Rainy Day- June 9, 2011

This morning I was going to wake up and go for a run, but I wasn’t feeling very motivated. There were clouds moving in, it was going to be a rainy day. Zack and I got caught up on all the data sheets. We entered in all the behaviors, substrate sample information, and the environmental conditions. We worked on that until lunchtime. After lunch we worked in the lab some more until we got bored. We are in the process of making a net to capture the nurse sharks for tagging them. We talked to a man named Wes Pratt who is doing nurse shark studies in Florida and he said that he specially ordered a dip net to catch the sharks where he is. However, we don’t have money to do that, so we decided to improvise. We made the structure out of wood from an invasive species of tree. It is hard to explain the design, so I will attach a picture, but it is going to be awesome… If it actually works! I am manifesting it will work, and it will be super cool that we made it ourselves!

After we got done with lab work, I decided to go for a run in the rain. Zack accompanied me this time! We ran down to the Marina and around to sunset beach, which is like a 30 minute run. It was really windy, so it was difficult running back towards campus. After our run we did situps and stuff on the beach in front of the dorms. I took a dip in the water then took a shower.

Tonight we have book club. Niels was in charge this week of providing us with the material we were going to discuss. He picked a Ted talk about mushrooms and how they can help save the world. It was extremely interesting. I definitely recommend watching it. http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_stamets_on_6_ways_mushrooms_can_save_the_world.html. After the video the interns decided to play a drinking game with some cards. We all sat around and played together, drinking whiskey and enjoying some delicious pineapple! It was really fun hanging out with everyone. People are starting to open up and be more accepting of us new interns. After our game, we started playing ping pong on the tables that are in the room. This sparked an idea to have a table tennis tournament tomorrow. Some of the boys made an invitation and sent it out to everyone. I was chosen to be the umpire! Haha. After a game of ping pong, I was off to bed.