week three

i had all these things i was going to blog about last week, but last week turned out to be a huge bummer, so i didn't blog about them. now, i'm going to try to remember the good stuff that happened before the bummer stuff and formulate an entry.

first off, last week was our second week of classes. so far, this seven classes thing is going pretty well. i have been managing to get all my reading and writing done and still have time for fun (which i'll get to later). i know it will get harder once GLEE starts up, but i don't think it'll be significantly worse.

in the past few weeks, i've been reflecting on how utterly thrilled i will be once classes are over. i am really excited to get started on my research and have been spending lots of time day dreaming about potential dissertation research sites. right now the only one i've talked to my advisor about is the cal academy, but i've been fantasizing about lots of others, including (but not limited to): disney's animal kingdom, the monterey bay aquarium, and any zoo at all.

i've also spent a lot of time thinking about how i can't wait for this summer (and how impatient i am, in general, as a person). i really want to know what i'll be doing this summer (hopefully at OZ) so i can mentally prepare myself/have something to look forward to.

we had an environmental conference at stanford last week, and it was (for the parts i attended) a pretty good time. i'm feeling a lot better about things now that i get to spend more time in the env.sci. department. i feel a little less like a token student and more like i actually fit. last week, the associate director of the IPER (interdisciplinary program in environment and resources) called me an "honorary member" of the first year cohort. 

the best thing that happened at school last week was that my digital storytelling professor gave us all cameras to use for the quarter. i took a canon g12, and i'm obsessed with it. i've been looking to buy a new camera/get into photography more, and this is cool because i get to test-drive this camera for 10 weeks. it came at the perfect time too, because mel came from australia this weekend to visit. we went to the monterey bay aquarium and napa and these are some of the pictures i took:

sand dollars, that are alive

jellyfish, all tangled in a knot

a chicken at a winery

a theater at a winery

a hawk with a dead baby opossum

oranges, blooming in the winter

a flower. duh.

anyway, it's been a lot of fun. i've taken more than 300 pictures so far. some of them even have people in them.

i think that's all i have to say for now. in summary, classes are fine, i'm impatient about my summer/first year project and i like taking pictures of things.