Back to Birding, and Soon Bowdoin

All my aquatic activities are done for the near future, so I had no reason to get up at a reasonable hour today. I took advantage and stayed up late last night and then slept in by a whole forty minutes! The reason I got up was to go for a walk with my dad, try to find some birds. Usual vacation stuff, that's what all of you do right? We were surprisingly successful even though we really started too late to find any birds. I also stole my mom's camera so the pics in this post will have been taken by me not wikipedia. We heard a bunch of birds, and saw a few, but most were common local birds that I wont bore you with. When we were looking for some noisy little bird, I happened to notice a different one just chilling on a branch

It's a very snooty bird and refused to make eye contact with mere humans

The rufus-tailed jacamar is a type flycatcher, so it would sit and wait on that branch until it saw a fly, and then it would dart after the fly and catch it before returning to its initial perch. This made it pretty easy to keep track of. We kept walking and eventually saw two great black hawks and two peregrine falcons. We then had to turn back because there were other things to be done (involving birds, obviously). On the way back we heard this bird kind of cawing at us. The sound seemed wrong, almost crow like, and the glimpses we got showed that these were small nondescript passerines. While trying to find them I saw this branch or wire that seemed to be moving. "Hey Dad, a snake!" I cried with glee. My father looked thoughtful for a moment before replying, "maybe that's what the birds are all excited about." He's completely right. Those were either distress calls or mobbing calls, as shown by other birds approaching the vocally agitated ones. We talked about this kind of stuff in ecology, so it was pretty cool to see nature in action. and to see a snake.

My parents and brother set off to do what we had done last week, with the glass bottom boat and tropicbirds. I decided to pass on that. Instead I plopped myself in front of a hummingbird feeder, intent on seeing and photographing the ruby topaz. Epic fail. I sat there for ages and didn't even see it once. I did see a woodpecker

Red-crowned woodpecker. It was making a giant hole. It was
there for ages. It's probably still there now, pecking away

and a hermit crab and a bunch of other species of hummingbirds, but not the stupid one I wanted to see. I got lunch with the fam when they returned, wherein Jonah and I had a misunderstanding over ketchup mainly because I was being oblivious slash greedy. 

I had done most of my packing already, but I finished that up. After that I went and over to check on my dad, who had taken up my former vigil at the hummingbird feeder. I retrieved the camera and joined. My mom's camera is a canon rebel, with an awesome 70-300 lens. The problem is that there looks like one button got damaged. The manual focus button. So everything is autofocus which is incredibly frustrating when trying to photograph hummingbirds, especially those that don't perch when they feed. They're really fast so you end up focussing on what's behind them. After probably another hour plus of arguably patient waiting and deleting photos of walls, I got one

yes it's a bit blurry, but focus on the pretty colors instead

And that's about it for today's activities and the trip. We head out at five (about 40 minutes), and between layover and flying will be back in New York around 5 am. Then I fly up to Maine for the remainder of preseason. It should be lots of fun (preseason not the flying in at 5 am).

I was also invited back here to do an internship if I'd like, so that's an awesome option to have. Who knows what the future holds. Hopefully animals.
This ends part two of my travel blog, TZ in Tobago, thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed it and found the plethora of animals and animal facts interesting, or at least tolerable. Bye for now

I Owe Wayne Another Beer

First things first, I passed the rescue diver class. This means I'm now not only able, but kind of obligated to assist or lead rescue and first aid efforts in diving related incidents. Or near-drowning, or really and CPR related thing. I am so special. Actually in my opinion I barely passed. I couldn't find the goddamn weight belt again! Stupid 14 inch visibility. I actually lost my own buddy in the effort to find it. It still has not been found yet. The recovery and towing in went relatively fine, though the victim occasionally got his head dunked under water...oops. Then things went pretty well with the cpr, except i stopped after the Oxygen was hooked up, which you weren't supposed to do apparently...oops. Still I passed even though the victim probably would have been in trouble multiple times over. Close enough I guess...
Before that I went diving. It was my last actual fun dive, and we saw some stuff. Lobster, crab, and a giant green moray with almost it's entire body exposed which was pretty cool. Right at the beginning we saw a peacock flounder. It's so thin that I don't understand how it has bones. I thought it was some invert or other.

