Undah Presh-uh!

Woof.

Okayso.

OIMB is drawing to a close. And I am waaaayyy more stressed about everything than I should be.

Things that are stressing me out:

Class - I still need 20+ pictures for my journal, my "babies" all died before they got to the stage that I needed them to get to, my research project just changed and I am once again not sure that we're doing it right, I can't get the drawings for my notes to look as nice as my classmates, Dr. B gave us a semi-impossible assignment on plankton, and I have to get it alllll done in the next week.

My personal life - my room is always a mess, I'm such a loser when it comes to keeping goals I set, I have been sleeping wayyyy too late (tomorrow I have to wake up before 8 for the first time in like, 4 days. Which I haven't been doing), and I've just kinda been failing at life in general.

My future life - and this one's a biggie. I have to decide whether to go back to Mosier and work at OCDC over the summer, and be surrounded by the not-so-great influences of The Dalles, as well as the risk of terminal boredom. OR I can go back to Utah, struggle to find a job, pay rent, but make some new friends and get a head start on life away from Oregon.

What it all culminates into is this:

I. Love. Fast. Sundays.

I am so grateful to be a member of this church, and so grateful for the Tender Mercies of a loving Heavenly Father. He knows exactly what I need, even when I fall so far short of deserving it. I know fast Sundays can often be seen as a chore, but I am always so excited for them. Every Sunday is a chance to renew and repent, but I know that if I really commit to every fast Sunday, my Father will add a little more light into my life. I am rarely so close to Him - which isn't a good thing. But He offers me this little chance every month to feel His love and presence just a little more, and I am so grateful for that.

Anyways.

What it comes down to is that I feel much better. I've decided I'm staying in Mosier for the summer. And my heart is just so much lighter. Pressure's still there, life's still crazy, but I know I can do it!

Also, I was introduced to this song in Relief Society today:



"We Seek After These Things"

It was perfect - exactly what I needed. It's especially poignant out here where everything is so beautiful....

Yay for the gospel!!!!

On that note, let me fill the rest of this post with some from pictures from life 'round here in Charleston. In no particular order....

I got to try out my new underwater digital camera down by the docks - it was also a good excuse to finally put on my wet suit. I was happily surprised with how warm it kept me, although my feet were still numb fairly fast.
Here we all are in our fancy duds - those of us who wore them, anyways. Some people stayed dry.
We went dredging out in the boat for plankton such as this. We didn't catch a lot, but this little guy was by far my favorite.

The two are crazy similar, amirite?

My mom, Lauryn, and Evan all came down for Memorial Day weekend. This is a picture taken while we were all crabbing and Mom was testing out my new camera.
Okay, so, this HUGE PELICAN JUST CAME FOR A VISIT. We were down in the mudflats and it just landed right in front of us! It actually landed closest to me, but I moved away once it started walking at me. That thing was surprisingly intimidating.

Here's some video. I have more like it, maybe I'll upload it later.

These are some of the hermit crabs that we're using for our research project. They've all been painted with nail polish and have numbers written on them. the only problem is that these numbers fall off, which keeps us on our toes.

This is kinda unorganized and sporadic. I'll try and catch up on Memorial Day weekend better, once I download all the pictures from my mom's facebook album.

Till then, I have class in 7 hours, and I should probably get some sleep before that.