Not All Who Wander are Lost

Zebra

2011-07-14T15:30:00.000-07:00

Preview to Masai Mara

2011-07-14T14:57:00.000-07:00

Masai Mara: Hilarious photo of zebras staring at a sleeping lion either too scared to move or wondering if he's going to come hunting after them. In my personal opinion, this particular group of zebras may not have been the sharpest in the migration.

Moi University Medical Student Hostel

2011-06-19T10:07:00.000-07:00

Finally some photos of the hostel! I have to take pictures of the bathroom tho. No comment on these, you can feel free to form your own opinions. Honestly though, I love living there bed bugs and communal bathrooms and all. Hanging out with the Kenyan medical students has been a great experience and it feels like there is always something going on. It's like being a freshman in the dorms again!

Street Children's Parade

2011-06-16T08:08:00.000-07:00

This past weekend, instead of going white water rafting in Uganda like many others in the group, I decided to spend the weekend hanging out in Eldoret to get to know the city a bit better. Friday some of us went out for Indian food at a restaurant in town that was excellent. I have to say that Indian food in Kenya is definitely better than places in the US (except my mom's house of course!).

After, I headed back to the hostel, and met some more Kenyan medical students. My roommate Soshana wanted to go into town to pick up some food but somehow they talked us into going out to a club with them. The club is called Spree and I have to say that it is a really fun place. They play mixture of hip-hop, dance, pop, and popular Kenyan dance music. The Kenyan medical students definitely know how to have fun around here, and I would say that they go out more than us in the US.

One of the coolest things that I have done in Eldoret so far is the Street Children's Parade that I went to on Saturday. We met up with a group of people that was a combination of many street children, people who work with them, and other local groups that walked from the town hall of Eldoret to a children rescue center that was approximately a 45-minute walk away. The entire way I talked to a girl named Faith who lives at a boarding school that takes in children who have nowhere else to go and provides them with a safe place to live and an education. She was very sweet and was one of the students presenting at the program they had at the rescue center.

I thought it was a great experience overall, but they were many many street children who came which is not a happy sight. There are various social programs set up in Eldoret, but they don't provide them with as stable of a home that children need to grow up unfortunately.

That night, I had dinner at IU house that a bunch of us put together, but to be honest I mostly played with Dr. Stone's baby Gavin who is ridiculously adorable :)

Hope everyone is well! Love from Kenya

Don't Let the Bed Bugs Bite!

2011-06-08T11:17:00.000-07:00

On Monday, we moved from the amazing IU House to the MUSOM Student Hostel. I was actually excited about getting to know some of the medical students on my team better and living there would give me the opportunity to go into the hospital during the evening to help admit patients and to check up on some of the ones that I follow.

That night actually was an interesting experience. Getting acclimated to a room that is about 5 feet by 7 feet that two people have to live in is something very different from what we experience in the US. Also, the communal bathrooms.... they are something else I guess. The one on the second floor is the one I went to first and I became very worried about the rest of my time there, but I soon found out from some of the other students that the the bathroom on the fourth floor is much better. And trust me, after seeing the standing brown water and smelling the 2nd floor bathroom three doors away, I don't mind the 3 flights of stairs multiple times a day. I truly am excited about living there though. I've already gotten to know some of the medical students and I hung out with one of the 4th year students (= MS2) for an hour in her room.

Well, right before falling asleep, Sashana (2nd year Slemenda Scholar and my roommate) told me that she saw two little bugs in her bed that are "longer than they are wide." At this point, I had been studying on my bed for the past hour so I decided that it was late and I was going to sleep in that bed regardless. Needless to say, I woke up with bites on my legs from presumed bed bugs. So they moved us back to IU House while they fumigate our room with something that is illegal in the US. Luckily, I didn't unpack anything so I don't have to boil/throw away all my clothes.

I am definitely having culture shock on the wards. More so than outside of the hospital. Things just work very different here and I'm still getting used to some (no pretty much all) of the intricacies of maneuvering the medical system at Moi. I have also seen some interesting cases that I never thought I would see outside of my pathology book. This includes multiple cases of miliary TB, rheumatic heart disease, TB meningitis, aortic insufficiency with infective endocarditis, and possible neuroleptic malignant syndrome (and so much more that I can't even think of right now). I will try to post some interesting cases/physical findings as I come across them but i will have to wait until I find a way to black out eyes in videos/pictures.

Dr. Mackenzie Lupov using a mercury blood pressure cuff :) (Her blog that is much more informative than mine: http://mackenzielupov.blogspot.com/)

Eldoret, Kenya

2011-06-07T09:07:00.000-07:00

So I’ve been meaning to post in my blog ever since I got to Kenya, but unfortunately, the internet hasn’t been working so I’ve been saving up a lot of stuff to post.

I’ve currently in Eldoret, Kenya doing a medical student exchange program through the IU-Kenya program. (Link: http://www.iukenya.org/mission.html ) Essentially, I’m here for 2 months working on the inpatient wards at Moi University School of Medicine (MUSOM) and working with the Kenyan medical students. I’m going to be living at the MUSOM student hostel (I moved in and then moved out because of something unfortunate that I will go into shortly).

So much has happened; honestly I don’t know where to begin. This is what I get for procrastinating as usual.

The first week, I pretty much spent traveling around with my parents, which was a lot of fun. Amazingly, we didn't fight to much, but I would say that after 5 days of safaris I felt very exhausted. I might try to do some catch-up posts on that, but mostly, I will just post some pictures.

I got to Eldoret and found out that I would be staying at the IU house until all of the medical students got here so that we could all move over together. Now that I've been to the hostel, I will make sure to give you some great photos of the way that the students in Kenya live... definitely very different from us.

Today was a bad day for me, but rather than starting my blog with a depressing story, I think I'm going to think about it overnight and get back to it.

So instead, I'll leave you with a cute picture of baby lions:

La Brigada

2011-01-31T22:29:00.000-08:00

Today was our first day of medical brigades, and according to Dr. Sevilla, it was the healthiest community that we will encounter during this week. This is mostly d/t the fact that they are only a 45 minute drive to the closest “city.” Many of the communities that we will be visiting are much more secluded with an even decreased access to health care in comparison.

Driving up the mountain, one of the most poignant pictures is of the garbage dump covered in scavengers, both human and vulture picking through the discards of the larger towns below in hopes of finding valuables. The smell of course assaults you, but I feel that the continual presence of this is a much more memorable image. Although, many have tried to move the “basurero” away from the small town, much of the efforts have been met with pure apathy.

In the town, fortunately, many of the other public health efforts have been successful. The majority of the residents of the town have chimneys instead of stoves so that the smoke of their cooking fires billows outside rather than into their homes and their lungs. The improvement in the health of these families has been substantial as they have seen a dramatic decrease in morbidities such as asthma and COPD. Additionally, there has been a significant decrease in the carbon monoxide poisoning seen.

One patient I had sticks to my mind tonight. She was an 80-year-old woman who came in due to a cough that she had had for years and pain in her bones (“dolor de los huesos.”) With her simply attempting to walk in, it was obvious that something was very wrong. Her protuberant belly preceded her as she was guided toward our small little station in the loud classroom. The cough she had had for years, but what bothered her most was the pain in her bones. As much as I attempted to redirect her toward her cough she had for years or her history of ovarian cancer, my attempts were futile as she continually insisted that the other brigade had checked her out and she was “fine.” Soon enough, as much as I attempted to speak to her and offer some sort of treatment for her bone pain in hopes of delving deeper into the root of her problems (recurrent ovarian cancer? Carcinomatous TB?), she left. Even now, I am left with the question of what could I have done differently and how has the discontinuity of care between the multiple brigade groups entering this community has affected the long-term outcome of her health. It is completely unclear to me why they decided that she was "fine," and what sort of tools they used. Did they ultrasound her belly? Did they perform a PPD? Sometimes, you feel like there is only so much you can do.... and it makes you feel a little small.

2011-01-30T12:08:00.000-08:00

Honduras

2011-01-08T22:35:00.000-08:00

Going to Honduras for my Family Medicine Rotation through the ENLACE program! 1 week brigade and 3 weeks in Tegucigalpa! Can't wait :)

2009-08-01T20:28:00.000-07:00

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New Summer Plans!

2009-04-19T22:20:00.001-07:00

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Brigadas! (Tropical Medicine Community Trips)

2008-03-27T12:38:00.000-07:00

Today has been the best clinical week in my opinion. We're traveling with the public health teams here in Puerto Escondido to outlying communities to learn about the programs that are being undertaken in Oaxaca to reduce the numbers of Malaria and Dengue. Since the program was started in 1999, the number of malaria cases in this region has gone down from 20,000 to 250. Seriously remarkable!

Mexico has one of the most extensive public health programs in the world. In this state alone of Oaxaca, they employ more than 3000 workers not including the administration and coordination officers.

We followed officers who work with the initiative called Patio Limpio. In this program, the officers visit every house in the state to assess the cleanliness of the area to prevent tropical disease carried by arthropod vectors. This includes dengue (Aedes aegyptis - mosquito), malaria (Anopheles vivax - mosquito), and Chagas disease (triatomes).

Although the cases of malaria have decreased in the region, dengue is becoming more prevalent (ick). A. aegyptis likes to stick around the house so the cleanliness and lack of stagnant water is a huge deterrent to keeping these bugs away.

Monday - stayed at the Jurisdicción de Puerto Escondido to see the malaria laboratory that they have there. The lab techs identify the cases of malaria with microscopes using slides sent in by volunteers in the community. Each community has a "notificante." When someone is sick or has symptoms that could indicate malaria, they visit the notificate who takes a blood sample which is then sent to the lab to verify whether or not it was malaria. The interesting this is that the notificante gives a precautionary dose of chloroquine as soon as the symptoms are suspicious and when the case is verified, the full dosage is given. They taught is how to identify malaria using the microscope and showed us the various stages of the parasite's life cycle. Not going to lie, it was kind of nice because the lab was air conditioned and it was the first time that I had been in air-conditioning while in Puerto Escondido.

Tuesday - One of the community workers took us to a small town called Tometal to show us a house that had cases of both dengue and malaria. They had also seen the bugs that transmit Chagas in their home, but luckily no one had been infected. The reason that I like this week is that we get the chance to talk to the people in the communities to ask them what they think of the program and the services available to them. The officer who took us out into the country was really nice and decide to give us a mini-tour. He took us to buy watermelon where I got a bunch of mangoes for free because there are so many that they can't get rid of them and don't eat them... (no way!!!) anyways, he also took us to see some iguanas or something (random) and to a point that is a great lookout over Puerto and has some religious memorials.

Wednesday - We went to learn about how they educate people on the Patio Limpio program. We went to a couple of houses with some of the officers here in Puerto. It was interesting because in the first house we went to we found A. aegyptis larva inside of a water feeder for one of their roosters that they forgot was there. There were also some in the water tank that they use to conserve water. In many parts of Oaxaca, they only get water one day a week. Therefore, people save it in tanks. Well, of course this is the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes if it isn't kept clean or treated. They rate each of the houses according to how well they follow the plan. When they find a house that has problems they always return within one to one and a half months to check up on how well they are following the suggestions. They don't tell people when they're going to return because they want them to do it all the time and not only when the health officers come. Afterwards, we went out into the country again because after there has a been a case of dengue or malaria they spray insecticide as a ring around the house so that those mosquitoes that carry the disease can't spread. They told me that they used to spray everything but it wasn't working very well which is when they decided to start community capacity building programs instead. Pretty awesome! Especially because the newer programs that involve the community have been much more effective.

Thursday - Today was a very awesome day. We went out to meet a woman that is the health capacitor of her small town of 120 people. She gets together with the women of the community to set up programs for the health of the families. It's amazing that in her town there have been no cases of malaria or dengue and none of the children are malnourished (not so in Puerto Escondido). She was a very cool lady and explained how she works to set things up for the community. While we were in the community, people were amazed that we had come from the US to their small farms pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We were like local celebrities. We got free bananas from the store (the best I've EVER had btw) and Aureliana made us a delicious lunch of chicken soup•. very, very fresh chicken soup!

Montezuma's Revenge

2008-03-20T12:36:00.000-07:00

Montezuma's Revenge is what is referred to by tourist's who visit México and experience stomach problems. The name is derived from Montezume III the ruler of the Aztez empire that was defeated by the Spanish conquitador Cortés.

Well, for the past 3 days, I've been feeling pretty cruddy. Haven't really done much other than lay around and feel nauseated. I'm starting to feel a little better right now so I think I'm going to go to the beach to hang out for a little while, but will probably take a taxi to get there.

Sigh... it stinks being sick.

Rave

2008-03-17T12:35:00.000-07:00

Went to an all night dance party last night... it was amazing. Amazing DJ, everyone dancing on the beach under the stars, fire spinners... what more could you ask for??? The atmosphere was so accepting and fun that no one had any inhibitions to dance. It was great to dance without worrying about all the people around you. I hope there's another one this week so we can go again and stay until dawn.

Mercado, un Rodeo, una Roca Blanca, y un Incendio

2008-03-09T12:31:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, we got up early in the morning to go to the market because Becky was leaving that afternoon and wanted to do some last-minute shopping. Rebecca and I went with Lori and Becky's host mom and sister. It was a lot of fun checking out the local market for all of the great food and handicrafts etc. One cool thing is that we went to two small stores next to the market to buy café and chocolate. I got some homemade chocolate that is very tasty and very very dark. It's great!

I fell asleep after getting back which was great to rest during the middle of the day. I took a much deserved siesta. That evening, I went with Lori and her host mom and sister to a Mayan wedding that they had heard about that was happening on the beach. It started one hour after they had said (of course) but it was pretty cool to see the beginning of it. The "novios" came in on a boat from the ocean and they were dressed in their wedding clothes which were beautiful. They did some prayers where they prayed to the Houses of the North, East, South, and West.

Suddenly, Marie Carmen decided that we should leave because of the dinner. It's a good thing we did because when we climbed back up from the beach there was a big fire with trucks and everything! It was pretty scary, but I wasn't so scared to not be able to snap some pictures. The brush around Playa Manzanillo is pretty dry, so I wasn't really that surprised that it was on fire. I'm glad that we left when we did though, because it could have been much scarier.

That night, Rebecca and I decided to go to the Rodeo which came to town. We didn't know that the tickets were going to be pretty expensive (well not really but $15 is a lot in Mexico!) but we found out that the rodeo was very long and that there was a concert afterwards by a pretty famous Cumbia band called La Apuesta. We really enjoyed it and I saw my first rodeo in Mexico and the first one that I remember clearly.

The next day we just relaxed around Puerto Escondido, and in the afternoon we went to a place called Roca Blanca that is another beach that is nearby. It was beautiful! Rebecca and I climbed some rocks to be able to get to a deserted beach on the other side which was awesome. Climbing over the rocks was kind of scary thought because I went on the water side which was dumb because the waves kept splashing into me. We just spent time with the family and enjoyed a nice time on the beach. Unfortunately, as soon as the sun began to set, the mosquitoes came out and in about 3 minutes gave me a ton of bites on my ankles :(

Urgencias

2008-03-07T18:07:00.000-08:00

Thursday and Friday I spent my time in the Sala de Urgencias (or the Emergency Room). I mostly shadowed the two interns that work there. They were both really nice; it was pretty cool to see how a smaller community emergency room works after working at the one by my house (in Munster, Indiana).

Thursday was pretty chill. It really wasn't that busy. The stuff that we saw was mostly stuff that you see on a normal basis in Mexico. Pregnancy, accidents, infections, etc. One thing that I saw that was pretty interesting was a woman came in with a relatively large mass in her breast. They weren't sure if it was a cyst or a tumor, but they won't know what it is until they do either a biopsy or an X-ray. Other than that there were a couple of women in labor, a bladder infection, and a broken leg.

Friday was VERY busy. First, I saw a woman who came in with labor pains whose baby had his umbilical cord wrapped around his head. They were examining her when suddenly an ambulance came in.

Two small brothers had been poisoned by what, they didn't know. I had never seen this before. It was very devastating to see two young boys so incredibly sick. I can't even fathom what the mother was going through to have both of her sons obviously struggling to even breathe. They were screaming in terror and pain, having trouble breathing, and salivating. They immediately took the smaller boy to the trauma room because he was in much worse condition, but the older boy (and by older I mean three years old) was simply taken to a regular emergency room bed without a monitor or anything like that.

I stayed with the older boy pretty much the entire time. He was absolute terrified (for obvious reason) and kept trying to remove his NG tube which could not have been comfortable at all. In some ways, they were not prepared for such an emergency. For example, the intern gave him the NG three different times because of various issues. There was also sanitation problems with not everyone wearing gloves all the time. Also, it kind of felt like there were too many doctors in the room. (Three attendings + two residents + two interns + many nurses), but overall, they did a good job. The boys were stabilized when I left. Mostly, I was just there to help with holding the young boys legs, making sure he got enough oxygen, talking to him to help calm him down, things like that. Pretty simple, but every little bit helps.

