I made it Reader! I made it through the day of hades! Yes that's right even after a 4:45am start time, a field trip, two lectures, two labs, a seminar and studying for the quiz tomorrow, I'm still alive and I'm posting this entry to prove it! (I'd also like to add that I'm tetanus free and it feels so nice, except for the painfully sore left arm I now have!) Today was one of those days where it seemed like nothing was real. Looking back on this morning, it doesn't seem possible that we fit so much into a single day. But then again we are running on Bamfield time and it is pretty magical out here.
So this morning (yes at 4:45am) I woke up and hauled myself out of bed to make it to the docks. We headed out to Scott's Bay, with much dismay from the class, since it is a bit of a hike. Once we got there we were instructed to go out and collect 60 snails (black turban snails to be precise). We gathered our snails and we then had to spray paint 30 of them green and 30 of them red. We were doing a catch and transplant experiment where we mark snails, put them back in their habitats and watch where they go. Tomorrow morning (yes at 5:00am again) we'll be heading out to check where our snails have gone! It was fun painting the snails and don't worry Reader, the paint doesn't hurt the snails. We only painted their shells, they'll be fine. In fact my prof said that since these snails can live to be 25 years old, they've probably already been painted by other classes in the past. Who knew? Humans go to the hair salon to color their hair and snails go to Bamfield students to pimp their shells. Awesome.
We got back around 10:00am and it was time for lecture. Needless to say I fell asleep a couple times in class. I felt awful since I'm sure Dr. M saw me dozing off but I'm also pretty sure I wasn't the only one 'catching zs'. After an hour of lecture we headed down to the lab for what was definitely the best part of the day. Dr. M had received an email from a colleague of hers in the states. He asked her to keep an eye out for heart urchins (something we have in ridiculous abundance ever since the mud dredge, as mentioned in my entry on Day 15). You see these heart urchins carry a tiny bivalve symbiont (a little mini clam) and this colleague was interested in studying these little molluscs. We were given the challenge of finding as many of these minuscule clams as possible, there were even prizes up for grabs. The funniest part was that the clam's genus name is Waldo! Yes that's right we were literally told to go find 'Waldo'. With an hour until lunch, we all set out scouring our heart urchins under microscopes, looking for the clams, the image of Waldo in our heads (you know the creepy guy in glasses and the stripped shirt who always seems to be missing). I only found one Waldo but a classmate found 24! She won the prize for most Waldos found. I won the prize for least Waldos found after looking at the most heart urchins. The prize was a can of coke. Wow, could I have asked for a better prize?!
The rest of the afternoon was typical lecture/lab structure followed by a seminar on medicinal plants. Not my forte but interesting nontheless. All I can say is that it's time to get some sleep! Early (WAY TOO EARLY) morning again tomorrow and I'm starting to feel exhausted. Thanks for reading and keep thinking of me! You know I'll be thinking of you guys!
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