The joy of this job is that it is so dynamic and unique that for us living and working on the island is more like a high-stress vacation than a real job. This afternoon after sleeping in, taking my time to eat a late lunch and get ready to run errands I checked my email and was welcomed with an email from my boss from Southwestern University. I love working as a RA at school, but it's a different sort of job and was a bit of a kick in the face. What a lovely reminder that I have only a few weeks left on the island before I return the world of roommate conflicts, chemistry labs and cafeteria food. Sorry that my sarcasm doesn't quite transfer the same over the internet.Other than my semi-painful realization that I do actually have to pop my little island bubble and return to the real world I've had a fabulous last few days. One of my close friends from school came into town to visit for a few days so we crammed as much of the SPI experience into his time as possible. We went to Badabing Bagels for lunch, which by the way was fabulous - it was my first time to eat lunch there. And luckily Preston was here for Angel's release, which is always fun and emotional for the whole STI crew. We love going on the dolphin watch and sunset cruise and of course there's nothing quite like watching a little green fly from the boat and disappear into the ocean. Today at work we tagged Angel to prepare for her release and I got to pit tag her and tag her with the metal tag. The little stinker scraped my knuckle, but I figure I hurt her more (those metal tags don't look too pleasant) so we're even. Or close at least. After the release a group of us went to Dirty Al's for fried shrimp (they finally opened again a few days ago), then met up with a few friends from Mexico at Louie's. Of course to top off the full sea turtle adventure we went to the hatchling release this morning followed by a breakfast burrito. It was nice for us to catch up, I've been a bit out of touch with my former life since Spain.
As always work was an escapade. We had a group of librarians and assorted cameramen from SFA to film around STI for a video in a virtual excursion series they are doing for students in their area. They were a lovely group of people who I really enjoyed talking to and they interviewed Jeff and I, taped a tour and some of the morning feeding. It sounded like an incredible project, part of their goal is to inspire young high school students to continue their education, I was excited that we were able to host them at our facility.
Our last tank finally arrived so between tours and other chores I helped Jeff do some of the bolting. It's amazing how much the facility has grown and changed and I can't wait to see all the turtles in their new tanks.
Today is Friday, which means fireworks here on the island. Hopefully I'll still remember when 9:15. My schedule will be interesting for the next week or so, I'm on corral duty this weekend and since we are expecting tons more babies it's looking like I'll be really busy.
These pictures are of super active hatchlings from one of the in situ nests (which means it stayed on the beach rather than incubating in our corral) and the other is of Dave Cromwell with his turtle egg finding dog SPX.
Downsize - materialism is stressful.
2 comments:
Hi Anna! Thanks for the shout-out on your blog. We had a great time visiting and meeting everyone, and are really looking forward to getting our videos edited and images posted. Everyone at STI was so kind and helpful, and we had a great time getting to know all the turtles. Keep in touch!
Hi! Just reading this for the first time. I hope clean-up and start-up went okay after the hurricane. Thanks for the shout-out. We recently put out a display in the SFA library on sea turtle awareness and conservation using materials from STI. We had a wonderful visit and everyone is wishing for the best for all of those little hatchlings and the facility!
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