Chazy Reef field trip...

This past Saturday, J and I took a day to spend together as sort of an end of semester/only weekend we might have free together vacation. Now that J's semester is over (he got 4 A's and 1 yet-to-be-determined grade!!!) he's gotta find summer work and it's entirely possible that he'll be working weekends. I work weekdays. So it goes.

Instead of taking off to some nice hotel or far-away country (which we can't afford, anyway), we took a day trip up to Isle la Motte, home of the "world's oldest reef in which corals first appear," according to Professor Char Mehrtens.

It was really quite beautiful there. Not only were there plenty of fossils, but the preserves we visited were filled with birds, turtles, frogs and fish.

The first stop we made on the island was at Fisk Quarry Preserve, which contains the middle layers of the reef (the reef is 480-450 million years old). The quarry once was excavated for the black and grey limestone it yielded - limestone that was used in Radio City Music Hall - but has since been made into a preserve managed by the Isle la Motte Preservation Trust.






After Fisk Quarry, J and I headed to Goodsell Ridge Preserve which houses the youngest layers of the Chazy Reef.






The reef, formed during the Ordovician Period in the Iopetus Ocean, extends as far south as Tennessee.


References

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/paleozoic_vermont.html

Semester Wrap-up (Spring '08)

Calculus: A

Chemistry: A

Sweet.

Montreal and the Biodome

A while ago (make that 2 weekends ago!) I went with J and his sister, C, and their mom, Mrs. J, to Montreal. I'd only been there once, even though it's the closest big city to my home. The first time I went, I went with a friend who was on a mission to find the perfect lube.

ANYWAY...

This time, rather than going to the sex shops, I went to a bunch of museums and some really nice restuarants. We left early on Saturday morning and got to the border at about 9:30 am. We crossed with no problems....oh wait...that's not true. The border guard was a huge bitch. She asked us for IDs and when we had to collect them from one another, she said "what...didn't you see all the cars in front of you getting their id's out?" 'Cause y'know...how dare we not have our ID's ready as soon as we pulled up to her window (we actually had them all out, but they just weren't in ONE person's hand).

Whatever...that woman shouldn't be the face of Canada.

But I digress...

We checked into our hotel, Le Centre Sheridan, and went up to our tiny room (yes, the one we squeezed four people into). It was actually the perfect room for the weekend. I had a great time with J's family, even though we had to coordinate four showers each morning.

So we went to the Biodome, which was very cool. It was bird week or something and they handed out these bird identification checklists and asked us to record all the species of birds we saw, which I thought was a great idea until I actually got into the tropical dome and HOLY CRAP THERE WERE MONKEYS EVERYWHERE!! So I forgot about the birds for like, oh, the whole rest of the time.

The marine dome, forest dome and arctic domes were all very cool, too (but, as should be obvious by my lack of excitement, were NOT as cool as the monkey/tropical dome).

I even managed to see my favorite animal:

What??? You can't tell what that is? Let me help: it's a sloth. When I found out they had a sloth, I rushed off to find an employee who could help me locate it. It was at the very top of the dome, so I couldn't really see anything, but I did find out that sloths only poop about once a week! And they house blue-green algae in their hair!

After the Biodome, we went to the Jardin Botanique de Montreal and to the Insectarium. We arrived just in time to see the Butterflies Go Free event. Butterflies from around the world were fluttering all around a small greenhouse area. They were so beautiful and I was so excited that I nearly cried. We walked into the greenhouse and all the sudden there were butterflies everywhere and I could hardly contain my excitement so I just said "WOWWWWW!" and "they're so beautiful and -oh my god look at that one!!!" like, five hundred times. And the whole time we were there, I was secretly hoping that a butterfly would land on me because then everyone would think, aaaaahhhh, she's the butterfly whisperer. But then one DID land on me and I almost crushed it because it scared me and I didn't want a giant insect with a big face attached to my elbow and wouldn't you know, everyone in the greenhouse just happened to be standing right next to me when it happened.

Other things we did that I really liked:

-Ate at Chu Chai

-Went to the fine art museum

-Stayed up late laughing about stuff

-Hung out and had cheesecake in the hotel bar

-Went to the science museum

-Ate at a vegan buffet

Stuff we did that I didn't like so much:

-Ate a Burger King (first time I've eaten fast food in like, a hundred years...and only because it was the only place around...it made J sick)

I'm totally in love...

I'll take one of these:

And one of these:

*The tree is Cercis canadensis. It's in the little tree garden behind my office building on OPU campus. I'm so in love with it...there aren't any leaves yet and the tree has these amazing flowers...

Oh my dog, what am I going to do with myself now???

Finals are over. They.Are.Over. Thank f--ing FSM!!!

If I were a dog, I'd be a really mangy one...sniffing at rocks and wagging my stumpy half-bitten-off tail and eating garbage (I actually just ate two Pop Tarts, which are technically garbage, if you read the ingredients list). That's how beat up and pitiful I feel.

My math final was terrible. I understood everything on it...I just couldn't get over the hump that is basic math. Yes, that's right; I know how to find and classify all critical points of a function...but I can't seem to set the derivative equal to zero and solve for it. I can integrate like a champ...but remember what the derivative of csc(x) is??? That's asking too much. What? You want me to add 2 + 2? How 'bout I just find the volume of rotation for f(x)=csch(x) around the x-axis instead.

I spent the first hour of the math final furiously scribbling my answers and the last two hours staring at two problems with my brow as furrowed as it gets. I now have incredible permanent wrinkle lines between my eyebrows.



