I came to a realization while being depressed about my studies. I need to get out of this city, perhaps even this country for awhile. Pensacola just isn't the place to be when you're wanting to do deep sea research. So I've been researching how hard it is to get a student visa to go over to Australia, and it seems pretty complicated. I can only work there for 20 hrs a week and that's only after my studies have begun, so I'm not sure how I would be able to support myself while paying about $14K a year in tuition and having a place to live. There's also the complication of my boyfriend. He would want to go, but him coming over will probably be even more complicated than what I have to go through and I don't know if he can work over there either. So....I guess I'm just gonna have to keep looking and start talking to some people here to see what information I can find. Who knows? Mebbe I'll just ditch my boy toy to hook up with some hot Aussie! :lol:

These are on a shirt I got from MERS (Marine Ecological Research Society) that I'm in at school...

10. Nobody cares where your tattoos are.
9. It's okay to have a famer's tan and raccoon eyes.
8. A day at work can mean a day at the beach.
7. It's good to be neutrally buoyant.
6. You can work on your tan as you work on your research.
5. It's a great excuse to go fishing.
4. You can wear a bathing suit without looking unprofessional.
3. Even you look slim in a wetsuit.
2. You'll happily jump into shark infested waters.

...and the #1 reason to be a Marine Biologist...
1. Any day on the water is better than a day in the office.

Too bad we don't make any money doing it. :lol: Oh well, I'm in this field because I love it, not because it pays well...

Do any of you ever get to that point in life when you wonder if you'll ever be finished with school? I do. With the exception of summer breaks, I've been in school continuously since I was 4. So, that's how many years of my life I've spent in school? I can't wait until I graduate this coming summer (hopefully) and then take a semester off to relax and actually build up a little money.

Yeah, I found out on Sunday that I apparently get seasick, which isn't a very pleasant feeling. I thought I could do the whole 'the mind can overcome the body' thing, but with 7ft seas that apparently wasn't the case. I was fine until we had to turn the boat around to head back into shore, so the rocking of the boat went from going front to back to side to side, and my stomach apparently decided that that was enough. Once I went to the bathroom though, I was completely fine, and an hour later when we had lunch on the boat, I was actually famished. We had some good eatin', too!:D

We caught tons of cool inverts and fish. We caught a pufferfish and a cowfish for our aquarium (along with some others) which are really cool, and the coolest invert I got to see was something called a fire worm, which is a polychaete worm that has a defense mechanism similar to porcupines, in that it has spines that if you touch them, will stick in your hands and feels like you have fiberglass in them. But it was really cool looking, especially under a dissecting microscope.

This is the second day in a row that it's been raining here and they're saying it'll go through the weekend.:( Which really sucks for me because I have to work on Friday and Saturday nights (like usual) but also because on Sunday I have to spend all day in a boat out on the Gulf trawling and dredging for inverts. It should be fun if it doesn't rain, but I'll be super-exhausted because the earliest I'll get home and into bed will be 2:30am and I have to be up at school at 7:30am that next morning. *groans* But we'll also be getting fish for our school's aquarium that I've been working on, so that will be good at least.

So, it's no big secret that I have some feelings for my former clan-mate Rich/Berg, or I wouldn't think it would be a big secret. However, my openess in talking about it with several people on AIM and MSN has led to the discovery of my potential plans of flying to England to meet Rich to see if there's anything there, by my boyfriend (whom I live with). So you can imagine, I'm in pretty hot water, but talking with him didn't really help to clarify any feelings I have all jumbled up inside me. :? It would also help if Rich were to respond without being vague like he has a tendency of doing... Oh well, I'm sure things will sort themselves out sooner or later...

I'm still trying to get into the swing of things at school again. Having a new site with all these brand new features doesn't help my short attention span either. :lol: I just have to keep reminding myself though that I'm only a semester away from graduating and I hope that will give me enough oomph to get back on track....