Off on a aufregend adventure

For the first time I'm visiting a country alone that I have no chance of understanding the language - Germany! Everywhere else I've been with people who knew the language or I knew it enough to get by. I'm assuming the Frankfurt airport will have signs in English and I'll figure out how to get to the shuttle that will take me to see my best friend stationed there. But it might be a big adventure of not knowing what the heck to do. Exciting! I'll post an update when I get back.

Aloha friends

Well, I have some news. We just got back from Hawaii yesterday. That is news in itself! We had a great time. The weather was warm and mostly sunny, and the sights were beautiful! But the real news is that I accepted a postdoc in Hilo. I am so excited about the job and living in such a great place.

I will be working on a dry forest restoration project. The goals are to reduce invasive grass cover (which will reduce the potential for forest fires) by increasing native species establishment in the understory. The project has the standard factorial field experiments and a big remote sensing component. Very little is known about native dry forest communities in Hawaii, so there should be a lot of neat questions to explore within the project!

The town of Hilo is really interesting because it is not touristy at all. It has a great farmer's market, with all kinds of things I've never heard of before along with papayas, lychee, and the rest. The population is mostly Asian and native Hawaiian, and there are lots of Thai, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Filipino restaurants. SS, you can't go too far without bumping into another bubble tea place!

I am going to keep advertising the wonders of the Big Island with the hope that you all will come visit us there. Starting with waterfalls in town:



Beautiful Waipio Valley:


And lots of lava and huge craters:


Start saving your frequent flier miles!

I'm procrastinating so I thought I'd share something fun

So I'm supposed to be at school in my office getting ready for Monday - the start of classes. Instead I'm at home neither working on classes or working on my faculty officer work but surfing on the Chronicle of Higher Ed (and playing with the puppy). But I found on Miss Mentor's site a funny question and answer.

Question: If I get tenure, will I feel (a) ecstatic, knowing They do love me; or (b) sad, fearing I'll lose all ambition forever; or (c) relieved, seeing as how I got by again, and they still don't know I'm a total fraud?


Answer: Yes.

I thought that we would appreciate this question even if its reality is farther away that we'd like.

Things are going well with me just busy. I presented at the National Association of Biology Teachers and the Society for Integrative Biology meetings in November and January. Our 7.5 month old puppy is 100 lbs! He's very cute and getting bigger every day and as an added bonus he's very warm when he decides to be a "bundling board" on the bed at night (woohoo newlywed life). I'm totally not ready for classes to start next week. Mentally I still want a longer break - maybe the problem is our break was too long. Oh well. My hubby's business is getting ready to launch and I'll be sure to get the URL out to everyone when it does. :-) And our holiday cards will be extra late this year but do include pictures of the puppy and the hubby!

Hope things are going well with everyone else - it's time to go tackle the mess of my office.

Colorado and Santa Fe

Here's some pics from my trip last week with my summer housemate. The car broke down 24 mi. east of Limon on Sat. - we got towed by George from Alaska and his toy poodle Betsy. Then a 'friend' in Denver drove the 87 miles to take us and the camping gear to the Denver airport to rent a Jeep! The 'friend' is really a friend of my best friend - I had met him once at her wedding 11 years ago. Stayed in his posh apt. in downtown Denver, and invited him to horseback ride with us Monday. But his car broke down, so after setting up camp in Rocky Mt Natl Park Sunday night, we drove the 80 miles back to Denver to pick him up & he camped with us. Then Mon. after the ride it poured so we drove him home, got showers, and he gave us rumba lessons. Then set up camp late Mon. night - heard someone outside the tent during the night - elk! Tues. park, Wed. drive to Santa Fe and stop at Sand Dunes, Friday 17 hour day back to Limon to get my car, to airport to return rental, then on to Lawrence. Never did hike in the mountains - a jaunt up to 12,005 ft. from 11,700 ruined us for the day!

Visit to Kansas

I'm going to be coming into Kansas for field work and a wedding. I'll be there Tuesday night until Monday morning. I'm also going to be heading both to Fitch and Welda looking for snails if anyone wants to help me out looking for them. For some reason the husband will help but doesn't want to go play with ticks if it's not needed. Anyway - I'd love to meet up with all the knitters in the area so email me at elfwren at the lovely G provider of mail or give me a call on my cell (or at home if Monday). Other posters have my cell if needed and the husband (wow that sounds weird to type) and I will be at the Quality Inn for our time in Kansas up on 8th street.

hope to see people. woohoo!

Travel tips - deodorant discovery

I discovered this morning that I don't have to throw away my used up mini deodorant container and buy a new one. I just broke off the appropriate length chunk from my big container and stuck it in the empty container. Ha materialistic world - try to get me to buy another mini deodorant again!

We could start a list of travel tips. Like thong underwear to travel. Tiny and dries fast!

st lucia?

Has anyone been to St. Lucia? Josh and I are thinking of going there for the honeymoon and staying at a Sandals resort there for a few days of lying in the sun and relaxing. Just wondering if anyone had been there and knew if it was nice - the pictures look pretty.

Beth