Welcome to December

Coincidentally, my birthday and the last day of the semester are the same day this year - Friday, December 21st. It'll definitely be one happy day for me!

I have 3 weeks left of school. I'm about to go nuts. I have 6 presentations to do in 2 weeks. They each need their own powerpoint too. It's not easy making powerpoints! They take time to figure out how much you really need on a slide and finding appropriate pictures to go with them and making sure you're within your time limit.

My presentation schedule:
Monday, Dec 3 - Water Law - Exercise 5, Safe Drinking Water Act
Tuesday, Dec 4 - Marine bio - Ocean Sunfish Biology
Wednesday, Dec 5 - Capstone - Proposal presentation (my advisor is going to be there and other professors!)
Monday, Dec 10 - Water Law - Final paper presentation, San Francisco Delta and Ecological Impacts
Tuesday, Dec 11 - Food Ethics - Final paper presentation, Ecotourism
Tuesday, Dec 11 - Marine bio - Ocean Sunfish Ecology

My papers are due between two weeks and they're papers that require a lot of work. Here's when those are due.
Thursday, Dec 13 - Marine bio - 5 pgs single-spaced (min) on the Ocean Sunfish (ecology and biology)
Wednesday, Dec 19 - Water law - 10 pgs single-spaced (min) on San Fran Delta and the ecological impacts
Wednesday, Dec 19 - Capstone proposal - However long on the economic impacts of domoic acid and saxitoxin occurrences have on commercial shellfish industries and tourism in California
Thursday, Dec 20 - Food Ethics - However long on ecotourism

I also have 2 finals. We're having a marine biology lab final (Tues, Dec 11 - based off the concepts/methods we used during labs this past semester) and we have a marine biology final (Tues, Dec 18 - last 3rd of the semester, mostly).

I'm still working at Borders on Sat and I have the aquarium once between now and then (Sunday, Dec 9th). Not to mention MBARI on Monday (3-6pm) and Friday (10-6pm). I do feel like I'm going to go nuts, but I also have so much to do that I just don't always know where to begin! I've been working more on presentations than my papers, which should be the other way, but that's how it's been working so far. I - for the most part - don't have any schoolwork due in between everything else, but I do have 2 more assignments for Food Ethics on top of our final paper and presentation. Not sure about Marine bio if he'll give us another lit review or not. I hope not!

The end of the tunnel is definitely within sight. I'll have one semester left and then I'll be finished with college!

This last Friday I attended a meeting in Sacramento put on by COMPASS (Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea). I attended because Judy told me about it so I basically went for MBARI/work/school. COMPASS does these Legislative Sacramento Luncheons for legislators (more so their staff) can learn about various ocean issues and why they have an importance to legislators and the public). It was in a building in front of the State Capital building and it has the Appeals Court and State Library in it. It was an amazing building. All marble and everything. The drinking fountains were even marble! LoL The elevator was super fast too. So fast (the meeting was on the top floor - 5th floor) my stomach dropped for about 3 floors. By the time I got over it, the elevator was slowing down for the 1st floor. Anyway, the meeting was on the same topic as my capstone, so that was good. It touched upon what I'm researching and I did learn some new things, but the most important thing I got out of it is NETWORKING! Two of the people I've been e-mailing were attending the meeting as speakers. I got a stiff e-mail from one of them before. When I introduced myself to this same gentleman, we started talking and he said if I need any help to just e-mail him anytime! YES! My first solid west coast contact.

Anyway, with that. I must go. I need to get back to homework (working on my capstone presentation) and go to bed.

Contests

On top of everything I'm doing, I've added the title of "Contest Manager" for the Harry Potter fansite I work for. I've been filling in the spot waiting for our manager, but she's sans a computer for sometime now. To have the contest team have an official manager, I've been made it. Or, well, I was asked and I accepted after deliberating about it.

I'm into my last 4 weeks of the semester. I'm stressed beyond stressed. I have so much to do I don't even know where to begin, yet I'm still somehow procrastinating on a daily basis...

Non Sequitur

Just about the best comic I've seen all year!

This is from today's Non Sequitur



(If you click on it, it'll bring up the Photo Xanga and if you click on the image there, you'll see the whole comic...so complicated...)

Snorkeling

Well, I survived the 50 degree water and 55 degree weather.

