Back in the real world

Well I'm back in the good ole Twin Cities and stickin around for the foreseeable future!

The last few weeks at Itasca just flew by and it was both fantastic and terribly sad at the same time! I wish I could stay up there all summer! It's amazing how magical it is to be so close to so much nature. I could walk outside and immediately hear 10 different bird species from my porch. Just one minute away and I was at a huge, beautiful lake, where it was not uncommon to see beavers and otters (okay, the otters are not so common, but I did see them once!) swimming around, ducks galore, and eagles and ospreys swooping and soaring and fighting over fish. Not to mention a gorgeous sunset every night. One minute in the other direction and I was in the middle of the woods, full of deer and foxes and bears and of course more birds birds birds!

I miss the quietness and solitude of standing alone in the forest. No sounds of traffic, no generators humming, just birds and bugs singing and buzzing. I miss the way the outdoors brings people together... you can't sit inside surfing the web or watching tv when there's so much to do! There was always something to do! We could go hiking, canoeing, kayaking, biking, play frisbee, volleyball, soccer, or just sit around and talk. And there was always someone awesome around to do those things with. Anyone who loves the outdoors and loves nature knows this feeling, and knows how difficult it is to describe.

But alas, all good things come to an end. Suddenly class was over, and all of the students were studying for finals. Then it was the day of the final, it was over, and we were grading tests. The last few days were carefree and lovely. Then I was packing up my cabin, loading up the car and saying goodbye (for now).

After driving for 4 hours, watching the wilderness transform into flatness and city, I rolled up in Minneapolis and stepped outside into what felt like a sauna... I hauled all my crap inside and thought I was going to die. I spent just a day in hot hot Minneapolis before heading to hot hot Madison for the weekend. It was strange to realize that I hadn't been in Madison since January, when I got back from Spain! And before that, another four months since last summer! So I hung out with the family, enjoyed beautiful Madison, saw my friend Molly Jones and heard about all her adventures in New Zealand and Australia, watched the España crush Italy in the Euro 2012 football (aka soccer) championship, before turning around and heading back up to MN!

And so here I am, back in the cities and back in the real world, with just a part-time job and not sure what else to do with myself all summer. 

A visit from the Conley crew

Well we had an exciting week here at Camp Itasca! The fam came up to visit last Thursday, and stayed for a long weekend. They rented out a cabin on campus and it was so much nicer than mine, so I just camped out there all weekend (its best features were a shower, couch, wifi, and a porch). We went on some adventures: to the Headwaters, to see some really big pines, looking for birds, watching sunsets; and sometimes we just chilled, hammocked, grilled, etc. They also brought me up some fun stuff, such as lots of food, a BANJO, and lots of new books to read.

At the Mississippi Headwaters

A very large White Pine tree

Watching the sunset over Lake Itasca

On Monday they took off, and that day in class we saw two rare birds that I have never seen before (that we've been searching for in class since last year!): a pair of Black-backed Woodpeckers, and a Blue-headed Vireo!

Itasca is just at the edge of the Black-backed Woodpecker range, so while they are not common here, they have been known to be in certain areas around here. We've gone to some of these places and "called" to them with recordings of their own calls (territorial birds will often respond to their own calls), with no success... then one day at the Headwaters they just appeared out of nowhere! A little later we chased down the very rare Blue-headed Vireo (their relatives the Red-eyed Vireo are extremely common), and got a great look at it! It may not seem that exciting, but it was really cool!

Pancakes 4 days in a row

What a summer. I have yet to experience anything that beats a summer at Itasca... and I'm only here for 5 weeks! I work 2-3 days a week, and chill and do fun stuff on the other days. Just this weekend (starting with Friday of course...)

I went for a bike ride through the woods. (on a path... but still through woods.)

I made chocolate chip blueberry pancakes for breakfast. Then I ate the leftovers on Saturday. Then I made more this morning, and I will have those leftovers tomorrow. Pancakes 4 days in a row. It's summer, I live alone = I do what I want. Boo ya.

I finished American Gods (by Neil Gaiman) a few days ago, so I moved on to Anansi Boys and read that a lot on Friday. I also did laundry.

I bonded with my fellow field biologists over campfires and card games late into the night.

Saturday. I slept.

It was  beautiful day so I set up my hannamock and read Birds of Heaven. (Yes it's a book about birds... cranes to be exact!)

