Ready for the Weekend

Yesterday was a pretty good day.  The class of the morning was coral reef ecology.  I must admit that I am a bit overwhelmed by the fact that go through lectures so fast.  We covered three different lectures and my hand was throbbing from all of the writing I was doing to keep up.  Caren (the professor) is a very fast lecturer! Even though I am used to the three-hour class format, I'm not quite ready for this one, hard to explain.  Anyway....

In the afternoon we did AGRRA benthic surveys at Windsock and Cliff.  If you remember, I wrote about a really miserable dive, that was Windsock.  Trust me when I say that I was more than a little nervous about trying to do it again, but I did.  The thing is that Caren only required one of these dives to do the AGRRA survey, so I didn't have to do Windsock if I didn't want to, but I conquered my nerves and did both dives yesterday.  I am so happy I did, because it was a much different site today than it was previously.  There was no current although there was some surge on the way into shore.  Windsock is a really beautiful site and if the conditions are not miserable, I would definitely like to explore it a bit more.  Fewer people did Cliff, but after we did the surveys, we all went on a ten-minute tour.  We went and saw the Cliff that gives the site its name.  There were some squid, an ocean triggerfish, and a really large tarpin.  It was by far the largest fish that I have ever seen, but considering that I haven't seen that many fish to begin with (though I will admit that I have seen more than most), it was a large fish.

We got back from Cliff at about 5:30 and had to start working on the homework due today, because from 7-8 is dinner time and 8-9 was our Papiamentu crash course.  None of us wanted to go back to the classroom at night after the long day that we had, but I was, at least, pleasantly surprised by the woman that said she was going to be instructing us.  I suppose that she embodies the Bonairian spirit.  She is very enthusiastic and expressive.  We were just thrown into the class (the definition of "crash") and she seemed to expect us to have done homework that we didn't know that we had been assigned.  She started throwing words and phrases at us and gave us a quiz at the end (that we were luckily allowed to use our notes on), but Papiamentu doesn't seem like that hard a language to attempt to learn.  At least I don't have to conjugate anything.  Next time, we will at be prepared for the craziness that will be thrown our way.

I am really ready for the weekend to begin, so for your enjoyment, here are some more introductions as well as random pictures.

Annarose (in the center)

Because I have introduced you to the people to the left and right of her, you can deduce that the person I am introducing you to is Annarose.  She goes to Oregon State and is extremely smart.  She did an internship this summer at a marine lab (I believe) and it shows, because she has knowledge about everything that is required in a project proposal.

Beth

If you could please excuse my hideousness in this picture, this is Beth.  She is a divemaster and has been my dive buddy on the majority of the dives we've done.  We work really well together, so I like being buddied with her.  She goes to Wofford.

Rachael

I know that there is a lot of attractiveness in this photo (it is amazing the things that people will do when they don't understand that you are taking pictures for a blog), but the girl in the middle is Rachael.  She goes to Ursinus and was one of the people certified at the beginning of this program (and was my first buddy).  She is one of the nicest people I have met, in case you couldn't tell from the smile. She also plays softball.  Anyway, those are all the pictures I have of people.  I have to figure out who I have left to introduce you to and get pictures of them. Love you!