We saw some AMAZING things and we weren't even that far out. In ways of fish we saw senoritas, perches, some really fish that you could barely see, and a school of some silver type of fish. We saw all types of invertebrates like sea stars, abalone, sponges, crabs, etc. We saw all types of algae too (of course). The neatest thing was a gray harbor seal that was hanging out at one end where we were snorkeling around. It swam by us, it looked at us, and it swam underneath us! It was directly below us. It was so cool. The deepest part we went to was probably about 20-30 feet deep. Wasn't too deep and you could see all the way to the bottom. Visibility was amazing.

My wetsuit did pretty well. It was a bit big on me, but served its purpose. I'm about to return it back to campus in a few. I was forgetting to breath for the first 10 minutes or so. We're so used to breathing out of our nose that I'd forget to breath out of my mouth. Once I got used to breathing out of my mouth, I was really comfortable and enjoyed the whole experience. Water was cold so I went all numb when we got out, but it was good. All-in-all, it was fun and I'm glad I went.

Happy November!

Welcome to November. I began my entrance into November with a marine biology test (2nd of three) on Thursday and spent my Saturday doing the GRE (Graduate Records Examination - test to get into graduate school). What a way to start the month off!

Marine biology test wasn't too bad, but we'll see Thursday how I did. Tomorrow we're going snorkeling. I rented my gear today (wetsuit, mask/snorkel, fins, booties, hood, gloves) for $15! Thank goodness for the dive class/programs here. I don't even want to think how much it would have cost me renting from some dive shop on Cannery Row. It's supposed to be cold tomorrow. *sigh* Which means even with my wetsuit, it's going to be cold. I don't even want to think about it! We'll only be in the water for about an hour though, so that's not too bad. I may just stay in my wetsuit when we get out of the water until I get home. I'd probably stay warmer that way. LoL

The GRE Saturday was, well, the GRE. It's like the SAT only it's computerized and if you answer a question wrong, the next question is easier and if you answer a question right the next question is harder. So, strategy says to do the best you can in the first third over the next 2/3. Course, when you're taking a test sometimes that all goes out the door. Anyway, with the minimal studying I did, it could have been worse. The two essays at the beginning (at least one) I nailed. It was on a topic I knew a lot about so I had fun writing that one. The other one was just a boring topic. I ran out of time on the math section so I literally was guessing on the last 10 questions. I barely was even reading the questions. So there definitely was not a whole lot of thought in my answers. The verbal section wasn't too bad, but I'd find myself staring at the words or questions and not thinking of an answer. Would have gone better if I studied up on vocab. :D To say the least, I will be taking the test again (probably in June). I didn't do terrible, but I definitely could and want to do better than what I got. I went with 3 other people and I, overall, did better than everyone else, but still.

This week is not a fun week (nor was last week). I have a paper due (draft on Tues, final on Thurs), my revised capstone proposal due on Wed, and a lit review for marine bio on Thurs. Capstone proposal just stresses me out. I have missing holes in my proposal and places I need to fill in and flush out. The final capstone proposal isn't due till Wednesday, December 19th, but the end of the semester is lookin' ugly.

We have next Monday off thanks to Vetran's Day. The following week we have the entire week off due to Thanksgiving/Fall Break. We have class for 4 weeks and then it's winter break! Our last day of classes is Friday, December 21st (my birthday). My final papers/presentations/tests are spread out between 2 weeks, so that's kind of nice, but still nuts.

I registered for Terminus on Wednesday (last day to get the $140 registration fee, it's $20 more now). I got sorted into Kohilo House. It's a completely random sorting, but it's the "horse-y" house! I guess as horse-y as you can get since all the houses are dragons. :P If you read about what the house is, you'll get the whole horse thing. I haven't book plane tickets yet, because I'm HOPING ticket prices will come down from Monterey, but I'll probably end up going out of San Jose since, right now, the price difference is $200.

Still looking into whether I'm going to Australia in July or not. Airfare has gone back UP. So it's back to $2300. I was finding some airfares between $1900 and $2100 for a while, but in the last week it's gone back up. :- I did find an off-season ticket to Heathrow from San Fran (Jan 8th to 21st) for $565, though! LoL Talk about being tempted! I can visit Maria in Ireland, Kate in England, and Mads (my friend who I'm trying to visit in Australia is doing an exchange program in France) will be in France in January! I can also visit Glasgow, Scotland and check out Edinburgh University, but oh well.