That was right as we got down there too. We also saw a rather large turtle with moss growing on its back. The sea was very choppy as we got to the site. I had all my gear on and was ready to go. We had been using a back roll entry, which is that we sit on the side up the boat and do a backwards roll into the war. We wait for the divemaster to give us a countdown. I sat on the side of the boat...and then we hit a wave. I lost balance for a moment and had feet with fins spread out, giant heavy tank hanging off the boat. Predictably, I fell off into the water. This wasn't a big deal as I had everything on, except my mask which was on my neck. I just stayed in the water until everyone else got in. Apparently everyone assumed erroneously that I just hopped in early. I corrected this falsehood, and Wayne claims I now owe him another beer. So that's two. For those paying attention at home, the prospective rescue diver fell off the boat.
So I mentioned possibly being a sunfish. This is what they look like

Bannerfish not usually included

very weird, but very distinct. They're also pretty rare and I had never seen one before. I mentioned it to Wayne and he said that yah, they did sometimes get small ones. It was probably about a meter or a little longer. They can easily make it to found meters long including the fins. It's always fun seeing new things, even if they look really weird.

I owe Wayne a Beer

Today was a very busy day…with no pictures. The morning was my practice search and rescue for a missing diver. The diver in this case was a weight belt. This was almost as frustrating as neurobio lab (though more fun). I could not find the goddamn belt. The first time was my fault, my hatred of compasses overcame me. The second time we started too far in and missed it. And after that we kind of just tried to pin point it and failed. Eventually it took a line of four of searching together to find it. I was the one who found it. I talked to Wayne, the instructor after. He explained that with the type of visibility (about 18 inches) we would have used a much more complicated search pattern only taught in the hardcore search and recovery specialty course. So that makes life hard. Meanwhile, Jonah saw a shark on his dive.

Then I went diving and was supposed to show some helping those under duress under water. I did a great job…when I noticed. But sometimes I got distracted by fish and eels and maybe even a sunfish. It was far off, but it looked like it, it’s a pretty distinct shape. So that was that. It was a fun dive. We got up close and personal with a turtle, saw some squid, and found an eel. It shot away into a small structure so I tried to find it on the other side. It ended up coming out right beneath me. It was fun

Third activity/second dive (unless search and recovery counts as a dive (I was under water for ages). This one I just got to do fun stuff, look at fish. The coolest thing we saw were garden eels. They just stay in little holes, with their heads sticking out of sand. I enjoy watching that. I could have stayed there all dive…but for some reason people wanted to move on.

Once we surfaced I was to do Rescue Exercise 7, helping a nonbreathing diver on the surface. It was fine, except I when I took off the victim’s mask, I stopped paying attention to it and it sunk. Wayne had to go fetch it and says I now owe him at least one beer. I guess that’s fair enough. If I pass the course after tomorrow’s big final practical I’ll buy him all the beer he wants. Also worth noting is that while I was doing this the waves were of an almost surfable quality. So more challenges to overcome. Another new thing was that there was a couple from Canada diving, David and Jennifer, who were diving as well. They had some fun stories involving dry suits, whale sharks, the flu, and other things and places. Meeting people like that is always fun. The dive community is a great group plus friendly and welcoming to those with the same interest. And it’s always fun to dive with new people who wont kick you in the face. So for prospective divers, we’re nice and fun…

I Got Lazy

I know there was no post yesterday. It was mainly because I was so depressed that I didn't get to go diving. I was doing course work instead for the Rescue Diver stuff. With better time management though between me and the instructor I definitely could have gone on at least one of the dives sigh. Jonah went diving all my himself and saw two turtles. He did claim that it was not as much without me though. Still we managed to have our first fight yesterday, impressive that we made it four days without one. I wont explain the details as he is the only person i know for sure who reads this blog. Let's talk about today instead.

This is a Trumpetfish

So today I went diving! Let's talk about trumpetfish. They are hilarious  and not only because they would make terrible trumpet players (they don't have the lips for it). They, like many other creatures attempt to camouflage. They're method is hiding in soft coral which sways in the current. So they make themselves vertical and hope that no one will see them...It doesn't work. That made me laugh on the first dive. The second dive was a little more stressful as there were more people, many of whom I had not dove with before. This worries me because it increases the likelihood I take a fin to the face. We saw some cool little slugs, spotted drums, and a giant barracuda. Communication is really difficult underwater. So I tried to signal to Jonah that it was a spotted drum. The sign is to play the drums (probably snare). He thought I was riding a horse and started looking for a seahorse. Sigh I need to get a dive slate.
I passed the written rescue diver exam. Yay! The only thing left is do some actual rescuing scenarios...oh shit!
Parents came in today and Jonesy and I had dinner with them. There is no such thing as a serious conversation in this family. I try to tell them about caecilians, pronounced sicilian, and my dad starts humming the theme from the godfather. Insufferable!

