Day 11/January 14, 2011

Oh my goodness! The internet is working INSIDE the condo!! I just ate breakfast and turned on my computer to type up my notes before we left for the field this morning and LO AND BEHOLD: when I reflexively clicked Mozilla to reflexively check my email, it worked! Anyway, yea. So, I'm really excited right now.

I'm also really excited because I did really well on the first test!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The next test is on Tuesday. Supposedly, it's easier. I'm not going to change any of my study habits though. Apparently a lot of people didn't do well on the first test...but Laura said that our team did the BEST out of all the teams!! We're such superstars.

So, yesterday the weather actually cleared up! However, there was so much flooding on the road, they closed it, so we couldn't get to our research site. We went on the roof of Menehune, instead! We ended up finding a really cool pod of whales...except they were exactly ON the horizon (not a "tick" or a "1/2 tick" down on the binocular compass), which made it SUPER hard to see anything. The only behaviors we could see were blows, breaches, and any other surface splashes. No body parts. The person on the theodolite confirmed blows, though! YAY! After we did our afternoon shift, then, some of the girls went to the grocery store (all I needed was yogurt and cheerios, so I didn't go...Amber picked them up for me and I paid her back! W00t!). While they were there, Miss Jillian and I went through the initial data analysis! Then we ate dinner. And the group was back at that point. Amber made homemade guacamole, which was really yummy!! Class happened--not in the classroom, but in the TA's room (106)/because of the flooding we couldn't get to the classroom. Class discussion was about N30, WTO, globalization, privatization--yea, pretty much against globalization. Where's the fun in cultural homogenity?! Why go to Sri Lanka if it looks exactly like Atlanta, Georgia? No uniqueness. And, (possible) privatization of water?! REALLY?! Wow. Humanity sucks. I've got more to say on that, but this post is an unexpected diversion (because the internet actually WORKED!) and I've got to type up some notes before we leave!

Tonight we're going to a benefit concert for the founder of WhaleSong.org! They buoy he puts in the water with the hydrophone that records the humpback whales singing costs a lot of money (and right now it's not in the water because he doesn't have the funds), so he's having a concert to raise some moolah! We'll be at that for a while tonight and then we'll come back and tomorrow is our day off! We talked to Laura and she's got a friend at a dive shop who is going to try to give us really good rates so we can go SCUBA diving/(snorkeling) off of Molokini (sp?)!!!!!!! Ziplining was >$90/person, so we opted NOT for that. We're going to have so much fun! I hope I have time to write some postcards, too. It's been crazy busy. If I don't send postcards while I'm at OMI, I'll send them the week I'm with the parentals :)

For now, note typing time!

PS: I forgot to tell you what I ate yesterday! The greatest thing I ate was yogurt and chopped up fresh strawberries (from the farmer's market!) and shells in white cheddar noodles. Yumm-O! K, bye.

PSS: Did you know that there's such thing as monkey poop coffee??! Don't worry, nobody is drinking it here. Apparently it's extremely expensive. Ummm, that's really gross.