there trying to get schoolies interested in the sport.

For those of you who don't know schoolies is a whole week that recently graduated seniors spend down on the coast, partying. So many organizations try to come up with other things for the kids to do besides drink. I personally think the whole concept is quite silly. You really can't imagine just how many kids there were down there doing the stupidest things. So the plan was to head down early and catch some rays then play some Frisbee then head back to Brisbane that night. It all went as planned until we went to have a look at the 3 bedroom apartment that QUDA had rented for the volunteers for the week, it was sweet. It was about then that I started wondering what is was exactly that I needed to go to back to Brisbane for . . . Row had to head back for work but I had finished just about everything important and there was nothing that needed my immediate attention. So I ended up stayed for an extra couple days and took the train back up to Brisbane yesterday. I had a great time and got to know all the frisbee folk much better like Sandra, Matt and Al. I also spent the day before yesterday and yesterday morning with John and Lucille. So that was cool. I've posted pics on my Yahoo site as well. The body surfing was superb.

Now I am back in Brisbane and catching up with friends before I leave. I just found out today that I didn't get the summer internship and so am now free to spend the whole summer at home if I am willing to purchase a whole new ticket. I'll have to think about that. Well I hope that you are all doing well, I see some of you soonish.

Myspace

2005-11-10T02:02:00.000-08:00

I've started a Myspace account now as well if any of you are on that you should add me as your friend . . . I think I am spending way too much time on the internet . . . I should probably look into that . . . It will probably get better once I finish the semester. click the title to go to myspace . . .

exam time woos

2005-11-10T01:21:00.000-08:00

Well to be honest I've been feeling a bit lost and reflective. I really wonder sometimes why I have to think about stuff so much I mean seriously it hurts my brain. Like today I was wondering why I never feel comfortable with where I live, I couldn't wait to leave home and now I can't wait to move out of the place I just moved into in August and have had similar sentiments with the other 2 places I've lived since I moved away from home. Is it because I just haven't found the right place? or am I running away from something that I'm afraid to face? if so what is it? but in reality I shouldn't even be thinking about this crap because it doesn't really matter. Grr I am currently finishing my research project paper and then I have my first and last exam on Monday then I am done!!! Hopefully I'll make it I just have to keep from dying of stress.

supernatural, the new show I'm addicted to

2005-11-06T00:41:00.000-08:00

Very cute guys that hut scary supernatural creatures around the US. Nice you should check it out!

cool quote

2005-11-04T17:54:00.000-08:00

My friend Peter sent me this quote and I think it's great even though I haven't seen the movie.

Here is a quote from the movie "Coach Carter" "Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were all meant to shine, as children do. It is not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear. Our presence automatically liberates us."

took the color quiz again, yes I am procastinating

2005-11-03T04:17:00.000-08:00

Jilly took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!

"Intense, vital, and animated, taking a delight in ..."

Click here to read the rest of the results.

funded honours project in AU next year here I come

2005-11-02T22:17:00.000-08:00

ok well I just talked to Professor Jain-xin Zaho and Dr. Fefu Yu about the honours project next year and I think that I'll get it. I know their names sound funny but they were both really nice. I am the only student that has expressed intrest so far and applcations are due on Nov 8th. So I will appy and the scool has to look at my grades and stuff and if they accept me, I'm in. I'm not sure when I'll find out for sure but I will talk to Gail tomorrow who should be able to tell me. The project has about $50,000 and everything is still being worked out and allocated but they said I could even get a living allowance and help with my tuition, maybe . . . I'm trying not to get my hopes up. Regardless this is a great opportunity and I will not mind taking out another loan for it if I have too.

2005-11-02T17:56:00.000-08:00

life update

2005-11-02T17:25:00.000-08:00

These are some pictures from Byron that I got off Rowie. I have been very busy as usual and a lot of stuff has happened, which is crazy because I have and do have assignments up the wazu.

I thought I had a nice little rough outline of the next few months but opportunities have come up that I can't let pass by. I was planning on going home December 2 and chilling with the family for x-mas and work at Ocean Sports and take next semester off and see if I can get into a Masters program at UH or maybe do an honours year back here starting 2nd semester next year off the sponge project that I am doing now.