Then I went mammal hunting and trapping with some mammal guys. We didn't catch anything but we set a trap for a fox and a woodchuck (and we saw the baby woodchuck scuttle away into the den!)

Then I was invited to dinner by my professor, so I had a lovely evening of brats, bocce ball, and Dominion with his family, friends, and the station Director!

Followed by another campfire.

Sunday. I slept. I made more pancakes. It rained. I watched Breaking Bad.


I finally roused myself for a birding kayak around Lake Itasca. Sightings included Mallards, Wood Ducks (and chicks), Great Blue Herons, Belted Kingfishers, a Green Heron, and a peek at the Bald Eagle nest, where I saw the parents feeding the chicks!

Bald Eagle guarding its nest

Green Heron

I attempted to get a game of Ultimate going... we got a few people, but ultimately it failed.

I read my dear friend Etta's blog post from Catania! She's in Sicily!!! I am so unbelievably jealous, and I miss my time abroad!

I made fried rice, and saw some of the mammal kids walk by with an injured baby fox they found! It was adorable... but sad...


And after that exciting weekend, I must go to sleep immediately (I have a strict 10:00pm bedtime before class days!), for my 4:30 wake-up call! Tomorrow we go to the Prairie!!!

First day jitters

Well my one week of summer in the cities flew by and all of a sudden here I am at Itasca! I had a few panic attacks on Tuesday before leaving (i.e. losing my driver’s license, finding it, losing cash, finding it, trying to figure out how to buy the perfect amount of groceries for 5 weeks, etc.), and when it came time to hit the road I didn’t feel like I was really ready. Honestly, I was kind of nervous and reluctant to leave. Obviously that was silly because Itasca = greatest place on earth, therefore this is going to be an amazing summer. I quickly got over my uneasiness once I got here, remembered how freaking beautiful it is up here and spent the first night sitting around a campfire with some other early-arrivals.

There's that gorgeous Lake Itasca!

I arrived on Tuesday so that I could do some class prep before classes started on Thursday. This meant waking up at 6am on Wednesday and going out with the professor to brush up on my bird identification skills (I passed. Phew!). Sound early? That's a piece of cake compared to the normal class start time of 5am! It's awesome.... Being a T.A. is going well so far: the first class was today and it was bundles of fun! 

Being on the faculty side of everything this year is pretty interesting. I have my own little mini-cabin in the faculty area of campus, I make all my own meals instead of eating in the dining hall, and I live really far away from the showers. It's kind of lonely, but the faculty are pretty great, and luckily I know another T.A. and a few students from last year, so I can at least pretend like I have some friends up here already!

My digs

One of my great successes last summer was creating the Itasca Ultimate Summer League (seriously, I got half of the people here hooked on Ultimate Frisbee!), and I hope to do the same this year. Unfortunately, while I remembered to bring every other necessary (and unnecessary) item up here, I forgot the Frisbees! How am I supposed to make friends now??? But no worries, my dad is sending me a few! 

And of course, I know you are all wondering: the birds are great. THERE ARE SO MANY UP HERE!!! I love it, we've already heard a lot more on campus than we did at this time last year. (We have a few Scarlet Tanagers around here, Mom!) 

That's all for now. I'll keep you updated if I get any great sunset pics or anything exciting happens like running into the bear (don't worry I do it fairly regularly).

Signing off,

T.A. Hannah

Taking the name "Bird Nerd" to a whole new level...

The date is May 6, 2012. Time has flown by this semester, I can't even believe it. Final's week is upon us and I should definitely be studying right now. However, even after this I will probably just go back to editing my Ninja video! (Bad student...)

Here's the good news: I finally got a summer job!

After all the searching I did for "that perfect internship," plus applying, worrying and freaking out a lot, etc., this one pretty much fell right into my lap.

It's technically a half-summer job, but I could not be happier.

So you remember how last year I went up to the University Biological Stations up north in Itasca State Park and took field biology courses? Remember how I absolutely loved it?

Well, this year I'm going back to be a TA for the ornithology class!! Watching birds and getting paid!

I don't often use the words "stoked" or "jazzed", but that is exactly how I felt when I got this job, and how I still feel every time I think about it!


I can't wait! ITASCA 2012 - GET AT ME!

Mainly, get me some of this...

This...

A little bit of this...

And definitely this... (emphasis on the baby bird)

Earth Day

This should be called "Earth Day, or my lengthy ramblings on the conservation of our planet." I wasn't really sure where I was going with this post and I didn't plan anything... I just started writing and this is what happened. FYI: it's long.

