What next?

Everyone stresses about their future. If someone has everything already (the perfect life that they set out to get when they were 10 years old), they are scared that life will never give them anymore surprises. Or there’s the person that doesn’t have it all, and is seeking the perfect life (or some kind of fulfillment). Some people seek adventure; welcoming surprises. And then the opposite, some people thrive off of routine and organization. Which are you?

I am an individual that fits more into the latter than the former. But this does not satisfy me. I want to be able to do anything without worrying. I am a 26 year old grad student that is about to finish her M.Sc degree in Environmental Biology and Ecology (this December, hopefully). The thing that has been on my mind lately is probably the most common thought that crosses the mind of a graduate (or pre-graduate): What shall I do next?

I thought that I may stay in Edmonton and find work due the surplus of jobs here (particularly Environmental Consulting jobs). Ellie has expressed her opinion on this. Let us just say she doesn’t like this idea and I believe she thinks that I should explore other options. I think I may agree with her now. Why settle in Edmonton when this may be my only chance to see the world and show the world my passion and desire to work on amphibian management conservation issues.

Originally, I was thinking that I would travel Australia (also visiting New Zealand and Tasmania) for no less then three months before I start my life in a management/conservation career. But then I got thinking, I don’t have anything tying me down here. I am single and free to do anything and go anywhere; I have no commitments. So, I am now thinking about moving to Australia indefinitely. This scares me and excites me at the same time. Could I just pack up some cloths and move to a different continent? Could I leave my friends and family? Well, I would miss them, but would they miss me? I could definitely do this, and in fact, if everything works out, I WILL. Australia here I come.

The legendary head bob

Lately I have become accustomed to the notorious head-bob. You know when you are really sleepy, yet you’re fighting it, your head starts to bob like a bobble-head, well that is what is happing to me. I have been suffering from insomnia the last couple nights and because of my work ethic I have tried to be in my office by 8:00 am. Out of the last three days I have been here at 8:00 am one day and 9:30 am the other two days. This isn’t too bad since I haven’t been sleeping at night. To make matters worse, I am reading scientific articles. In general I enjoy reading these papers but they aren’t the most exciting reads. They’re clear and concise which reduces any descriptive detail, making them more of a dry read. I learn so much when I read them, but I just cannot get into them. Lately, when I have been reading them, I have almost fallen asleep. Actually I did once. Thankfully my desk is at the back of my office and is separated from the rest of the room by a large shelf. This was handy because nobody could see me sprawled out on my desk sleeping! I usually catch myself doing the head bob before I jerk myself up and re-read the boring paragraph that almost put me to sleep.

In the past I have performed the bobble-head maneuver on many occasions. One in particular sticks out. I was fishing with my dad one morning on Georgian Bay. I believe it may have been during on of Owen Sounds annual Salmon Spectacular Derbies that we participate in. It was ca. 4:00 am (I cannot remember the exact time) and my dad was driving the boat and I was watching our fishing lines. He noticed that I was a little tired and asked if I wanted to go into the cubby (a little room at the front of the boat) and take a nap. I quickly said no and told him that I would watch the polls so that if a fish bit I would be able to get to the poll fast. He continued to tell me that he can drive and watch the lines because we weren’t going fast and there wasn’t a boat in front of us. But I still said refused his kind appeal because one of the best things about fishing is when you first see the fish take the bait and the tip of your poll bounces to the weight of the fish. You have to jump up, grab the poll, keep the tip up to make sure the hook is set and then reel in like mad (well as long as the fish isn’t taking your line). I guess my dad had been watching my head bob for some time which is why he asked me if I wanted a nap. He was laughing at me because he said that he could see how I was powerfully trying to concentrate on the line yet fighting sleep. I guess my head would suddenly drop and then I would hastily swing it up and look at the line again, trying to adjust my eyes. I did this for about 15 minutes before he said something. I think I remember almost falling over onto the deck as I was consequently tired. With that, I decide to take a nap! Then sometime into my nap, whether it was 5 or 20 minutes, my dad hollered at me to come out and drive the boat since he had a fish on his line. I jumped up fast (hitting my head on something) and took the wheel and maneuvered the boat so that dad could bring in the fish. Oh and what a great fish it was. I think it was a little over 20 pounds! Yum and it tasted even better.

Let the truth be told

This is a picture of a baby toad! Isn't it the cutest thing in the world! I just want to say something that we all know but don’t always say out loud. This is in response to an entry on my friend Ellie’s blog site.

AMPHIBIANS RULE AND FISH DROOL!!!!

And there is no exception to this statement.

Bugs are COOL too!

I thought that I should put up a nice colourful picture to add some energy to my Blog site. So here is a picture of an interesting bright orange CARRION BEETLE. Aren’t they cool!? Now the only bad thing with these bugs is that where ever you find one, you unquestionably know that death is near buy! These bugs are part of Earth’s clean-up crew.