Caecilian, pronounced like the Italian people (only much more gross and slimy)

That's just one example. Shrubberies, Notlob, and many other things came up. Bonus points to those who understand those jokes. It was fun, i guess parents can be ok to have around, assuming you don't see tooooo much of them.
Bonus picture:

silky anteater, absolutely adorable and so pocket sized

Note, none of these pictures were taken by me, credit to wikipedia.

Dive Another Day

5 points to whoever guesses what Jonah and I did today. Those who guessed braided each other's hair are incorrect. You should have guessed that we went diving. I was too tired (lazy) to get up for the morning chorus today, so Jonah and I got up around 8:15, went to breakfast, and then went to the dive shop. I arranged for the rescue diver course. Apparently it will own my soul for the rest of my stay. I'm ok with that though. The guy I talked too had a distinct and familiar accent. So during the course of things I asked where he was from all ready to talk about my semester down in Tassie and how I dove in Cairns. Turns out he was English, not Aussie, so I didn't really have anything to say about that. Awkward...

Random Picture of Dive Shop Sign, sorry no good new pics today

Then we hopped on the trusty boat, and before we knew it were in the water. And there was this giant fish and I knew it was a shark! Except it was actually a tarpon which is definitely not a shark. So I kind of felt foolish after frantically signing shark. We did see a giant barracuda, which was chasing a small clown fish that had only one good fin. Then a different scuba diver came and captured the clown fish and went away to Australia with it! Right at the end I also found a really cool eel that we watched move around. I later commented to Jonah, "it was so cool! especially how we saw it moved exactly like it does on land!" He replied, "you mean flop around and die?" he has a point
Second Dive! The second dive was definitely another dive. We saw a turtle from afar, and there was another scorpion fish. There were lots of other fish (no tarpon (or sharks)) that I wont list because few people reading this actually know or care about the difference between an angelfish and a butterflyfish. At the end of the dive Jonah is the first one to the ladder, and promptly announces that he dropped his weight belt.

How we responded upon hearing about the belt

Foolish brother, sigh. I went down and grabbed it for him because I'm so nice and sweet. On the way up I saw a school of needlefish that no one else did, so I guess being a hero also has a payoff. I then spent much of the rest of the day reading the Rescue Diver Manual and being surrounded by Ruddy Turnstones as I did so. They're this absolutely fearless little plover. They literally did all but walk on me as I was reading. Anyway, Yay Work!

Birding in the Rain

So Jonah learned an important lesson today. We should make sure that all our activities are done through the Inn for reasonable prices. We kind of got ripped off, but that's ok. Also it probably would have been better organized. As we were walking by some guy invited us to do a birdwalk at a sanctuary. Jonah was all for it while I was simply quiet. Then I started whining that this would make us miss lunch. He didn't care. So we got on a glass-bottom boat and rode out there. Glass-bottom boats are pretty cool, you can see the reef below you. The magic was probably a little lost on us because rather than looking down on the reef we had been in the reef mere hours before. Anyway we get to the island sanctuary place and see a bird right off the bat: chickens. domesticated chickens. as we started scaling a hill we saw another bird or two and even a flicker of a gecko before it hid (for those counting that's birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, as well as tons of inverts in one day). Then we found a Tropicbird

It's baby is underneath. No you cannot see it

This island was a sanctuary for them, which was quite nice. When we went to a different point and were able to see a lot of them flying around a little cove. It turns out that these birds are quite graceful in the air, soaring and swooping, but are terrible on land. We're talking worse than ducks, worse than even penguins. I had a video of one trying to walk, but the internet is evil and hates me. Their legs are too short to really walk so they kind of hop/scoot. It's pretty funny. I'll put the video on facebook soon. There some others birds like boobies and frigate-birds

This is a red-footed boobie, what did you think I was talking about?

Fun animals fact: frigate-birds are sometimes described as pirates. They steal food from the tropic birds and so earn the name. So that was fun, but it wasn't an unexciting walk. When we got the view of the boobie our guide looked up and said "looks like rain." With in seconds it started pooring on us. We survived, but where soaked. The weather in the tropics is even less predictable than Maine! So we survived and finished the walk...and found that there was no boat waiting for us. There had been snorkelers, so we assumed they'd get bored before we finished and be waiting for us...Nope. An hour or so later the boat shows up. Apparently someone got sick so they all headed back, and then had to come all the way back out to get us. It was pretty boring/annoying. Sigh. Then it was nap time. Long day and it wasn't even dinner time yet.

Morning Chorus...and DIVING

Today marks our first full day of adventure in Tobago. We did much more than sit on planes! We sat on boats! So my dear brother and I crashed pretty early yesterday because we were whipped from all the travel. I woke up somewhere around 5:30 am and was able to hear the dawn chorus starting. This is a birding term for all the birds getting up in the morning and making a shitton of noise.

