Last Day at AIMS

Today is my last day of work at AIMS. I'm leaving for Cairns on Tuesday and since Monday is Labor Day (yes, another three-day weekend), today is my final workday.

Here are some pictures of AIMS's private beach that I took last week. When I have time I usually take a walk or go for a jog on the beach in between data analysis.

Four Nations Party

Last night, we had a "Four Nations Party" at the guest house. This whole idea started because we wanted Kim to make us some authentic Fu because she is from Vietnam and is an amazing cook. We told her that if she made us Fu, then we would make her some good old American apple pie. Well Kim doesn't like cooked fruit (she's very picky with what she eats and allergic to just about everything). She told us that her favorite dessert is tiramisu, which is odd because she is allergic to dairy, coffee, and alcohol...the three primary ingredients in tiramisu.
Anyways, so we decided to include Ian in this and asked if he would make us a typical English dish if we made an American apple pie. This is how we came up with the "Three Nations Party". But then, we realized that Dave, the Australian man who usually stays in the room we were in, was coming back to Townsville on Tuesday from his holiday in Perth. Consequently, we decided to postpone the party until Dave returned and call it the "Four Nations Party," including dishes from America, Vietnam, England, and Australia.

The party was fabulous. Ian made his English curry, Kim made fried rice, plain rice (for the curry), and banana bread, Rachel made chocolate chip cookies, I made a blueberry-apple pie, and Dave (since he doesn't cook) made lattes with his fancy coffee maker.
We had a great time trying everyone's dishes, listening to Bob Dylan (Ian's favorite--he's been trying to get me to like it), and talking about our cultures. The party, however, did not satisfy our craving for Fu, which Kim told us is just too time-consuming to make; nevertheless, we had an excellent time and were glad the whole house got together for a nice meal.

ANZAC Weekend

This past Sunday was ANZAC day, a national day of remembrance to honor members of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps who fought in Turkey during WWI.
On Friday, Rachel and I went to a footie (rugby) game. The North Queensland Cowboys played the Parramatta Eels. This was a Rugby League match, which is somehow very different from Rugby Union and AFL. The Cowboys are the home team and people are pretty crazy about them here. Their jerseys sell for no less than $160, yet half the crowd was wearing them.
The Cowboys ended up losing, but it was a very close game. Rugby is by far the most brutal and rugged game I have ever watched.

On Saturday, we met up with Darren, our reef instructor from Lizard Island. He is working on his PhD at JCU in Townsville. He took us to his friend's housewarming party, which was a blast! Everyone there was studying marine biologist at JCU from all over the world. This was a legit party, complete with a full DJ set-up. Good music and friendly company made for a very fun night.

Sunday, we were a bit incapacitated, but we managed to make it out of the house and to the farmers' market to pick up some vegetables for the week. There, we saw our friend, Ian (not our house-mate Ian), who was one of our guides during the Aboriginal Camping trip. He introduced us to his family and we made plans to have dinner at his house later this week.

Since Monday was a national holiday (if a holiday lands on a Sunday Australians always take the following Monday off), we met our adviser, Ray Berkelmans, at the Ross River to water ski with his family. They own a small speed boat and go out on the river almost every weekend. We spent the day tubing and today my arms are very soar.




Back to work now, after a delightful ANZAC weekend.

Trivia Night

Last night was trivia night at the pub and our whole house went down as a team! Kim doesn't usually leave the house so it was pretty amazing that she came out with us. The four of us (Rachel, Ian, Kim, and I) compiled our knowledge, answering questions ranging from current events the tennis to European geography to inorganic chemistry. The pub was packed since it was also $7 crumbed steak and chips night, so we had even more competition than last week-- last week, we got third place and won a pitcher of beer. We were determined this week, however, to win big. Our trivia studying paid off (we bought a 6pack of Barefoot, which has trivia questions under the cap) and we managed to tie for second place! We won $20 to spend at the pub. It only makes sense that we'll win first prize next week.