First the day before I left for Mixed Nats in Adelaide I got an email from one of my Tudors I had for Coral Reef Ecology about a vacation scholarship with CISRO a huge research foundation here. It is basically a 8 week job looking at mud core samples taken from around Moreton Bay and classifying the different taxa in them. I sounded really cool to me and would be a great opportunity to learn some awesome stuff and it pays $600 per week. The application was due the next day and so I spent all day filling it out and writing the cover letter. I my chances aren't that great of getting it though because they give preference towards residents, but I found out that only 11 people applied (although I'm not sure how many people will get it. So I really hope that I get it, but I will have to wait and see. If I were to get it that would meant that I will be using the my return tick, that I had to buy anyway and wasn't planning on using, on December 27. Only a month at home :(

Then I got a second email last Friday from my Tudor (John Pandolfi) saying that his research group have gotten funding for a honours project on coral bleaching during the Holocene time period and are looking for an honours student. The project starts 1st semester next year and includes field work in the South China Sea, OoOooo. So I I emailed him saying that I was really interested right away and he didn't respond for a few days so I called him, because the application is due in a few days, and still couldn't get a hold of him. So I email his associate and found out that he was in the field and that I could go and meet him and some of the other associates. So today I am meeting them at 2. I am so nervous I feel like this is my first interview or something! Well I'll let you know how it goes.

It everything works out I will be working for CISRO the second have of the summer and then spending next year doing an honours project on coral bleaching. Nothing is for sure though, nothing could happen and then I'll go back to my original plan;) and be a Hawaii bum.

Love you all!

Adelaide Mixed Nationals

2005-10-24T19:54:00.000-07:00

Well as you can see Mixed Nationals was awesome! How can you not have a good time when Dan is continuously flying through the air, catching frisbee's with his plastic magnetic glove and doing the now famous McNaughton 1, 2 with John. It wasn't only the McNaughton's having some good disc action though. I had some nice blocks one of which I would like to narrate to my best memory for you.

The dics gets tapped in after a time out about 5 meters outside on the endzone. Player 1 has the disc on the far right side of the field. Were putting on a clam-like zone and scramblers in the endzone, I'm in the second line right on the sideline. Player 1 taps it in and fakes around a bit then throws a break flick down the line to Player 2 cutting to the right corner, and I quite happily jump up and smash it into the ground. Player 2 says to Player 1 "what was that?"
Player 1 says, "I thought I threw it over her."
Player 2 says, "She's not that short!"

I couldn't help smiling and being very happy with myself. That was the best day of frisbee I have ever had I think, we won all three of our games and played really well as a team. Matty B also had some amazing layout grabs in the endzone, which I was very impressed by, but everyone played their part.

That was on the second day of games on Saturday. On Sunday we lost our first game to the Pumpkins, which was unfortunate and mostly due to our inability of throw in the intense wind and rain. Then we won our last 2 games to get 7th for the tournament.

I also got to see a bit of Adelaide while I was there. Brett, Erheart and I went to the Zoo on Thursday and I'll be posting pictures form that. It was very nice and crusy. Then on Monday Brett, Dan and I took the free public transport around the city and went to the Botanical Gardens and the Wine Centre, which was also gorgeous and interesting. Adelaide fells very different than most places I've been to. For one thing I think I saw more roses, growing in peoples yards and such, than I have seen in my entire life! All the buildings are very old, but kept in excellent condition mostly brick with courtyards and some had sandstone as well. There was also a really cool British pub that we found with Matt that was very cozy.

Anyways, I know I keep saying this but I really do have tons of work to do! I will put up pictures as soon as I can.

Worlds-2006-Perth

2005-10-18T03:54:00.000-07:00

right so you might think I'm crazy but I'm really excited about Ulitmate Worlds coming up in over a year in Perth 2006. I'd really like to volunteer at it, I've already signed up for it. Hopefully I will be able to.

You should check out their website and get excited too!

http://wucc2006.org/

mixed nats here I come!

2005-10-17T03:42:00.000-07:00

Ok well it's that time of year again. Mixed Nationals time. I wasn't sure that we were actually going to get a team together because there was little interest and I didn't have much time to spend on organizing it. It is also in Adelaide, which is a little harder to get to compared to Newcastle last year. I bought my tickets while they were on sale a while ago expecting to just go and visit Adelaide for fun and perhaps stop by the tournament to watch Boutious the other QLD team play. However, Bretts managed to get 13 of of hard-core lovers together, paying late fees and staying in a fancy/expensive hotel right on the fields, and going to Adelaide. I leave Wednesday night to have all day Thursday to see some sights and then we'll be playing Ulti Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I'll keep ya posted!

assignments, assignments, assigments

2005-10-10T17:12:00.000-07:00

an other caterpillar pic and a water dragon that I also saw on my walk home. Been reall, really busy lately. I don't think that I Have ever had so much work to do ever in my life! Allow me to review.

This afternoon I have to re-submit my psychology of Religion Essay which I have been working on all night and am almost done. I also have a meeting at 1 with Team Algae from Coral Reef Ecology for our group assignment which is due on Monday but I have a week extension because I had another week course after it and wouldn't have had enogh time to work on it.

This Friday my other group assignment is due, I have to finish up the writ up but have all of the maps and analysis done.

Then there's my Zoology Project which I just sorted out yesterday. I am going to scrap all the other 80 smoe samples I have and concentrate to the differentce between the 7 Itrochota samples that I have and write up a detailed methods precedure and analyisis of the spicules. That is dus November 4. yikes-might have to get an extension for that.

