To Begin a New

Auburn, California

As I write this I make my way back to Davis, my home away from home. As I look out the window in the car I watch as familiar sites pass me by, things I have watched change during the last 15 years every day of school. I look back on those days and reflect on nostalgic memories of high school and middle school, teachers of the past, and friends that have been lost to time. During this last break, I was again busy doing other things in preparations for the future, applying to internships and research opportunities, but I am glad I was still able to find some time to go back to at least one of these people for lunch. Sadly,  I fear that this won’t occur as much as I would like it to, there are so many people to catch up with, and time keeps getting eaten away at as I aim towards my future goals.

Why I’m in this mood I’m not entirely sure, perhaps it’s because of the events of this break, or more likely just a realization of all the time that has passed.  What makes it even more impactful is knowing that I may be gone all of Summer as well, unable to visit those of my past as I continue my life experiences doing some research internship away from home. Naturally I want to go through with an internship; it’s just unfortunate that I won’t be seeing many people, if any.

Chytrid fungus has caused the extinctions of numerous
anurans throughout the world. Current theory is that the
 fungushardens the skin making respiration more difficult.

Some other time I may write about the past when in another reminiscing mood, but as for now I’m excited to get back to my classes and anxious to hear back about the applications I have sent out. As many know the main one I look forward to is the possible opportunity in Yosemite working on a herpetology survey program. Over this break though I applied to many more; there is one on butterflies with a professor from Davis, a fly research project, and my second favorite one working with Jonah Piovia-Scott in the field dealing with the chytrid fungus that are endangering anurans (frogs and toads). In the beginning of the year I had talked to Jonah to help with his project, but he then led me to Christopher Searcy who is in charge of the Tiger Salamander research. So I look forward to helping Jonah this time around. These are about half of the research projects I applied to, but they are my top choices currently.

SO CUTE!!!

On to the classes I look forward to for this last quarter. Mostly biology based classes, so that makes this already the best quarter yet. Earlier today I also found out that I will have my introduction bio class with my orientation roommate Kent. This will be the first time I see him since orientation, and I look forward to talking to him again, I had a good time with him. It’s fun to look at the people whom you will share a class with. I also found out that my old chemistry lab partner will be in my Wildlife class. Another fun thing about this class concerns the essays that we have to write. Each essay is about a field trip we take to some local environmental site. One has to be to the Davis arboretum, easy, already have walked through it completely. The second one is cool though. We have 5 options, one of which is Jepson Prairie where I do salamander research. I already know all I need for that essay and more. As for the Life in the Oceans class, I already sent out a message in the chat room (first message) to find more EEB majors in that class (it is an EVE class after all). I do know that there are least three of us EEBers; Charlie, Tyler, and I. If we can find more, we shall be able to build the EEB clan and triumph in the glory of evolution and ecology!

And now I arrive back in Davis at the end of it all. So here is the end of this entry. Good bye!    

Out and About

So these past few days in Bodega Bay have been enjoyable, some more so than others. Amazingly it's been fairly good weather during the day allowing us to venture out to the bay, nights have been brutal though. Every night so far I've been woken up by the rain, and sometimes by weird dreams. Now to expand on these days in full.

Very unfriendly cliffs

It Feels Like the Very First Time (By Foreigner), oyster sucking

So Monday we just went for a nice little walk, maybe around 3 miles along a small peninsula. Very sheer cliffs, I was rather terrified of going over them to be honest (I kept inching my way towards the edge to look over, what a fall that would have been). Checked around for some herps, but didn't see any on that day, just a lot of birds. Afterwards we went down to a small little pool nearby the peninsula, it was roped off to cars but we could still walk around. One of th first things I saw when we arrived was a mouse skeleton. The vertebral column was broken in half, so not too bad, the skull though was shredded so it wasn't very appealing to take. The pond was fenced off so we just looked over it. Not too much else to say about it. Finally we went to the UC Davis Bodega Bay research lab. ... It wasn't open to the public... So just a quick look around through the car and we left. Might look into having an internship there sometime, but the housing was not so great though. As we drove away we saw the wind battered buildings solemnly sitting on the hillside. So very decrepit. This day I experimented with a new seafood as well; oysters. I had never had an oyster before, but they weren't too bad. Rather slimy as one might think, but a very light taste to them. The one issue I have with them is the amount of salt, which is to be expected. Given that I would eat oysters again, but more of an appetizer instead of a full entrée. Along with those we got some small additions to the experiment, limpets. Limpets are those little cone shells you see everywhere along the beach or along river banks. They are a type of snail and they are edible. Note: cook them and then cut off the intestines. They taste like calamari and have the similar chewiness about them, but get a bit of the intestine and the taste turns to a very strong bitterness. The next day was soon to come.

