Well, "one day you will" all right--one day you will join the bear crew! I shall proudly be counting myself among the grizzly bear project team this summer. Scares the absolute poop outta me, but this blog isn't about "one day you will chicken out." It's about getting out there and just doing stuff, damn the consequences and damn your worries. It'll be the most frightening thing I've done with my life so far, but it also has the potential to stretch me into a completely different, capable person. I mean, the first couple days alone I get to learn wilderness first aid, stream crossing and proper grizzly bear etiquette. What more could a girl ask for?
In the meantime, I can't let my thoughts about the bear crew distract me from the now. So I was sitting around with my friends as we complained about being bored this evening, nothing to really do (gotta be a first). We packed up and drove in a mini-road trip to a gorgeous lake, where we goofed around and filmed ridiculous horror movies. The place did lend a creepy overtone with the picnic tables and campfires desolately empty, the wind whistling through the trees and the waters of the lake lapping softly at the shore. The mood carried over into our filming,which was about innocent people in the woods being senselessly bashed to death with pinecones. Sure to be a winner.
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| Nothing like a little murder for your lake vacation |
It was an unbeatable way to spend a Saturday night, and I forgot to be tired even after tramping around all morning through a bog. Oh, the places wildlife biology will take you. .
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| How to show a girl a good time |
For yet another biology lab project, I got my hands on stuff again today. Okay, so it was disgusting creepy-crawly stuff. Good thing I'm not squeamish. It was pretty freaking cool actually, once I got past the part where I fell in the water and got my sweatshirt soaking wet. And got over that delightful boggy smell.
My partner's and my project involved netting tiny macroinvertebrates kicked up from the river bottom. They're basically larvae stage insects, most of them, but different species indicate different things about the water--mostly its quality. So I got myself up at hell o'thirty this morning to tramp around in the brush and collect samples of these ugly characters:
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| Now you'll think twice about going barefoot in the river |
Fascinating little creatures they were. Fascinating enough to distract me from my soggy, soggy arms. Sadly, the results are that the types we found indicate poor water quality. Bummer. On the plus side, I have lots of stuff to talk about for a 6-10 page paper. (6-10? I mean, who are they kidding? Could've just said 6; we're college students.) Or at least, I hope. It'll be more interesting than talking about plants growing at least, which was one of our only other options. I can think of worse ways to spend a morning. And the day as a whole, well, it was fine as they come.
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| It was worth it for this moment right here. |
