Catching up

Oops, fell out of the habit again, I let almost a whole week go by! I'll try and catch you up.

Sunday we went to church. We're in the Coos Bay ward. The people there are super friendly - I didn't think anyone could compete with the Hood River ward, but they do a good job! All of the girls got roses for being "potential mothers", a wonderful souvenir. I have mine drying on the windowsill to press into my journal, like a good Molly Mormon. The ward members are kinda funny, they say things like "We're so glad you're back!" and "Good to see you again!" when we've never been here before. They're referring to BYU students of past years, and I'm sure they know internally that we're different people from last year, but to them we're kinda all the same bunch. Luckily they at least like us, considering they're basing their opinions on us on past groups.

Monday's lecture was 4 hours, then a fun field trip - we finally got to use our hip boots!

These are goose barnacles, named such because they look like geese. Can you see it?
I really liked how these bull kelp stipes tangled - not sure if I can use it in my journal though. We'll see.
More zonation stripes!
Bull kelp holdfast - this kelp washed ashore, and brought its substratum with it!

Barnacles will grow anywhere - including on other creatures, like limpets.

Tuesday, we actually got out after only 2 hours! Then, back to the beach.

This is a chiton - you usually see them flatter, but this one was curling up since we'd just pulled it off the rock - it was trying to keep in whatever water it could.

This is the underside of the chiton - not something you get to see a lot!

A cool nudibranch - the first ones we saw. There were also a bunch of their egg sacs around, but I didn't like that picture quite as much.
Nucella eggs - a kind of snail.
Giant green sea anemone. They stick tings onto themselves so that they can retain water.

Wednesday, I was a lazy bum, and sat around after a long lecture. I hate to say it, but sometimes here I feel a bit bored with tidepools. My excitement in marine biology comes from the mammals and larger ecology, and sometimes staring at stationary sponges and sea stars just bores me to tears. But Thursday quickly resolved that dilemma.

We went to a beach that we'd been to before, the one through the tunnel, but we approached from the other side, and at low tide. There were so many things I hadn't seen before! My favorite was a super high tidepool, about ten feet above the tide, where I just lay on my stomach and stared for forever.

There were these super active little copepods zooming around, and rather active snails grazing.They aren't showing up very well in pictures..... oh well.

Right next to it were impressive fossilized sea shell beds.

There were also tube worms, which I didn't know existed in tide pools.

This was also the first time I saw the Tidepool Johnnys, although they were there at other beaches. Can you see it?

How about now?

If you can't see it now... sorry, nothin' I can really do to help you. If you're really curious, I'll highlight it better.

Have you ever seen the bottom of a limpet? From this direction, it's much easier to see how closely they're related to slugs and snails.

Sea lemon! I don't know much about these nudibranchs, but I love their color!

I've been feeling a bit out of place in this group, but I realized that mostly that's because I'm not joining in in the social activities. Yesterday was a big goal accomplishing day for me. I went running (wowwww I'm out of shape.... but you've gotta start somewhere!), I remembered to do everything on my to-do list, and I was part of all the sociallite activities. We had a ton of fun playing volleyball, and a game similar to it called "Jailbreak". We've been watching Modern Family as a group - I love that show! We also went out to a beach called Bassendorf nearby to play. I missed soccer earlier, but when we went in the evening, I was part of the party. A long piece of kelp, in the hands of college students, quickly becomes a jumprope.

These guys are so much fun. I love the group dynamic, and Dr. B puts up with our silliness. He even joined in a bit today, putting Josh's hat on backwards.

The second thing that helped me get my drive back (other than that active tidepool mentioned above) was the washed up dead sea lion on the beach.

WARNING - POSTMORTEM GRODY GROSS PICTURES AHEAD - SKIP TO THE END OF THE POST IF YOU DON'T HAVE A SOMEWHAT STRONG STOMACH!

I'm sorry, I realize that these are definitely going to turn some people off, but I am soooo fascinated by this. The best part was that a wave came and pushed the sea lion over, so we got to see both sides.

The basculum - a penile bone present in most mammals, but not in humans.
Thick layer of fat on top of the skin!
Vertebrae
Vestigial bones! Before my own eyes! Proof that they really have these! AAAaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

The whole sea lion.

I have like a million more of these pictures.... I LOVE THEM SO MUCH.

Today has been uneventful thusfar, we got the afternoon off to work on our pictures.... I feel like I have like a million pictures (okay, actually, there's more like 250), but only like.... 10 good ones. Out of the 100 that I need. But I've only been here a week, and apparently we haven't even gone to the really interesting places, so hopefully I'll be able to make it all up.

Y'all should comment on stuff and... stuff.

Day 3 Adventure!

So, although it's Saturday, we still have 8-12 lecture. One of the guys started bringing his pillow to class, and I think I'm gonna steal that idea. After the first two hours, those chairs are hard.