One of the residents was really great. When I told her that I was a student, she explained everything that was going on and when through the basic steps of doing a basic pediatric examination. She was from DF (Mexico City or Districto Federal) doing her four months of service at a rural hosp ital that is required of all residents in Mexico. I can tell that I am understand more Spanish all of the time, but it was very hard for me at times because people would ask me for stuff, but I wouldn't know what it was. Although I speak pretty fluently, there are many vocab words that I still need to learn especially medical ones. I learned that the hard way.

Oh, also here are some pictures of the hospital. I made sure that the faces of all the patients were covered or not visible in the pictures to maintain privacy although there aren't any laws that are actually enforced of the type in Mexico. I also made sure to ask consent first.

Atardecer maravilloso, Tortugas, y Playitas

2008-03-06T23:59:00.000-08:00

I decided to do the afternoon of today separate because we did something completely different, and then add the work at the hospital in the morning to the post tomorrow.

Today, after being at the hosp ital, Rebecca and I decided to go ahead and get lunch in Pochutla instead of riding back hungry to Puerto Escondido. Well, we went to a small taco place across the street from the hospital where we saw some of the doctors that we had shadowed. For only $1.50, I got two two chicken and onion tacos with tortillas made just for me, and two helpings of rice and beans. Amazingly delicious and very affordable.
Kind of on a whim, we decided to take a colectivo to a small beach town in between Pochutla and Puerto Escondido. A colectivo is a pickup truck that has a little canopy in the back with wooden benches. People pile into them to get to various places quickly and cheaply. You ride with all sorts of people from school children, vaqueros (cowboys), and little old ladies to chickens and construction tools. You just hop on a knock on the window when you get off and they tell you how much it cost. I'll have to take a picture of one before I leave.

Well, anyway we went to a turtle conservation aquarium where you can see various types of turtles native to Mexico. The little pueblito of Mazunte (pop. 450) used to be dependent on hunting turtles. This was outlawed in 1990 and various coop and sustainable development projects were started in the town to offset this huge blow to the towns economic stability. This turtle park brings in many tourists to the area which help the economy and bring more recognition to its amazing beaches and vistas.

We saw many kinds of turtles and even a seal. Apparently, this seal is a cold-water seal that somehow found its way to Mexico. It was found on a beach poor thing and they decided to bring him to the aquarium until they can figure out waht to do with him. He's just a little guy, but he seemed really confused of why he couldn't get out of his tank :( They had HUGE marine turtles and various kinds of desert turtles too (are those tortoises? not sure). They also some turtle babies to help in the conservation efforts. So cute!

We stopped by a natural cosmetic products coop that was created for the people in the town. They use natural and organic things found in the area and with help from the Body Shop they were able to create this great little store where you can get various products pretty inexpensively.

Then we walked to Playa Mazunte. I have to tell you that it is absolutely gorgeous. There are little cabanas lining the side of the beach, but other than that, it is very tranquil and beautiful. We enjoyed ourselves, rolled our hospital khakis up and got a little wet. We also got some snacks to enjoy on the beach as we laid on the rocks to dry off.

In Rebecca's Lonely Planet book, they talked of an awesome sunset spot called Punta Cometa. It is a 30 minute hike to the top, but it is so worth it. This adorable blackish-brown doggie came with us the whole way and made sure that we got there ^^ The forest there was kind of dry because it is the dry season, but it was nice see more green. There were also these HUGE cacti when we got to the top. We sat on Punta Cometa and watched the sunset. We didn't have a flashlight to get back so we left before we wanted to and as we were walking back the sunset just got better and better, but we made sure to turn around to get more pictures.

It was kind of an issue getting a colectivo back to the carretera (highway), but when we got there we chatted with a taxi driver until our bus got there. People in Mexico are jus so friendly. They love to talk to people and ask tons of questions. It's a great way to practice Spanish.

Got back at 9pm, had an awesome dinner cooked by our host mother.

All in all, an amazing day and definitely worth getting my khakis filthy!

Two New Lives

2008-03-05T20:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I saw my first baby being born! It was a caesarean section. One difference was that it was transverse instead of longitudinal. (That means they cut up and down instead of horizontally like they normally do in the US). It was pretty cool to see a baby being born. I was kind of standing somewhat far away because I don't have any medical school clinical experience and watching, but they were really good about letting me know what was going on and I could see pretty much everything. The other girl in my group got to help right there which is pretty cool. Maybe if I do something like this after my fourth year, I'll be able to do more hands-on stuff. Other than that, nothing very notable happened that I can remember.

Today, I saw a vaginal birth. Here, they pretty much cut an episiotomy for all of the births. This is contrary to what is common practice in the US. They used they used to do this before, but now they don't unless it is absolutely necessary. Well, in Mexico it is still common practice. To be honest, this was a really traumatic experience for me. Apparently, the woman was having a hard time pushing, but honestly, it wasn't that bad. The other girl in my program who is a 3rd resident said that she's seen much worse and probably could have done it with some coaching. Well, the anesthesiologist decided it would be a good idea to start pressing on the woman's stomach like compressions...... yeah not really that cool. It was pretty traumatic. And on top of that they cut a huge episiotomy. The baby was healthy though, and the woman seemed ok at the end, but still. Another thing that I saw was a spontaneous abortion where the doctor went in to scrape the uterus to make sure to remove everything. He let me aid with that so that was pretty cool.

I don't know if I mentioned that Pochutla is the farthest clinical site that we go to because it is 1 1/2 hour away by bus. It kind of stinks to have to walk 1/2 hour to the bus stop and ride for 1.5 hour and then do the same on the way back, but luckily we only do that this week. Other than that, I really like this hosp ital and wouldn't mind spending more time there.

Spanish class again. same time. This time we worked on subjuntive. I'm pretty rusty on some parts of it, so I'm glad that we're going over it again. It makes me think more about it when I speak and I want to get to the point again where I don't have to think about it.

Immediately after, we went to Restaurante Liza's which is the place that we've been going to pretty much every day at 5pm. It's really chill and the bartender Andrés is a really good guy. Apparently, he's a hardcore firefighter in Alaska. Interesting. It's a really nice place to hang out and meet new people. Today I talked to some Australian girls that were traveling all over Latin America because they just finished university (sounds like me ^^). There are other people that I'm starting to recognize, which is not hard in a somewhat small town like this.

Fotos de Puerto Escondido

2008-03-04T12:46:00.000-08:00

Mi Primer Día

2008-03-04T01:29:00.000-08:00

Today was my first day of the actual clinical work. The weekend was great. The bonfire never happened but we had a great time going to a couple of the places to hang out in the area including Casa Babylon where we played Jenga and Barfly where we made animal shadows on the wall of the dance floor with the projector ^^

Yesterday: The morning kind of stunk because I mostly worked on homework for my online classes in the morning, but after I had enough I went to the beach Carazalillo where I happened to meet up with Becky and Chris who were on the program last month. After, got ready to go to a beach with my host family, but for some reason this didn't happen. The great thing was the that this didn't bother me at all because we had all been invited to a BBQ at el Restaurante de Liza where we've been playing volleyball for the past couple of days. The dinner was AMAZING! After, we enjoyed live music on the beach relaxing and meeting some new people at a place called Bar Aquí (quite literal ^^)

Today as I said before was my first day of clínica. Our first week is in the only hospital for kilometers in a town called Pochutla. To get there, it's a 1 ½ hour bus ride. The way there it was not air-conditioned, but luckily it was morning so the sun wasn't very strong yet. We waited around a bit because the doctor was doing rounds, but afterwards, we went to the cunero pathólogo which is where the newborn babies that have to stay longer in the hospital are kept. She told us about each of the babies and then split us up to go to different areas of the hospital.

I went to labor and delivery. There were quite a few women there, but none went into labor the hour that I was there. One thing that was different was the privacy of the patients. For example, there was a woman that was in labor in the hallway and they removed the covers to check the size of her cervix in the middle of the hallway with anyone able to see. (I got to do that which was cool for the first time!) It is definitely hard though to keep things private when you have four patients in the same room and one right outside the door in the hallway. Another thing that was kind of cool was listening to fetal heartbeats with a kind of cup thing instead of using an ultrasound like they have in more developed hospitals. On the way back we were able to catch an air-conditioned bus that was definitely worth the 5 extra pesos for the reclining seats!

We had our first day of medical Spanish class from 3 - 5. Our teacher's name is "Cron"-well at least that's his nickname, but I don't remember his real name. We went over some names of body parts and basic ways to ask certain questions. It was good overall. I have learned a lot of body parts in the past, but it has been a while and I didn't remember quite a few of the more detailed ones.

There was a volleyball tournament that some of the other students played in so I hung out there with them and took some photos and enjoyed the sunset in the area. It was really relaxing on the beach. Our host family had "una fiesta de despedidas" (goodbye party) for the students of the other party that are leaving this week and the grilled fish was amazing with super fresh vegetables. We hung out and chatted in Spanish with our host family and played with my little host sister Pachi. (That's her nickname. Her real name is María Paz, and Pachi comes from her middle name).

We went out to pretty much the only place open on Monday nights and danced a bit and enjoyed ourselves, but Becky and I decided to leave pretty soon because we had to wake up super early to leave for the clinic in the morning. But I couldn't sleep which is why I'm posting now!

Arrived!!

2008-03-01T21:20:00.000-08:00

I'm in Puerto Escondido and loving it! The views are amazing from all of the beaches (trust me, there are plenty!) and the beaches are awesome.

Yesterday after I got in, I was planning on going exploring and happened to meet one of the other girls in the program on her way to met some of the other people to play sand volleyball on the beach. We walked to the beach and passed many others. We went to a beach called Playa Marinero because the students that were on the program last month became friends with the owner of one of the bars and usually play volleyball there as the sun sets. The view is amazing and especially the sunset. Afterwards we walked back to our homestays because they are next door to eachother. It took about 30 minutes in the dark, but it wasn't that bad because there isn't much traffic here.

My homestay is literally a 10 minute walk from 2 different beaches! You can't swim at many of the beaches because of a strong undertoe, but the waves are awesome making Puerto Escondido known for surfing. One of the beaches that is safe to stay at is called Playa Carazalillo and it's one of the ones that really close to my homestay. Today I went to Carazalillo and swam a little bit before orientation. It is really beautiful because it is in a little inlet between two rocky areas.

After orientation, I went back to play beach volleyball at the far away beach and now I'm going to a bonfire that the students are havingwith some of their Argentinian friends that they've made here.

I promise I will post pictures as soon as I can!!!

<3>

An Octopus, an opera house, and two beaches!

2007-12-22T00:46:00.000-08:00

Today we also scuba dived and finished our open water diver certification. We went to the same place to dive (Bare Island). This time we saw a lot more stuff, including :

Port Jackson Shark

Octopus
Cuttlefish

Tons of jellyfish, blue groups, starfish, and a lot of little fish. Today wasn't so tiring because it was a much shorter day, plus we weren't nearly as jetlagged. I was so excited to see both a shark and an octopus which were pretty much two of my goals in life.... Now just a sea turtle and a clown fish and I'll be the happiest scuba diver!

After diving, since we weren't that tired, we took a ferry out to Manly beach fro mthe Sydney Opera House. It was raining, but as soon as we got on the ferry the clouds opened up and we had some beautiful views of the Sydney Harbor.

Manly beach was pretty nice. It was very relaxing and had some great views. We had spinach and cheese filo pastries and mom got some fresh mango ice cream :)

We missed the ferry that we originally wanted to get, but that ended up working out for the best because the ferry we ended up on turned out to be during the sunset and we got some amazing pictures of the sunset and the opera house with burning orange clouds.

Mom and dad wanted to go to Bondi beach after this. It wasn't really that late but we were so worn out by this time. Scuba diving is very tiring! I never realized! Anyway, we grabbed food at Bondi beach. I got a straberry yoghurt smoothe and Sonali got fresh juice. Mom got chicken gyros and we all shared this for dinner and just walked around some.

Some people compare Manly beach and Bondi beach to eachother. Both of them are beautifulbeaches with very nice sand. They had small cafes and promenades nearby so they make great daytrips. Personally, I think Manly Beach better because it is kind of quirky and laid back. For example, while we were there there was a neon toga party going on. There were surfers and families too. Bondi beach was definitely a lot more touristy. The clubs were high class. I saw some people get turned away because they were wearing flipflops. There were also quite a few fast food places and chains instead of locally owned places.

Scuba Diving in Sydney!!

2007-12-21T00:15:00.000-08:00

The hill!

Today, we woke up early to go scuba dive to be able to complete our open water check out dives so we can finally get our certification. We set them up at a dive shop that is somewhat far from our hotel, but with it being the weekend before Christmas, we took ewhat we could get.

The shop was called Snorkel Inn Dive Centre in Kogarah. We took the train to get there which was pretty cool. The people there were very nice and for the two days we had the same instructor, Lisa.

First, we did snorkeling for a bit. Then we did two dives. The first was pretty murky, but the second was much clearer. We saw some blue gropuers who were pretty cool because you can feed them and one even let us pet him. I don't know how I feel about feeding them though because she killed a sea urchin to do it, but there are so many around there that I think it's ok.

The dive site was at a place called Bare Island in La Perouse. Apprently, it was in the Tom Cruise film Mission Impossible 3. We had to get all of our gear on and walk quite a bit to where we were diving, which was pretty difficult especially when we had to climb back up the hill to the truck.

We were absolutely exhausted after diving and being jetlagged so Sonu and I came back and slept for 3 1/2 hours in the hotel room before mom and dad were able to drag us to Darlin Harbor. We were extremely hungry and sitll tired but we enjoyed ourselves. There were a lot of parties going on and the lights were really nice.

Exhausted

Arrived in Australia!

2007-12-20T23:51:00.000-08:00

We arrived in Australia yesterday at around 10:30 am after a 5 hour flight to LA, 5 hour layover, and 15 hour flight to Australia. The second flight was somewhat frustrating because we were delayed 1 hour because it was raining so much in LA that the airplane couldn't backup.

After sleeping for 8-10 hours on the flight and watching the The Illusionist, we arrived in Sydney to long customs lines and disorienting exit lines. It was very frustrating and confusing...

We finally got to our hotel to freshen up. We were staying in an amazing hotel in downtown. We walked around and got tickets to see Billy Elliot that evening. Sonali and I split up from our mom and dad. We had tons of food at a Chinese restaurant that we found near the theater which happened to be in the middle of an awesome Asian town in Sydney (perfect for me!) Then feeling very jet-lagged, we rested in a park and slowly wandered around the city.

We went to see Billy Elliot which was a musical based off the movie. I think that it was great, but I don't know if I would see it again. It was a little too melodramatic for my taste I think but I would recommend people to go see it. I think part of the problem was also the fact that we were sooo tired and maybe didn't have much tolerance for a music on a day after traveling so far from the U.S.

Study Abroad Contest

2007-11-28T15:46:00.000-08:00

At USI they had a study abroad contest for students who had studied abroad through programs accredited by the university. I was lucky enough to win first place with my picture called "Through Torrents" and receive an honorable mention for the picture "A Sense of Loss." I love all of the pictures that I entered, but I think the most important part to them is the essay talking about how they represent the influence that study abroad had on our lives.

“Through Torrents”

Picture Taken: in a small rural village outside of Kompong Phluk, Cambodia
Picture Taken on: June 28, 2007
I took this picture immediately after a sudden downpour began in Cambodia after spending the day in the famous Cambodian village.

Beyond discomfort and normal sleeping times, the Cambodian people are hard-workers. Misconstrued by their ubiquitous hammocks and propensity towards long conversations over karaoke machines, they have motivation and perseverance to surpass the boundaries lain in their path. They fight through torrential downpours and inadequate governance to meet goals to improve their future.
In cities, I met young people from the countryside who had left their homes in search of a better life. Be assured, they did not lose their roots, returning annually to aid their families in the rice harvest. They know that they must take advantage of their opportunities, many working jobs and attending school for an education unavailable to their parents. A large proportion of their paychecks are sacrificed and sent home to their families to put younger siblings through school and provide rice on the table.
I learned the value of a dollar in Cambodia. Thirty-five percent of Cambodians earn less than one dollar per day. They work hard and fight towards a better life. What place to do we have to complain of the difficulties of school? We must take advantage of our opportunities and bring the same fortune to those who must go without. I have learned to value my opportunities and make lemonade and take note not to complain of my sore hands while squeezing out the juice. Life takes hard work, and I remain eternally grateful for the fortuitous jump start that I was given.

“A Sense of Loss”

Picture Taken: Preah Khan Temple in the Angkorean Complex, Cambodia
Picture Taken on: June 30, 2007
I wanted to capture the destruction to the temples incurred by the Khmer Rouge soldiers during terrifying war years in Cambodia.