The idea for this post is long overdue (try 3 months overdue...), so I thought I'd use Earth Day as my excuse to finally write this. Today we celebrate the 42nd Earth Day, founded in 1970 by Gaylord Nelson, a U.S. Senator from Wisconsin (holla), a day that paved the way for the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the passage of the Clean Water Act and Endangered Species Act, huge steps forward in the political side of conservation.

Enough with the boring history, here's my history: conservation of the Earth is something I feel very strongly about. If you've ever asked me what I want to do post-college, I probably told you I want to be a Conservation Biologist. Then you probably asked what exactly that is/what that entails... to which I probably responded, "I have no idea." I'm still figuring out exactly what that means and what I want to do, but I'm fairly certain that I'm headed in the right direction.

I've had this path in my mind since about four years ago in high school*, when I was trying to figure out where I was going to college! I had always loved animals, and I thought I wanted to work with horses, so I thought I could be a veterinarian. I wasn't actually in love with the idea of being a vet, but I didn't really know what else I could do... until one day I was reading a National Geographic with a friend, and she said her dream job would be a photographer for NG. I played along and said something about how I could be the researcher from whichever random article we were looking at. I can't for the life of me remember what we were actually reading, but I must have been looking at a picture of some animal, because in that moment a switch flipped in my mind. Up until then I thought I would just take care of other people's pets, make lots of $$, and have my own horses, but that suddenly seemed so narrow-minded and silly (of course now, that sounds like a great, financially sound plan... but no regrets!). My 16-year-old thought process continued as such: "Everyone cares about the cute little puppies and kitties of the world... everyone wants a pet and they'll always be taken care of. But who cares about the wild animals? Who's going to do anything to help some endangered [insert name of a not-very-cute animal] that has no effect on the lives of the general public? Well, damn it, I am!!!" And the rest, as they say, is history... (although some may argue there was an important date sometime in those past four years where I suddenly became obsessed with birds - valid).

*Edit: My mother would like to argue when this actually began: "I would hearken back to the day you came home from kindergarten and said there was a lady who brought an otter to school and that's what you wanted to do when you grew up..." Touché, Mom. 

But I digress - this is about Earth Day! Although, this is my blog, so I can make it as much about me as I want!

Anyway, "conservation" and the "environment" are things that I care about a lot and I think about a lot.  And most people don't think this way. A lot of people just don't have that mindset. Way back in the beginning of the semester, we had a guest speaker in my Conservation Biology class, and he talked to us about "How to save the planet." In his presentation, he said:

WE PROTECT WHAT WE VALUE

THE EARTH IS NOT PROTECTED

THEREFORE, WE DO NOT VALUE THE EARTH

Obviously he meant those words to be poignant and powerful, and they were. It was those tragic words that got me thinking about this, 3 months ago, and it's been stewing in my head ever since... the Earth is in trouble: we have shortages of oil and water, climate change is occurring and it's having huge negative effects on the Earth, extinction rates are at record highs, and the main cause of these problems is the human population, which is currently on a trajectory to dangerously overpopulate the Earth (and threaten even more food, water, and energy supplies). There are people everywhere who are dedicated to studying these things, finding ways to negate the problems, how to actually implement changes, and every day people who live "green" lives. But no matter how great these solutions are, they will have little impact if the majority (if not all) of the general public is not on board. And that is the most frustrating part. 

Many people either don't know/understand the trouble the Earth is in, or they just don't care. I'm not saying everyone has to live without electricity, ride bikes everywhere and be vegan (I certainly don't live a perfect "green" life), but there are so many little things that everyone can do if they just believed that they could (and need to) make a difference. And a lot of it is just about awareness... making people aware of what the problems, and just what they can do to help... but it's a lot harder to actually change someone's mind. Many people do not believe that climate change is occurring. That absoulutely boggles my mind. There is actual, concrete evidence that climate change is occurring... and yet that holds no sway for some people. But that's just shows the different mindset that people have. I am a scientist, and I am prone to agree with something that has been tested and scientifically confirmed. For others that means nothing. 

That's just one of the many struggles of conservation that we have discussed a few times in my biogeochemical processes class (don't worry about it, I still barely know what the class is about...), how do we as scientists convince the skeptics that the science is correct? That Global Warming is happening and it's a problem. It's a really tricky situation, to try and convince someone that what they believe is wrong, and a few professors have said that they've just plain given up! 