So I left the exam, and then I cried because I studied really really hard and it paid off very little and this had been the hardest course I've ever taken in my life and I really wanted to get an A in it because that would make me so.damn.proud. of myself. And then I went home and cried some more because my boyfriend and one of our mutual friends were all done with classes and exams and having beers on the porch and I can't have beer and I couldn't hang out because I had to study for my next exam and POOR ME!!! *gasps for air*

Sometimes I worry that I'm just not emotionally equipped for academia.

But damned if I'm gonna work in this office doing dry, repetitive work that I'm not the least bit enthusiastic about for the rest of my life.

Ben Stein came...and went...

On Friday, April 25th, my friend Jamie and I crowded into a pew of OPU's chapel to hear "Ben Stein on Life," a lecture sponsored by OPU's business school. There was a large crowd; the whole chapel was filled and another hall, downstairs, was opened up for overflow seating. A large portion of the crowd were middle-aged community members. Not many students were in attendance.

The university president introduced Stein as a weekly commenter on Fox New, "which as we all know, is fair and balanced." He also said, of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, that Stein was known for being provocative and that he may have outdone himself with his latest film.

During the lecture, Stein asked how many people in the audience had seen his film. I didn't get a chance to look behind me, but of the people in front of me, not many had seen it. He explained that he was not at OPU to endorse the film or on behalf of the Expelled crew. It wasn't discussed again, until the question and answer session. Stein said that the point of the lecture, the main lesson, was that our country will not be okay until "God's work is our work."

The first question of the question and answer session was "how can you say with a straight face that Darwinism lead to eugenics?" Stein responded with "I can say it with a very straight face," that the evidence is clear. He went on to say that none of the Darwinists he interviewed for Expelled could provide him with a single example of macroevolution and that while he doesn't see how you could prove intelligent design, he believes that there is a conspiracy by Darwinists to keep it from ever being taken seriously.

There was another question about the film, but Stein managed to avoid really answering it and said that he could offer more answers at the reception. I thought about going to the reception for only a few minutes because J's mom was in town and I really didn't want to hold them up for dinner, but when I tried to get in, they requested that I check my backpack and that was a deal breaker. I don't go anywhere without my backpack...it's got my wallet, keys, passport, water, books...I'm a freaking student at a university.

So, that's where the story ends. Not that dramatic, but Stein didn't get away without having to answer a few questions. And I guess there were pamphlets handed out after the lecture about Darwin/Nazis/ID/Stein/Expelled trying to pump some reason into the lecture-goers heads, just in case they were lacking any.

The Six Word Memoir meme...

Stewgad tagged me for a meme and it's a tough one; sum up your life with a six-word memoir.

I've seen some pretty good ones so far:

• I think it's on my list. - Academama
• I haven't finished my dissertation; so? - M
• Yes, I'm still a student. Deal. - Flossie
• Doctor, not the kind that helps. - AliceAcademic
• Don't forget: you are not alone. - ScienceGirl

Anyway, the rules are:

1. Write your own six word memoir
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere
4. Tag five more blogs with links
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play

I spent much of my life trying to find the easy way out; doing things that I knew I wouldn't fail at, expecting nothing from myself and everything from other people. I spent five years (out of 25...that's 20%!!!) either drunk or high or both, thinking that if I could just find the next right thing, I'd be happy. Everything was about being happy with minimal effort. And then I cleaned up and dried out and started to understand that in order to have the things I've always wanted, I was going to have to work hard. And that's where I am today...trying to make something good out of something unhealthy. So here it is:

"I'm trying. Better late than never."

I tag...

Julia
Brian
Zach
StyleyGeek
Rebecca

Okay...a quick one...

So, if you haven't already asked Zach for a trading card, you must do so, a.s.a.p. They're so funny. Check out mine:



And J's:





Really...you should request one. All you have to do is send Zach a photo and he takes care of the rest. It couldn't be any easier!

I'm still really very busy (oh my...I just wrote "busty" and then got really embarassed, even though I am the only person who saw it). I have to learn a hundred million things for my math final; things that somehow went right over my head during the last two months. I don't see it happening, but I've managed to do fairly well in the course, so even if I utterly fail the final exam, I'll probably manage a B. I can rest easy with chemistry: I just got a 99 on the last test and if I opt not to take the final exam, my grade will be a B+. If I get better than a C on the final, I'll get an A in the course. Woohoo!

I have a ton of pictures of orchids/butterflies/animals to post from my visit to the Biodome, Insectarium, and Botanical Gardens in Montreal, but J's mom is still in town, so I don't expect to have those up for another day or so.

Thanks for stickin' around (assuming you have). I love you all...really, I do.

I may be absent for a bit...

My co-worker is out for the next two weeks, so I'm slammed with peer-review duties, accepting/rejecting manuscripts and learning how to handle letters to the editor. J's mom is in town this weekend and she's taking us to Montreal for a couple of days. Then it's the last week of school before finals. Then it's finals week. Then, hopefully, I'll be done with school, relaxed, reading lots and lots of books about paleontology and ready to write some posts that have more to do with ancient life than with my life.

'Til then you can expect whining about school (this math test is gonna KILL me), random pictures of museums (we're going to the archaeology museum!!)and hopefully a trading card with my name on it (you can get a feel for what I'm talking about here).

Like wasps?

Check out the blog of wasp expert, Dr. Kurt Pickett. It's all about wasps, research expeditions, wasp evolution and, as Dr. Pickett puts it, "getting stung the world over, one wasp at a time."