An Almost Grad

Alright, I've once again neglected to keep up to date on blogging.  I just decided that until I'm completely done with school, it will probably never happen.  Although I am pretty good at spending lots of time on Pinterest...

So, my parents flew out at the end of April for my convocation ceremony.  Hard to believe that I've already completed 4 years of college.  Oh, and that I have a bachelors degree...well, almost.

Me and mi familia outside the Mariott Center

Me and my sister.

Since I am officially done in June, there are not graduation exercises then.  So I got to choose to participate in either April or August's ceremonies.  So, naturally, I chose April.  Now I'm just working on finishing up my last few classes and I will officially have a bachelor of science degree.  Weird.

After walking across the stage.

Me and David...isn't he cute?

However, the job search is proving fruitless.

With the Y.

On a positive note, I'll be taking the GRE in August and applying to grad school shortly after.

Wish me luck.

At the Victory Bell.

The weekend of my graduation, my super cute new cousin had her baby blessing.  It was really cool to be able to be there for that.

Introducing Leah.

Too stinking cute.

the Sahara of Oregon

Our last day we were super busy packing and cleaning and whatnot...but we sure managed to have an epic adventure....to the sand dunes. We came back COVERED in sand.

Not to mention, the dunes were huge and extended for forever. It looked very much like the Sahara. Or what I imagine that would look like, since I've never actually been there.



This is our room in packing mode/Becky dancing to the High School Musical soundtrack. We weren't very focused on the whole packing thing - we were much too glad to be done.

Mud.

Our last official field trip was a trip to the mudflats. Muddy and messy. It was a blast.



This is a super pretty nudibranch. I love the nudibranchs.


We got to dig up worms. :)


The mud was pretty intense. It's a good thing that we had hip boots on!

Deja vous?

I'M ON A BOAT!
you must be thinking that i'm going crazy. didn't i already post this? well, of course not! we went out on the boat yet again. and i must say that this trip was much more rewarding...and enjoyable.


there was actually room enough that we got to use the cabin. (aka dr. b didn't come - and neither did his family, so there were only ten of us. and captain larry of course).


we got to leave the bay and go out on the open sea. WAY cooler than sitting in the bay. it was the perfect day too. super calm, although it would have been nice to see the sun a bit.


we used the otter trawl. it drags along the bottom of the ocean and we collect things, like this way cool, way large, sea star.


a different kind of sea star...


sea cucumbers.



yet another kind of sea star.


this is a basket star. yes, they actually exist, and it is a living thing.


just another picture that i took and really liked.

I love the docks.

These are nudibranchs (aka sea slugs).



Those white things are sea anemones and that purply thing is a feather duster worm. Yes, I did say a worm. Pretty huh? Too bad I don't have an underwater camera that takes better pictures.




This random little house thing was at the dock. I dunno what it was for or anything but I thought it was funny.



Some stuff that grows in crevices and such.



Sea palms. My favorite seaweed.



We've taken many field trips and gone lots of places ourselves to get photos for our photo journals. These are just a few of my favorites that I've gotten.

My all-time favorite place to find cool things is the docks. There are tons and tons of nudibranchs there, which are my FAVORITE invertebrates. Mostly because they are colored way cool and stuff.

Oh the joys of boats and rain.

So, we went on a field trip. On a boat. I know what you're going to say next. It's, "I'M ON A BOAT!", isn't it? well, we already beat you to it. We even got to stand on the front of the boat and look at the big, blue watery road.

This was a very exciting day in the life of me. And in the life of everyone else who wanted to go out on the boat. BUT, the weather that had been so beautiful for so long decided not to cooperate, and it rained. A lot. And, on top of that, Dr. B brought his family of about 1409583753 million people. So it was crowded.

Now, I presume, you want to know what the purpose of our trip was. Well, we got lots and lots of plankton to examine under the microscopes back in the lab. (Which, by the way, we later had to DRAW. And I am not a very good artist...). And we also used the otter trawl, which dragged along the bottom and collected a bunch of stuff, like sea stars, fish, and crabs.


You can't read it, but this bag says, "RESCUE MATE THROW BAG". So don't worry. If you fall in, I'll throw you that bag right there.

It's been one crazy week...

This week, after having a wonderful break from school, we've be working way hard. It's been a week of very little sleep and lots of frustration. In class we injected sea urchins with KCl to get them to spawn, then collected their gametes, and fertilized them. Which, when all is said and done, wasn't hard at all - with the minor exception of injecting the urchins correctly. So you must be wondering why the lack of sleep? and why the frustration? Well, because of these little buggers, we have had to stay up at least part of the night each night so we can see them in all their stages of development - and take pictures of them. Needless to say, no one has slept well. It is now frusturating because in order to see them, we have to take them out of a beaker of water and put them onto a slide. But now they are swimming all over the place and virtually impossible to find. However, I must say that it has been a good experience overall and I have learned a ton.

This is the embryo at the 16 cell stage. Now you all know what a sea urchin looks like when it only has 16 cells. :)


While all of this has been happening, we have taken several field trips and I've been able to get some good photos for my photo journal.
We went out to Cape Arago one of the days and there were about 458972384 school children there. Frusturating when you're actually trying to accomplish something.

Me + Becky + hip boots + fanny packs = legit marine biology students.

This is a nudibranch (aka sea slug) and a sponge. The sponge is the purply stuff.

A red sea urchin and some purple sea urchins.

Cape Arago

Today we went on another field trip - to Cape Arago. Here are some of the things that I got pictures of. I won't put them all up because I feel like you might go crazy.

The intent of this field trip was to collect purple sea urchins so that we can culture them in marine developmental biology.

In the water, collecting the urchins.

Leptasterias hexactis. This is a sea star - it's partially hiding in a hole. It has 6 legs, rather than the usual five, although you can't see by this picture.

Cryptochiton stelleri. This is the largest species of chiton in the world!

Pyncnopodia helianthoides. The sunflower star. It's huge and doesn't have a set number of legs.

An anemone (I think it's Anthopleura xanthogrammica - it's hard to tell when it's closed) eating a purple sea urchin (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus).

This is just some of the view. Sorry if you get tired of these kinds of pictures. They are some of my favorites.

Anthopleura xanthogrammica and some limpets and a snail and other things.

That is a hermit crab eating a snail.

Pisaster ochraceus. A sea star! He's hiding under the sea grass. There are also purple ones.

North Spit and and the Pinnipeds

Yesterday, we went on a fieldtrip to the North Spit.
It was our mission to collect sand dollars to use for our marine developmental biology class. To do this, we used hip boots. Don't they look nice??







Me, Hope, and Becky on the boat on our way back from the spit.


Collecting sand dollars.

Becky with some baby sand dollars. But we didn't keep the little ones.

The sand dollars that we got and brought back to the lab.

CRAB!



After classes yesterday we all drove out to see the pinnipeds. It was way cool. You could totally hear them all barking and stuff. I tried to get some pictures but they were far away. However, the sign gave a pretty good picture of what they should look like (even though it's so unrealistic for a pinniped to take up such a large portion of rock).


We also hiked down and I took some pretty cool pictures of the scenery. I absolutely love it!!