Oliver

Because I am a student and cannot afford a regular prized theatrical ticket ($30-$90) my friend Mika and I went to the Pay-What-You-Can performance of OLIVER. I usually don’t write reviews, but I will make an exception for there is much to say about the set up of Pay-What-You-Can.

The way they have this set up is so annoying that if it wasn’t for my mammoth desire to see this production, I wouldn’t have gone. You have to arrive at 3:00 pm to pick up a numbered wrist band and then return at 7:00 pm to get your ticket. Tickets are granted by wrist band numerical order. Therefore if you want to guarantee a ticket, you have to show up well before 3:00. I got there around 1:40 pm and was pretty close to the front of the line. Approximately 40 people were in front of me. However because I was waiting for my friend, Mika, I couldn’t save her a spot in line. Thus I had to stay at the end of the line until she got there; which turned out to be an hour later. Fortunately there were 175 tickets to be sold so we ended up getting two tickets.

I finally quit being the caboose when I met two fun and interesting ladies. We ended up talking for a while and then Mika came. Instead of going to the back of the line, Mika snuck in line with us. It’s funny though, for the rest of the night, people knew who we were. I was the girl that was forced to be the caboose and Mika was the friend who was late than I.

As alluded to earlier, while I waited in line, I met two chatty, yet pleasant ladies. They were as excited for this production as I was. One of the ladies was actually there to see the dog perform. They informed me that auditions were held for the role of Reggie the dog. In the end, a 7 month old bull dog-bull massive got the part. I guess the pup was born to act. However, to my disappointment and others, the pup did not perform. I wonder if it was a sudden case of stage fright or a sickness. Or maybe he lost his voice and couldn’t rise to the occasion. It’s too bad, I was really excited to see the acting capabilities of this dog.

Most children have either read or seen some kind of production of Olive; but some how I have not. It only took me 26+ years to see it. Throughout the play I was contiuously overwhelmed and extremely impressed with the set design, casting, and overall production. The casting was excellent for everybody did a great job and sung beautifully. With that said, one actress stood out. Pamela Gordon, who played Nancy, had an excellent voice which made you want to hear more. One of the ladies that I met actually raved about her and told me that she never misses her shows. Wow, I can see why! Now, I really wish I could say the same thing for Mark McClintock’s (he played Oliver) voice. Mind you, he was a wonderful actor, but his vocal cords were not up to par. I found that when he was trying to hit the higher notes he couldn’t sing loud enough and ended up trailing off. However, his voice was youthful and innocent; which is what you would expect from a young boy.

Since moving to Edmonton, I have experienced various theatrical productions such as: Live Opera, Live Opera viewed at a Cineplex (premier of “The First Emperor”), musicals, and plays. I would have to say that I prefer musicals over the others by far. They are more lively and energetic. In particular, I really love the musical “The Phantom of the Opera”! All-in-all, I would recommend the musical, Oliver, to everyone.

Change isn’t always an improvement, just a change

For the past couple months I have been feeling quite blah which means it’s time for a change! To correct this blah feeling, a month ago I finally pierced my nose; which looks quite natural on me. Well, this is what I have been told. I have been contemplating getting a nose stud for some time before I succeeded in doing it. I am pretty happy that I went through with it. However, It is still tender and a little swollen inside. In a week or so I plan on changing the medium sized jewel (and its long rod) to a smaller jewel and shorter rod so that it’s less conspicuous.

However, this small change didn’t fix my blah feeling. So I started thinking of another way to change. Changing my personality was out of the question, so I had to think of something else. This past November, I was convinced that I was going to cut my hair to a length above my shoulders, at Christmas. My hair fell below my shoulder blades and a short cut would be a drastic change. Was I up for it—definitely! However, when I went home for Christmas, everybody was against this and I was easily persuaded not to cut my hair. In addition to all my friends and families opinion, my best friend’s sister who was my hair dresser, wouldn’t let me cut it. So I came back to Edmonton with long hair. My friends were disappointed when they found out I didn’t cut it. Now, four months later I still wanted to cut my hair. So I went to the Swizz salon and got a hair cut. I ended up cutting my hair off to my shoulders!!! And you know what, I love it. It’s a nice change and I hope it helps my mood.

A day filled with frogs

Recently I helped Arthur (a friend in my lab doing Tadpole Ecology) out by assisting him in the field for a day. Basically we were inspecting various ponds that he is studying. We were walking the aquatic pond perimeters, searching for amphibians (measuring successful captures), and egg masses. At this time, the wood frogs (WF) and boreal chorus frogs (BCF) were in full chorus; bringing music to my ears (and deafening me at times). I had a lot of fun with Arthur and got to see things (associated with amphibians) that I have never seen before.

