The workers are going home

Well it’s been forever since I updated last!

Last week went pretty well overall. I got my assignment in on Wednesday for anthropology. On Thursday I studied all day when I wasn’t in class and went to the afternoon spin class instead of the later one—it’s a different instructor at that time and he was like a drill sergeant…not a big fan of it—because we had a college event in the evening. The event was called the “twilight concert.” Basically, it was a semi-formal dinner with free drinks for which we got vouchers with our pictures on them. (I would like to point out here that the college required that I give them something like 6 passport pictures when I applied. Alcohol vouchers are their sole purpose as far as I can tell!) SO also the reason why it was a concert is that people from college performed their respective talents throughout the night and the winners got money prizes. It was very entertaining and the food and wine was good BUT I had to come back, after 3.5 glasses of wine and study for my exam that was the next day at 11am. That evening all turned out fine actually—it was the next morning that went wrong. After my chemistry lecture I had an hour before my midterm so I went to the grassy area in the Great Court to sit against a tree and go over my note cards I had made. Long story short, I got bitten by some ants or something that I have a particularly bad allergic reaction to, had to go over to the health center where I had to sit in the waiting room while getting nervous for my exam and secretly thinking that I might die. All the nurse could do was put some cortisone on it and I rushed off to my exam. The exam was good and luckily I was able to concentrate. My leg, on the other hand was not so good, and the pain was not even gone by Friday night when I got into bed! My whole calf muscle throbbed and the stinging was unbearable at times during the hours afterward. I vowed I would never sit on the grass in the Great Court again!

Anyway, Saturday morning I had to get up at 6:45am to go with Charlene and Carrie, my marine field research partners, to do our research at Moreton Bay. Luckily, Carrie has a car and picked us up. We went to eat at this amazing Italian café that carrie frequents often and I had a soy cappuccino and a some ricotta boysenberry thing that was delicious. We continued out to our first site of the day, Nudgee. We’re doing our study on salinity effects on mangrove growth. Nudgee is a more open site which means it gets flushed more often and the water is thus a bit less salty. We compared this to our second site, Lota, which is farther south on the coast and is more closed to open bay/ocean. Overall, it was a gorgeous day and we all got muddy and had a lot of fun despite it being hard work. I tested about 150 samples! I got home around 2:00, cleaned up, and then spent the rest of the day working on learning chemistry, preparing for my practical on Monday, and starting my paper/reading journal articles on the subject. I worked until late and got a lot done.

Today I slept in for the first time in what seems like forever. After brekkie and a bit of working I went for a walk during which I called mike. I ended the walk at the park where the lakes are. I stayed there for a few hours doing more reading and starting to write out some of my essay. It was so sunny and I ended up getting really hot but it was great. Later I called my mom and found out how their flights were etc. Of course we ended up talking for nearly an hour. I walked home after that as I had been out in the sun for 3 hours at that point. I did more work when I came home although I started feeling sick so I wasn’t very productive. I’m still feeling sick now. I’m getting a cold or something. Somehow I always manage to get sick. SO I’ll probably try to go to bed early and maybe take some meds. It’s going to be a hard week but hopefully I’ve prepared for it well and I can stay focused!