With that, I must go and write my rough draft of my paper that is due tomorrow and work a bit more on my capstone paper.

Last thing, I'm going to start tagging my posts. Not that it makes a big difference, but whatever. Might as well.

Laters!

New York City!

Link to NYC pictures

The trip was fantastic! New York is amazing! The weather was pretty good after the storm went through on Friday afternoon. It was really muggy on Friday. Saturday, the weather was perfect. Not too hot, not too cold, sunny. New York reminded me a lot of London, funny enough. It was the amount of people (crowds on sidewalks), crossing against the red on sidewalks, the driving/cars, and the tall buildings. It was definitely faster paced compared to California, though. Pretty much all the stereotypes of New York City applied (e.g. honking, cars, etc), though, which is funny. JK Rowling is still amazing to me. Sometimes you meet people in real life and you don’t like them; I just like JK Rowling even more. She’s an amazing lady. 

I wrote a very long more than 4 page write-up of the entire weekend, but it's too long to post in a blog. Course, most of it is about Friday night (about half, LoL). So...I'll sum up the other days in a few lines and post my long write-up of Friday.

The flight to NYC was uneventful and good. We had no real problems getting the car service to pick us up. They drove us straight to our hotel and dropped us off! The hotel (Park Savoy) is a budget hotel and our room was TINY, but clean and GREAT location. I think the queen bed rooms are larger, but we had a double bed so it was small (smallest bathroom I've ever seen in an actual building). We were a block away from Central Park South (that's a road, but also the south end of Central Park). We were right across the back entrance to the Essex House. And one block away from Carnegie Hall (literally right around the corner from our hotel).

Saturday we went on one of those hop-on-hop-off bus tours around
downtown. We caught it at Central Park South and rode it all through
downtown. We stopped at Ground Zero and saw the cross and St. Paul's
Chapel (the place where people hung all those banners/signs/stuff after
9/11). We also went to the Scholastic store! That was cool just to see
some of the Harry Potter stuff they had. We walked around Times Square
and Broadway too. We saw where Wicked was playing, but didn't go and
see it. We were tired, it was Saturday night, and there were a ton of
people around.

Sunday morning we walked the west side of
Central Park and found The Dakota. It was really sunny and I was just
dying in the sun. There were LOTS of people walking through Central
Park and then we realized it was a walk to promote Breast Cancer
Awareness. THOUSANDS and thousands of people were walking around
Central Park. We tried walking "upstream" of them and we gave up and
walked on the street because there were just too many of them.

The flight home was good, but boy am I glad to be home! 

I've definitely had an amazing year and one I'm very thankful for. Now
time to buckle down for my capstone and finish this semester strong.
I've got an intense next 2 weeks coming up for school.

-----

Friday, Oct 19
We got up and decided to just check out the area we were around. We went and found Carnegie Hall (literally around the corner from our hotel). There were a ton of people milling outside and I realized that these were the school children that were going for their book reading, Q&A, and signing. We walked down that street and down an avenue to get to Central Park. We walked along the south end of it for a while and came to an intersection. I looked to the right and what did I see?! The APPLE STORE! The famed cube with the Apple in the middle with the actual store below ground. I couldn’t believe it. So I took pictures and we went in. If I ever had a moment of impulse buying, it was then. Playing with the new iMac and iPods I had a momentary weakness of wanting to buy something so I can get the Apple bag. LoL It’s just a white drawstring bag with a silver Apple on it, but it’s an Apple store in the Big Apple! Anyway, we left before I could attempt to buy anything and walked down Madison Ave. We stopped in an Ann Taylor store (store Kristi likes) to see if we could get her anything that she’d like, but it was all too expensive (at least right now – hahaha). We walked back to Central Park and walked about a third of the park. I tell you, that park is HUGE and AMAZING! We went past the zoo, saw the Balto statue, and the Alice in Wonderland statue. When we were walking back to see if we could find something to eat in Columbus Circle (we made a full loop), it started to rain! Luckily, I had brought 2 umbrellas so we used those. We got pretty damp, but it wasn’t bad. We went into the Times Warner shopping center and found it’s 3 floors. We went into the Borders on the 2nd floor (I had to). I bought my travel map I left back home and called my store. I ended up having a full-blown conversation and asking to put something on hold. My mom was laughing at me saying I’m in a Borders in NY while I’m on the phone to a Borders in California asking them to put a book on hold for me. We went to Whole Foods for lunch (in the basement). We walked back out and it stopped raining! We went to pick up our tickets at about 3 pm. We got them with no problem and then decided to go back to our room to rest for a bit.