5:58 AM, totally worth it

Being the curious lad I am, I got up to investigate who was around. Our main culprit was the bananaquit. No I did not make up that word. They're a tiny honey/fruit eating bird with no shame or fear of humans. They are colorful and very loud

What are you doing Bananaquit? That's a humming bird feeder! You're not even using it correctly!

So I saw plenty of those and much fun was had by me while wandering around. I wont list all the birds I found because most of you are relatively sane and don't want to hear about them. I also found a mammal (other than stray cats and dogs) an agouti! it's a nut/fruit eating South American rodent. I was excited about it ok. Jeeze, stop being so judgmental  Eventually I got my brother wake up (14 minutes before we needed to get to the dive shop), and we went to the dive shop. Then we went diving. Jonah nearly hit me I so was vocally excited. He found me tiresome...

Diving is the best. it is so much fun. we saw tons of fish. damselfish, angelfish, parrotfish, wrasse, triggerfish, a scorpionfish, and that was the first, weaker dive. The second one was even more exciting. We also had company in the form of four very new divers...they were not great with the not crashing into people thing, but one found a green moray so i forgive him. We persevered nonetheless and it was a great dive. We also saw giant spiny lobsters, a massive turtle with exactly 13 inner plates (if you didn't read the Australia blog, i mentioned all turtles and tortoises have 13 inner plates). I also thought I saw an octopus...but realized that either it was an amputated and aware tentacle, or it was a worm. It was a bearded fireworm. For those wondering, it looks like an octopus tentacle. Later on we actually did see an octopus. It was amazingly camouflaged, but once you saw it, it became clear. Still it attempted to maintain the facade of being invisible. It kept opening an eye to check on us. I imagined it's inner monologue going something like "they can't see me, no they cannont. now piss off....are they still there...yes. DAMN close eye fast...but they can't see me..." for about two minutes. Great start to the day, and got right back into diving, not too rusty. the afternoon adventures forthcoming with more pictures and maybe a video

Planes and Ghost Fish

So the blog is back for a limited time only. Both my avid readers will be delighted. I am no longer in Tasmania, or even in Australia. This adventure finds my brother and I stranded in Tobago, miles away from civilization. Seriously, we're pretty remote hear. But I'll get to that.
Today we woke up so early that it really counted as very late (4:00 am). We got to JFK and were shocked that there was pretty rigorous scheduling for Caribbean Airlines.

There is a hummingbird on a the tail

You think they'd be all about Island Time. Turns out the scheduling was all for show. Our plane took off really late. Yay. Not great organization by the airlines. ANYWAY, the flight was pretty painless, kind of dozing and listening to music the entire time. Then our family split ways. My parents went off on a wild adventure to go birding. My brother and I were hopping on another plane to get to Tobago. There was quite a layover for our twenty minute flight. Literally twenty minutes; they didn't even let us take our seat belts off. I took a picture of the sunset when we got off the plane...and got yelled at. Something about taking photos at airports

So now you can all see the details of Tobago's airport secrets!

So we then get in a car and ride for an hour and a half into "the country," which you can kind of read as the middle of nowhere on the more remote island of a small island nation. It took that long because it was long and windy the entire way. This windiness made Jonah almost throw up in the back of the car. He survived, but thought it was worth mentioning. We checked in and everything went swimmingly, except we didn't actually go into the water yet. diving starts tomorrow. yes i'm too excited for words so I wont even try. I did have my first animal experience of the trip. I was walking out on the dock around 7:45, and suddenly I see movement in front of me. The place is literally crawling with crabs. They were about as brave and aggressive as sir Robin. And it was dark so pictures yet. I'll work on that. Also check facebook for more.
So ghost fish. There are lights in the water by the dock probably to help them when they're setting up for night dives. I don't think there were any tonight, but as i was having fun chasing crabs I saw that there were things swimming in the water. These things were fish...duh. But they all had a kind of whitish hue because of the green back light and moved too quickly for me to identify any of them. Thus they are ghost fish. Hopefully I'll have more and better stories/pictures as the week continues

