I'm going to Australia!!!

I am officially spending next year in Australia courtesy of the Fulbright commission. Visitors are welcome anytime. I am not exactly sure where I will be because my original mentor took a job in the States but the choices are not bad: either Cairns or Melbourne...

Australia for the geographically challenged:

Cairns

Melbourne

grr...

I thought I was all done school shopping after trying desperately to escape from Ithaca during a snowstorm. But no. There's more. Cornell invited me to return for their graduate recruitment weekend which just happens to fall when I was supposed to be in Oregon relaxing and hanging out with my mom. I get into Oregon late at night on Wednesday and dding insult to injury, the only available flights to Ithaca are ones that leave early Thursday morning. I can't remove the wholly inefficient jaunt across the country because I bought a cheap ticket online and changing the itinerary will cost more than the ticket itself. Rationally, I know that I should go back to Cornell. I am still seriously considering it and I would get to meet faculty members who I am interested in working with that I didn't get the chance to meet while I was interviewing. Emotionally, I would really just like to be in one place for a while. No planes, no homework, no requirement to be extroverted. Just time to hang out with my family and my dog, and see what new swaths of forest have been clearcut since the last time I visited.
Alright, rant complete.

hide your sewing kit

A woman called into the veterinary clinic yesterday asking for a second opinion on her cat. Her kitten got into her roommate's sewing kit and swallowed a bunch of thread. Stangely, the first veterinary clinic she went to said that her beloved cat only had a 15-20% chance of survival. I found this strange, since we remove string and other interesting objects from both cats and dogs fairly frequently and with a much higher success rate. Since we sounded more optimistic, she ended up bringing in her cat and we did an exploratory abdominal surgery in the afternoon. I was really excited because I got to help with it. But, since we had regularly scheduled appointments as well, I got home really late.

After I ate dinner and pretended to work on homework for a while, it was time to head back to work and check on the cat. I failed to realize, though, that since I rode my bike to work earlier I didn't shovel the driveway. So I'm stuck outside, after midnight, in a really nice neighborhood where no one is up at this unreasonable hour (I'm housesitting for a professor), trying to silently shovel the foot of ice and snow separating me from my car. I was only successful at scraping off the top layer. Fortunately, the cat was doing quite well.

the countdown

I'm grudginly counting down the weeks before I am no longer an undergraduate. Maybe they won't make me leave, but I have a feeling that in 11 weeks I'll be forced out of my haven for the past four years. Here's an illustrated summary of what I've been up to the last few months:

August: Meandering across the US of A with my best friend and roommate, Katie. Highlights include cracking our windshield within the first 20 miles, killing a bird on the highway, reservation dogs stealing my sneakers, moose, illegal campsites, and a large prarie dog.

The best campsite I have ever seen (Katie found it)

The upper peninsula of Michigan: unfortunately, I can't diss the state after spending a couple of days up here.

Bacterial mats at Yellowstone

September-November: My favorite quote (during a review of my thesis, regarding a really cool confocal micrograph that I took and wanted to include in my introduction):
Me (whining): But I really like the picture
My professor: Yeah, but I'm sure you really like a picture of your dog, too, yet I don't see that included in your thesis. (I almost included a picture of Shiloh on the last page of my final draft just to see what he would say).
Neruda's poetry, advanced analytical chemistry, thesis revisions, graduate school applications, and Pet Vet were all occasionally punctuated by escapes to the arboretum:

Spittle bugs in a conifer


The sun occasionally does shine in Michigan

The international students' visit to the arboretum

December: two great trips...a road trip to see my other best friend, Reid, followed by a short visit with my extended family and a second stay in Ecuador!

Reid and I decide to jump into a lake near her house on December 1st. We immediately regretted the decision.

My adopted family with our christmas carol rendition (my sister remembered me!)

For unforseen reasons, I ended up back in the jungle collecting turtle eggs

A great hemipteran

Some cool ants making a nest

You know your underwear smells bad when...

Larvae, anyone?

Driving (illegally) in the Amazon in a truck with a broken clutch and a leak in the fuel injection system is fun...until you drive through a military checkpoint.

The cutest kids I have ever met

January: I returned to Oregon just long enough to leave for Colorado and kick off the interview season. Three months later, they are finally over and, for the biggest news of all, I have been accepted to all three dual veterinary/PhD programs and am in the second stage of the Fulbright application process. I guess now I have to make a decision :(

Tristeza

I leave Maine tomorrow and today was my last day in the lab. For this year. Dave asked me earlier in the summer if I would consider returning next summer and the more I think about it the more I really want to return. So today I told him that I will definitely come back, but that we will just have to discuss the time frame because I want to spend two weeks on Beaver Island with my favorite bio prof doing field research.
To celebrate my last day, a couple of friends and I went hiking last night on the back side of the islands (where there are no tourists). We intended to go up two peaks: Parkman and Bald. However we forgot that it is getting dark much earlier now so we found ourselves stuck on top of the first one watching the sunset. We made it down with a combination of cell phone backlights and lighters but the stars were amazing. It was a good adventure to end with. Today after a morning in the lab my lab mate and I went kayaking to check out an oyster aquaculture facility across the bay. Now it's just packing and saying goodbyes.
I wish I could skip school and stay here :(

a year ago today....

I arrived in Ecuador to start seven months of wonderment. I really wish I was back there right now. I'm trying to decide if there's any way I could visit my family for Christmas and my real mom wouldn't kill me for not spending all my winter break with her.


Memories:



Some of the people I interviewed for my oral lit class


A spider in the Amazon


My family at Christmas


One of Darwin's finches


Climbing down a mountain on the inca trail trek where I almost died from altitude sickness

para mi mama ecuatoriana: algunas fotos de maine

Una puesta del sol sobre el mar desde mi laboratorio



Todas las personas que trabajan conmigo con sus familias en una isla cerca del laboratorio. Estoy en la primera fila con un saco azul


La primera salida del sol en los estados unidos desde la montaña Cadillac. Subimos la montaña por la noche y llegamos justo con la salida del sol. Fue lindísimo


El lago "Burbujas" en el parque de Acadia


Unas flores cerca del mar

Te extraño muchísmio,
Un beso y abrazo fuerte,
Emily