Culture teaches us about ourselves and our past, providing a foothold for the steps we will take in the future. The Cultural Revolution conducted by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia attempted to decimate the beautiful Angkorean legacy. Pillaging temples and desecrating statues, they left nothing in their wake. Without reservation, they hid tanks in these sacred walls and created fortresses upon their hills. AK-47 casings lay forgotten upon the holy paths to this day. Regardless, the Khmer people have taught me the value of culture. In process of rebuilding, they are gaining strength in their identity and self-worth, rebuilding the temples and praying at Angkor once again. The loss of their culture after the Khmer Rouge-proclaimed “Year Zero,” beginning a state with no past and eventually no future, has instilled a deep value of culture preserving it a they lost everything in the war.

Once you have lost something, you begin to value it. It is the same with when you see what other have lost, you begin to value the gifts that you have been given. I value both of my cultures and histories since studying abroad. I realized that they have shaped who I am and the person I wish to be. At the same time, I cannot forget the cultures of the countries that have taken me in while studying abroad, because they have made a permanent imprint upon my story that cannot be worn away.

“Savorng”

Picture Taken: Wat Sampeau in Battambang, Cambodia
Picture Taken on: August 5, 2007
I took this picture of one of the children tour guides that took us up the steep mountain temple near Battambang, Cambodia.

Cambodian culture represents strength and love—the strength to move beyond the horrors of their past and love for the new generation. The haunting gleam of hope resides in their children’s eyes glistening in dusty villages and flooded rice fields. No matter the hardships faced, they persevere in search of a better life for themselves and their families. Savorng speaks a few words of English, using her gift as an unofficial temple guide at Wat Sampeau, because, here, children are the only guides to the top of this secluded temple. The children dream of becoming doctors and nurses or teachers and scientists, dreams beyond their raggedy clothes and small village, as they climb the moss-covered steps to pay their respects.
I, too, dream of becoming a doctor. Her dreams and hope revitalized my own dreams of helping people around the world have access to a healthy and productive life that they deserve. Someday, I hope to help a child like Savorng transcend all obstacles to fulfill her goals that rests at the tips of her fingers, just barely out of her reach.

South Korea

2007-08-10T23:52:00.000-07:00

Goodbye Blessings

2007-08-05T23:43:00.000-07:00

Professor Um made arrangements with the monastery for us to receive goodbye blessings on our last day of class from one of the monks there. It was very cool to be able to do something that like that.

It's unreal that we're leaving so soon. I really wish that we had more time here. I've had so much fun (despite being sick) and I wish that I would have had more of a chance to really experience it. I hope to come back someday and see more of Cambodia and the countries around here.

Buddhist Lent at Wat Dam Nak

2007-07-30T12:06:00.001-07:00

Today was the first day of the Buddhist Lent (or Vassa). They were celebrating it at Wat Damnak right after class so we go the chance to participate in the ceremony. It was one of the best experiences from the entire trip!

Information from Wikipedia: It is the traditional retreat during the rainy season that lasts for three lunar months approximately from July to October. During this time, the Buddhist monks remain in a single places, generally in their temples. In some monasteries, monks dedicate the Vassa to intensive meditation practice. During this time, many people give up certain thing for a more ascetic leaving style like alcohol, meat, or smoking and reinvigorate their spiritual training.. This is why it is commonly called "Buddhist Lent." The focus of celebration by the laity is the first day of vassa during which worshippers donate candles and other necessities to the temples for the monks since they are not supposed to leave during that time.

So the entire community gets together to bring the monks all of their necessities. They were prepared in these Easter basket style platters covered in the colorful cellophane. They had a huge variety of things in side of the platter with anything from soap, toothbrushes, pepsi, and even antibiotics. Everyone carried them three times around the wat saying "Ah kun" or thank you! The boys carried these huge yellow candles that you can normally seen in the place where the statues of Buddha are kept.

The monks were wearing their dress robes which has many more parts than what they wear everyday. Everyone was very dressed up and even the nuns were there sitting in long columns. We sat with people in the community but we didn't know what they were saying. I believe that they were reciting the five precepts of Buddhism in Khmer, but I guess I can't be sure!

1. Do not kill.
2. Do not steal.
3. Do not indulge in sexual misconduct.
4. Do not make false speech.
5. Do not take intoxicants.

2007-07-27T23:22:00.000-07:00

I haven't been doing much of anything other than sleeping and eating once in a while lately. I'm still not feeling completely well. I guess one plus is that I can get out of going to classes ^_~ Hopefully I'll feel well enough to go to classes next week.

It's really a weird sensation though to be as tired as I feel. When I was in Phnom Penh, I couldn't even walk up the stairs without feeling absolutely winded and light-headed. Now, I just feel tired all the time. I can tell that I'm slowly recovering though.

......Crazy...... Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh

2007-07-25T23:27:00.000-07:00

So this has probably been one of the craziest weeks of my entire life.

July 13: We left early in the morning for a 10 hour (at least) bus ride to Sihanoukville (aka the beach). After getting there we were so happy to be there that we had a crazy night walking beach, watching fire spinners, and essentially throwing each other into the water. It is a night that I will NEVER forget and very wet. I had an amazing time!

July 14: I went for a long 1 1/2 hour walk on the beach early in the morning because our guest house room was FREEZING and it woke me up. It was the coldest I've felt in a long time! Afterwards, we all decided that we were going to go to a secluded beach ... in a tuktuk. So there's 7 of us in the tuktuk on a very very muddy road. Of course the tuktuk gets stuck, lol! We hung out at the secluded beach just relaxing despite the overcast sky etc. That night we spent it at the Blue Dolphin a busy bar on the beach and had some interesting experiences.

July 15: Got up early to get on the bus. We forgot someone's ticket so I offered to take the later bus with some other people. When I got a moto to take me to the ticket office, he definitely didn't speak English and took me on a very scary tour of Sihanoukville essentially because I had no idea where we were going. I yelled at him and made him take me back to the bus, where they told me that they were able to look up my ticket and let me on. Thank god! Made it to Phnom Penh for a river boat cruise + dinner at night.

July 16: Various things around Phnom Penh including going to Wat Phnom and getting my fortune read nearby. We also talked to a couple of NGOs. That night we went to Suki Soup which is an awesome restaurant (there's on in Siem Reap too... explain more later) and went to karaoke that night. It was lots of fun.

July 17: We went to REYUM art school, which is a place where students who are talented in art have an opportunity to learn better skills to hopefully be able to turn that into a trade someday.

July 18: So this is where the crazy stuff starts. Essentially this morning... I felt really sick so I went to the international clinic where a couple days later and after being poked a lot, they tell me that I have dengue fever. So the rest of the week was a blur and got back to Siem Reap on July 23.

being sick sucks

Numbers

2007-07-12T21:04:00.000-07:00

Here the counting system is based off of a somewhat base five system. It's very interesting to learn numbers and takes some getting used to! It's kind of fun, once you get the hang of it. Definitely, shopkeeprs are somewhat surprised when foreigners are able to count in their language.

1 - muy
2 - bpi
3 - bei
4 - buan
5 - bram
6 - bram muy
7 - bram bpi
8 - bram bei
9 - bram buan
10 - dop
11 - dop muy
and so on

Reamke (Ramayana)

2007-07-12T20:40:00.000-07:00

Sorry that I have been posting in a while. I mentioned before that we have a ton of reading to do....

Today we had the honor of seeing a traditional shadow puppet performance of the Reamke (which is the Cambodian version of the Ramayana). The puppets are leather cutouts that represent different characters. It's kind of hard to explain unless you look at the photographs. The put up a huge white screen and started a blazing fire behind it. They also played traditional Cambodian music and explained the story in Khmer, which I obviously didn't understand. Luckily, I know the story of the Ramayana well enough to know what was going on.

Here are some pictures of it:

Rama and Sita (I'm pretty sure)

Young girl playing an instrument that I've never seen before.

I tried...

2007-07-09T23:18:00.000-07:00

I tried ostrich, crocodile, kangaroo, and squid today at Cambodian BBQ...

Classes

2007-07-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

Well classes are starting. Somewhat sad after all of the fun that we've been having in our adventures and hanging out during orientation week.

We take the classes from Monday through Thursday (w00! Fridays off!) at Wat Damnak (wat = pagoda) in Siem Reap, Cambodia. http://www.watdamnak.org/ It's a really beautiful place with trees and grass. They have a public library for people in the community, but mostly researchers and students use it. Also, the monks there run English classes for young students in the community who come at 6pm.

Anyway, I'm taking two classes: Nation-building after the Khmer Rouge Genocide (3 credits) and Cambodian History and Culture (3 credits). It's my first time taking a large block of liberal arts classes, so this will definitely be a new experience for me! I'm really interested in the topics that we're going to be covering, although the classes are definitely going to be a lot of work. We have a lot of reading to do for them, so I'll probably be spending a lot of time at the Blue Pumpkin (air-conditioned cafe in town). I'm also planning on taking Khmer language class in the morning. I think that it's worth getting up a little bit early for.

Our classroom from the outside

The library

In the classroom Thanks to Sandy for the pictures :D

Angkor, Cambodia

2007-07-01T12:22:00.000-07:00

Angkor was breath-taking. It was definitely one of the most awe-inspring places I have been in my entire life. I will never forget the pure energy of these monuments in the spirit they exude and ideas that they represent.

It would take days for me to discuss everything that I loved about each of the temples that we went to but I will attempt to give a brief synopsis of each temple along with a couple of pictures I took at each one.

Every temple that we went to was absolutely gorgeous. It was interesting to see the gradual transition through the centuries that the particular temple was built.
Our program bought us a weekend pass to the temples. On Friday we were on our own to go and explore the temples. This also gave us the opportunity to see some of the temples that we wouldn't be able to on Saturday or Sunday. On Saturday and Sunday we were scheduled a tour with an official Angkor tour guide who also works in the restoration in the temple called Preah Khan.

Here our my favorite pictures from each day (some with description!)

June 29
Day on our own. Went to temples with Bryan, Joanna, Kristine, and Sopheap.

June 30
This was our first day with the official tour guide.

July 1
Our second day with a tour guide. We did some hiking in the forest (yes!) and saw the River of a Thousand Lingas (Kbal Spean). We also finally saw the biggest temples of them all, Angkor Wat!

These are all photographs that I took. If you would like to see more of my photos or these in a bigger size you can check out my Picasa Photo Gallery http://picasaweb.google.com/sheiphali

Kompong Phhluk

2007-06-28T18:15:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we went to the Kompong Phluk village which is a floating village near Siem Reap but it only floats some of the time when the Mekong River overflows. You can still go visit the village during this time of year and the people are very friendly and you get to see a bit of the country side. It was a long process of getting there and getting back, but it was sooo much fun!

STEP 1

First we took tuk-tuks until the road got too muddy. The road gets muddy because as the water begins to rise, it buries the road underwater by 5 meters. Therefore, the road is not passable by tuk-tuks. The way there was still very bumpy as soon as we got outside of Siem Reap, but surprisingly I fell asleep, lol. I guess I was pretty tired.

STEP 2

We got to a house, and took a truck to the boat dock. The road was very rough and we were only sitting in the bed of the truck. It’s not that it wasn’t safe though because there wasn’t really any other traffic on the road at all. This was a very interesting experience because there was a snake on the truck bed under the mats we were sitting on, and some of the people began freaking out. I picked the snake up by the tail and threw it outside. The truck driver was laughing at us a lot.

STEP 3

We took a small boat to the village through trees and fishing traps. The place where you start taking the boat depends on how high the water is. When the water is high, you don’t even have to take the truck. The boat was pretty comfortable, but because the banks were narrow some people were getting very nervous.

VILLAGE

We got to the village and you could tell that people were not expecting tourists at all. The get a decent amount during the flooded season, but they hardly get any during this season. I think a lot of the kids were very open and friendly which was cool.

We walked to the pagoda in the village and there were a bunch of children there. Jo and Bryan went there before the program started and they knew that the kids have English classes everyday at 1pm with one of the monks. We talked with the kids and they were asking us questions in English like “How old are you?” and “What is your mother and father’s names?” It was very cool. It was a good chance for them to practice their English.

We met the monk and he’s pretty young. He told us the reason that he became a monk is that he was unable to go to university, but he wanted to learn as much as possible. He studied English on his own and he teaches it to the kids now. He was also asking us a lot about the pronunciation of various English words to help him improve. I thought that was very cool.

The kids started class. At 1pm they all just sat down and began reciting together from their books without anyone making them to. They all come on their own to learn and I think that if they mess around, the monk will tell them to leave. They were reciting colors and the the colors they said were so funny. “Crimson, charcoal grey, sky blue, rust…” They also began reciting conversational phrases and things like that from their notebooks.

STEP 4

We left the village and went out to see the lake. I was so excited because I got to sit on the front part of the boat. There were wooden houses out their, but Bryan said that within this week a lot have already been taken down because the water levels are rising. I got some awesome pictures.

STEP 5

Back on to the truck. We got on the trucks, but this time I got to sit near the front, and the ride was a lot less bumpy there. We noticed that some rain clouds were coming and they looked pretty bad.

STEP 6

We get back into the tuk-tuks. As soon as we did the storm began. WOW No wonder they call this the rainy season. Luckily our tuk-tuk had rain covers so we didn’t get too wet, but some of the others didn’t.

2007-06-27T19:06:00.000-07:00

The past two days of orientation have been mostly listening to them talk about safety and not doing anything stupid. I guess they feel required to tell us a lot more in Asia because a lot more can go wrong. For example, we’re not allowed to ride on motorbikes or drive them (not that I would do that anyway). Things like that.

Today we’re going to the floating village and I’m so excited! :D Two of my friends already went and they met a monk there that was teaching some kids how to speak English. So Joanna and I decided to buy a couple of books on learning English for them. I thought that would something that they could use, and we wouldn’t have to worry about them using the donation in a way that didn’t go directly for the kids.

The day before yesterday (Thursday) I was feeling pretty sick, but things are a lot better now. I guess I was the first one to be not feeling well, but I got over it by last night so it really wasn’t that bad.

The last two days we had lessons in Survival Khmer. The language sounds very cool. It’s very interesting. They are actually giving us the option of taking it with some of the other foreign students (not in our group), but the only thing is that it’s before classes start and you know how good I am about waking up in the morning. I’m really thinking about it though, and I don’t think that waking up should stop me. We won’t get credit in the classes, but I think I would like to learn the language anyway.

Lea haey! (Good-bye!)

Orientation Pictures

2007-06-26T17:13:00.000-07:00

2007-06-24T21:31:00.000-07:00

I tried to upload some pictures but it is really just taking too long at this internet cafe. When I go to the better one, I'll see if it'll work there. The internet is 75 cents for an hour but the problem is that it doesn't alwasy work and a lot of the cafes are not airconditioned.

Yesterday was the first day of orientation and was a pretty long day but today is going to be more manageable and more interesting (at least for me). We're going to Handicap International which an NGO that provides prosthetic limbs for landmine victimes. We have the opportunity to volunteer there, so there is a definite chance of that for me. I'll probably decide today. Otherwise, there is also a non-profit Children's Hospital in town. We'll see.

Last night we went to see the Apsara dancing, and that was pretty cool. I liked it and they had a buffet, but I think that I ate too much. The food was very yummy especially because there was food from all of South East Asia, and not just Cambodia.

I forget what we're doing tomorrow to be honest, but I think we have a class in Survival Khmer and some other things that are orientation related.

In terms of my itinerary of the rest of the week:

Thursday: Free day so I think we're going to the floating village
Friday: another free day but we have a temple pass so I think I'm going to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat
Saturday and Sunday: TEMPLES TEMPLES
Monday: classes start D:

In Cambodia

2007-06-24T02:14:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

I'm in Cambodia now, and I love it. I got in really late on Friday night so I pretty much unpacked a bit and went to sleep. Yesterday, I met up with Jo (my roommate), Bryan, and Jodie and we walked around Siem Reap and saw the old market, central market, and the monastery where we'll be studying.

Today was our first day of orientation and we got a basic overview of the program and went the Cambodian Cultural Village where they have miniature replicas of Cambodian monuments and cultural dances and presentations. It was cool, but I'm definitely loking forward to seeing everything in person. Tonight we're going to dinner where they have traditional Cambodian Apsara ballet so I can't wait!

We haven't gone to Angkor Wat yet, but we're going this weekend and we're getting a tour by an archaeologist who does documentaries for the BBC and history channel so that will be definitely be awesome.

I don't think that I'm experiencing culture shock, but I would say that I'm experiencing heat shock. It really is a lot hotter here, but I would say that it's really apparent when you're standing in the sun. When it rains though, it cool down significantly, so I'm very thankful for the rains. I think it's just something that I'll have to get used to.

I didn't get a chance to upload any photos but I'll try soon and have a much longer post. Much love.