The End: Back Home Again

I made it back to new York and at home. Let's talk about the journey. Sydney to LAX. I was in a middle seat. YAY. One side was a girl with a few extra kilos, and the other looked like some large ex rugby player. So plenty of room right. Did I mention that a little kid kicking my seat throughout the whole ride. I just watched a ton of movies, like The Mulpets (still in love with Amy Adams) Johnny English Reborn, A Fish Called Wanda, tons of TV. Survived it From LAX I then caught the flight to JFK. Slept through most of it, ignoring the upset child four seats away. Apparently it couldnt not sit in its father' lap without crying. We landed without any problems, then sat on the runway for thirty minutes. YAY. Then got to baggage claim. It got jammed )possibly due in small part to my bag. Got that and finally got home. Things have changed. My mom claimed a new room as her secret lair (office/study), someone tried to clean my room, which was horrible! Anyway back home, so the blog is done. Thanks for reading. I have a lot of great memories and new friends. It's been awesome Bye

Longest Post Ever, Diving Abridged

Seriously this is the short version of my diving Day 1: I got up around 5:30 or half five as they say here. I was the first picked up in our van. Our driver was named Rocky, a German? woman, at least she taught the course in German. They brought us to the dive shop and had people check their bags get gear, etc. then we got on a boat. We eventually got on to the boat, then we were introduced to the crew and watched a video on safety. I was trying to play the game Spot the Aussie. It was very difficult, the largest group was of British decent, with one guy who sounded exactly like Wallace of Wallace and Gromit. There was also a Dutch contingent, and a Swiss family. The ride out to the first site was about three hours. We had a briefing about it and then hopped in. Five of us elected to not go with a leader. We saw sharks, and tons of fish, but sharks. Found Nemo on the second dive, a ray on the third dive, and then there was the night dive. Again five people elected to not go with a leader. They let me lead for some reason...saw a shark and moray right off the bat...then I kind of went over the reef than around it......whoops. People were a little annoyed. Throughout the day I felt progressively worse. The first dive had killed my ears a bit, and by the end I was sure I would pop and eardrum and not be able to fly home. Early bedtime due to exhaustion of four dives in a day, about twice that of a normal dive day Day 2: Early wake up, but I felt miraculously healed from the sleep. There was something absurd and fantastic on every dive, but I think the highlight would be swimming with a turtle. It was very large and essentially just ignored me as I swam with it for a minute or two. Another cool thing was the night dive. We were looking for this giant turtle, which we did not find. At one point I kicked the sand, and looked down to see a thin eel burying itself in the ground. I later found out it was, appropriately for Australia, called the convict eel. I so saw a group of razorfish, which are cool in the fact that they swim vertically and moved as a group, would get scared as a group, would probably do everything as a group. Finally, right before our ascent, we saw a parrotfish in a bubble. Parrotfish form a mucus bubble around themselves when they sleep which holds in their scent do they can't be found. I had never seen one before, it was awesome. Even earlier bed time due to more exhaustion from another four dive day Day 3: Early morning, and then what I refer to as the dawn dive. We saw the biggest parrotfish imaginable, along with a couple sharks that hadn't woken up yet. I also kind of kept getting a little too close and scaring annoying them. They tended to be white-tip reef sharks, not dangerous, but still quite cool. Of course there were tons of other cool fish and such,  just like in every other dive. On the next and last two dives the big things were the enormous turtles that essentially just ignored us or tried to swim away. Right at the end of the last dive, boom giant turtle. Nice way to end the last dive. Then we had to travel back...you could say it was a bit of a bumpy ride. That would be an understatement. One instructor (Rocky) went to bed before it even started because she knew otherwise she would get sick. James, the cook, was taking inventory and a stack of bowls fell and broke. The fridge with all the soda burst open and there were cans all over place. This was despite a bungee chord keeping it closed. Also the two little Swedish girls had to run to the back of the boat. I felt a little bad for them. Another guy literally turned green. I went up to the top of the boat so I could enjoy the rollercoaster to the fullest. Twas fun. Got dropped off, ended up back at the dive shop and then was finally dropped off at hotel. My hair was in such bad condition after 8+ hours of saltwater in three days with no real showers, that I used conditioner, yes conditioner. Don't be alarmed, I survived. Now it's time to start to travel home. Sydney tomorrow, home the next "day"

Sad Times

Sigh, this gets harder to write as I've moved from an iPad to an iPhone as my tool of typing. I have a few days to catch up on. The is full day two in country Victoria. We didn't really have any plans, but Jes' mom suggested that we go see a movie. We went to see Brave. I was a bit worried it wouldn't be that good, a bit of a miss. I was wrong, it was pretty fantastic. Very funny and well done. Even the less Disney crazed Nason enjoyed it. That was the major event of the day, the rest was spent relaxing and wasting time. We also watched episode 3 of Hamish and Andy's Euro gap year. I cannot recommend it highly enough, nor the American gap year. Very silly.
The next day was very sad, very very sad. I left Castlemaine by train. I want to go diving, but it's sad to leave people you won't see for a long time. So two flights: Melbourne to Brisbane, on which the Melbourne Footy team accompanied us. And then Briabane to Cairns, same flight. I also sat next to the same people of both flight. We didn't talk...I'm not good at meeting new people in planes and trains. Got to hotel, which was ok, not as nice as I had hoped. Probably should have stayed at a Holiday Inn. I just plan not to spend too much time there, more exploring. For example, I went to the night market last night, similar to the night market anywhere, only no real haggling. Today is for exploring, then tomorrow morning diving begins.
Also Jes officially has no horses, I was at her place for days and didn't see them, thus they do not exist

