Is it Wednesday already? This week is flying by! Honestly today I was 'at school' for 10 hours and it felt like the blink of an eye! They were definitely right about 'Bamfield time' when they said that time doesn't seem to work normally out here! Also I've been waking up at 7:00 every morning (going to bed at around 10:30pm) and my brain hasn't exploded from exhaustion! For those of you who know my normal sleep schedule (go to bed around 3:00am and wake up around noon), you can understand what I mean when I say that this is not a normal 'Victorialune sleep pattern'. Oh well, I seem to be settling myself in quite nicely. Today was just as incredible as yesterday and though I'm homesick and missing all of my wonderful friends and family, I feel like this is where I'm supposed to be right now.
Today we had a morning lecture about plankton. I was pretty sure it was going to be a boring morning since after lecture we were to go out and collect some plankton. It turned out to quite the adventure! We had to haul this HUGE net down to the docks and literally try to throw it out into the water. Reader, you have no idea how freaking heavy this net was! Either way we collected some 'soup' as my prof called it and took it back to the lab. We spent the rest of the morning analyzing and identifying what we found floating around. I was pretty much ecstatic when I found a nematode (which is definitely one of my preferred phyla)! I also found a crab's molt and some poop. Wow, I'm obviously an expert when it comes to plankton. (By the way the poop was from an unidentifiable organism... I personally think it was the nematode. He looked like trouble!)
Today's lunch was pizza (YUM) and so naturally I swiped an extra slice to take for later. Definitely a great decision on my part. We had another lecture after lunch about sponges (phylum Porifera for those interested) but this lecture was more like the class sharing its knowledge on sponges (the prof was 'too lonely giving the lecture by herself', she's a riot). I had to explain their feeding methods. I always think back to that classic SpongeBob episode where he's sitting in the middle of his house all alone because he's scared to go outside. He tells Patrick and Sandy that he doesn't need to leave the house since he can filter feed. He then proceeds to 'filter feed' and his facial expressions are just plain priceless (the episode is called 'I Had an Accident', check it out).
We went back to the docks to try and find some sponges and luckily we were successful. Although these sponges were VERY small. Honestly when I think of sponges I picture those huge ones in the coral reefs. Well the sponge I found was maybe 3 centimetres... He was quite the find! The best part of the day was definitely when we took our poriferans back to lab. We had to try and classify them down to species using dichotomous keys and we had to dissolve a piece of sponge to see what it was made of (yes chemicals were used, so fun)! We also got to put fluoresceine (a dye that turns bright neon green when reacting with water) in the water with the sponges. Since sponges are basically just simple pumps, they pumped the dye right through them thus creating a plume of green dye coming out their tops. It was really incredible. I filmed it but due to my camera being ridiculous, I won't be posting it until I get home. But if you're interested in seeing something similar, you can check out this YouTube link. It's really just amazing! Oh and by the way, the dye is completely harmless to the sponges or other living things in the environment!
( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmPTM965-1c&feature=related )
So Reader tomorrow is the infamous 5:00am field trip to 'be one with the tides' as my prof told us. I'm personally not looking forward to waking up so early but I am excited to see some amazing invertebrates and to FINALLY get a chance to wear my amazingly fashionable rubber boots. Ah yes, Dolce & Gabbana would be proud! As always, thanks for following my adventures and I miss/love you all! :)
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