Incheon International Airport

2007-06-21T23:32:00.000-07:00

I’m at Incheon International Airport very close to Seoul, South Korea. I flew with Asiana Airlines and I found out that they have free guided tours of Seoul that gives you a very brief overview of some of the best sites. This is great considering that I have a 15 hour layover here. Honestly though, if I had to choose any airport to have a layover in, this would be the one. They have huge internet cafés where it’s $3 for 1 hour of high-speed, a cultural center where they teach you how to make Korean handicrafts, and awesome Korean food (even if it is a little overpriced).
So today I got a free tour to Seoul, South Korea from Asiana Airlines (yeah they rock) First they took us to the president’s house which is across the street from Gyeongbukjung Palace. They call the President’s house the Blue House because it has a blue roof (and because of the White House). We got free entry into the Exhibition center there where they gave us a short info tour on the history of South Korea. I learned a couple of things, but it was honestly VERY short. Well, I guess the other reason that I couldn’t pay attention was because there was a parade outside that they have everything Friday. I took plenty of pictures because it was very cool. We saw the roof of the old palace but we didn’t go inside because we didn’t have time. Then they took us to the Korean Folk Village. We spent like 15 minutes there even though I probably could have spent much more time there. It’s a cultural reenactment of Korea in ancient times. The building were very cool and I will make sure to spend a lot more time there when I come back in August.
They took us for a free traditional Korean lunch, but we had to pay like $4 for water. No complaints though about that… it’s worth it for the free food.

Then we went to Itaewon which is a popular tourist shopping district. I didn’t buy anything even though it was tempting because once again I want to wait until August and because I don’t feel like carrying it on the plane.

All in all, it was a very good day so far. I still have about 3 hours here in Seoul and I think I’m going to go make a Korean fan. lol

I’ll try to post when I can in Cambodia.

<3>(wow this internet is insanely fast... totally worth trying to figure what I'm doing with all the Korean symbols everywhere)

Wat Dam Nak

2007-04-07T23:02:00.000-07:00

While in Cambodia, I will be taking classes at the Center for Khmer Studies (CKS) which is located at Wat Damnak, a monastery in Siem Reap. The monks there teach schools to young children and run many programs to help improve the state of education and hunger among the children of Siem Reap. The monastery has a website: http://www.watdamnak.org/ and on their website they have the main tenets of their programs stated. I think these are ideas that people should live by because they help you figure out wo you really are on your own without someone telling you what to believe.

"Do not accept anything simply because it had been said by your teachers"
"Do not accept anything simply because it had been taught and written in your sacred books (religious texts)"
"Do not accept anything simply because it had been believed by many"
"Do not accept anything simply because it had been handed down by your ancestors"
"Do not accept anything simply because it seems acceptable or possible etc"
"Believe and accept only according to what will enable you to see truth face to face, self-confidence and when you know for yourselves that certain things are wholesome, good, to be moral, be conductive to well-being and true happiness, or leading to true happiness etc" The Buddha said.
"Do not be a slave of Religion!"
"Man is not for Religion, but religion is for man!"
"See Other as Yourself"
"Make a world smile because of your presence"
"May all be happy, peaceful and friendly"

I got accepted!!!!!

2007-03-27T10:30:00.000-07:00

Dear Sheiphali Gandhi,

Congratulations! You have been Accepted to the CIEE Study Center in Siem Reap, Cambodia - Center for Khmer Studies, 2007 Summer.

Yep! I'm excited! I just got it in an email today!

Here's a basic idea of what the program is about:

The seven-week summer program in Siem Reap, Cambodia is designed for students to learn the history of Cambodia-from the ancient times to 1970s-and come to understand it as a case study for geopolitical issues such as nation-building, radicalism, corruption, democracy, and economic development.

Program Snapshot

*Extensive field visits to Angkorean cultural sites, including Angkor Wat, Angkor Thom, Banteay Srei, and Kbal Spean
*Opportunities to study alongside Cambodian students
*One-week excursion to Phnom Penh including site visits to the Royal Palace, National Museum, Tuol Sleng (S-21) Khmer Rouge prison, and the “Killing Fields” of Choeung Ek
*Volunteering

The goal of the program is for students to gain an understanding of Cambodia’s history and culture from ancient times to the present, with particular focus on the causes and effects of the genocide of 1975-1979. Students are encouraged to approach Cambodia as a case study for several of the world’s most pressing geopolitical problems, including nation-building in societies recently at war, confronting radicalism, combating official corruption, and promoting democracy and stable economic development in smaller, less-developed countries.

Applying to Cambodia

2007-02-14T21:36:00.000-08:00

I'm applying to a program in Cambodia for this summer :D I'll post more about it if I get accepted, but here's my application essay:

Learning to Better the World

Like Anne Frank, as I child, I believed that people were genuinely good and for the most part this was true in my short, sheltered life. Unfortunately, my naïveté receded as my eyes opened to the hardship and terrors experienced by millions of people around the world daily. In the depths of my heart, I have always yearned to help the world’s forgotten people. My career plans have revolved around this conviction. For many years I have strived to become a doctor, and I plan to apply to medical school June 2007. With my education, I plan to work overseas, helping those who need it most.

In my opinion, the most conducive manner of decreasing violence and hate in a community is to improve the quality of life. This includes better health, education, and safety. For these reasons, I began taking public health classes at the University of Southern Indiana to further my knowledge of how to improve the health of an entire community. Cambodia is a prime example of a country that was forced to start over after the despotic regime of an unbalanced dictator. His horrendous acts terrorized the hearts, minds, and lives of the gentle Khmer people. It is a real-world case study for many programs begun by international governmental and non-governmental organizations to rebuild a torn nation. By studying in Cambodia and learning about its turbulent history and progress, I will be able to use this knowledge toward creating a better world for a couple of people or even a village.

I will be able to make the most of my trip there based upon activities and trips I have taken in the past. As a high school student in Mexico, I studied in a complete immersion program through Indiana University where I was not permitted to speak English for 8 weeks. I gained independence and self-confidence in both the language and myself. Two summers later, I traveled to Monteverde, Costa Rica through CIEE where I took classes in tropical biology, agroecology, and sustainable development and conducted my own research project. I learned about the impacts of human actions on the environment at a biological level and I also realized the treasures that could be lost if detrimental habits are not curbed in time. During the summer of 2006, I worked as a student intern in the emergency room at Munster Community Hospital, an experience that taught me both the value and the frailty of life and the true human spirit. I have been very involved in my university from working as student worker at the Evansville Center Indiana University School of Medicine to founding the South Asian Student Union on campus. Addtionally, my involvement as secretary of the International Club has been a great joy to me to learn about different cultures and make friends from around the world.

For all of these reasons, I feel that I wouldn’t have trouble acclimating to new environments, and by studying in Cambodia I will grow into a better person and a true global citizen. I will open my eyes to a new region of the globe and along with it will come new perspectives on life and survival.

Best Pictures

2005-08-15T13:35:00.000-07:00

Bridges of a Rainforest Friendship

2005-08-15T02:44:00.000-07:00

I rushed down the hardwood stairs, pulled on my mud-caked hiking boots, and walked briskly into the depths of the forest. Although the break was only fifteen minutes long, I had enough time. Upon entering this newfound refuge, I felt the day’s meddlesome anxieties trickle away from my body with each successive step. This forest would soon prove to be a catalyst for change and learning in my life and my friendships.

Its misty, foggy depths intrigued me. I sat in the forest for long periods of time trying to assemble the big picture, picture large enough to remain in my memory that would capture all that I saw. Impossible. Sitting in the forest focusing on a plant or a rock, the intricacies of the forest could never be condensed into a simple rendering.

For when the veil is lifted,

love the void as the treasure

and know that it is worth

as much.

Nature’s empty coalescence

and its beautiful

meaningless therein. (“Null”)

I was boarding at La Estación Biológica Monteverde nestled in the beloved cloud forest of Monteverde, Costa Rica—my adopted home for the next six weeks. Built in 1989, the station’s chief objectives were further investigation of its mysterious natural surroundings and the creation of a connection between biology students and the forest. Its large private reserve was a center developed for conservation of the unique tropical cloud forest of the area (“Estación”).

The forest was always accessible, always conducive to the possibilities of discovery and exploration. The vibrant green unknown was a release, a way of escaping the inanities of life. Its mysterious chaos captivated a biology student like me.

The tropical rainforest, situated only two meters from my bedroom, was unlike any other place I had ever been in my entire life. Prior to this trip, I had never spent a considerable amount of time in any forest. Throughout my life, I had preferred to stay inside and read a book, choosing to experience the world through my friends glued into the binding. I was in a car watching the scenery rush by at fifty miles per hour. These intangible glimpses of my surroundings never affected me due to the confines of that metal and glass prison in which I remained. I needed to open the car door and experience the world.

During my freshman year of college, I realized that I had somehow worked my way into this hole of comfort, a hideaway where I could escape bitter reality at any given moment. I was guarding against a nonexistent, contrived danger. I resolved to branch out—dig a few connecting tunnels out into the real world

Therefore, after visiting the campus International Programs and Services office with piles of catalogs in hand, I “burrowed” my way home. Though programs at a Spanish university had been my aim, I came across a program that trekked through the forests of Costa Rica in the catalog for the Council on International Educational Exchange. I had never dreamed of doing something of the sort. It was perfect. With an unfaltering mind, I embark on a journey into the mysteries of the rainforest.

I walked slowly through the forest, not wanting to miss a thing. I marveled at the vines seemingly floating along the side of a tree, attached to neither the branches nor the ground. Glass-wing butterflies parked on the flowers of the passing understory, totally reliant on their unique form of invisibility. I picked one up to ponder upon its distinctive transparency and replaced it on its leaf. Seemingly not troubled by this alien form of displacement, the butterfly remained perched on the leaf in apparent contemplation. A vine curled around itself and fell into the trail in front of me. Although predominantly green, the plant had chosen to color its tendrils red, a color that contrasted the green of the forest. Looking into the center of the spiral, I was astonished to see a tiny oblong egg, placed so carefully inside by a mother butterfly scattering her young. These presumably minute details of the forest drew me in and kept me coming back.

The ground was muddy with large flat rocks as structural support. The leaves and fruits that spread along the human-cleared trail hinted at the large trees overhead. A palm-shaped leaf of five lobes lay on the ground. It fingers were curling due to desiccation. I picked it up and carried it to my destination.

I stopped at the metal green bridge. It was not far into the forest—maybe only thirty meters. Sitting on the bridge with my feet dangling over the edge, I hung my arms over the railings with my head resting on my shoulder. Closing my eyes, I breathed. It was a breath of a final release, of utter calm, and of quietude.

I fell in love with the bridge. It is a partition between two worlds. As I looked over the edge, a stream of fresh ground water rushed below me. A natural trench of rock, barren save patches of moss, had been carved by this natural spring of water. Along the edges of the stream, life has flourished. The sound of the rushing water overcame me, and I lay down along the cool rungs of the bridge. Although they rubbed against my back, I stayed there as my problems were vindicated by the sheer tranquility of this sanctuary.

Above me were light-spotted Cecropia leaves. The leaf palms faded and swayed through the gaps of light created by the rock trench below. These beautiful trees are opportunists, grabbing any little moment to grow in the rays of the sun. Biologically known as gap-dependent, these trees wait for years even to grow from a small seed placed by another lucky seed from years before.

These trees reminded me of who I am and who I want to be. I want to seize all the chances I get. I want to always be ready to do so, sitting on the edge of my seat instead slumped back in an armchair. Gap-dependent trees, when the chance finally arises, grow at tremendous speeds, not willing to take any chance that this opportunity will wane.

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art. It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give[s] value to survival.” C.S. Lewis. Friendship is not essential to the sustenance of a person’s life, rather a person’s happiness. A friendship must be fostered and treasured because it is one of the greatest values in life. It is an opportunity to assimilate in a world where isolation seems to be a driving force. A friendship must be quickly appreciated because new friendships, though quick to form, can rapidly be lost in the breeze.

My friend Megan Smith and I wandered into the forest to have private talks of sorts, but instead we discussed life and what it meant to us. We lay on the bridge. We discussed our beliefs. We laughed, we sighed, and we looked over the edge.

Megan goes to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and originally from a suburb of Detroit. She is you quintessential modern-day protester of the things that she believes in (primarily conservation of the environment). With platinum blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, and a face-filling contagious smile, she is assertion in one tiny-framed package. In many ways, our home lives have been similar with conservative parents whereas we are quite liberal and ready to burst out of our forced suburban bubble lives.

I knew that our friendship was not based in the fluctuating phases of our lives. Friendship is an unselfish commitment to one another to always be there for the other regardless of convenience or distance. We valued our friendship and the bond that we had found despite the countries we had covered to find each other.

The camaraderie between Megan and me was different than most of the friendships I had maintained in the past. Many of my friendships were based upon common interests or similar lifestyles. The inherent flaw in this arrangement was that a person’s interests or lifestyle were not permanent.

A friendship that is susceptible to fluctuations serves as a poor base for a social growth, much like thin roots on a canopy tree. It just wouldn’t work. The trees must increase their roots in the ground as they continue to branch out. As a person branches out in life, it must have its main support system to keep it grounded.

In order for me to grow, I knew that I had to treat my friendships differently. They will not survive as give-take relationships, where one friend is only ready reciprocate a favor rather than give for the sake of giving. A friendship is not something that can vary as the direction of a person’s interests transform. It is a nonjudgmental relationship between two people who are there for each other as they grow and change in the world It is a stationery object to help them up to their next stair, much like a walking stick.

My friend Megan wrote,

What is the point in living

in this physical realm,

if you don’t feel it,

don’t let it move you? (“Pura”)

During my time in Costa Rica, I became more accommodating to change. I had embarked on the trip with the purpose of expanding my life, and additionally, I had expanded my definition of friendship as well. I became open to relying on my new friend and thus allowed her to depend on me as well. Used to a culture of independence and self-sufficiency, this was a decisive moment for the social relationships in my life.

The Monteverde Cloud Forest is famous for its huge species variety of epiphytes—plants that grow upon on other plants without extracting any nutrients from the plant. A common cloud forest epiphyte is the bromeliad. Bromeliads, by growing in a rosette form, create a tank where rainfall can collect. These small tanks form small ecosystems where various organisms live, from tadpoles to microscopic protozoans. In many ways these small communities are self-sustaining much like a relationship between friends. Although an isolated bond within the larger world, the interworkings of the connection are integral to the survival of both friends. They do not exploit the forest in their growth; instead, their growth creates an enhanced environment to many of the rainforests other gems. These bromeliad relationships are prevalent throughout the forest, but they are hidden among the leaves of the trees and vines. Only those who know where to look will find the cherished treasure.

I discovered immeasurable lessons from the flora and fauna sitting on that bridge during my time in Monteverde. It was an imprint on the sidewalk of my life—much like the handprint of a child on the front walkway of his first home. Although he will forget that innocent age, that little instance of his life will stay cemented in time. A handprinted depression would remain a reminder of what was and the possibilities of what could be.

I dropped the desiccated Cecropia leaf over the edge of the bridge and watched it float away into the depths of the forest. Who knows where it would go or where it would stop? All I knew was that it was floating on an unplanned path. At least, I would have my friends there to watch me.

Aloft in the branches, I find
a different kind of sanctuary,
one which blooms between
you and I, one in which
I know I am safe and feel so,
because you are too.
And I honestly don’t know
what I’d do without you
and these afternoons spent
weaving our lives together
with common conversational threads.

I have the feeling it will
keep my heart warm
after we must finally part. (“Treehouse”)

The Fight Against Fragmentation

2005-08-15T02:41:00.000-07:00

A piece of art is an intricate web of colors and imagery that interact to form a collective message, like Picasso’s famous painting Guernica. This awe-inspiring painting fills an entire room and exemplified the suffering of the Spanish people of the town Guernica that was bombed during the Spanish Civil War as an experiment by the Germans to see what it would take to completely destroy a city (“Bombing”). If I were to take a dull kitchen knife and slice the painting into twenty sloppy shreds of canvas, these pieces would not represent the message that Picasso had in mind. I would, then, spread these pieces throughout El Museo del Prado. No one would look at these pieces of cloth in wonderment; instead with anger and fury… towards me. These “pieces of art” are falling apart and do no represent the whole beauty separated. Picasso’s famous work would be ruined. I would be jailed and punished more than I had ever imagined.

Then, why is it that when a forest is torn apart into little pieces, not many come to the rescue? Forests—much like Picasso’s painting—are intricate and complex portions of the globe where all components collaborate to form a complete system. Problems arise because many of these forests are patched and separated by a sea of human civilization. These fragments of forest are unhealthy and do not represent what a true large forest could be. Unfortunately, the number of these patches is increasing. Many scientists call these patches of forest, islands, because although they are not isolated by large bodies of water, they are separated by regions where there is sparse exchange of organisms or energy.

