More on the Smokies

I finally finished all of the paperwork and mailed it in today. There was a LOT of it. I originally planned on scanning it in the library and emailing it, but the scanners are slow and I couldn't get the file size to be reasonably small. Also, I couldn't figure out how to save the scanned images as PDFs. So I gave up, took the 20 minutes (and $3) to walk down to the post office and have them mailed. Glad that's over.

While I was filling out the travel grant form, I realized how much cheaper it was to drive than fly. I mean, sure Skybus is cheap, but they don't fly to Knoxville, and Chatanooga is 100 miles away, I believe. Plus Skybus doesn't have flights listed past mid-April. I don't know what's up with that. So I think I'm going to take Greyhound down there. That'll be interesting. It's even cheaper than driving yourself, if I'm remembering the rates correctly. And WAY cheaper than flying. I just have to do a bit more research (when I have less work to do) about luggage and such. Turns out I'll need to bring bedding and stuff, so that's more than just a backpack. And I won't have much room in my backpack for clothes anyways, as I plan on bringing all of my camping stuff (yay!!!!). And I'm sure that I won't be able to bring my bike, but oh well. Gatlinburg is 2 miles away from where I'll be staying, and even though it's pretty hilly a bike would be useful. Not sure how groceries are going to work yet, and I'll probably have to walk to Gatlinburg to go to the library (the nearest place with internet access unless I decide to buy a laptop and get a wireless card. Given my financial situation, that's not going to happen). And there's no TV reception there, so I'll pretty much be without TV. So I should probably pack lots of books. Plus I'm sure I'll get a library card there (which is funny, because I never even got a Granville library card and I've been here for 4 years). I guess I'll need the public library more this summer than I did here though.

It's really beginning to set in that I'm actually going to be doing this soon. And the more I've thought about it the more excited I am for it. It will be an adjustment, but it's not as remote as some of the other positions that I applied for. And I DID want something remote. But 12 weeks is a long time if I decide that I need to have some civilization every once in a while. I guess this will be a good position to test those waters. Hopefully it will be good for a lot of reasons. And I hope there are plenty of people living around me (based on the map there seems to be several buildings in the housing area). And (Julie should note this) every other week in my schedule I get Fridays off, so if anyone wants to come down and visit me, we could feasibly backpack Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night.

Summer internship

I have accepted a summer position in the Smoky Mountains. It seems like it will be pretty cool, and consists mostly of invasive (plant) species monitoring and removal. It wasn't my ideal position, but it's certainly good enough. I would have liked to get a 6 month position just to keep myself occupied a little longer, but this just means that I'll have to search for something else in the fall instead of the winter. In theory that should be a little bit easier. There was also a really cool 2 month position that paid really well, and I would be doing amphibian population monitoring, but I wasn't guaranteed that and I sort of wanted to be on the safe side. I was in the top third of their applicant pool, but not in the top 3, who were being contacted first. I was competing against people with more experience than me though, so I don't really feel super bad about it. I just wish I could be doing stuff with amphibians instead of plants and insects.

However, even though I wouldn't be officially researching them, the Smokies are pretty much the center of caudate diversity in the world. So I'm thinking that in my free time I will probably poke around and try to find and ID as many different salamander species as I can. And the actual work that I'll be doing will be good. GSMNP is one of the most heavily visited national parks in the country, and with lots of visitors comes a greater chance of introduced exotic species. And I guess in some ways it might be good for my first internship after graduation to be just for the summer. It will potentially be an easier transition, especially since it's closer to home than a lot of the other positions that I was looking at.

Anyways, I'm tired now and should have gone to bed a half hour ago (there was no reason not to) so I'm gonna do that now.

The icing on the spring break cake

So. Obviously, as anyone who has read my previous post knows, my spring break plans just did not work. At all. Well, I found out yesterday that the outing club DIDN'T LEAVE UNTIL SUNDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Way to call me and let me know, Bob! Even if I HAD been able to go to my conference, I still could have left for Florida on Sunday!!!! And the fact that I WASN'T able to get to the conference made it worse anyways.

UGH!

