I'm seeing double...

Or at least I will be soon. I now spend my days at work staring down a microscope and at a computer screen counting rings on otoliths that are generally assumed to be unreadable, ironic? Maybe not entirely unreadable, but compared to other fish otoliths they definitely are. Gary, one of my supervisors, got me started on aging stuff mid-week and approximately 10 seconds after focusing the first slide he said ‘Oh, now I remember why I didn’t do these…’ Yeah, well stated Gary, well stated. Not going to lie, it is really cool and interesting but it’s pretty difficult. It’s a bit subjective and makes me paranoid since I will have to redo them all again to see if my second run through shows similar ages (so that I am consistent and not guessing). So basically I am dreading the second run through for that reason as well as the fact that there are a couple hundred of these things. Ha, ha…ha. Oh and with the smaller ones, I get to count daily rings. As in, hundreds of little tiny lines for each otolith. Oh dear.

In other news, last week absolutely flew by surprisingly enough. Even though I am just in the lab all day counting rings, it seems to go by pretty quickly. There has been daily ping pong during lunch which definitely helps break up the day. It’s really fun! I think I am getting better too, that or my moments of luck are increasing in frequency.

A few people at work headed to a pub near work again on Friday, so that was fun. A couple of us ended up staying a bit later just hanging out and listening to the one-man-band. He wasn’t bad actually, just covered songs though, nothing of his own. It was great just hanging out and people watching. A couple hours into it and some people were definitely feeling good. I can’t say I’ve ever seen a large group of adults boogie, rather funny actually. I now know what I will look like in 20 to 30 years. Bring it on, haha

I found some outlets!! Thank goodness because I really needed some new clothes. I have gotten really tired of wearing the same 5 shirts I have here, which I had already been wearing consistently in NZ for 3 months. I actually got some pretty good deals which is good. It ended up raining for most of the day so it was a perfect shopping day. I love shopping. :) Today I did a little more shopping as well. Mostly for food, which unfortunately means more than enough money spent this weekend. It’s seriously ridiculous how much groceries cost here, boo.

Today was a gorgeous day and I finally got myself over to the lap pool here after walking around town for a bit. Cleveland just got even better. The facility is less than a five minute walk from the house, has outdoor pools that are slightly heated in the ‘winter’ and an indoor gym. Oh and did I mention that they have BOTH an eight-lane 25 meter pool and an eight-lane 50 meter pool. What?! So awesome. I am so out of shape but it definitely felt good to swim, although, half way through my arms felt like lead blocks and I could have sworn that they were going to fall off.

I’m getting a little annoyed because I can’t really figure out if I will be able to make it to the Great Barrier Reef or not. I am DYING to go but I would need to fly to Cairns which is difficult enough when I potentially can only get a 3 day weekend. It will also be relatively expensive, but if I could work it out I don’t really care. I want to go so bad! :( I guess we’ll see what happens, but if it happens it’s most likely going to be one of those spontaneous moments. I really should have planned a week afterwards to travel, I was going to and for whatever reason didn’t end up doing so, boo. I will definitely be coming back here sooner rather than later in any way, shape or form that I can though.

Oh, I finally added pictures to a couple of the previous blogs so go check those out if you are interested. :)

Fun Fact:
Leonard Cohen is going to be in Brisbane for a concert on my birthday, too bad I won’t be here for it…not. I laughed hysterically the first time I saw the commercial for it though. So funny.