Throughout the study of living things, islands have been studied to examine species interactions and the changes in a system through time. In David Quammen’s book The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions, he justifies this by saying, “Islands have been especially instructive because their limited area and their inherent isolation combine to make patterns of evolution stand out starkly.” Islands of natural habitat whether surrounded by an ocean or by an ocean of humans are dynamic systems where change occurs rapidly due to its small area (Quammen). Biogeography (an integral field of science that studies the location of different species) was first discussed after island systems were studied by leading scientists (including Charles Darwin).

“Biogeography is the study of the facts and the patterns of species distribution” in David Quammen’s book. In this field of science, one is concerned with the location of all types of organisms, but also where they do not occur. Biogeography can usually be described by the formation of new species, the extinction of species, and separation of species due to geographical change such as the formation of mountains or the interruption of a forest by a new housing complex. Therefore, biogeography studies where one can find a particular species.

After these basic questions are answered, inquisitive scientists go into the past to figure out the background story. Why are these particular species remaining while others have disappeared? More importantly, it asks: why are these species going extinct in this area or all over the world? Biogeography can also be used in such specific questions as: Why are the species on the islands of Madagascar and Australia so distinctive? The statistics and observations of biogeographers can be used to induct larger patterns of the distribution of particular species or a group of species. This information can also be used to predict future species distribution and what can be done to prevent species extinctions due to the effects of humans.

Many of these studies revolve around islands. For example, Darwin observed many islands around the world as he traveled on the Beagle. Many of the world’s gaudiest and most “absurd” animals and plants occur on islands. One finds dwarves and giants—those that comply to the image of a children’s story book animal. This includes the ponderous dodo birds of Mauritius and the pygmy hippopotamuses of Madagascar. When biogeography is focused on islands it becomes island biogeography. On islands it is easier to see where a clear line of speciation (the formation of new species) has occurred. Darwin was able to present his ground-breaking theory of evolution after visiting many islands around the world, including the famous but exotic Galapagos Islands (Quammen).

Island biogeography began with Darwin and was continued by Alfred Russel Wallace and Joseph Hooker, who gathered information from their studies of other remote islands. In 1967, all of these works culminated into a work by E. O. Wilson and Robert MacArthur called The Theory of Island Biogeography. They attempted to merge biogeography and ecology into a mathematical science. In their book they examined the patterns of speciation and extinction of organisms living on islands; and for the first time, they were able to provide some clear reasons for the distribution. Their universal rationale can be applied to any island in the world whether oceanic or terrestrial.

On islands fewer species are present; therefore, fewer species relationships will occur. Due to their isolation, islands are prime locations for evolution to occur. With a small population, there is a limited amount of genetic differences between individuals. This causes island organisms to have a higher likelihood of straying away from their original form. Evolution is the change of organisms over time. This can occur due to new conditions on the island that the immigrant must adapt to.

For example, on the mainland, the soil is dark brown and millipedes are camouflaged as such (they are dark brown). Let’s say some of these millipedes find their way onto the island. The island soil is a dark reddish brown. Slowly, through natural selection, it will be more like that millipedes with a reddish color will survive on the island because they are better camouflaged. They will survive better than the dark brown ones so they will produce offspring that also have the reddish color. Also, with less competition, the millipedes will become bigger due to better nutrition. Over time (millennia, mind you), the millipedes on the island will be large and dark red, while the millipedes on the mainland for the most part will remain the same. Islands push the fast forward button of evolution. Therefore, it is easier to see the complete chain of events on an island. Now, mainly due to size differences, the “mechanical parts” of the reproduction of the two populations of millipedes will not fit together. As a result, they have become two separate species.

As another example, in a wind storm, a couple of beetles get lucky and land on an island instead of the ocean. The island is a complementary habitat, but there are only a couple of them present. Let’s say that the only male present has extraordinarily long front legs. His offspring will be more likely to have longer legs than the offspring of the other beetles of the mainland. The offspring on the island will mate with each other causing the long legs of the new generation of beetles to become even more pronounced. As time passes (millennia, mind you) and new generation of beetles are born and mate, the trait could become a distinguishing feature of the beetles on the island. These beetles could, then, become a new species that cannot mate with those on the mainland anymore. This is why on islands new species are more likely to form due to small species populations. This demonstrates the way that an extremely limited population size can be a catalyst for a huge shift in the characteristics of a species.

The theory of island biogeography deals with the characteristics of an island and how they affect the rate of speciation and extinction on the island. On islands, species will immigrate from the mainland or from other islands. Sometimes, the species will already be present or the new organism may be the first on the island. The latter is called a species introduction. The number of species on an island is determined by the number of different species on the island and not by population size of the species (Henderson and Whittaker).

On any island, as the number of species on an island increases, the rate of immigration will decrease. This occurs because as the number of species on the island increases, it is likely that a new species from the mainland will be a repeat and not a newly introduced species. Repeats will not increase the number of species that are present on the island. Therefore, with time and as more species are present, it will be increasingly less likely that a new species will arrive on the island and more likely that it will be a repeat. As the number of species on the island increases, the rate of extinction increases because if more species are present, there are more than can go extinct. Additionally, there will be more competition for resources. In island systems, it is more likely for a species to go extinct because it is difficult for a species population to be maintained in isolation with only a few individuals present. Reverting to the beetles from before, if the male would not have been able to find the females to mate, the population would not have continued.

Two island characteristics will determine the rate of immigration and the rate of extinction on a particular island. They are the size of the island and the distance the island is from the mainland (Quammen). Let’s set up a scenario to portray how this affects the species diversity of the island:

A group of people stand on a beach each with three small similarly-sized pebbles in their hands. A line is drawn in the sand. Three feet behind the line, three circles are drawn to represent three different islands. They are all drawn at a similar distance away from the line. More importantly, they range in size. One is large, one is medium-sized, and the last is quite small. Lining up along the barrier, each with their back turned to the circles throws each pebble over their shoulder hoping one will land in one of the circles. Ten pebbles land in the large circle, five land in the medium-sized circle, and in the smallest circle, only one pebble lands.

A larger island is more likely to have new species colonize it due to a larger surface area for them to “land.” Following suit, a smaller island would have a overall lower immigration rate. The movement of organisms is represented by the pebbles in the scenario above. The smaller island would also have a greater rate of extinction because it is likely that even though a new species appears upon the island not enough of them will be present to replenish the population with their offspring. The larger island will have a lower rate of extinction because it is more likely that the mainland will “replenish” the population with new immigrants. Additionally, it would be more likely that more of them landed on the island allowing the population size to grow quicker and the possibility of extinction to decline (Henderson and Whittaker).

Now, the group of people plays a similar game, but the circles rather than being three differently sized circles, they the same size at different distances from the starting line. In the style of bozo buckets, it is much easier for the pebbles to fall into the “islands” closer to the line than the circles farther away.

The distance of an island is from the mainland also plays are a significant role in species distribution. If an island is closer to the mainland, its rate of immigration is going to be higher than that of a farther away island because of the short distance that a species would have to travel. Therefore, smaller species or those that cannot swim or fly very well will be more likely to colonize islands that are closer. If an island is closer to the mainland, its extinction rate will be lower. This is because it will become more likely that the mainland will replenish the population size with more immigrants (Henderson and Whittaker).

It would seem that an island that is closer to the mainland and larger would be ideal in terms of species diversity. This is true. (Quammen).

More recently, most habitat fragmentation has occurred due to the activities of humans where they are separated by human dwellings or even roads; it is the process in which fragments of natural habitat are formed. Habitats that were once continuous become separated into smaller fragments. Habitat fragmentation caused by natural processes that slowly alter the layout of the environment is characterized by gradual speciation of the surrounding species. Natural processes include the formation of mountains separating a large forest into two smaller sized forest fragments. (e.g. mountains form that separate a large forest in half) These processes can occur over millions of years and allow plenty of time for the surrounding animals and plants to adapt completely. Habitat fragmentation due to human activity is often sudden. This does not allow species time to react. Therefore, fragmentation caused by humans is characterized by a large rate of extinction (“Habitat”). Although fragments used to be catalysts for evolution, today with more of them due to human activities, they actually decrease the amount of overall species diversity.

When fragments are created rapidly without allowing for evolutionary change, it is detrimental to the overall species diversity of a region. The overall amount of habitable area decreases. Plants are killed and animals must move to the remaining fragments. These remaining fragments will become very crowded, and consequently competition for resources will occur, as with population thinning (decline in population size). Few species can move between habitats (such as birds) but not many can or not many are “willing” to move across uncovered land that would increase their vulnerability to predators (“Habitat”).

A large piece of habitat is also necessary to maintain species diversity instead of a small patch. The larger an area of forest is, the more species diversity it will be able to maintain. This was discovered by Henry Allen Gleason in his article “On the relation between species and area” in 1922. In his study, he maintained patches of grass of different sizes. Each had the possibility of containing twenty-seven different types of grass. On average, a plot that was ten square meters contained ten different species of grass. A patch of twenty square meters had approximately thirteen species, compared to one of forty meters squared that had sixteen species. The best species diversity was found in the patch eighty square meters that was able to maintain twenty of the possible twenty-seven species comfortably. It was obvious that as the size of the plot increased, the number of species maintained also increased. This relationship can be used for all organisms (Quammen). In order for high species diversity to be maintained, a large area is necessary.

Additionally, a fragment is much like an island. The size of the fragment will determine the number of species present. Also it’s distance from the main forest and or other forests (or in the case of an island, mainland) will determine how many immigrants will colonize the fragment increasing species diversity. Fragments have small population sizes making them more susceptible to extinction. Small changes in environment due to climate or resources would be catastrophic in a small environment whereas in a large one could be corrected by another species (Henderson and Whittaker). For example, a certain bush that is the major food source to many small rodents cannot live under dryer conditions. For a couple of seasons, there is a drought and many of the bushes die out. In a small environment such as a fragment, there may not be other places for the rodents to get their nutrients but in a large forest, where there is increased species diversity, it is more likely that the problem can be fixed by another bush. Therefore, larger forests are more impervious to change than smaller ones.

Another consequence of habitat fragmentation is increased forest edge. Forest edge occurs where there is a boundary between natural habitat and disturbed or developed land. Edge will penetrate the forest a good distance. Edges are more susceptible to wind and sunlight causing more damage to the forest than in the interior of a large forest (things can be uprooted or leaves lost due to the wind). Due to increased sunlight, smaller shrub-like bushes will grow in place of large long-living canopy trees. Additionally, the wind and sunlight will dry out the edge allowing more invasive species to prosper. Invasive species are not native to the environment and many times will compete for resources with the native species (“Edge”). For example, the brown-headed cowbird thrives on the forest edges. It is parasitic and lays its eggs in the nests of song birds along forest edge. The offspring of the cowbird are much larger than those of songbirds and require much more food and attention. The songbirds will devote more resources to the larger and seemingly healthier cowbird allowing its own (songbird) offspring to perish. Therefore, for songbirds a smaller edge to interior forest is required for their survival and protection from the cowbird. This is also apparent in many species of plants where in small forest fragments, the entire patch is affected by edge effects and no true interior forest exists. This will alter the environment, and no true natural forest will exist.

In conservation, a common procedure to decrease the effect of fragments is corridors. Corridors are small strips of forest between patches that to a certain extent, allow increased motion of organisms between different environments (“Habitat”). These corridors can also be “built” to the ocean to allow for animals that leave on coastal setting to interact with those of the interior land. With limited resources, this is the most that many conservation biologists can do. Unfortunately, the habitat is becoming increasingly fragmented, and the effects will be seen in all forests.

In conclusion, the best only way to preserve the true natural environment is to set aside the largest amount of continuous land with the smallest amount of edge to be saved. A large connected piece of land will allow species interactions to continue and relationships to thrive. Much like a work of art, all the pieces must be present to inspire the same message. Hopefully, people will realize that much like the necessity of maintaining the unity of all the pieces of Guernica, it is cardinal that the land be conserved for future generations properly.

Works Cited

“Bombing of Guernica.” 27 November 2005. Wikipedia. 5 December 2005. .

“Edge Effects.” 31 October 2005. Wikipedia. 7 November 2005. .

“Habitat Fragmentation.” 31 October 2005. Wikipedia. 7 November 2005. .

Henderson, Scott J. and Whittaker, Robert J. “Islands.” Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, 2005 ed.

Quammen, David. The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinctions. New York: Scribner, 1996.

Article in the Shield

2005-08-15T02:39:00.000-07:00

Final Paper!

2005-08-15T02:38:00.000-07:00

Defense mechanisms of Nyssodesmus python (Polydesmidae)

Sheiphali Gandhi

Pott College of Science and Engineering, University of Southern Indiana

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects different characteristics of Nyssodesmus python had on the defense mechanisms of the organism. The defense mechanisms of N. python include: curling into a spiral and chemical defense. It was predicted that sex would not affect defense mechanisms, whereas size and level of calcification would. Populations were found in two locations: La Estación Biológica Monteverde and San Gerardo on different sides of the continental divide. One hundred and twenty millipedes were collected, 42 in Monteverde and 78 in San Gerardo. They were artificially threatened, and the time spent in a protective position and the release of toxin were recorded. The size of the individuals and level of calcification were also recorded. T-tests and chi-squared tests showed that there were significant differences in the defense mechanisms of males and females. Regression analysis showed a significant trend between size of an individual and the time it remained in the protected position, but the relationship may not be due to causation. The millipedes of different populations had some distinctive morphological and behavioral characteristics; additionally, there was a significant difference in their length of time spent in a curled position.

RESUMEN

El objetivo de este estudio fue examinar los efectos de las diferentes característcas de Nyssodesmus python sobre los mecanismos de defensa de estos organismos. Los mecanismos de defensa de N. python incluyen: doblarse sobre sí mismos y la defensa química. Se predijo que el sexo no afectaría a los mecanismos de defensa, mientras el tamaño y el nivel de calcificación si lo harían. Los individuos se encontraron en dos lugares: La Estación Biológica Monteverde y San Gerardo, en lados diferentes de la división continental. Ciento veinte milpiés se estudiaron en total, 42 en Monteverde y 78 en San Gerardo. Se amenazaron artificialmente, y se registraron el tiempo que pasaron en una posición protectiva y la presencia de la secreción de toxina. También se anotaron el tamaño de los individuos y el nivel de calcificación. Los experimentos indicaron una relación significativa entre el sexo de un milpiés y sus mecanismos de defensa. El análisis de regresión mostró una relación significativa entre el tamaño del individuo y el tiempo que pasó en una posición protectiva. Los milpiés de poblaciones diferentes mostraron diferencias morfológicas y etológicas características; hubo una diferencia significativa en el tiempo en que permanecieron en una posición protectiva.

INTRODUCTION

Nyssodesmus python, commonly known as the large forest-floor millipede, is usually found on the Caribbean slope of Costa Rica in patches of uncut understory. They feed primarily on rotting wood, like most other Polydesmidae, and are important decomposers in the rainforest ecosystem (Heisler 1983).

Adult N. python have twenty body segments, nineteen of which display a pair of horizontal keels that are large and flat, resembling a large isopod. Individuals are dull light yellow with two dark brown longitudinal stripes running down their backs. Sex can be easily determined because on the ventral side of the seventh body segment of male individuals, the first pair of legs is modified into a set of small curved “gonopods.” These structures are used in the transfer of sperm to the female millipede. Additionally, female N. python at 70-100 mm in length are larger than males, who measure on average 65-90 mm (Heisler 1983).

Nyssodesmus python molts throughout its entire life cycle even after it has stopped growing; after each molt, an adult N. python is soft and unpigmented. Approximately a month passes until the process of calcification and pigmentation is complete (Heisler 1983). The calcified exoskeleton plays an essential role in resisting the large pressures developed while burrowing. It is thought that calcium salts increase resistance without making the keel unwieldy. In general, the exoskeleton of males is stronger and more resistant than females. Also, as the body mass of females increases, the strength of their exoskeleton increases as well; while this trend does exist in male exoskeletons, it is much less apparent (Borrell 2004).

N. python has two forms of protection: an extremely rigid exoskeleton and a toxic chemical excretion. When threatened, it curls into a spiral, protecting its vulnerable underside, and secretes a toxin from its hindgut (Heisler 1983). The predominant components of their cyanogenetic defense secretions are hydrogen cyanide and benzaldehyde, together with other compounds such as phenol, benzoic acid, benzoyl cyanide, and mandelonitrile (Kuwahara et. al. 2002). Their characteristic secretion glands are known as oxadenes. They open laterally on the individual diplosegments to exude the repugnant liquid (Wright 1999). The composition of each toxin secretion is species-specific (Kuwahara et. al. 2002), and the secretion of N. python is commonly known for its pleasing cherry-almond scent. This liquid can be expelled violently up to a distance of 30 cm (Heisler 1983).