We're Going to the Zoo

Jason's method of trying to indicate that I do not really study real classes is cheering "we're going to the zoo" accompanied by excited hand gestures. For some reason he thought I would be ashamed or upset by this, that's obviously completely erronious. So we went to the zoo today. We being Jes, Jason, Me, and the Twins. It was quite entertaining, and I think that we saw literally every animal in the zoo, including the lions twice. Yes there were a bunch of useless children running around making annoying noises, accompanied by even more useless parents. Still, other than judging them, we were able to deal with them unscathed. Lets think about some highlights. I finally saw a platypus. It was pretty dark because they're nocturnal, so all my attempted photos came out absolutely useless. We pet a friendly wombat, though it was not a wild one. It did look like it was trying to escape, but it gave up. Plus it wasn't small enough for us to smuggle it out. The small cats also decided to show us a lot of teeth, possibly hissing at us, when we went past the first railing and right up to the cage. It did make for a good picture though. There was a point at which I was left responsible for Claire because we were both looking at something for too long. It took ages and a phonecall to regroup. Also the otters were adorable. Anyway, yay animals After dinner we watched How to Train your Dragon (not in 3D which I still must do). It was pretty good, but I was a little distracted by the voice actors. Mainly I didn't like a number of them, but they didn't take away from it and it was a lot of fun. I did like the Norse Mythology references. More Fun Times In other news, the potentially evil cat ended up on my lap during the movie. While it was cute, it was very limiting. It also had a tendency to dig its claws into my pant legs, dangerously close to breaking skin. Then I got up and before I sat back down the chair was claimed. Jason asked me how it felt to be whipped by a cat

Leaving Fisher Forever?

Today I left Fisher, Utas, and Tasmania as a whole. I am now lying on a couch in Jes' house watching Hamish and Andy with Jes and Jason. I woke up early today, my head not feeling quite perfect after a night out with the Pharmy Army at Soho. The packing and cleaning took a while. This was literally the fist time I had vaccuumed my room in over four months. Of course Admin closed at the second I wanted to check out, but we worked around it. I found that there were ten balloons still clinging to life under my bed. I mercilously popped all of them. So long memories and pranks. Zander was sitting in the common room and was given lots of things that I wasn't bringing along. Finally everything was done, breakfast/lunch was eaten (cake and apple-juice). Then there were the goodbyes, some of which have been occuring over the past few days, some of which have not happened at all cough cough Bruce, Smithy, Shani, etc. And that was it. Drove off to the airport and then got on a plane. Plane was not exciting, tried to sleep but didn't really succeed. Got off the plane, got on a bus, then got subway and went on a train (not the subway). Jes, who was my lovely traveling companion for the day, was so interested in meeting our companions onthe train, she sleep kicked some guys chair. Unfortunately he turned out to be a grumpy old man who proceeded to evil eye us at every opportunity. Our talking and muttering about him may have added to that. Otherwise it was a rather uneventful ride. We got picked up by Jason and the rest of Jes' family. Antics have ensued. Jes has two cats. Jason says they are evil, i'm inclined to agree. She also has three siblings, they may or may not be evil as well. Tomorrow to the zoo, hopefully lots of fun stories for fun check out: http://textfromdog.tumblr.com/ also, technically TZ in Tas is done because i'm not in Tassie anymore, but I'll keep blogging until I get home

