Notes from Bodega: Part III

"The days are long, but the weeks are short."

Truer words were never spoken, as we have 3 lectures today, 3 tomorrow, and lots more coming up. That's the downside to having a heavily research-based program -- they have to smush all the material into the first few days. It makes every day drag on forever (hence our constant feelings of exhaustion), but already we can tell time's going to fly. Well, more in the "oh, crap, we have no time left to do our project/write-up/etc.!" than the "OMG this is SO much fun XD!!!1!" way. I'm trying to get myself in the mood for it all, repeating in my head that while this isn't turning out to be ideal (okay, so maybe playing with seals was never going to happen) I could be doing many worse things. And besides, I signed up for this so I might as well get as much out of it as I can. I may not want to do this, but lots of people have to do things they don't want to do in life, and at least I get to pick the things I don't want to do.

Apparently the weather this weekend was nice (it sure was at home!) but it's so foggy and grey today that it's difficult to tell where the ocean and sky connect. The research station's only about 50 yards from the sea cliffs, but the only difference that marks the ocean from the horizon are the small shadows caused by the wind rippling across the surface of the waves. Even the foam on the waves, which usually is so thick it looks like dry, cracked icing, seems to match the sky today.

We're just about to get down to the crunch on our project planning, right before we take our finals early next week, and in the midst of my birthday and leading our seminar discussion on Thursday ("Colour Vision in Coral Reef Fish"). I'd tell you what we're planning, but it's likely to change a thousand times before we finalize it, so I'll save us both the effort. I can tell you it will involve fish and physiology. Because the classes I'm taking are Field Biology of Marine Fishes and Ecological Physiology of Marine Parasites.