Magnetic Island

After 3 days of working at AIMS, our boss informed us that his day off was on Monday and that we wouldn't have to come in to work. We had a 3-day weekend after a stressful (hah) 3-day work-week. We went out on Friday night and were very disappointed with the T-ville nightlife-- everyone seemed like they were 12 years old, horrible techno music blared from every club, and most of the clubs smelled like moldy carpet. On Saturday morning, feeling bummed about the night before, Rachel and I decided to go to Magnetic island for the rest of the weekend. After all, we'd had a long, productive week and deserved a relaxing tropical island holiday. We found a sweet deal that included a round trip ferry ride, two nights at the hostel, dinner, breakfast, a drink, and snorkel gear, all for $94.
We swiftly bought the tickets, packed, and headed to the ferry. We stayed at an enormous backpackers' hostel right on the beach overlooking the ocean. On Sunday morning we decided to rent scooters so we could go all around the island to snorkel. After spending 2 hours at the scooter rental place (this was a very inefficiently run business), we decided that we were too scared to drive them and got a lift back to the hostel to go snorkeling in the reef there. Well that was covered in algae so we took the bus to Florence Bay. After walking in the wrong direction for 15 minutes, we pulled out our map to try and decipher our location. Almost instantly, a big 30year old Ford slowed down and an old woman rolled down her window. She asked us if we needed a lift anywhere. She and her 87 year old husband drove us around the island and showed us all the good snorkeling spots. We never really got to go snorkeling, however, since we had to return the gear by 4:45, but nonetheless, this was quite the experience.

The next morning we went for a hike and then relaxed at the beach for most of the day, returning to Townsville that evening.

A delightful hiatus this was from our less than stimulating jobs.

Working at AIMS

ABOVE: the view from my office, my excel spreadsheets, the guest house.

For the past week and a half I've been working at AIMS, located 40 minutes south of Townsville in the middle of a large nature preserve. Each morning, an AIMS car picks Rachel and I up in front of guest house and drives us to work. Since it is so far away from the city, AIMS employees are assigned to a car and carpool to work every day. Also, they get one day every other week off so they can run errands and do things that people who work in town can do more easily.
My project investigates the differences between inshore and offshore coral reef communities by analyzing photographs of 2 inshore and 2 offshore coral reefs in the Northern GBR that my researcher took last year; and also by looking at trends in temperature regimes of the 4 sites. It is our hypothesis that sea surface temperature of inshore reefs will be warmer compared to offshore coral reefs, and therefore, the former will have less hard coral and more macro algae.
For the first 3 days of my project I was literally sitting in front of a computer for 7 hours each day punching in numbers and equations into an excel spreadsheet. Now, I'm finally starting the benthic identification part of my project and using a special computer program called Coral Point Count with Excel extensions to accomplish this. With 4 reefs, 2 sites per reef, 3 transects per site, and 25 pictures per site, I have about 600 pictures to analyze...

Townsville

On Monday morning, I walked to the Greyhound station at 6:30am and boarded a bus to Townsville, Australia to begin my Independent Study Project. The ride took 6 hours, but time flew by, as I managed to sleep for much of the trip. We actually passed several of the placed that I'd been to with the rest of the group, including Mission Beach and 4 Mile Beach. I arrived in Townsville at around 1pm and walked around for two and a half hours before Rachel got in. The town is actually quite lovely, despite what EVERYONE has been telling me. It has real Australians living in it! The town is built on hills so, all the houses are basically hanging of cliffs, overlooking the ocean. In fact, it quite resembles Greece in an abstract kind of way. There is The Strand, which is a long road along the ocean/marina that has luxury apartments, bars, restaurants, and cafe's. And Flinder's Street, which is the walking street with the more backpacker type bars and pubs, restaurants, and clothing shops. It's hard to understand why people don't think this place is awesome.
Today, we tried to hike up Castle Hill, the giant cliff that overlooks the whole city and the ocean, but after walking for an hour trying to find the path, and then in the pouring rain, we decided to attempt the trek another day.
We start work tomorrow at the Australian Institute of Marine Science. A car from AIMS is supposed to pick us up at 7:20am and take us to the research station, which is about 30 minutes South of the city..somewhere in the forest.
I'm definately looking forward to the next month here!

Thank God for Modern Medicine

I have strep throat! ahhhh! I'd been ill for the past week and then developed a sever sore throat two days ago so finally decided that I should probably go to the doctor and see if anything could be done. I went to the 24 Medical Center down the road from our hostel and waited for an hour to see a physician, and boy am I glad. I had a fever of 38 degrees (Celsius) and swollen tonsils-- it only took him a split second to see that my tonsils were enormous. He put me on penicillin, some sort of anti-inflammatory, and codeine for the pain. He also said I couldn't have cold drinks or ice cream, which I think is bullshit. Ice cream makes everything better, duh
To make matters more annoying, today was our final exam so I had to reschedule that…and I'm leaving for Townsville on Monday to start my Independent Study Project. Geez, talk about inconvenient timing for strep throat.
So I've been on meds for a few hours now and I'm starting to feel better already! Thank god for modern medicine.

More Lizard Island Photos