I was able to find Arthur a large patch of chorus frog egg masses. This was exciting because I have never seen BCF egg masses before. It was also exciting for Arthur because last year he didn’t see a single mass and now this year we found > 76! Arthur collected these egg masses and took them home to hatch so that he can perform an enclosure experiment. Unfortunately, most of these eggs have died L He will have to find the cause of this high egg mortality before he goes back into the field to collect more eggs.

After I found the BCF egg masses, I saw the largest gathering of wood frogs in my life. There were probable over 100 frogs in a 7 by 4 meter quadrate! It was surreal! Among these frogs was a WF egg mass nursery, containing well over 200 egg masses. The interesting thing here was that male WFs were actually crawling over the masses and sitting on them. You would think that this kind of interference would be stressful for the eggs. However, wood frog eggs are thought to be able to withstand various stress factors since they are laid in cold water which experience periodic freezing and thawing. I mentioned this to my supervisor, and she thinks that the male WFs may be sitting on the egg masses to provide deposit more sperm over them, hoping to fertilize ones that were unsuccessful the first time.

At this same location I saw my first wood frog mating ball. If you are not familiar with the term mating ball in amphibian biology, I will fill you in. It’s when you have a female in the middle and various (2 to >2) males attached to her. Males will be on her back, stomach, head, butt, etc, trying to successfully mate with her. Poor female! ;) In these mating balls, the female has a reduce chance of living.

What was really exciting about this ball was my ability to see the hind limbs of both sexes. As I got really close to examine this ball, I noticed the webbing on the female and male hind limb. The female had concave webbing while the males had convex. This is quite interesting because a couple years ago Arthur mentioned that he read that you can use this diagnostic feature to identify sexes in the off breeding season. However, during my 2005 field season, I looked for this trait but NEVER found it. I wonder, since I saw the webbing on male and females (in mating ball formation) in the water, water is the medium that allows the webbing to be distinct and in air the webbing isn’t as extended so the trait is masked.

During this trip I also got to see various raptors, bison (so cool), a dead porcupine (which was the first time I have ever seen one), ground squirrels, and lots and lots of amphibians. It was a fun and fulfilling day.

First dinner and then a night out on the town

This blog entry is dedicated to my friend, Ellie. She is the one person that I know that reads these religiously! She is the only one too, that is always nagging me to put up new ones. So here it is; almost a full month since my last one.

The other night I attended a potluck at my friend Connie’s house. It was a small quaint party. The funny thing though, each and every one there was in Biological Sciences (with the exception of one person, Doug (Connie’s younger brother. He is in the military) and our conversations, whether one-on-one or as a group, always drifted towards school, field work, or individual study species. Now, we had some stimulating conversations on these subjects, but over time, they can get boring and repetitive. The thing is, we immerse ourselves in school and biology, so we end up talking about it. These subjects contain our passions, our drives, our life, so you can see why we always seem to address them in our conversations. I don’t like Politics, so why would I talk about it.

Towards the end of the potluck, we were starting to wonder what was next. I was thinking of going home since it was after 10:00 pm (I think) and I was exhausted (I had been up since 5:00 am), but others wanted to take the party to a local pub or bar. I knew that everybody else wanted to so I sucked it up and went with them. My motive was simple; maybe in the future they would refrain from calling me a party pooper (which I am not. I can be the life of the party ;) Especially since Connie seems to think that I always go home and tuck myself in by 10:00 pm. This isn’t always true. It just happens that in the past when I have hung out with Connie, I have never lasted until 6:00 am in the morning with her. She likes to stay out ALL night and morning. I will admit, I like to watch a movie or two until midnight (on a weekend), rather than gallivanting all over the city, staying up until > 4:00 am. When I do this, I am so tired the next day I become incoherent and sluggish, wasting my day. I really wish people would stop saying that I never go out or stay out late, especially since they don’t share the same life style as me. I prefer going out for a few drinks or shoot a game of pool and then head home at a decent hour. Yes I do like to stay out late (occasionally), but when I want to, not when someone else pushes me to.

That same night, Mika and I got to meet Connie’s brother, Doug (the guy in the military). He seemed like a nice guy. With that said, he took a liking to Mika the moment he laid eyes on her. I can just picture it. He probably looked like the Warner Brothers cartoon wolf when he sees a hot girl – eyes come out of his head and he starts slobbering and howling! Throughout the night he would make conversation with her (that was DIRECTED at her and not others) and then at O’Byrne’s, he was being hunted by an older woman (~35), so instead of telling her he wasn’t interested he asked Mika to pretend that they were an item. He had a lot of fun holding her hand and being close to her. And what I understand from Mika, she too had fun. At the end of the night they parted ways, but we had a sneaking suspicion that he would be contacting Mika in the near future. That suspicion has now been proven, he emailed her yesterday!!! Score one for Mika.