The Next Step 7/7/15

I am slowly getting acclimated to the weather and the time so I am really not looking forward to the time change again. Tomorrow is the half way mark of our stay and I already feel like I have been living here forever and that I will continue to be here fora good long while. It's strange because I was starting to get melancholy about everything but then realized I have the rest of my education at NCF with the students that are in my year, one more year with Austin (it's too bad I didn't know him before; he's got some pretty rad music. Check out his music at https://electrondensity.bandcamp.com), and lots of the high school students live in or around Sarasota. I hope that at some point I see everyone around and see all of the cool projects that they are working on.

I have always thought that the separation of college and high school students in social and academic situations is a little silly. Being here sometimes I feel like the highschoolers know more than I know in certain fields. Everyone seems to have their little niche/interest that we could go on about till our audience's ears fall off. I was listening to Austin tell Thomas about what he does at Roskamp in Sarasota and I have never heard so much pride and satisfaction in someone's voice about the research that they are doing. Granted it did sound a little repetitive to me but I have lots of respect for people like Austin. People like him and in general people who have the same mindset as him give me hope for a better tomorrow (all that brighter tomorrow spiel). 

This morning I woke up and dragged myself down to the dining room and was almost immediate called out to the rocks to see....

My friends, this is a chain link eel. Codee jokes that we should name it because of it's patterning. Dante claims that this eel and two others who's names escape me right now are his "pets". He also said that he was out on the rocks cleaning from 30+ pound  fish and one of the eels lifted itself up out of the water and tried to pull it in!! It was very important for us to be careful because the bites from these little dudes have a very high risk of getting terribly infected. After being grumpy from having to wake up this was a good way to start the day. 

The rest of the day we spent coming up with and developing out research projects that we will be conducting out here. I was at first very overwhelmed with what I was going to do because everyone else seemed as though they had everything planned out and it all sounded so complex and advanced. After lots of panicking and taking a walk with Austin and Carlos I managed to calm down. What also helped was Tyler teaching everyone how to make coconut rings. (Pictures to come soon)

I have decided to do an overall observation study of the spiral-gilled tube worms also known as Spirobranchus giganteus. Among other studies I am measuring the calcified tubes that the worms secrete to estimate the approximate age, percent area coverage on each coral, and what type of corals the worms inhabit. I am really excited but I am one of the few people doing their study by themselves so I am stressed out but I am sure that I'll get it all together and learn a lot.

It was finally good to land on an idea and stick to it instead of wavering around on what I am going to do. After I figured out everything and set up my methods it was time to relax after a roller coaster of a day. 

A huge shout out to everyone who made this happen. This the happiest I have been in a really long time. I am doing something that I love in a beautiful place with kindred spirits. What more could I ask for?