My conservation biology professor has told us what a tough, thankless and sometimes heartbreaking field it can be to work in. Our job is to find ways (and money) to save animals/land that are being pushed to the edge of their limits. We might spend a huge amount of effort, time and money to save one species, just to find that 10 more have become threatened or endangered. How can we sustain the needs of nature against the needs of a growing population that is expanding against it? Some have compared conservation biology to the medical stations of battlefields; there are just so many "wounded" coming in that we have to pick and choose which are the best candidates for success. 

But despite the difficulties, there are success stories, and we are making progress. One of the most inspiring success stories is that of whooping cranes (love 'em): in the 40s there were only 21 individuals, but due to the dedication of a small group of people, they helped save the species and there are around 599 birds today!! Other species, like bald eagles and gray wolves, that were once endangered have now been removed from the endangered species list! We are developing more green technology every day, and a lot of people are changing their mindsets and making even the smallest choices that will help the planet. I am determined that someday I will be able do something to help, even if it's just saving one population or species, or educating the public. I do value the Earth, and I think it's worth protecting because we have to live here, as do generations to come, and what good is the Earth if it's damaged beyond repair? We can all play our part and contribute, large and small, to protect the Earth, because it's all we've got!! 

(Here are a few easy ways you can help the environment: Plant a tree, compost, bike instead of drive every once and a while, unplug electronics not in use, use travel mugs and waterbottles, recycle, and many more...)

Long, rambling, address over. Happy Earth Day.

xoxo

Hannah

winning and losing

I would love to make this a super up-beat and happy post about our win at Chicago, but suddently this week has become a much more complex mix of emotions for me. I'm so happy to say that this past weekend, the Ninjas went down to Naperville, Illinois to defend our championship title at the Chicago Invite and WE DID IT! We went 7-0 for the weekend, we had a lot of parents/family there to watch and support us, and we had almost our entire squad there working together beautifully the entire weekend. Coming back to reality and a week full of tests and papers and projects was hard, but riding that championship wave made it bearable, and seeing my girls every day at practice didn't hurt either.

Yesterday at around 9pm Liz and I were sitting in a cafe studying when the new USA Ultimate (preliminary) rankings were posted. We knew we would move up in the rankings since we had just won a tournament (and won all of our games), but I don't think anyone was prepared for us to jump 11 spots to 19th place! And as of now, we have 4 NORTH CENTRAL BIDS TO NATIONALS! At this time the team kind of flipped out, the group text went crazy, twitter feeds were blowing up, and facebook of course.... We are now a top 20 team! How nuts is that?? I am so so so so so so so proud of my team, how hard we've worked this season and how we've really come together to work towards our goals and become a tight-knit team and family. No matter how we do at Sections, Regions, if we make it to Nationals or not... I know we will push it hard through all of those tournaments and support each other and do our best. And that's all we can ask for! So that was kind of exciting! I don't think anyone could really concentrate on school work for the rest of the night!

But then when I came home I heard some sad news that my friend's little brother had died. I haven't actually talked to this friend in a long time, but we were neighbors growing up and we were good friends from kindergarten all the way into high school. This news hit me pretty hard, and I was just plain shocked for a while. It is obviously heartbreaking to lose any family member or loved one, a parent/grandparent, but for some reason it is always so much more tragic to lose a young person. All I could think of was how my friend must feel... or how I would feel in her place. I couldn't imagine it, and all I felt was overwhelming sadness for her and her family. I've never experienced the death of someone that close to me, and I don't know how I would respond. Although I've lost three of my grandparents, I think I was too young at the time to really understand...

All day today, my mind has kept going back to this. It made me at least slow down for a few minutes at a time and think about what I value and prioritize in my life, because it could be taken away in an instant. I (and I think many college students) tend to focus so strictly on school, working myself to exhaustion just for a deadline or a grade. My education is important to me, yes, but is it as important as being happy? How do I balance those things? Am I making the right choices to make sure I am living the life I want to live? Am I being honest with myself and with others as much as possible? And most importantly, am I surrounding myself with people who are supportive, people who I love and who love me in return? Do they know how important they are to me? Knowing how, as a fellow teammate so rightly put it, "shy and awkward" I am, I probably don't vocalize these things enough. Maybe I should try harder. Maybe they already know. I'm often reluctant to show my emotions and risk appearing vulnerable, but all these emotions are bottled up somewhere in here, and I wish I were better at letting myself open up and tell those people in my life just how much they mean to me. I hope they do know... but I think I'll make the effort to tell them anyway.

