At the grindstone

Just in case you thought I fell overboard on one of my research cruises, was suffocated by the ever growing mound of homework and scientific literature, or got lost in the library never to find my way out again, I'm here for just a moment to say "I'm OK". Very busy, but OK.

Here's some of the fun things I've been up to (all taken from my friend Amanda's camera):


From Left: Me, Jason, Lerin, Matt, Amanda, and Monica during a research outing on the R/V Coral Sea. We were using a CTD (conductivity, temperature and depth (really pressure)) sensor package to create a heat budget of Humboldt Bay.
My picture of the CTD from a previous cruise. Isn't she pretty?

Discovering I've completely forgotten how to roller skate at Paula's 30th birthday party. I'm the blurry feet at the top of the picture because I was desperately trying to just stay on my feet. From Top to the right: Me, Lerin, Amanda, and Jason.

Chillin' with the Oceanography Society. I haven't been able to make all the meetings this semester, but I try. Top row: Pono, Rich, Jason. Middle Row: Me, Jeremiah. Bottom Row: Erin, Monica, Amanda. There's a lot more of us, but that's all that could make it to the last meeting of last semester.

Cleaning up trash at the Bay Street Beach in Eureka. We spent at least a half hour trying to get all this rope cut off and untangled. From Left clockwise: Lerin, Justin, Me.

After two hours, we collected six bags of trash, the lining of a truck bed, and two large rusted pieces of metal from a car. This is a much better idea of how many people are in the club, although many people couldn't make it that morning.

Amanda, Monica, Jeremiah, Lerin and I all went out to dinner Thursday night to detox after a four and a half hour class. The food was decent, fairly cheap, and we stayed for two hours and had a great time. This year has really been the first that I've had classes with other oceanography majors, and I've been really surprised with myself at how fast I'm making friends. Normally it can take me years to become friends with someone, and most of the people in the photos (with the exception of Justin), I've only met last fall. But I guess when you have the same class schedule with the same group of people that you see every day, all day you make friends pretty fast.

But don't start thinking that it's been all fun and games. I'm at school/work twice a week from 8am to 8pm, and from 8am to 5pm the other three days. I'm also driving up to Trinidad once a week to take water samples, and have had tests and papers due almost every week (in fact, I have two big papers due in the next couple of weeks, and will get a physics test back on Monday). I've also been looking for an internship in my spare time (haha!), and trying to meet with a career counselor (who thinks I'm a lazy and non-serious student because I didn't start looking for an internship when I was 13 and am just partying all my time away and not paying attention in class because I have a 3.3 GPA) to work on my resume so I can finally contact the people that another contact mentioned might have a position for me. Oh, and of course taxes, FAFSA, and scholarship applications.

The good news is that I needed to go to the doctor a couple weeks ago, and even with all the stress in my life right now (read: horrible junk food eating that's been happening), I've only gained about 12 pounds since Thanksgiving, my cholesterol's in the healthy range, and my blood pressure is excellent. I also haven't been sick at all, although I have been battling off a small cold the last week or so. Although my weight is pretty much the same since I went vegan a year ago last month, there's been a huge difference in my blood work results, my blood pressure, the amount of energy I have to do everything, and I haven't been really sick since I went vegan, just the sniffles here and there. Let's see if I can't keep it up!

Alright, I must go now and continue to write at least 10 pages of a review paper of harmful algal blooms (HABs) on the California coast, and the link with various physical conditions. It's actually pretty interesting, and is a continuation of my last semester's biological oceanography project, and a stepping stone in my senior thesis project. Hopefully I'll learn something through this project that will help me link what I find in my weekly water samples to larger environmental conditions that may help predict when a HAB will occur here in Humboldt County. I'm so glad that I am studying oceanography. It truly is something that I've always been interested in, and the more I learn, the more excited I get to learn more. I couldn't be happier, even if the course load is insane.

Spring Cleaning

Things have gotten better (and worse!) since my last post. David and I got in a large fight that left me sulking my entire three day weekend. I should have been cleaning house, and doing school work, and getting my garden started, but instead, all I felt like doing was moping around and eating massive amounts of carbs. Oops. But after a long talk, things are resolved and back to normal and I am looking forward to actually getting stuff done this coming weekend. I hope.