Noelle and I got in touch and agreed to meet up at Brooklyn Diner (the block right next to Carnegie Hall) for dinner. We met up, hugged, introduced people (Noelle brought her brother, Trevor), and ordered food! The food was really good and we talked Harry while eating. Noelle INSISTED on buying dinner. She grabbed the check the instant it came and gave my mom and I the dirtiest look when we asked about it. I know you shouldn’t mess with Noelle, but on-line I can just ignore her and she can’t do anything to me. Man, in real life, do NOT mess with Noelle! LoL

After dinner we went to Carnegie Hall and was amazed at how many people were already in line! We went to line up around 6pm, the event is supposed to start at 7pm. We took pictures in line and waited. We debated whether they’ll take cameras away or not (they didn’t even check your bags). Noelle got interviewed by a Kid Reporter for Kids’ Time Magazine.

Once we were in the building, we split up from Noelle and Trevor.  They were in the topmost balcony and we were floor. We had FANTASTIC seats! They were on the floor, middle, and I’d say the first most half. We had a wonderful view of the stage. I took some pictures I wasn’t supposed to take because everyone else had their cameras on! Eventually they did tell us that cameras were not allowed and blah, blah, blah. So I stopped. I talked with the people next to me. Everyone was asking where you were from and yaddy, yaddy.

Finally, JK Rowling came out! She got a standing ovation from us all. It was just amazing. She read to us for about 20 minutes. This particular section (the moment right after Ron destroyed the locket to the end of the chapter) was the first time she’s read that piece in public. She said she a) knew we were an older crowd and b) that we’re all more likely to have finished the book by now. It was so neat to hear her reading because she inflected in the reading how it was SUPPOSED to sound/be. I thought Hermione forgave Ron quicker than she actually is supposed to. It was just one of the most surreal moments. I’m sitting in Carnegie Hall, he most acoustically perfect building, and I’m listening to JK Rowling read. It was just amazing. Carnegie Hall is just BEAUTIFUL and I’d love to go back and listen to some live music in there, but adding in JK Rowling? It was just amazing.

She answered about 15 questions. They ranged all over the place and only 2 were “duds” in my mind. Only because they’d been asked before or some form of them. Though, 1 of my duds Jo did extrapolate on so it wasn’t so much of a dud. Of course I was at the reading when she explained that Dumbledore is gay. It truly makes sense for his actions towards Grindelwald, but it doesn’t affect the book in the sense it doesn’t affect Harry’s storyline. After she told us, most people started cheering. There’s a lot of hype about it and people don’t like it and now are starting to think perverse things about Dumbledore and Harry’s relationship, but – seriously – it’s not that big of a deal because a) Dumbledore loved Harry as a SON, b) it doesn’t affect the plot or the book since it's all Harry's story, and c) TOLERANCE people!

The question I liked is the one where she talked about why she had Molly kill Bellatrix. Mom really liked her answer since she basically said that mothers and housewives also have talents beyond tending the home. It just makes you like Jo since she seems to realize where there are intolerances, lack of respect, and places our society can work more on (e.g. tolerance!). Someone also asked about what she hoped people would get from the books (actually pertained more to the parallel of Nazi Germany and the Deatheaters), but she talked about tolerance and prejudices and to question authority (to not believe the press or news for everything). I also liked how she explained why she couldn’t kill Arthur. Frankly, I just liked about everything she said. Lol

Neil (her husband) and her kids were there too, which was nice. He was up on the first balcony (one right above the ground floor) to the right side. I saw him. We only knew he was there because she mentioned he was there and then I saw people pointing. LoL

Anyway, after the Q&A she walked off stage to get ready to sign books! They started with the first 2 rows of people in my section because they were the ones who got to ask questions. Then they did the entire right side and then us! As we waited, they compiled all the previous readings she’s done from Goblet of Fire to Deathly Hallows so we could watch it. It was pretty neat.