Catch-up

At the beginning of the semester I told myself that I would try to write in my journal every day and blog as much as possible. Goal number one started off okay but has tragically crashed and burned. I could argue that, even though the last time I wrote a blog post was almost one month ago, goal number two is still doing okay, since "as much as possible" all depends on the circumstances! And given, the circumstances, I think I'm just hitting "as much as possible." I've been playing so much catch-up in my everyday life that I don't even have time to play blog catch-up.

And then of course, I never know what to write about. In typical Hannah fashion, I will come up with an idea and promptly shoot it down. "No that's too boring...nobody will care...too cheesy..." etc. But why should I care what my "audience" thinks? Since my audience is all of 5 people, it really shouldn't matter. Wasn't the whole point of this for me to express myself and write about anything and everything that I felt strongly about or that just struck me on a whim? Let me tell you... YES.

So this is what's up right now in my life: I'm extremely busy and extremely stressed. I am constantly either in class, at work, or doing homework/studying. When I'm not doing those things, I'm worrying about this summer, figuring out where I'll be, if I can get a job/internship, etc. I have approximately zero time to do fun things, and I rarely get to see my friends. I feel like I'm literally just barely scraping by day-to-day. But honestly, this is what's keeping me going:

I love these girls and I love this sport. For some reason I'm almost reluctant to admit that my frisbee team is the best thing I have going on right now, because it's "just a sport" and I would feel silly to be the only person who felt that way... but hey, it's the truth! It's usually the highlight of my day/week: practice, tournaments, agility workouts, Ninja get-togethers, you name it. I could really go on and on about how much I love ultimate and how much I love my team, but I think I'll leave it here for now, short and sweet. My life is such a mess right now, I'm just happy I have my Ninjas to keep it together. Thanks ladies. 

xoxo, 

hcon

the view

Right now, more than ever, I want to go back in time. I want to sit on this rock and enjoy this view, with not a care in the world.

Sometimes...

Adele and Joyce rock the Grammys

Some of this year's Grammys was pretty cool, some of it was super weird, some of it was great and some of it was boring as usual. But there were two particular things that I found refreshing and awesome: Adele and an opera singer.

1. For some reason, I don't think I've ever watched Adele sing before. Watching the Grammys last week, it was so refreshing to see a singer who can actually sing. Hmm... what a concept. She didn't need to wear strange costumes, she didn't have an extravagant set, she didn't have 50 background dancers... oh wait, she wasn't even dancing, and she wasn't sing-talking or yelling. She stood in front of a mic and effortlessly sang a beautiful song, pouring out all kinds of emotion without forcing anything... because she's a talented singer.

And the cool thing is that she actually did sweep a lot of the big awards. It was great to see the Grammys celebrating artists who are actually truly good musicians/singers/performers (shout out to Bon Iver as well!!).

2. Today I found out about something else very cool (even cooler, in my opinion) that happened at the Grammys, but it was during the pre-telecast ceremony... so not a lot of people saw it. First of all - I love opera. It's kind of an odd interest that not many young people today share, in a world where opera is just not popular amid all this pop/rap/stuff that our society loves. But I absolutely adore it.

One of my favorite opera singers is Joyce DiDonato, a native of Kansas. Her album of classical arias was nominated for a Grammy (Best Classical Vocal Solo) and she was invited to sing at the pre-telecast ceremony. Turns out, this was the first time a classical singer has sung at the Grammys. Seriously? I mean, I know classical music isn't really "in" with the usual Grammy stuff... but this was the first time??

I think one of the reasons that classical/opera singers feel so out of place at an event like the Grammys is that usually they're not creating new music. Opera is a very old style of music, and these singers have been for the most part singing the same music for hundreds of years! But when you actually watch an opera singer in action, you have to recognize and appreciate that they have amazing control of a huge range of vocal abilities... it's very impressive. And all of the top-level opera singers around the world are this good, but they go largely under-appreciated as singers because the general public is not interested in opera. Turns out Joyce DiDonato won her first Grammy last week and got a standing ovation after her performance. Way to go!

healing

The past few weeks I've been in a weird funk that's really been getting me down. I just keep getting busier and busier and I get so caught up in a whirlwind of school, homework, practice, a new job, trying to find internships and research opportunities, and thinking about the future in general, that I rarely get a chance to finish everything, much less have some time off to relax and have fun. Even the things that are usually fun and help me unwind from time to time, (i.e. orchestra, frisbee), just aren't doing the trick!