Spring break rant

Wow, so for the THIRD TIME this year I've had spring break plans that won't be happening. Which is ridiculous. I feel like this year has just been so full of promise but then nothing comes of it. Winter break I was supposed to go to Texas, but that ended up not happening (though I do understand the reasons why Liz didn't want to go, and I don't hold it against her. It's just unfortunate that Texas didn't happen). And now spring break. Last year was the complete opposite, which is what I don't get. The Habitat trip happened over winter break, and that sort of got me in a "travelling" sort of mindset, and then Arizona was a huge success. And over the summer Bear Island and the Smokies certainly came together after some difficulties. Those successful trips just convinced me that I could pull together anything if I really tried hard enough. But I guess this year is a learning experience, in that I get to realize that it's not always the case. Sometimes it's just not the best option for things to work out.

So in case anyone is wondering what went wrong with spring break (and because I feel like ranting about it because it's so absurdly ridiculous), I will explain pretty much in full. So last semester Meg told me about this trip to New Orleans that Green Team was pulling together, restoring degraded wetland habitat. I went for so long assuming that it would be great and psyching myself up for it. And then the person who was organizing it was a loser and it ended up not happening. And I've heard no good reason why it didn't happen, because I think it totally could have if whoever was in charge of it would have tried. Damn, next time maybe I should just be in charge of things like that. Anyways, that was failure number 1. So after that realization, I decided to go on the Outing Club trip to Florida. 4 days of backpacking in Ocala National Forest, and then 3 days of canoing in the Everglades. Sounds amazing, right? Well I'm sure it will be. I got my defensive driving certification for that trip and everything. And then less than two weeks ago, I find out that MEEC (Midwest Ecology and Evolution Conference) is the FIRST WEEKEND OF SPRING BREAK!!!!! I'm (probably, but I'll get to that later) presenting my summer/senior research there, and it's been planned since the summer, and I'd already registered and paid and everything. I knew that it was in March, I just didn't know what the exact date was. But yeah, it's tomorrow (the first Saturday of Spring Break), and the outing club left this afternoon. Obviously these two events were not compatible, and since I was already all set up for the conference and I hadn't even turned in my money for the FL trip, I decided that I wouldn't back out of the conference. Once again, I had no spring break plans. And then, just YESTERDAY (the Thursday before break) I found out that Liz didn't have to drive to the airport for her Geo trip, and so she lent me her car. FINALLY, I COULD PUT SOMETHING TOGETHER FOR MYSELF!!!!!!!!! I planned on going backpacking solo, but mom freaked out and wanted me to at least try to convince someone to go. So I asked Dawn, and she was totally for it, and I planned it out perfectly in less than a day. I spent the morning packing, and I had the food worked out and everything. And then, of all times, an actual winter storm hits CENTRAL OHIO!!!!!! How often does that happen? NOT VERY!!! I mean, Granville schools get snow days all the time, but it's usually for nothing serious (central Ohioans don't know how to deal with snow). But this time it's apparently pretty bad. I70 is closed. Who closes an interstate, there's less than 6 inches of snow!!!!!!!!!!!! Well, anyways, that would be fine and all, except that tomorrow there is supposed to be a legitimate blizzard. And it better be a damn serious blizzard, because the third spring break failure is completely due to this weather. We were supposed to drive down to the conference tonight because the weather will be worse tomorrow, but on her way home Dr. Homan saw 2 cars that had gone off the road (she lives really close to campus) and decided that we'd wait until tomorrow morning and see what happens. Well, if the meteorologists are correct (and not exaggerating things), there's going to be a BLIZZARD tomorrow, so I'm not going to be the least bit surprised if we just don't go to the conference. So I COULD HAVE GONE ON THE DAMN OUTING CLUB TRIP IF I"D KNOWN THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And the blizzard is keeping Dawn in Columbus (because 70 is closed), and I decided that I wouldn't go solo to the Smokies because gas would be too expensive if I was paying by myself, and it wouldn't be worth it for just 2 nights. So I looked at places that were closer (hell, I have winter camping exp., no big deal) but the trail I had in mind in OH is accessed through various minimally developed roads (some are forest roads), and if there IS a blizzard, then those roads sure as hell won't be maintained. I do NOT want to get stuck somewhere, and I want no harm to come to Liz's car. So that's out. And I looked at this place in West Virginia, but I would take 70 (which is CLOSED) to get there, and even that would be a lot of gas for just myself when I'm pretty financially screwed at this time.

So that was my rant. I'm probably going to stay at Denison until Sunday (after the blizzard), and then drive home. Three failed plans, what are the odds of that happening? And 4 if you count the conference that we probably won't be going to.

Ok, I'm done ranting now. I'm just sick of explaining this crazy situation so now people can read it to get the details.