Fun with Exams

Just because exams seem to be the most horrible time ever created, one in which many students break down into little sobbing balls of despair, doesn't mean that you can't have a little fun with them. I certainly tried to, with some coaxing and encouragement on the part of the pharmy army
On my animals exam we had the question of why the Strong-billed Honey Eater (enedemic to tasmania) had evolved to have a beak designed for ripping and probing bark of eucalyptice trees for food rather feeding in the foliage as similar species on the mainland do. Actual answer: no Tree Creepers in Tassie, on the mainland they rip and probe the bark. their abscene from Tassie leaves an open niche. I then wrote after the exam under a section clearly indicated: for your enjoyment do not mark: it is because of the koalas. Koalas like Eucalyptice trees and get really pissed off when anything else tries to damage or feed from them. During the 45 minute a day they are awake, the koalas throw nuts and small branches at the honey-eaters, effectively stopping them from being able to tear and probe. Because there are no Koalas in Tassie, they can damage the trees. We also had a question about the yearly life cycle of an echidna. i wrote: they sleep, and then they sleep around.
In my plants exam earlier today i was talking about bacteria and plants working in symbiosis. i explained that most bacteria are bad for plants and that letting them enter the plant is bad. I went on to say "it was like letting the proverbial bull into the teashop, only imagine this bull had been insulted by a teapot in its youth and had then sworn a vendetta against all similar dining ware." It's a little forced, but I enjoyed writing it so stop complaining.
I also drew a diargram about flowering and had to draw a flower in it. Part of the diagram was rather unrecognizable so I drew an arrow and indicated that it was a "pretty flower."
So exams aren't complete toture...always

My New Haircut

I finished my exams today and decided to celebrate by relaxing. Unlike many people this did not involve alcohol. I finally got a haircut. I have not had a haircut in five months. The last time I did it was the infamous incident in which an unprepared Elsa started cutting my hair without the implements to finish. Jon Ryss had to clean up the mess. So lets tell this story
Those looking at me may assume that I was attacked by a pair of scissors. That is pretty close to what happened. The hair is certainly shorter, but it may not be even. Jes had volunteered ages ago to preform the duties, so I politely obliged. As the haircut went on my confidence started to dwindle. It was mainly because of comments like this: "you can show Jason and then he'll let me cut his hair. He says he'd rather have his dad sheer him." "I've cut my horses hair, Ziggy's, and my cats." "Your hair is really think here so I can't tell if I'm cutting it or skin." "After some cuts I feel like 'wow, there's a lot of skin'" and her final pronouncement on it, "its not THAT bad." She's right, its not that bad. Certainly much better than having curly hair. No one will even notice that its uneven in a week or two...I hope

Another Adventure or Two

I went running again yesterday, and that in itself is always an adventure. I went back to nutgrove and stopped to watch the birds, definitely not because I was wanted a break. I was staring at the corellas and rosellas and this guy was changing his tire. He struck up a conversation about how incredible and beautiful the animals were, and I pretended not to know tons about birds and bird watching to be polite. The conversation actually ended up moving on to how humans were going to wipe themselves off the planet earth. There was a method connecting the two topics, but i don't really remember what it was. Anyway, that made it an interesting run, and then i saw another cool bird on the way back, Nick Bird.
Today was my first exam and last night I was done studying, so Jes turned on a disney documentary on African Cats narrated by Samuel Jackson. it was awesome. then the credits came on and it was hilarious. it put up little videos of animals and had captions saying their role in the movie production. Secretary Bird: script editor, Black Rhino: security. Stealer of our Hearts: baby elephant. There were many more, it was awesome. Good way to decompress before an exam.
I passed the exam, of that I have no doubt. I knew the answers to all the questions, though the first one was a bit sketchy and I got the diet of the bettong partially incorrect. The rest was pretty simple, I had studied enough yay. Then I became a bum for the rest of the day. it is as good as it sounds

Catching Up a Bit

I haven't checked in a while for a couple reasons. no computer, not too much has actually happened, and mostly i'm just lazy.
Let's get this out of the way. I hereby pronounce Jason the winner of the prank war. Balloons were the last and greatest prank. there, i said it, let's move on
Flaming Red Frogs. Let me explain that phrase, the Red Frogs were a group that came in during the beggining on reading week and made us pancakes for dinner. It. Was. AWESOME. they came in distracted us and gave us food. How could anyone ever complain about that. Wait a minute, there is one thing I can complain about. The second day they came a few of us where in the common room when they arrived. They started to turn on all their things and the ever prepared fire warden Jes Short said, "make sure you watch out for the smoke detector." before she finished the sentence the fire alarm went off. We still had to stand outside and wait for the fire department. Then we had pancakes. The first day we were there Robin Hood Men in Tights was playing and I have a depressing confession. Tess and Lisa actually new the movie better than I did. I never thought I would say that about someone not in my family, but hats off to then. Anyway, as always it was hilarious, better than Silver Brumby or Silver Bambi, whatever Jes made us watch before it. I just started watching mel brooks clips on youtube, i may be here a while. anyway, i've also booked everything to travel around after school, can't wait. i'll also be done with exams, yay. as of now i haven't started yet.
Also I'm back to running. Not as much as mid season in shape, but more than nothing. Today on my run I stopped about halfway in to do some bird watching. I saw a bunch of eastern rosellas and heard sqwauking from across a field. i ran over to investigate/see the cockatoos i was sure were there. I was mistaken, instead I found long-billed corellas. This was cool because i had never seen them in the wild before. Also a couple had flipped upside down on a branch and where just hanging and making noise. it was quite silly. I had heard of galah's doing that but never seen it. now i have. I also saw a Galah, but he was just sitting around all fluffed up.
by the way congrats to everyone who graduated, both from Hackley and Bowdoin.