I've noticed no one ever seems to post about their meals that really aren't all that good. Maybe it's because they're trying to show how good vegan food is. Maybe they don't want to admit they made something that tasted that bad. I'll admit it. Dinner last night, while still edible, is not a repeatable recipe (without some serious modifications anyway). Ketchup and mustard seem to be making it a little better, but I'm not sure I'll be able to finish all the leftovers (and David's not touching the stuff with a 10 foot pole). I found the recipe for the Cheesy Creamy Casserole on Vegan Dad's blog, which usually is filled with yummy looking dinners. However, this one didn't turn out nearly as yummy as it originally sounded. Sorry Vegan Dad. I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that I'm still not quite used to the nutritional yeast taste, but the orange-y pink color and texture didn't help much either.

I have also accepted Crunchy Chicken's Buy Nothing Challenge for the month of April. No April Fool's joke here people. I don't think it should be too hard for me really, but I will need to purchase some wood and gardening supplies. I've been trying to find suitable wood at the recycling center and on freecycle, but so far I haven't had much luck. Maybe some readers of mine would also like to step up to the challenge? Wink wink.

Well, enough stalling for me. I should start on my school work and finish up baking cookies. But I'll mostly focus on baking the cookies, because who wants to do school work? I mean, really.

Ahhhhh.... A nice bath, a quiet house, flickering candles, and no energy being used (well, except the fridge and the phones...) for an hour. I wish I would have known about Earth Hour earlier so I could have planned a party or something, but I still participated by turning off all the lights and unplugging all my stuff for one hour this evening from 8pm to 9pm. When I first heard about it a couple days ago I thought "Oh! A fun excuse for another candle lit board game night with David!", but then I realized that David would be working. So then I turned to a nice bath and some quiet me time. The ants swarming in the bathroom almost ruined it, but I was in there earlier today with stakes and spray and so far it seems to be working, so I was able to take a long bath ant-free.

You may also have noticed that I put a new picture up in the header. That was taken on Trinidad State Beach this last weekend as David and I were celebrating our 6th year anniversary. We had a really good time. We started our day with breakfast at the Daybreak Cafe. I ordered a tofu scramble with mushrooms, spinach, tomato, and bell pepper with home fries, and David had the Dharma Bum. I thought the food was really good, and it was really awesome to be able to pick ANYTHING on the menu. David, however, was not impressed at all. I guess "rabbit food" takes some getting used to. Then we went off to the beach and hung out for several hours, enjoying the sunshine while it lasted (and it never lasts long enough here!). Later we went to Abruzzi's for dinner. The atmosphere was great, and would have been perfect for an anniversary date. Except they didn't have a single vegan dish, or anything that could have been prepared vegan. We had called ahead, and were told that it shouldn't be a problem, but at the restaurant it turned out that apparently they assumed vegan=vegetarian and that milk and eggs were no problem. It was my fault for not double checking. The food would have been very good (I had steamed veggies on polenta), except I was surprised by how much my tastes have changed, and I couldn't eat much of the polenta (made with milk and butter). David had the spaghetti and said it was pretty good.

Other than that, this week has been a "might as well eat worms" kind of week. No particular reason exactly, just been in a funk. Hopefully this three day weekend working on the house, getting a garden bed set up and ready for planting, and lots of yummy baking should do the trick to pull me out of it. Since I've been clinically depressed in the past, when I get like this I always start to worry a little that it's coming back. But really, I think it has to do with the time of month and just being TIRED of school.

All of that to say, I haven't really kept track of what I've been eating this week. We made the seared veggie burritos from ED&BV, which were very good. I think next time I'll add some more spice to them. Other than that, I've pretty much been throwing stuff in a pan and eating it. And they haven't really been coming out all that great. I've also had absolutely no energy or desire to go to the gym or take a walk or do anything remotely like exercise at all (unless you count walking on the beach for several hours and climbing up and down the terraces at CCAT planting their kitchen garden). Hopefully next week will be a fresh start and I can start getting back on track. I also have my doctor's appointment on Thursday, so we will see what she says about my lab results.