Bahamas

So, I'm back from my Bahamas trip and I have to say it was a really fun time :)

The more time that passes with me being home, the more I remember it with fond memories. Even though we trudged through the mangroves for hours and hours a day in the sweltering heat, it felt like a great sense of accomplishment!

The sun and warmth were so awesome even though the majority of time we were sweating! I don't mind a little bit of sweat in the summer time (see air-conditioning post) :). I found the fieldwork challenging while I was there, but now that I really think about it, I wouldn't mind doing that for 2 years of a masters. Since Steve (the prof) would like someone to do a masters and basically live in the Bahamas, I am now leaning towards that.. Of course this is a VERY tentative plan since just 2 days ago I was not sure if I wanted to be a prof anymore and was thinking about being a teacher.

The thing is, I get lazy and then I get motivated.. it all depends on the mood of the day/hour/minute. However I do believe that being in the Bahamas or somewhere warm and sunny would do me a lot of good, and that working there would be a challenging but amazing experience.

I always plan ahead and think too much about the future. It sometimes leads to me being discouraged about life. However what I don't do enough is take risks. And having the chance to do a masters in the Bahamas would be a risk, but yet I think it would be an amazing risk worth taking. Plus I loved the profs and even the research was fun, had it not been for so many hours a day! (the last four days we were in the mangroves for 8+ hours counting fish, wading through knee deep mud that felt like quicksand, and seining the creeks at low tide when the water would get to ~42°C!)

All in all, tentative plans as of now are to do well this year in school, see if I like the whole molecular biology thing, apply for some master's scholarships, and potentially try to get in at Steve Cooke's lab to go back to the Bahamas! :)

We'll see.. maybe tomorrow I'll blog about a different idea, but for today (and yesterday) this one sounds good to me!