Research has been done on the reproductive behavior of this species by Hyatt (1993) and Arnold (1998), but little else is known about the natural history of N. python (Heisler 1983). The present study explored significant trends in defense mechanisms dependent on sex, size, and population. It was predicted that sex would not affect defense mechanisms, whereas size and level of calcification would. The hypothesis was based on the fact that little distinction exists between the morphology of males and females, whereas a clear disparity can be seen in size and calcification.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Study site

Nyssodesmus python were collected in two locations: the forest close to La Estación Biológica Monteverde and the forest in San Gerardo. The forest close to La Estación Biológica is on the Pacific slope in the lower montane wet forest life zone with an elevation of 1400-1800 m (Haber et al. 2000). San Gerardo sits at approximately 1300 meters in elevation on the Atlantic slope in the premontane rain forest life zone. Collection occurred close to trails due to accessibility (Fig. 1).

Data collection

The millipedes from the forest above La Estación Biológica Monteverde were collected in plastic bags and brought to the station by CIEE students. The millipedes collected in San Gerardo by Alan Masters were placed in a plastic container containing leaf litter and brought back to La Estación Biológica Monteverde to be tested. All subjects were collected between July 21, 2005 and August 1, 2005. They were kept at the biological station in terraria containing leaf litter collected on station property and covered with plastic wrap to maintain a moist environment. The millipedes from the two life zones were kept in separate terraria. The millipedes were left alone for one day to allow for acclimation. Multiple terraria were maintained so that simultaneous acclimation periods could be used for millipedes collected on different days. No more than ten millipedes were kept in a terrarium at the same time.

After the acclimation period, the millipedes were taken out of the terraria individually. The subject was then placed on a table and was artificially threatened by roughly turning it over onto its dorsal side. The amount of time the millipede remained curled in a spiral was recorded. The presence of toxin was determined by the presence of a sweet/cyanide smell and recorded. The length and width of the millipede were measured in millimeters by holding the millipede on it ventral side against a ruler on the table. These measures were multiplied to produce a size index for the comparison of different individuals. The new layer of exoskeleton, after molting, is unpigmented; therefore, the amount of calcification of the exoskeleton can be determined by its pigmentation. This was rated on a scale from one to ten with ten being the darkest and one the lightest. Calcification was recorded for only the Monteverde population because the pigmentation trend is only known for this population of millipedes (Heisler 1983).

Statistical analysis

Parametric tests were used to compare values. The log of the time of protection was taken to generate a normal data set. Unpaired t-tests were used to compare the protection time and size index of millipedes found in different locations. A chi-squared test was used to determine if the secretion of toxin differed between populations at the two sites. Unpaired t-tests were used to compare the curling time of males and females. Because there is a significant size difference between the two sexes (Heisler 1983) (Fig. 2), separate tests compared the size index and the protection time of each sex using simple regression analysis. Similarly, separate unpaired t-tests were run comparing the size index and presence of toxin of each sex. A chi-squared test was run to compare the presence of toxin for both sexes. Lastly, simple regression analysis was used to see if the protection time was a function of calcification.

RESULTS

A total of 120 Nyssodesmus python were collected. Close to La Estación Biológica Monteverde, 42 millipedes were collected, whereas 78 were collected in the San Gerardo forest. There were 46 females collected (16 in Monteverde and 30 in San Gerardo), while 74 males were collected (26 in Monteverde and 48 in San Gerardo). The ratio of females to males for each population was approximately 5 to 8.

Effect of sex

The protection time for the different sexes was found to be significantly different (p=0.0034). The mean protection time for females was 266.322±48.530 seconds, the mean protection time for males was 141.597 ±22.641 seconds. There was also a significant relationship between the sex of a millipede and the secretion of toxin (X²=10.781, DF=1, p=0.0010). Females were more likely to secrete toxin than males.

Effect of size

The millipede’s size index was found to have a significant effect on the protection time between sexes (males:p=0.0410, r²=0.057; females:p=0.0109, r²=0.138), but due to a low r²value denoting a weak fit of the regression relationship, this may not be caused by millipede size. The trend showed that smaller millipedes tended to remain in the protected position for a longer span of time than a larger millipede of the same sex (Fig. 3 and Fig. 4). It was found that the size of a millipede did not have a significant relation to the secretion of toxin within each sex.

Results of different locations

The difference between the secretion of toxin in the two populations of millipedes was not significant (X²=0.001, DF=1, p=0.9693), as well as their differences in size (p=0.7893). There was a significant difference in the mean time of each group in the protected position (p=0.0018). The millipedes from Monteverde stayed in a spiral for 137.618 ±26.921 seconds, whereas the millipedes from San Gerardo averaged 217.295±33.311 seconds.

The two populations of millipedes showed divergent morphologies. The coloration of the group found in Monteverde consisted of yellow- and brown-striped keels (Fig. 5), whereas the keels of millipedes found in San Gerardo were black with yellow coloration on the outer edges (Fig. 6). A smell difference was also noted between the two groups. The millipedes on the Pacific slope secreted the characteristic cherry-almond smell, whereas the millipedes from the Atlantic slope secreted a substance that had a sweet smell that was neither as pleasing nor as strong as the secretion of the other group.

Other results

Calcification ratings were recorded for the millipedes found on the Pacific slope. Thirty-five of the 42 millipedes had complete calcification based on their pigmentation. It was observed that three millipedes had a rating of 1, one millipede had a rating of 2, one millipede had a rating of 4, and two had a rating of 8. There was no apparent relationship between the calcification of the exoskeleton of the millipedes found in Monteverde and its protection time.

DISCUSSION

Sex

Females remained, on average, in the protected position for a longer period of time and were more apt to secrete toxin, in comparison to males. The exoskeletons of male Nyssodesmus python are stronger than that of females (Borrell 2004). This may have been a contributing factor to this significant difference between the two sexes. Less protective measures would be necessary for the survival of the males since their exoskeletons provide them with better protection; therefore, the females with weaker calcification must compensate by using a longer time period in the spiral position or by relying on cyanogenetic secretions to deter predators.

Size

This slight negative relationship may be explained by the results of a study that found that as the size of female millipedes increased, the strength of the cuticle increased as well (Borrell 2004). It would not be necessary for large female millipedes to take as many defensive precautions as smaller female millipedes. Exoskeleton strength also increases with size in males, but the relationship was not nearly as defined as it was with females (Borrell 2004). This was mirrored in the relationship between protection time and the size of male millipedes. Therefore, although there is a significant relationship between the protection time of males, the relationship may not be strong due to the fact that the strength of their exoskeleton does not significantly increase with size.

Location

The two populations are comparable because they have very similar ratio between the numbers of males to females. In terms of patterns of toxin secretion and size, the two populations of millipedes differed little, but the distinctions between the protective times of the two groups were significantly different. It may have been due to the fact that the San Gerardo millipedes were moved to a much greater distance and to a new environment that caused them to remain in a protective position for a longer span of time. No prior research has been done on the San Gerardo population in particular, so no inferences can be made of this difference in times spent in the protective position.

The two populations have characteristics that may grant them to be considered as different species or subspecies. First of all, morphologically, the coloration of the species was very different. According to some definitions, this would be enough justification to separate the populations taxonomically. Additionally, the secretions of the two populations smelled very different. Within the family Polydesmidae, the compositions of the secretions are species-specific (Kuwahara et. al. 2002), further supporting that the two populations should be distinguished taxonomically.

Calcification

Molting causes fluctuations in the exoskeleton strength of N. python (Heisler 1983), but these fluctuations may not impact the defense mechanisms of the organisms as much as the gradual increases of calcification due to size (Borrell 2004). So, although calcification due to molting cycles did not show a significant relation, it says little of the overall calcification of an individual. Additionally, only seven millipedes were found to have exoskeleton strength differences due to a recent molt. This small sample size may have hindered the soundness of the data found.

Future research

In order to improve the validity of this study for future replications, some adjustments must be made. Differences between adult and juvenile millipedes were not considered. Juveniles have fewer segments because segments are added with age (Heisler 1983). The exoskeleton of juveniles is generally weaker than that of the adults (Borrell 2004); therefore, this may have adversely affected the data. Results derived from this study indicated that smaller millipedes took more protective precautions; when in fact, this could be attributed to the age of the millipede. A more intensive study should be performed to obtain more robust results to test the difference in cuticle strength between sexes and its effect on defense mechanisms. The strength of the exoskeleton of each individual could be tested to determine its relationship to defense mechanism. This can be done by following methods used by B.J. Borrell, in which fracture force and density of keels were determined (2004). It is necessary to clarify the relationship between the populations of the opposite slopes. Morphologically, the population from Monteverde matches known natural history of Nyssodesmus python (Heisler 1983). Little is known of the San Gerardo population because there is no known existing literature describing its characteristics, or even stating if it is a subspecies of N. python. No tests were run on the possible reproductive interactions between the two groups to confirm relationship. Another population of Polydesmidae millipedes was found within the Monteverde collection site. In terms of coloration, they resemble those found in San Gerardo, but in general, they are smaller than those found in San Gerardo (Appendix 1).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge all the people who helped me with my data collection of the Monteverde population: Gina Rozinka, Mary Oppold, Stephanie Place, Kent Melchiors, Nathaniel Talbot, and Carlos Guindon. An appreciative hug goes to Alan Masters who provided the entire San Gerardo population. I am still astounded by his thoughtfulness and generosity. I would not have smelled like hydrogen cyanide for a week without all of you. Thank you to Javier Méndez and Carlos Guindon for all of your professorly advice and explanations of statistics. For helping me with my spur of the moment questions throughout the process, I appreciate all the help of my teaching assistants, Maria Jost and Nathaniel Talbot. Plus, they danced around the station, made me smile, and made sure that I didn’t measure my millipedes in millipedes. Additionally, the teaching staff was amazing in their efforts of trying to figure out the taxonomic information of the San Gerardo population of millipedes. The support of all my fellow CIEE students helped me get through the exhilarating process of the scientific method, and the group wallowing alleviated my problems more than I could have ever imagined. Kathy Rockwell was a huge support and help for taking me to the doctor twice when both of my feet decided to stop being functional. Thanks to telepathy, I was able to understand all my good times with my friend Meg Smith, without whom, I would be lost in the Costa Rica. All the people back home were a great support during hard times, especially my sister Sonali and my friends at USI. I will never be able to forget the concern of la familia Cruz Solís of my plight of finding a large sample size. It was wonderful to come home to such kind people. And, of course, thank you to the staff at La Estación Biológica Monteverde for the Costa Rican brewed coffee that always made my day and night.

LITERATURE CITED
Arnold, N. 1998. Mating behavior of millipedes, Nyssodesmus python. Educational Abroad Program, spring 1998. Monteverde, Costa Rica.

Borrell, B. J. 2004. Mechanical properties of calcified exoskeleton from the neotropical millipede, Nyssodesmus python. Journal of Insect Physiology. 50:1121-1126.

Haber, W. A., Zuchowski W. and Bello, E. 2000. An Introduction to Cloud Forest Trees Monteverde, Costa Rica, p. 11. Mountain Gem Publications, Monteverde de Puntarenas, Costa Rica.

Heisler, I. L. 1983. Nyssodesmus python (Milpies, Large Forest-floor Millipede). In D. H. Janzen (Ed). Costa Rican Natural History, pp. 747-749. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, Illinois.

Hyatt, P. 1993. The mating behavior of the tropical millipede Nyssodesmus python. CIEE, summer 1993. Monteverde, Costa Rica.

Kuwahara, Y., Omura, H., and Tanabe, T. 2002. 2-Nitroethenylbenzenes as natural products in millipede defense secretions. Naturwissenschaften. 89:308-310.

Wright, Johnathon C. 1999. Myriapoda (Including Centipedes and Millipedes). Encyclopedia of Life Sciences. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd: Chichester. (http://www.els.net/)

2005-08-13T23:23:00.000-07:00

i will be in the states in two days. *GASP*

busy having fun and finishing up my GODLY thing that i call i paper. i'm finished by the way. just letting u all know that i'll be home soon

OH keep ur eyes open for mars!

i'll have my cell in florida... we'll see what i can make happen.

2005-08-12T10:21:00.000-07:00

i gave my symposium presentation yesterday and afterwards i felt really really sad. it felt like another large part of the program had just ended. i did fine though if u guyz care, i got a 9.6 out of 10.

afterwards me and meg went to Santa Elena and did some souvenir shopping. then we went to this coffee shop called the treehouse coffee shop. there is honestly this large tree growing through the middle of the place. it is soo sweet. we sat and talked for like 3 hours there. it was amazing. i had a chocolate mint milkshake and she had a passion fruit shake and coffee.

it was sooooo hot when we went there. then it started to cool down because a CLOUD came through the middle of town. hehehe. then it started pouring like no other. then it stopped and we left. it was awesome.

we came back and there was a barbecue and javier's house (one of our ecology profes) it was pretty fun. i've never eaten so much meat in my entire life. (shrimp and chicken) then we laid on the balcony talking to michael and stuff wrapped in blankets that gave me the sniffles. i went to bed cuz i was really tired, but her and michael stayed up til 2am to watch the meteor shower. i didn't want to miss it, but i knew even if i was there i would be sleeping.

i'm going to miss meg so much. we had a long conversation about religion and things like that and i believe i have found one of the only people that has introspectively analyzed their religion as much as i have. i told her that we have to make an effort to keep in touch b/c i can't bear to lose her as a friend.

Current Music: TA's singing something in Santa Rosa on video

me and meg...

2005-08-10T20:08:00.000-07:00

I MISS DDR!

2005-08-10T17:37:00.000-07:00

Sheiphali: hi! i am once again on top of things. i finished my power point already. aren't you proud of me?

Chad: lol yes when is it due?
Sheiphali: tomorrow
Chad: oh wow you are on top of things
Sheiphali: i know... WHAT"S HAPPENING TO ME!?!?!
Chad: don't worry we'll change you back when you get to school
Sheiphali: NEVA... i won't let you
Sheiphali: meh : P
Chad: we have a 12 step program for people that have strayed from the path of procrasitination and late nights
Sheiphali: is DDR one of those steps?
Chad: all 12
Sheiphali: well if its DDR....

i'm a-going to post some pictures of me and meg today and some other random ones. in a bit.

Yesterday was brilliant!!!!!!!!!

2005-08-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

people might be surprised that i say that considering i had a final yesterday but it was easy and confidence-building.

so after we went to San Luis which is this little farming town close by in the valley of the tilaran mountains kinda. we went to this families house and ate some of the best arroz con pollo EVER (chicken and rice). man it was sooo good. then they taught us about the history of their family and how the land had been his great-grandparents'. then we went out and helped him cut sugar cane and clean it. they have a really old fashioned sugar mill that has the thing that oxen run around to do it but for us Elizabeth and Colin had to do it. it was hilarious and great. everyone kept hitting them on the butts telling em to go faster. (i didn't :P). so we got to drink FRESH sugar cane juice. then we hiked about an hour to one of the most gorgeous waterfalls in the world. we ur standing up by monteverde you can see it with your binoculars. we went there :). the hike was pretty hard and uphill so when we got there i was kinda warm so i went swimming in the water at 50 F. i didn't make it far enough to actually have the water come down on my head but still, it was awesomely cold. so on the way back i talked to Maria one of our TA's and it turns out that both of us have a very similar outlook on life in terms of religion and stuff like that, which i'm not gonna lie, surprised me. pleasantly surprised. that was awesome, so we have become pretty good friends. we came back and the wife taught us some merengue but she kept changing it soooo me and maggie we just like screw it and we danced for fun.

then we came back and went to Kathy's house for dinner and fun times. omg it was so fun. people drank and things and the got everyone to take shots or drinks even our professor Carlos Guindon. (well everyone except me of course... don't worry i haven't changed THAT much) it was just a fun time playing with her two ADORABLE daughters and the plethora/cornucopia of animals. since the waterfall had been so great, i was in one of my awesome sheiphali-moods and i think that i'm starting to open up in front of people more... to bad the program's almost over.

some people went to La Taberna but most of us came back to the station. i hung out with mary and nathaniel in the TA's office and we just layed on the hard wood floors, listened to music, and fell asleep. it was really nice. mary and nathaniel were talking but i was too tired to think and all i just slept. o ya and we did this thing that mary likes to do on hardwood floors. she moves her legs back and forth like she's making a snow angel because "it feels cool." uh right. but i did it anyways ~.o

so they have created a "sheiphalipop" song in my honor apparently and its hilarious. i'll try to see if i can figure out some way of taping it. it amuses me immensely. i don't even know the lyrics, but tyler and nathaniel made them up last night. nathaniel is one of the best musicians i have ever met. (probably ever met) he's amazing. when i tape it they're going to put it to music hehe. o man.

today i have to finish my symposium presentation that's tomorrow. public speaking won't be so bad especially if it's in front of people i know well. they cut you off at 10 minutes though so i'm going to have to practice a bunch. at about 1-2 pm me, meg, and mary are going to santa elenato buy souvenirs and things and i might try to buy something to wear to the symposium so i look nice. THEN! i'm going to teach a bunch of people how to indian dance because they want to learn. how cool is that? it's not like that one night in ruston where people were like...meh, ill learn. here they actually asked to learn. i dunno i just think that's cool.

i think i'm going to miss these people.