This certainly looks welcoming

Tuesday... not so good as far as I'm concerned. It really just started off badly, woke up with a headache from the night before, and it never diminished the entire day. There were two main things that occurred Tuesday, first off went to Fort Ross. While we were there it just so happened that a Russian film crew were starting on a documentary about the fort, so we didn't get to go inside, but it was still nice to see. From there we were able to go down to the shore line. In the bushes I saw a rather large shell, so had to go and check it out. As soon as I do the bushes rustle. AHA a reptile. That was all I could discern from it as these were blackberry bushes with nice large thorns unwelcoming to open hands. I was able to see the scales of the reptile so I knew it was either skink or snake (possibly an alligator lizard), but that was it sadly. As for the shell, I left it there as it turned out to be badly stained by moss.On our way back the second most important thing we saw was a large group of Harbour Seals. Got plenty of good pictures and videos of them. They were fairly off in the distance so couldn't get very close, but still very cute as they waddled themselves on shore. After all that we decided to head to a nice little town nearby called Occidental. If every you should go there remember to go to the Occidental Inn for food. The pizza there was AMAZING!! Plus the town has a very tight community feel. While in there we had numerous people walk in and start talking to each other, hugging and jollity then commenced. Further, all the men sounded like loggers telling stories of seeing the local Sasquwatch (I don't believe in this creature, but hey they can believe what they want). After all of this, still had the headache and it was time to head back to the trailer.

Poor thing lost one of it's legs, oh well it will grow back.

Such a cute little gopher!

Now we are up to today's adventures. After waking up a few times in the night, once to move from couch to bed and others due to rain and dreams, the first thing I notice, MY HEADACHE IS GONE! Oh so happy about that, just knew it was going to be a good day, and indeed it was. The day was spent another small peninsula that went out into the bay. Out at the end was a long line of rocks for wave control. Within the rock cracks I discover numerous starfishes, so that was cool. While climbing around I also frighten a Norwegian Rat among other small rodents. However the best part of the day was when I found a large vertebra. This I kept. Definitely larger than human vertebra, but I couldn't tell if it was a seal, or perhaps a dolphin? I don't really know. So I decide, Hell I'm looking for more. I went all the way out on the rock line and found one more vertebra, whether they are from the same animal, I cannot tell. BUT, these were not the only bones I found on this day. Along with those two vertebrae there was a head of what I assume is a humerus (s it was not human, so large marine mammal. Dolphins don't have femurs and this was larger than the femur of a seal I think). Lastly a rib of a bird probably. Also along this peninsula we happened upon a gopher digging out a little hole for some food. So we know have a video of a cute little gopher scrounging around. For lunch we had some wonderful Dungeness Crab, a very messy meal. And up til now the only other thing we have done was play a rousing game of Aw Shucks. Today was indeed a good day.

Catch-Up ... Again

Well a month or so has passed since my last update (as if anyone really cares), but there is a rationalized reason for this. Put simply my laptop died.

My old laptop has been naughty trying to get cancer, and finally succeeded . By this I mean it has been smoking... literally smoking. When I would insert the power chord it would spark and then release a bit of magical white smoke that smelled like burning plastic. So anyway it has since been condemned and I now have received a new laptop for my birthday (yes it was my birthday on Saturday, I turned 19 on the 19th). I have discovered some fun things about this new beastie. First off it has built in camera, but this is fairly standard now-a-days. Next up it has a nice little light next to the camera I can turn on to read the keyboard at night instead of tilting the screen down, so that's nice. The thing I find the most interesting is that it has a fingerprint scanner on it. GUESS HOW I LOG ON! Further it came with a battery extension allowing to run for about 6 hours on battery. Now I have begun the process of putting things on it.