Once I got up to the table, I was distracted by the Scholastic people because they were (literally) shoving people along. I looked at her and she looked me right in the eye and say “hi, how are you?” I was totally thrown off so I said “fine” and then I was watching her sign the book in front of me and I got shoved along and given a book she had signed (not kidding) 2 books ago! She was signing books faster than people were moving through the line! I bet they changed this tactic (of not personalizing) after London when she was there for HOURS! She signed people’s name (I’m pretty sure), they got the hologram sticker in the upper right hand corner, and she signed it. This time around it was she just signed as fast as she could (they had a ton of people helping) and they slapped on a sticker where ever they could place it fastest. It was kind of anticlimactic, but STILL amazing. I think she looked at every person who went by. How amazing is that? I mean, I walked away with a SIGNED book by JK Rowling. I SAW her in person! She SPOKE to me. It was amazing. LoL

We left Carnegie Hall after that and milled outside. I wasn’t sure where Noelle was, but knew she was in the balcony somewhere. Turns out, she was at the VERY top. So we ended up going back to our hotel so we could drop our books off and rest a bit while we waited. I called people right when we got out and talked to people while in the hotel. Eventually we decided she has to be almost done so we went back. Noelle came out about 15-20 minutes later. We took pictures in front of Carnegie Hall with our books and went our ways. Trevor isn’t one to stay up late.

Mom and I went out for dessert afterwards. We stopped at a place called the Park Café because they had cheesecake! They gave us a HUGE slice. What was really different about New York to California was the level of service at the restaurants! You’d put your order in immediately (almost) and you’d get your food like 15 minutes or less later. It was amazing! Sure beat my recent experience at Chili’s where Jenn waited like 40 minutes for her meal (about 20 minutes after we got ours). It was pretty good.

Life update

Huh, that's weird. I thought I updated with my marine bio test grade. I guess I didn't. I got an 85% on it. I did a LOT better than I thought on the essay questions. I missed some dumb things on the T/F part and only missed 1 multiple question, but it was worth 5 points. LoL Oh well, it's over and done with.

Anyway...My mom and I are leaving for NYC this Thursday!! Our plane leaves sometime after 6am (6:45am?). :P We'll be comin' back late Sunday night. JK Rowling is on Friday at 7 pm!

On another note...

I went to our school's graduate school fair today. MOST of the schools represented were there to promote their law programs and ALL the schools were from California. I visited a few of them with a classmate of mine because she is interested in law. It was kind of interesting and there are some pretty neat programs out there like one is international environmental law (it's only a degree, no masters yet). There weren't any science related program, well, what I was specifically looking for. UC-Santa Cruz was there, but they don't have specifically what I'm looking for either. I have pretty much decided, though, I am 1) going out of the state for grad school and 2) not going to law school. LoL Policy or public affairs is the closest I'll get. Unless I go governmental affairs, which I kind of doubt.

Anyway, I've decided (as of now) I'd like to go off and work for the government or some big agency, make my contacts, do some good work, and then end up as a professor at a college or working at a non-profit. Problem is, if I want to be a professor at a college I'm either going to have to have some good contacts and great career beforehand or get my PhD. :P I guess I'll come to that road when I get to it, which will be MANY years away. LoL Right now, getting a PhD sounds extremely intimidating and not fun. I have to get through my Masters before I can start thinking PhD!

Columbia University is still my top pick for grad schools, but I'm seriously contemplating going to Edinburgh University now. They have an environmental monitoring and management masters there and it's a 12 month program (9 months for the degree, 3 months for the dissertation). It's more science related and Columbia is more policy related. Columbia is definitely more the track I want to go (degree, classes, and location), but Edinburgh is a good university and it'd give me some great experiences (not to mention a research cruise!). Someways I just want to say Edinburgh because...seriously...I miss Edinburgh like I lived there most of my life. I must have gotten bit by the "I love Edinburgh" bug while I was there or something. I sort of miss London, but Edinburgh is like I want to go back every year for the summer (I can skip London, LoL). Anyway, we'll see what happens. It's still a few years away!

With that...I'm off to finish editing this paper, edit/review my marine bio lab, and sleep! Tomorrow I have to e-mail my capstone proposal off and e-mail someone for my capstone. Not to mention my contest work. Oh and pack....AHHHHHHHH

*happy thoughts, happy thoughts* I will be in NYC on Thursday and seeing JK Rowling and meeting her on Friday *happy thoughts, happy thoughts*