Fire!!!

It should come as a shock that a place filled withef adults should have trouble with people not knowing how to use a microwave. Sadly, at this point it is all but expected. Sunday night I was taking a long, pleasant shower, when I herd the faint rings of the fire alarm. I was done showering, I needed another few minutes, but no I had troop back to my room and get some clothes to face the damp dark night. Paddy and James had a performance that night and after they returned a number of people decided to drink a lot in Schmidty's too (apparently he was only informed when they invaded his room). There are four fire wardens in Fisher. A floor Kat: drunk, B floor: Schmidt also intoxicated, C floor: Jes asleep but ready to don her helmet, D floor: Hayley not at Fisher. So a nice safe environment right? When I left the shower and walked down the hall, I found myself shrouded a mysterious mist, adding excitement and adventure to the night. What that previous sentence means is that the hall was filled with smoke. When they let us back in the building, later investigation showed that the C floor microwave was destroyed. Some genius had decided it was a good idea to put a plastic bowl of soup with bread in the microwave and leave it on for a couple of hours. The bread was a stick of charcoal that had melted the side of the bowl. Luckily nothing spilled because all the liquid ha evaporated. There's a camera in the kitchen so the villains will be caught...I have little pity, they ruined my shower!

Late Night Antics

There were a few barrels this Friday evening. I chose not to attend, citing killing myself last weekend, the weather, and really any other excuse I could think of. This did not mean I went to bed early or anything, of course not. That would be unthinkable. With that in mind I was up and about when some people started to trickle back in...drunk. There was some comedy, Ira and I played super smash and he did suprisingly well for being drunk off his ass. Birdy and Julio actually had to carry someone back, which is pretty impressive. But the best moment came when Lisa got back. She held a bag from McDonalds. The drunk people flocked to her. Being the generous person she is, she handed over her fries to Ziggy. She looks away for a second, and Ziggy takes this time not to eat all of them, not even to eat one of them. He threw the bag like a grenade down the hall way. Lisa was less than pleased.
Ira had lost track of Zander last night, and I saw him this morning. He explained that he had spent the night sleeping in a private garden somewhere in Sandy Bay. Being too tired to make it home to his bed, he slept in a flower bed. I am so funny
Other fun stuff, went for a run today for the first time in ages. i also missed the rain by about 30 minutes, perfect timing. Time to start getting back in shape. woo.
also, go hawthorne, won by over 100 points today!

Moving Moving Moving

So its been a little while so my last post, and there are a couple reasons for that, mainly computer problems. Most of this post is from collective memories rather than any one person.
So Sunday was the legendary Fisher event known as the Move. It is meant to celebrate the end of the rugby season, as well be one last hurrah before everyone buckled for exams. It had everyone, violence, nudity, and alcohol. One of the reasons that alcohol became quite a problem was Ziggy brought tape, so may people decided it would be a great idea to create wizard staffs. The goal then became to get them over their head. Ira succeeded in hitting the ceiling. After this, much of the night became a blur for many people. The lifers won the boat race as usual. There was cider, but that didn't last too long. The nudity came in many forms, mainly the most memorable of which was Bruce, and his performance. Maybe the funniest story involves Brady (our sometimes Rugby Coach). He challenged the boys to try to take him down, and stop him running. Everyone got revved up to do it...Then he took off all his clothes...Everybody walked off.
The violence involved the freshers trying to run across the rugby pitch as everyone else tried to stop them. I was stopped by Tess and I believe Zankee took upon himself to do so as well, ripping my jeans in the process. For some reason some of the girls tried planking, so Jason and I had to show them how idiotic they looked. Jes also tried to feed a flower to a possum, with limited to no results. There is much more from the night, but I have neither the time nor the memory to put it here
Disaster struck the next morning when I woke up. I found my laptop soaking wet with water. I must have spilled my water bottle on it. It has not come back to life since. Life sucks a bit. I've currently stolen Jason's laptop. his N key barely works. Anyway, lessons learned: no more wizard staffs, drink less, stay away from electronics when drunk.
Also, no pictures are suitable to be posted on this blog