Oh yeah, they can stand up also.

My reading list has also been modified since last time. By that I mean I finished my book In a Sunburnt Country by Bill Bryson. An informative book about the rich history of Australia as well as stories from his journeys to the Down Under. I rather enjoyed his quick wrap up of the animal diversity there, "In Australia, all the animals want to kill you." And this is so true. 9/10 of the most venomous snakes  live in Australia, the funnel web spider is the most venomous spider in the world, cane toads (introduced) can kill you with the secretions of the parotoid gland (characteristic of true toads Bufo), monitor lizards out there as big as dogs can out run rabbits due to a fun adaptation allowing them to breath and run (most reptiles can't because when they run one lung gets compressed as the other gets inflated). Box jellies are the worst though. They see you as flesh and that's all it takes to inject you with a toxin that will feel like putting your skin up to an open flame for hours. Or how about being killed by a snail? Certain cone shells in Australia have a venom that literally bursts your blood cells. So while the land may seem bad, the sea is worse.

After finishing that book, I read The God Virus by Dr. Darrel Ray. In the book he uses the metaphor to liken religion to a virus and uses numerous examples to try an get his point across. It was an interesting book, but I found that it he made his point rather quickly and then moved on without explaining very well. It felt more like, "Here it is! Get it? OK moving on." Rushed, that's the word for it. Don't get me wrong, I liked the book overall, but that just stuck to me.

Would you believe these are foxes? Breeding for tameness 

has resulted in secondary effects unforeseen by the breeders. 

I finished that book in about a week, I was proud of myself. Now I'm going through The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins. So far it has been very enjoyable. He sets up the book as a way to, step by step, make Evolution by Natural Selection very straight forward for the general public to understand. That won't keep the public from trying not to understand though. So far nothing much has been told to me that I didn't already know, but it has been put in a very straight forward manner making it flow smoothly from one step to the next. I would recommend the book for those who don't already understand Natural Selection, and for those who already do it may give you some new insights into just how far reaching it's effects are on organisms genomes, even when selecting for a particular trait (he uses the domestication of foxes as a good example).

Now that books are done with, on to dorm life. Some may have already heard this but Sean will not be returning this year to our suite. In fact it sounds like he won't be returning until after next year. His plan as of now is to continue at community college and get a job to pay for it. So while he shall not be returning we must get a new suite-mate. So to fulfil this requirement we have recruited a guy from the second floor of our building, Tobias. We've gotten to know each other before this whole predicament and he didn't want to be stuck in his current room so we thought it a good fit. On to classes report.

So far I have heard back from the Anthro class and Math class, and they sound like B- and B+ respectively. Anthro would've been much better had I known the midterm was on Tuesday instead of Thursday as I thought it was. So keep that in mind, always make sure when midterms are the weekend before! Still need to wait for ECS and Dinosaurs. I'm hoping for B and A respectively. The ECS midterm was torture. Just when the prof says to not make programs overly complex, he goes and does that on the final... So dreadful.... Next quarter though already got my classes set up, and what a group it is, Chem 2B, Bio 2A, Wildlife 10, and Evo/Eco 12. Two of which I shall be taking with Charlie, and I think one of them with Tyler, EEB STUDY PARTNERS! What's also rather nice is the WFC class already has the lecture slides up so I can prepare way ahead of time. Finally on to more current dealings.

Finished up my last final on Saturday and am now in Bodega Bay for a week. Planning on eating plenty of seafood and expanding my pallet. Our first day here though and Snow decides to go jumping over a 40ft cliff. So yesterday was full of adrenaline and stress. Luckily she landed in some mud so it didn't cause as bad an impact. After rushing over to an emergency veterinary office, and having her checked out seems like she was spared from everything other than some bruising and a sprained ankle. She may not realize it, but she is extremely lucky after that kind of a fall. Hopefully we don't get any more nasty surprises the rest of this trip.

Some future plans to keep everyone informed on. These next few weeks I'm planning on using a nice website californiaherps.com to begin my journey on memorizing all the herps in California, their distributions, identification etc. Then I can truely call myself a (young) herpetologist.