I also get my psychology of religion take home exam on Oct 25 and have to turn it in on the 31 along with my 50% research project, yes that is 70% on my grad due on one day which hardly seems fair. I think that is just about everything, I probably forgot about something but I have to finish my essay due today now.

coolest caterpillar ever

2005-10-10T04:53:00.000-07:00

I saw this on my way home from my Coral Reef lecture and though it was really cool. Yeah I know I'm a silly nature girl, get over it!

Color Quiz

2005-10-03T02:52:00.000-07:00

yes I'm procastinating. It was spot on about some things . . . interesting.

Jill took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!

"Urgently in need of rest, relaxation, peace, and a..."

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2005-10-03T01:54:00.000-07:00

me and a sea hare

2005-10-03T01:47:00.000-07:00

more sea hare pictures. They also squirt magenta colored ink when they get scared, like octopus's. I'm not sure why, they can't swim very fast.

2005-10-03T01:38:00.000-07:00

This is a Sea Hare they are part of the mollusca order like bivalves(shells), octopus, squid and such. They resemble big squishy bogger colored slimy slugs. Quite cute and interesting. It was breeding season at the time so there were quite a few aroung, especially at low tide when they come out to feed on algae.

Back from 2 weeks at Heron

2005-10-03T01:16:00.000-07:00

I just spent 2 weeks at UQ's Heron Island Research Station, just off Gladstone, in the Great Barrier Reef. I took 2 field intensive classes (one each week) Coral Reef Ecology and Coral Reef Geology. Both were loads of work but also really rewarding. I also managed to get a nice tan in the process. I have to just summarize for now because I have a lot of other work to do, but I'll try to make more posts and put more pictures up as time permits. Also I forgot my camera which was a huge pain the entire trip but I managed to get to picts off friends.

Both classes were pretty much group based and the first week my group had to design a project to study and quantify algae distribution and abundance on the reef. So were looked at the presence of herbivorous fish (Rabbit, parrot and surgeon fish) and bite rate by doing fish surveys, and bite counts. Were also looked at sea hare (which look like huge slugs) because there were a lot around at the time, and ended up concentrating on them a bit looking a algae preference and how much they could eat in the lab. Then we had to give a power-point presentation on the last day, and I have to do a written report due in a hew weeks.

The second week we split in to groups and each group was doing the same thing. Mapping textural zones using an ariel photo then doing transects and collecting substrate data to see it we could explain the zonation. We also had to map beach rock formations (dips and strikes) so I had to learn how to use a compass really well. and a bunch of other stuff.

Location : Heron Island

2005-09-23T01:39:00.000-07:00

Well I have been having an absolute blast in Heron Island for my Coral Reef Ecology class. Heron Island is on the Great Barrier Reef just off Gladstone and I have been here at UQ's research station since last Sunday. I took a train up from Brisbane on Satuday after playing at the Womens Hat tournament the Frisbra. The Frisbra was cool but slightly windy, which consequently it was very luckly that I took the afternoon train because the morning one that left at 8 am got held up by wind damage to the power lines and ended up taking 13 hours to get in only a half an hour before mine which left at 1. Then I spent the night at an ancient apartment complex with some friends and then took the "resort" ferry over to the island with the class (2.5 hours) Sunday morning. My class just ended today and was pretty intense, I'm glad I have the weekend to sleep and recover. Long days in the field, staying up late entering in data and doing stats then going to the beach to talk and drink combined with early morning snorkels and jumping off the jetty before breakfast took a lot out of me. I made it through though and my group and I gave our presentation this morning and my class left in the afternoon. Two other girls and I have made arangements with the research station to stay here over the weekend and do some volunteer work until our next course Geology of coral reefs starts on Sunday, the day after tomorrow. So that should be fun. I haven't been able to post as often as I'd like because we were not meant to have internet acess here but the computers in the lab we've been woking in already had the internet password entered into them so I've been using them to check my email and such and decided to make a post. There is another course that has been running this week as well, except they started one day earlier and end a day later, and I have some friends in that course as well which is cool because there are still people around to hang out with. I'll have to post pictures later when I have a better internet connetion. I unfortunately forgot my camera but have been getting pictures from other people.

Beach with the girls

2005-09-11T02:43:00.000-07:00

Rowie took Lucille, Karina and I down to surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast today. It was . . . . sothing to say the least. It would have been nice to get a bit more sun but at least it didn't rain. Rowie and I also went swimming which wasn't really swimming more like getting washed around in the cold surf while being pulled down the beach by the currents. For many reasons they have flags set up and you are ony allowed to swim between them (about 100 meters) so we keept having to walk up the beach and get back in the water up-current then get washed down the beach again. I have to say it ended up being quite a bit of fun once I got the hang of it :) It was just great to go swimming!

more sexy pictures