Current Music: piano stuff in comp lab

ZIPLINES ARE AWESOME!

2005-08-08T14:05:00.000-07:00

OH MY FREAKING GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (yes, it warranted more than just a omg)

zip lines kick ass.

i've realized that being here has really been worthwhile. as we hiked around in Sky Trek (we had to hike from zip line to zip line) i could name different plants to the species. how cool is that? i can be like, "hey look guys, that Xanthosoma robustum has started to infloresce." then someone else'll be like "oooh are there scarab beetles inside mating the sterile part?" OR "look at those Clusia leaves in that Quercus costarricensis. it hasn't reached the secondary stage of a primary epiphyte yet." MAN we're such biodorks. but seriously i know this sounds dumb, but it truly is exhilerating to walk through a forest and know what ur looking and what pollinates it and what disperses. i guess you'll just have to take my word for it.

and April, to answer your question, i truly am having the time of my life.

and a funny biojoke for all to enjoy... Quercus costarricensis just happens to belong to the family Fagaceae. (it's the costa rican oak tree)

tomorrow we have our ecology final, then we're going to san luis to see the awesomest waterfall ever (not going to swim b/c it's too cold), and finally, going to Kathy Rockwell's (the logistic coordinater) for a hot dog BBQ (chicken dogs for me). other people want to go to La Taverna to dance and stuff... but we'll see about that. i'm not antisocial, i just think i'll be tired and stuff

"busy, busy, busy" Cat's Cradle Kurt Vonnegut. time to go study. w00t!

Current Music: wind through the trees

Excited!

2005-08-08T07:42:00.000-07:00

we're going on a canopy tour today which means that we'll be doing ziplines through the rainforest! how sweet can life get??????

i hope my feet don't fall off. it's SOO cold outside (50F) and windy and misty as heck too. i know all u people in the states are burning up there, but why can't we all find a happy medium.

i've decided to add this line to my acknowledgements just to let you know
"If I didn't have the support of all my friends and family at home, this trip would have been hard to survive" or something of the sort. we'll see :/ i need to improve it. it's too early

i'm sorry that all u guyz are working real hard. just remember that i'll give u all big hugs when we get to school, and hopefully, that will make you feel better. (ihope i does) b/c i myself need some addy,paul,april,kelly,and nisha hugs so TOOO bAD!

Acknowledgements

2005-08-06T17:30:00.000-07:00

I would like to acknowledge all the people who helped me with my data collection of the Monteverde population: Gina Rozinka, Mary Oppold, Stephanie Place, Kent Melchiors, Nathaniel Talbot, and Carlos Guindon. An appreciative hug goes to Alan Masters who provided the entire San Gerardo population. I am still astounded by his thoughtfulness and generosity. Without all of you, I would not have smelled like hydrogen cyanide for a week. Thank you to Javier Méndez and Carlos Guindon for all of your professorly advice and explanations of statistics. For helping me with my spur of the moment questions throughout the process, I appreciate all the help that my teaching assistants, Maria Jost and Nathaniel Talbot, provided. Plus, they danced around the station and made me smile. Also, they made sure that I didn’t measure my millipedes in millipedes. Additionally, everyone was amazing in their efforts for trying to figure out the taxonomic information of the San Gerardo population of millipedes. The support of all my fellow CIEE students helped me get through the exhilarating process of the scientific method, and the group wallowing alleviated my problems more than I could have ever imagined. Thanks to telepathy, I was able to understand all my good times with my friend Meg Smith, without whom, I would be lost in Costa Rica. I will never be able to forget the concern of la familia Cruz Solís of my plight of finding a large sample size. It was wonderful to come home to such kind people. And, of course, thank you to the staff at La Estación Biológica Monteverde for the Costa Rican brewed coffee that always made my day and night.

therefore, i am done with my paper and life is good, despite my splitting headache.

AHHHHHHH! FINALS WEEK! ecology final on tuesday. start studying today :(

Current Music: something and meg's paper printing

i am 172 millipedes tall in case you care.

2005-08-06T01:21:00.000-07:00

"Sheiphali, you're intro was rockin up until the last 2 sentences, but then I puked in my mouth"--Nathaniel while looking at my paper

"The length and width of the millipede were measured in millipedes by holding the millipede on its ventral side..." --me

first draft of paper turned in for revision and the TA's came out of their office being like "SHEIPHALI we wanna read you something" then they read me my beyond brilliant new unit of measure that will transcend all others to be the best of all. the measurement of the millipede. i mean today we use units of measure based on the length of the foot and thumb of the queen of england (thumb=inch, that's why thumb and inch are the same word). WHY NOT MILLIPEDES??? they are soo much cuter than the smelly, warty feet of some queen in england plus they smell like lotion.

i can't believe i'm still awake. brains should not even be allowed to function at this level of randomness.

Today I worked on my paper FOREVER, but it is better than anyother paper I’ve every written for a science class. I’m very proud of it w00t.

people have taken to calling me sheiphalipop. tyler said i should call the "new" species of millipede Nyssodesmus sheiphalipop if i decide to send the information to InBio (huge research inst. in Costa Rica) prolly won't matter even if i did b/c in order to "discover" a new species you have to give a life history of it and i don't have time for that. if i had the extra 3 weeks.... shit that would be sooo cool.

today
Called paul and addy today and that was exciting. Meg let me use her fone card service thing that’s super cheap. I come home soon. I’m excited for the USI friend fun of last year. went to spanish... was pretty boring but sad b/c it's our last class with Isaura and she's awesome. she wanted us to go to the club tonite (she's only 21) but we had to work on our paper. other than that, it was paper paper paper. watched some spirited away. the program owns a copy. :) how awesome is that?
tomorrow its gonna be sleep sleep sleep cuz i'm almost done. *relief* i plan on hiking somewhere tomorrow. hope it doesn't rain. that's a long shot in the rainforest/cloudforest. i want to walk through a cloud tomorrow. i haven't done it in a while (like 5 days)

Ps. Sorry for the boredom of the last entry. Don’t hate me forever. i love all of you

Current Music: elizabeth giving peter dreads (is that how you spell it?)

the boringest entry EVER!!!! BEAT IT! i DARE you

2005-08-05T00:54:00.000-07:00

man do i know how to complain or what... but seriously. i need to talk this through and at 1:14 am in the bio station and the only one up... you're stuck with me.

soooo. worked all day on my paper except for the 8 hours of lecture and 1 hour of spanish hw. lo-ong day. good one though b/c i got a lot done and that's always satisfying. listen to me! i'm such a dork. but

bio majors help! need ideas

USI'S LIBRARY DATABASE WON'T WORK! i need it b/c i don't have enough info on millipede sex differences. they have proven to be quite and obscure topic. those millipedes that my teacher got me may not be the same species. and we don't know which one it is. in addition... it may not have a name. should i run around with my hands in the air yelling, "w00t! i'm the first one!!" or should i sit in my chair and cry because i'm so fricking lost in the topic.

so i got significant data. problem arises because i have no idea why which is what my entire discussion section has to be on. and after than year of intro bio, i am definitely the expert to infer the behavioral patterns of Nyssodesmus python. (sense the sarcasm?)

my data is way too significant for me to be like. "uhhhh they felt like being that way. YAY! uh k bye." nope won't work.

for you all that had palladino or psychology... would you say that fixed action patterns (FAP) would be a good reason for them to curl up regardless of the thickness of their exoskeleton. i have info on that topic in particular but its delving in the murky waters of psychology in a scientific paper. i don't know whether or not i should try it. its kinda a longshot in my opinion b/c most of the examples for it are birds and the stuff, not stupid little buggies that like to crawl off the sides of tables. (omg you don't know how many i've had to rescue)

other idea. females stay curled in teh protective position longer because they have more to lose (i.e. egg sacs and the like). or could it be that they're bigger and move a lot slower and are just too lazy to get their lazy keels out of a ball?

i should be thankful though. some people didn't get any significant data. luckily the way my project works is that if there is no relationship that's worth reporting too, b/c that means that in that way there is no difference between the sexes. i just know how to ask the questions i guess.

ok now that the boringest lj post ever is over with, we should celebrate with... THE YUMMY ORANGE AND WHITE STUFF ADDY"S MOM MAKES!!!!!!! ... or at least some chocolate.

*munch* bye!

o btw. meg is the best comfort ever. she makes me feel better when i'm having stupid paper issues and so este es me grito a mi megan. mi CIEE amiga favorita.

Current Music: tropical crickets

2005-08-03T15:01:00.000-07:00

GUESS WHO HAS SIGNIFICANT DATA!!?!!!!??!!!?!?!!!!??!?!!!?!?!!!!!?!!!!!!!

*skips through the forest and falls on face*

2005-08-03T11:58:00.000-07:00

sorry for the depression. i've been better, but haven't been up to the station to use the internet. we moved back to the station today and i miss my host family already. i might stop by their house today :)

other than that not too much to report. my brain isn't working today. i'm trying to BS a humans and the tropics paper and its just not working. ick ick

ps... meg rocks XD

2005-07-31T13:13:00.000-07:00

i hate when i have dreams and i wake up to them and they have a theme that just brings back all the hurt. so i cried for an hour this morning. i hate it. why do i let things bother me. i try to be a stoic but in the confines of my room...

the monkey 10 feet from my face did little to help... i named it addy #2. the baby one behind her is april. just thought that would make you happy if not me.

Current Music: birdies

2005-07-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

i miss you guys so much and with 18 days left i'm sad to leave but i'm also happy to be seeing you guys soon.

i have running-into-the-wall headache. it's cuz i had to do all the experiments on all 78 millipedes last night until 11:30pm and this was after taking that killer practical. i didn't do as well on this one as the last one. but i only have 4 more to do :) then i'll be done! w00t. i don't even have to come to the station on thursday if i don't wanna.

sleepy

i told my friend stef about some of the crazy things we did last year and it made me really nostalgic. we better be psycho until we graduate. i told her about the time we danced in the windows for the tanning guy behind ruston, and april pelting paul in the nuts with paintballs, and alla and me driving parallel on the lloyd, and dancing in the car on the way to paintball that one day, and paul going to kroger decked out in camou gear, and just so much more. i think i have the best friends in the world.

nuf with that mush... MILLIPEdeS~

so i was walking down the killer hill one day and i met our other professor allen masters going down while he was going up. he lives on the killer hill. he is the biggest hippie you've ever met. he was barefoot in linen pant things, a bandana on his long hair, and his scruffy beard... the works. well we got to talking and he asked me about how my project was going and i was telling him about how i was having trouble with my data collection. well he was on the atlantic slope of the country and he happened to come across an orgy of millipedes... (the congregate to reproduce)... well so he picked them up for me and dragged them to me from san gerado. HOW NICE CAN YOU GET!!!! i was so happy :)

it turns out that they're a different species but the same genus so i can still use them (thankfully) and so i only have to find 4 more! when i do, i'll be done.

i think i might go ahead and by the harry potter book tonight because i'm killing for reading material. i've read 5 books here and i need another because you can only read Cat's Cradle and Whale Talk so many times before you get sick of them. (btw i recommend those too)

sorry for the babbling. WHA!

Current Music: megans stuff.. dunno

2005-07-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

SEVENTY-EIGHT MILLIPEDES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 78 78 78 78 78

tell u how later just excited. i have a practical in 1 1/2 hour and i don't know any butterfly or frog families o.o oops

2005-07-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

This is Tyler with the Goliath beetle but i decided to tell u guyz about it :)

Megan's host mom found it in their backyard and stuck it in this itty-bitty box where the dude's pinchers were like hanging out. so i touched it :) but anyways she brings it to the station and they want to pin it to further the future of science and all that jazz but she has to take it home b/c GET THIS, her host brother thing wants to eat it b/c apparently its a delicacy around here. EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

sorry that i keep posting so much i'm just procrastinating studying for my field practical. ick dont wanna study.

//^=^\\

2005-07-25T13:27:00.000-07:00

SPIDER!!!!!!!! //^=^\\ so easily amused! WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

2005-07-25T13:13:00.000-07:00

yesterday the movie night was a blast. w00t! we taught the girls how to play spoons (CUCHARAS!!!) we had so much fun with it. we were rolling on the floor grabbing things from eachother wrestling. ya it was fun. then my host sister susana stole my backpack and wouldn't give it back (jokingly) so i had to powerwalk to keep up w/ her b/c i can't run with my ankle sprained. it was funny though. then meg got it for me.

we had ice cream coca-cola floats and pizza (yum veggies) and we were just simply merry. we watched The Incredibles (los increibles) stef's little host sister Joriette is just soooo cute. she's like 2-3 years old. she was chasing after this dog going "Wow Wow" which is how they say like "bow wow" here and laughing it was so cute.

my second field practical is tomorrow and i'm not nearly as worried as i should be. i'll probably be studying all day. i want pizza again for dinner. does that sound stupid?

nathaniel found 4 millipedes so he's the day's hero :)

Current Music: Carlos teaching elizabeth something

2005-07-24T14:37:00.000-07:00

stef found me two millipedes today. she is my hero

one is black and pretty because it molted just recently. i named it Doshin after Paul's great great grandma.

i have a mosquito bite on my eye and it itches. luckily its really little so it didn't swell up to big. Peter had a huge one and his entire eye closed shut.

me stef and meg are having a movie night with our little host sisters. we're watching either the incredibles or finding nemo. we having ice cream, cola, and pizza. it's going to be a blast. i'm excited.

we have our second field practical tuesday. i have to study all day tomorrow. *nervous* i hope i do well

2005-07-24T11:40:00.000-07:00

:( sick again.

thanx for all the millipede names paul. you made me laugh when i thought i couldn't. i miss you.

awesome concert last night. MalPais. they were amazing. i'll let you guyz listen to it when i get home. they rocked my sox.

coatis and millipedes.

2005-07-23T13:47:00.000-07:00

i scared a coati away. it was like 2 ft away from me and it was rummaging through Gina's backpack and standing on her digital camera so i had to run at it to go away. but it knocked Mary's lunch off the balcony and ran away with her host family's tupperware so she had to chase after it down the hill but it went into the forest and she couldn't get it :( it was funny and i was proud of my bravery

i let the first set of millipedes go :) yay but they all felt that they had to poop on my hands before they went. o well. i guess it was their way of saying goodbye. i put a bit of red nail polish on their "butts" so i don't collect the same ones again

2005-07-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

sooo... naming millipedes...need names!

so far
1. Paul (he escaped!!!)
2. Mauricio
3. Sofia
4. Billy
5. Jocko (Paul)

i need more... i'll take anything you've got. in my chart i'll even put who gave them to me.

i want it to rain so the millipedes will come out an play. i only have 6 right now.

*brrrrr* cold. shouldn't sit by the window on the continental divide. it's cold.

2005-07-23T08:23:00.000-07:00

:) hello

millipede project is going slowly but well. i have to make like 10 terrariums today.

1 thing good about costa rica or at least monteverde is that the altitude kept my pop carbonated for like 4 days. it's still good :) that makes me happy b/c i don't really like that much at once.

my host family babysits for a bunch of little kids and when i came home yesterday the littlest one thought that i was his mom at the gate so when i walked in he walked up to me crying and put his head against my leg and was crying and said "mamita no viene" which means "mama doesn't come" awwww

today i'm going to megan's host sister's birthday party and afterwards we're going to a concert by a famous Tico band (tico = costa rican) i'm excited. i hope i don't fall asleep there. i woke up at 5 am this morning. well i'm going to go search for millipedes now.

2005-07-21T18:10:00.000-07:00

steffie found me millipedes two and therefore the day has been saved!

hurricane emily is making the clouds blow backwards around here which is really strange and when we blow air out it all cloudy... (like in winter) but here it's because we're in a cloud forest. so now i have officially become part of the cloud systems of the world A LITTLE BIT OF SHEIPHALI IN EVERY CLOUD! yay

it's raining buckets down here (a cantaros!) so i'm definitely loving it at usual but unfortunately it makes the prospect of a resprain that much more likely. ah the trade-offs of life.

2005-07-21T13:38:00.000-07:00

SO FRUSTRATED :(

2 1/2 hours + walking around forest = NO MILLIPEDES

so frustrated

2005-07-21T10:26:00.000-07:00

*sweaty*

yesterday went to a coffee place with "esteffie" (stephanie) and had a milkshake yum yum chocolate mint! then went to megans and hung out with her for like 1 1/2 hour then had dinner at my house then went to steffie's with megan until about ten then came home.

i overslept this morning (and by that i mean 9 am) i usually get up at like 5 am here. who knows? i might do that at school too. it's really nice i kinda like it. well anyway my family babysits for all these little kids and there were 4 little boys in my house and it was awesome :) well mary needs the computer. ADIOS CHICOS!