That's why this weekend was magical. For just a few short days I got to escape the bustle of the cities life to go up north and stay in a sweet cabin. To unplug, unwind, relax and enjoy the great outdoors with awesome people. And not just anywhere up north, but my favorite place of all... ITASCA.

Itasca Summer 2011 

Itasca holds a very special place in my heart. Last summer I spent 5 weeks at the U's Biological Station in Itasca State Park taking field courses in Ornithology and Animal Behavior. If you've never heard me talk about this before, it was like summer camp for adults (and especially exciting for those poor souls who never went to summer camp as kids... aka me). Half the time I was taking awesome "classes" about animals, learning about science, and the other half of the time we got to frolic around the wilderness. Win-win, if you ask me. It was at Itasca that I first really felt affirmed that I was on the right path (academically), where I fell in love with birds, and where I finally became friends with other like-minded sciencey people!

Hiking out to Bear Paw Point

So when I got the chance to go back to Itasca for a weekend with the U's Center for Outdoor Adventure, I jumped on it. It was like a much-needed vacation: with just a small group of outdoorsy people, including two of my best friends, we stayed in a cozy "cabin," hiked some of the beautiful trails of the park, ate lots of good food, played board/card/word games, made new lumberjack friends, and just chilled! (and I saw a few birdies!) It was so healing to just get away, forget about my hectic life for a few days, revisit a place that I love and just be calmed by the simplicity and beauty of nature.

Headwaters in the winter

You know you best

When you're having a bad day, sometimes you are the only one who can make you feel better. For example, only Past Me would have the foresight to buy one piece of Lindt chocolate, put it in my backpack and forget about it... so that days later, Future Me could be surprised and overjoyed to find a beautiful, delicious piece of dark chocolate waiting for me just when I needed it most! After all, chocolate is my go-to problem solver, and I ought to know better than anyone.

So, thanks Past Hannah.

Yours truly,
Present Hannah

All good journeys start with a job and a geranium

NEW BLOG! I started blogging about 5 months ago (it's been that long already???) when I studied abroad in Spain. It was the best experience of my life and I loved documenting my adventures in blog-form. I want to continue blogging about my "real life" because I know I'll get a kick out of it, but I only hope it can be as interesting as Spain! This blog doesn't even have a real title yet, nor have I bothered to find the perfect design/color scheme... bear with me.

I could start this blog by talking about how much I miss Spain, how much I love being home, how great school is, how much school sucks, etc... but let me begin by telling you about two very interesting things that happened to me today: I got a new job, and I got a geranium...

1) Employment - I haven't had a real job since high school... so, about 2 1/2 years ago? Maybe? I can't even do the math (coincidentally, I also haven't done real math since calculus in high school, sooo....). That job was at Gail Ambrosius Chocolatier and it was the best job ever.

Since then, I have been unemployed, mostly concentrating on school and begging my parents for money... Until I grew up, spent a lot of money in Europe, and realized I needed to get a job (and got work study).

So I've been scanning the job listings for the past couple of weeks... office assistant... library assistant... EEB lab assistant, hey that sounds promising and right up my alley! Job duties: counting fruit fly eggs and washing petri dishes... blerg, never-mind, next... Botanical data entry for the Bell Museum of Natural History. Hey, I can do that! I have very good computer skills, I have moderate botanical knowledge, it's better than answering phones all day, and it paid better than the fly-egg job.

So I applied, got the interview, realized I hadn't interviewed for a job in about four years, momentarily freaked out, aced the interview and got the job! Now, this will by no means be a thrilling job... the employer herself described it as "boring." But it could be a good connection to the Bell museum, and let me remind you, I haven't had a job in ages! This is kind of a big deal!

The newest addition to our plant shelf! 

Let the money start rolling in.


2) Geranium - Today in Botany lab (or Herbology lab, as we've decided to start calling it) we did an experiment with some geraniums, and at the end of class our T.A. said the plants would be tossed, so we could take them home if we wanted to.

I think I miss having pets or something... because I jumped at the opportunity to be the proud parent of my very own geranium plant. Isn't he/she cute?? Now it just needs a good name...