2005-07-20T07:44:00.000-07:00

the bipolarity of sheiphali *shakes head* SUCH A GOOD MOOD!!!!

well maybe it's because i stretched my tendons out this morning but the ankle no me duele (doesn't hurt) and i am running on a rush of up the hill endorphins topped off by one of the clearest days on the pacific coast where i can see it from the station. also i walked up the hill without stopping once! without stopping! one of the most satisfying sweats to ever grace my body. :) i haven't walked up the hill (no a hill... more mountain) since before i sprained my ankle and i was always like "i'm dying" and trust me i wasn't the only one but TODAY...!
40 minutes uphill and i'm not on the ground. addy we HAVE to go to audubon for like a whole day!

went to the heladeria (ice cream shop) and go the best sundae ever for less than 2 bucks we took pictures. yum yum 2 scoops of homemade hand-milked freshly made ice cream in

costa rica

with hot fudge on top and oreo sprinkles and whipped cream and a pirouette! coldstone creamery can go jump in a hole for all i care. the endless pit of DOOM wua ha ha!

omfg i need to calm down

btw speaking spanish rocks my face off. you guyz need to learn it so we can tell secrets in spanish...ok ok i'm just kidding but i was surprised how much i missed it because i hadn't done it for long periods of time since mexico.

APRIL, ADRIANE, and KELLY!!!! tell me what i need to bring. i don't care what it is because we have extras of random things in our house... don't ask, bu† anyways YA tell me so i can tell my mom just so she knows. i'm bringing a rice cooker cuz i got one for my graduation and because i'm asian and it's just a given. i have a george foreman ALSO i have a table top skillet that we can use for pancakes and grilled cheese
other ideas
-coffee maker
-water quick boiler thing (for ramen)

2005-07-19T09:35:00.000-07:00

there's a sloth in my backyard. he's furry and curled in a ball. i can't see his face... AWWW

me and meg went exploring behind the lower lab and we found a waterfall. so pretty. i'm gonna climb the fig tree by it later... not today though. i don't have time today.

yep

2005-07-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

fell asleep at 7:30 last night... by accident. we went out to eat as a group last night and it was really funny b/c it turned out that Nathaniel our TA had a blind date there that night. he was like, "hey guyz" *tug collar* (like raj?) well anyway he ate around the corner from us... poor guy. but we had fun. my spanish teacher came to dinner with us and she's awesome (her name is awesome too, Isaura) so i got to talk in spanish all through dinner *happy*

ok... so as you guyz know. i'm really lazy and sometimes don't write what's going on over here. well my friend megan (prefers meg) has a livejournal (OF COURSE because all cool people do!!!) her name is:

canopy_dancer it's public and you guyz are welcome to add her... (do b/c i like when all my friends are friends w/ each other)

ick

2005-07-18T07:40:00.000-07:00

hola... horrid mood. absolutely horrid. ankle hurts. other foot hurts taking stress off ankle. stomach hurts. diarrhea 7 times yesterday. midterm today (30% of grade). homesick b/c i talked to megan forever and it made me miss talking to my other good friends (btw... megan r0x0rs)...i need a hug x.x

so sorry for the venting...i can be like that.

ok... so april does the quote thing... as will i

from one of the best books ever... Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins. It's frickin brilliant. borrowed it from Tyler.

"The Chinese discovered gunpowder by accident while trying to invent a potion that would alchemically lengthen life.

It is unclear what the Chinese were trying to invent when they discovered spaghetti. Perhaps the spaghetti noodle, too, was a byproduct of longevity research, of an effort to live a won, won ton; a futile attempt to avoid facing the question, 'Who's going to chop your suey when I'm gone?'

No matter. It may be prudent, however, for would-be immortals to bear in mind the Chinese experience. Seeking prolonged existence, they ended up with gunpowder, the elixir of death, not life; the propellant of history's innumerable tragic bullets, including the ones that felled Gandhi, John Lennon, and Bambi's mother-and the one that left Bingo Panama facedown on Royal Street."

Current Music: talking to Colin

Some things

2005-07-15T00:06:00.000-07:00

3 hours of CATCHPHRASE and i'm soo totally pumped. michael's right. that game IS like crack.

not going to post for a bit... just giving the head's up for all who care... : )

I SPRAINED MY ANKLE!!!!

2005-07-14T09:00:00.000-07:00

on the way to penas blancas i fell on a slippery rock climbing down to a freshwater pool and i sprained it. i thought it was broken at the time but obviously i was mistaken. well so they take me to the close refuge on a horse and i stayed the night there with nathaniel (one of the TA's) in this little shack thing. we dragged the mattressed out to the porch and we slept outside which was nice. he made this spaghetti with pepper and onions and tomato sauce and considering the conditions it was amazing. he was really sweet about it. i felt so bad b/c i was definitely not good company. many of you know how depressed-sheiphali is... she's just not there whatsoever. well so i cried a bit out of pain but by that point just out of being lonely and depressed b/c i couldn't go on the rest of the trip.

they took me out on horse :\ i liked the horse he was a sweetie this was on monday btw.

at the doctor i found out that indeed it wasn't broken but that it was gonna be fine. (today's the first day i can walk) and so i went to my host family really early. at my host family i'm pretty sure that they don't think i can speak spanish well at all just b/c i was so fricken depressed that i didn't feel like talking at all. i'll tell u bout them in a bit.

so i found out how much these people here have affected me. i can't imagine how it's gonna be like when i leave. i've make some of the most interesting and ground-breaking friendships ever here and i wouldn't change it for ANYTHING. my friends here are nothing like i've ever had. i'll tell more about it later but seriously it's really something new. i truly missed them.

they're so sweet. they were like WE MISSED YOU... even though i highly doubt they did much. i mean i'm just one person but they really made sure that i felt plenty loved which is always a great feeling.

well so i stayed w/ my host family and they're really nice... i'll post more bout that later i promise but i cried a lot there too... just from being lonely and stuck in bed b/c i couldn't walk. but today i'm in a great mood cuz i'm w/ everyone again so i'm gonna go play catchphrase cuz kent came in to ask if i want to play

ADIOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(o my foot is finally better today!)

Going Away

2005-07-09T23:26:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be gone until friday because we're going on a 6 hour hike to penas blancas then staying there for a couple of days. it's really really isolated. the only way to get there is on foot or horse. they're bringing all of our food by horse so this is going to be interesting. i have my bug-net packed

hasta luego

o btw. moths kick ass!

...

2005-07-09T15:11:00.000-07:00

yesterday i went to a bar and there were TWO bar fights. needless to say i don't think that we will be going there anytime in the near future. the talent show was yesterday and i danced. eh. it was exciting?

sorry not really in the posting mood. i'll try again later today.

YAY!

2005-07-08T16:01:00.000-07:00

finished my proposal

now to frolick in the forest

Special Present

2005-07-07T07:17:00.000-07:00

there's howler monkey poop right outside my door and i almost stepped in it

dancing

2005-07-06T23:41:00.000-07:00

went to a club today. danced with my first boy O.o lol. i had fun. it was tyler tho so it's cool. he has a girl in

england

that he loves so he's safe ;) this tico boy (costa rican) was like dance with me and i shook my head and walked away. nope. don't dance with the randoms. not my style. it was gina's birthday so we went out to celebrate. i had a great time but as you all know all i need is some good beat and i'm in my zone. i think i've danced better tonite than i have in my entire life. its the anonymity of it that i love. parin we have to go clubbing when i get back. i want to soo bad. i didn't realize how great it would be.

Current Music: "ah ni kuria"

Bats and things

2005-07-06T18:40:00.000-07:00

BATS!!!!!!!

they are the coolest things ever! i held like 10 of them. they are so soft. there was one that was so sweet. i held him in my palm (that small) and had my thumb just kinda cradling him and he just looked up at me. i wanted to like stick him my pocket or something. awwwwwwww.

i killed my millipede x.x i dunno why ernie died. sad sad sad.

FINALLY!!!

2005-07-05T12:55:00.000-07:00

Sierpe, Costa Rica...on the way to the mangroves
i think that this is up there in the top 3 pics from the trip and I took it :::beam:::

Sigh

2005-07-05T12:19:00.000-07:00

today is intense... tired -.-

also i'm concerned about someone here but i don't know what to do..................

talent show on friday and i'm scared shitless b/c megan and steffie want me to indian dance. this'll be the first time in my entire life that i would be dancing solo. i was listening to the song in my head last night and i trembled so much that i had to get up 3 times to go to the bathroom in only 1/2 hour

mist netting tonite. we're gonna see ourselves some bats.

Random things that I don't want to forget

2005-07-05T12:16:00.000-07:00

today's schedule--

8:00-12:00 lecture
1:00-3:00 lecture
3:30-5:30 spanish
7:00-9:00 mist netting bats
after-- 4 page essay

-.- tired... went to sleep late last night too

"sticks and stones may break my bones, but mean words will never penetrate my bug net"--kent

"un ojo por un ojo y el mundo sera ciego"
"sea el cambio que desea ver en el mundo"
--gandhi

"hey bignoniaceae, uh hey fagaceae"--me and peter... me of course calling him a fagaceae (which is the taxonomic family of oak trees btw)

"kiss my aceae"--who knows

"oooh flash and dazzle technique"--maggie

Current Music: "dola re dola" practicing in my head

two w00t-worthy things

2005-07-04T13:28:00.000-07:00

it was really windy today and since we're so high up we can see the clouds flying over us. it's awesome. i was trying to cram some last minute things into my head and i kept looking at the sky instead. it was great.

two w00t-worthy things
1. i finished the field practical and i think i got an A. they posted an answer key
2. i got my first millipede b/c they caught one for the practical and they gave it to me, so i made it a cozy terarium home with lots of dead things and places to hide under. it's a boy and he's cute

"ouch, hit in the donnell-smithii"--Peter

Current Music: birdies

Definitely not today

2005-07-02T21:46:00.000-07:00

everyone went out to a bar today with one of the profs and i was like..."eh" i'm definitely not in the mood for dealing with drunk people today. too tired and stressed out. usually i'm fine with it. it doesn't bother me too much but when i have things on my mind i just don't want to deal with it.

woooooooooooo

2005-07-02T17:13:00.000-07:00

this morning after breakfast, it was actually sunny. so a bunch of us just sat in the sun with our eyes closed and just listened to the wonder of the world. and to be honest we just were.

"i am a transparent eyeball" ernest hemingway.

prior to that though...
Gina so should we dress up for tonite? (we're going to a club) i don't really have anything other than field pants
Maria I'm sure Nathaniel would have a couple cotton numbers that you could borrow...
Gina (laughing) like a dress?
Nathaniel (one of the TA's) I think i would make a good girl.
Maria (the other TA) well you don't really have the hips... or the even the boobs.
Nathaniel Well i have a sweet-ass ass, ass.
Colin ooooo.... triple assed....

ya, it's dumb but it made me laugh and i just felt like sharing the beginnings of a great day.

last night at dinner...
Nathaniel I love eating babies
Colin mmmmmmmm.....
Nathaniel I like eating the soft parts
Colin the subcutaneous layer......
Nathaniel mmmmm bone marrow...
Maria stem cells...mmmm, undifferentiated cells
Nathaniel o stem cells, how i love thee. let me count the ways...one... well i guess that's it...

we're such bio dorks. the lot of us. that's what makes it great. can you tell that this dinner time conversation made me feel right at home??? baby eating... well it made me happy. we're all becoming good friends and i'm glad that the group is small so that no major cliques formed in the end. w00t.

INDEPENDENT RESEARCH
after playing with the millipede for a long time yesterday, i decided that that was what i wanted to do my independent research on. so i'm going to study the correlation between millipede sex and the reaction rate of their protective responses (being curling in a ball and secrete noxious substances) in addition i'm going to see if millipede size or hardness of exoskeleton have anything to do with it. so i get to poke em and see what they do. i collect them and ideally i want 100 of them and put them in terraniums separated by sex and let them acclimate for a couple of days and then administer a consistent agitation and then time both responses. then the millipede can be released.

fun!

Agouti Booty

2005-07-02T00:42:00.000-07:00

i saw one of these again today. i just thought should share the cuteness. they are the costa rican equivalent to rabbits but they have the cutest little rodent butts in the world. no? i wanna take one home! let's buy a rabbit hutch for the apartment! april, kelly, addy...? anyone?

Current Music: moths fluttering

O Mother Earth...

2005-07-02T00:26:00.000-07:00

Well after the lightning storm of this afternoon, we finished our projects and gave them at around 7pm. well during the project before mine, the power went out so we had to wait for it to come back on. while peter was speaking in my project we felt something really weird, like my stomach had lost all sort of balance. it was an earthquake! well at least the remnants of the 6.7 Richter scale one in

Nicaragua

. (in case you haven't heard about it) o we all felt it and could honestly hear the ground move under our feet. plus the after shock while we were studying later on. so pretty much i lived through my second and third earthquakes today.

People are drunk including Megan but it doesn't bother me. It's really sweet because Megan even apologized for it and i thought that it was unnecessary b/c she can do whatever she wants w/o having to worry about me but thoughtful nonetheless.

O! during projects the professors provided cheese, wine, and crackers, hence the drinking of tonite excluding the fact that it's a friday night.

ARGH! moth on the shoulder! scared the craps out of me b/c it flew right by my ear.

continued...

2005-07-01T15:39:00.000-07:00

it stopped raining. in the mountains you have to turn the computers off and unplug them as soon as they tell you to prevent a power surge due to a lightning strike. exciting.

so ya last night i actually went to bed at a decent time and didn't study a ton before hand. now i regret it... :( i have soo much shit to do. stress!

well today we're doing another field project. this time we're looking at the distribution of this one dimorphic plant that is pollinated by hummingbirds. so pretty much we wanted to see if the plants were in certain places to encourage pollination by the hummingbirds. we saw one come by and he went in the right order so pretty much it seems that we have found some sort of connection w00t.

it started raining and i had to sprint out of the rainforest. and trust me that is hard. it was definitely a rush though running and jumping over logs and stuff. also the howler monkeys were yelling because of the rain. it was cool. it's weird here. in the US you hear dogs barking, in costa rica you hear the howler monkeys... howling? we saw them today when we were searching for our sample group.

haha. my friend megan is always talking about what animals/plant she would pick for mass genocide and if it were up to her she would pick pigs or strawberries. strawberries being the fact that they look like alien heads and are going to take over the world. and who knows what's up with pigs. well finally today i came to my decision. animal--walruses (they scare the crap out of me) and coriander--because it makes me gag.

i have my field practical on monday and we have 4 hours allotted to it! WAHHH! i'm so concerned about it. it seems as if it is going to be quite hard. there are like 60-70 plant species to learn and 30 animals. but personally animals are a lot easier b/c most of them i knew before i came here. it'll be hard when we start talking about the 6 different species of big cats or the different frogs though.

sonu:tell mom i tried to call twice and nobody picked up. i'll try again though.

P.S.i'm having fun but i hate when i want to be near the people i care about to help them out and i can't reach my arms across mexico to give them a big comforting hug.

woo

2005-07-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

i made friends with a millipede today that smelled like cherry-almond. i named him mike. he's cute. i'll take a picture of one like him before i leave and post it online or something. he curled up in a ball in my pocket then pooped there. awww he's so cute.

(i can tell he's a boy b/c on his seventh segment he has only 1 pair of legs instead of two...can you tell i'm learning?)

yesterday we did a project and found epiphytes around the forest. it was easy and a fun way to spend the morning making a poster. then we had spanish and got a ton of homework.

then some of us went to the supermercado in santa elena. i got monte rico cheese (from the monteverde cheese factory), crackers, potato chips (sigh), and milky way bars (double sigh). we had to walk back with all of it and its like 1 1/2 hour uphill. OOOF! (they say that in india AND costa rica, awesome!) that was tough.

post the rest later! lightning storm!

ew.

2005-06-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

so today we went to a pig farm. it was the saddest thing i ever saw in my entire life. but that's life. i don't wanna talk about it. it was truly a life influencing day.

it rained today but it stopped while we were at the farm

o ya i got to go to an almost organic farm. that was cool. they do awesome things for the environment. we played with the baby cows and i got to milk a cow.

all in all a pretty good day.

Current Music: talking to colin

w00t

2005-06-28T12:32:00.000-07:00

my stomach doesn't hurt anymore!!!!!!!!! w00t. i'm so happy! i think it's because i didn't eat breakfast this morning

we had our first lecture and honestly it wasn't too bad considering it was 4 hours long. we still have 2 more hours to go and then 2 hours of spanish. we take the placement test today. i think i'll do ok.

well tis all. just happy that my stomach doesn't hurt.

Current Music: people finishing up lunch