After lecture and lunch I went to my room and slept for basically a million years until dinner. Which felt GREAT. After dinner we went on an adventure to a nearby beach. Travelling to it was fun - you had to climb down a pretty steep hill, using roots as steps, then through a tunnel, then repel down the side of a steep incline to get to it. I got some good pictures of zonation and other phenomena, and had a great time with the gang here!

This is an estuary on the way to the beach. To the right is a small waterfall (not shown), to the left on the bottom are a bunch of pools that it runs into, and on the top you can see the ocean, which also flows into the pools.
These pictures are actually in reverse order, so Paris was climbing up from the beach to the tunnel.
The rope - I felt like Indiana Jones
My best picture of zonation striping on this beach.
Limpets/barnacles hunkered down in holes.
My best picture - feeding acorn barnacles. The black things coming from the shells are their cirri - modified feet used for feeding.
Limpets in a crevasse - they do this to be where there's more water, and where it's easier to retain the water they have.
A surge channel - this is where the feeding barnacles were hanging out. This is it full of water...
And here it is when the water would recede.

Kelli and Sam were trying to get a good picture of the barnacles, but kept having to jump back to save their cameras. I didn't manage to get some of their more comical leaps, but you get the idea.

More crowding into a hole
A closer view of zonation
Barnacles hiding between rocks - also a spider that I didn't notice when I was taking the picture.
The tunnel! It vaguely reminded me of the Twin Tunnels in Mosier, but not quite as nice.
A Black Oystercatcher - Dr. B's favorite bird.

Day 2

Today the food bell rang at 7. Because there are basically not walls between our rooms, I woke up to every. single. alarm that people had set beforehand. It's going to be a bit of an adjustment from waking up at 11 every day, but I'm looking forward to it. Maybe I'll even start waking up earlier than everyone so that I don't have to be woken up over and over. Genius, right?

Breakfast this morning was biscuits and gravy. It's going to be nice to not have to worry about making food for a while. And it's all already paid for! One less thing to be concerned about. We eat with the U of O students that are here (there's about 20). Apparently the groups are being a lot friendlier with each other this year than they were last year. I'm glad we're all buddies, but it's kinda a culture shock to be around that kind of language and that amount of piercings again.

At 8 a.m. lecture starts, and it goes till noon. The chairs are hard and uncomfortable, the classroom is cold, and Dr. B is fantastic. It's great to have a class without Annoying Guy (if you don't know about him, don't worry, you don't want to), and I think the class is slowly learning how to participate in lecture. I'm crazy excited for the journal that we're making for the Ecology class - I totally bought some marine life scrapbooking stickers at Walmart on my run there today. Also, in lecture, I learned my new address(es). So, for whoever cares:

Angela Despain
C/O Dr. Braithwaite
Oregon Institute of Marine Biology
P.O. Box 5389
Charleston, OR

^^For any letters / mail

For PACKAGES [in case someone wants to send me cookies ;)], things need to be sent to:

Angela Despain
C/O Dr. Braithwaite
Oregon Institute of Marine Biology
63466 Boat Basin Road
Charleston, OR 97420

That's also the actual physical address of the place I'm staying, if anyone wants to swing by.

However, and this is important ALL MAIL TO ME NEEDS TO BE SENT BY THE FIRST WEEK OF JUNE. If you're mailing me after that, please do so to my home in Mosier, or else I won't get the mail, as I'm leaving here on June 16th:

Angela Despain
P.O. Box 460
Mosier, OR 97040

Alright, now that that's out of the way....

After lecture we had lunch (chicken noodle soup and sandwiches) and then moved on to our afternoon block. Lecture goes from 8-12, then we have a lab/more active learning block from 1-5. 8 hours a day, 6 days a week. I don't know how we're going to manage to fill all that time, but I'm excited to find out.

Today we were assigned our hip boots.
As I'm sure you can tell, they're called hip boots because they are so hip.

We also took a tour of the campus, and the woods behind it. It's your typical Oregon rainforest.
I love it. It smells great, like Camp Arrowhead or the backwoods of Vancouver. I live in an Eden. There's also a creek running through campus and into the woods, full of poisonous newts. The best part of the tour, though, was by far the library.


Check it out! Books about NOTHING but marine mammals! Also, the "Periodic Table of Fish". It's this whole building full of books about marine life and nothing but! I plan to spend lots of time in there this semester. There's journals and research and just tome after tome of FANTASTIC stuff! AAAAaaaaaahhh!!!!

We stopped by Dr. B's cottage (one of a group of small houses on campus reserved for the professors) on the way back, and met Sister B. She's making an effort to get to know everyone's names, and she's really down to earth and helpful, which balances out her husband's slightly off-in-the-clouds disposition. They're great together.

I think we're going to head to the beach and play soccer now. Hasta luego!

In Further News....

We just went on a nighttime excursion to OIMB's private research beach. Where I discovered that my flashlight doesn't work. One more thing to buy at Wally World!

We slid and skidded over seaweed slicked rocks (whoot! Alliteration!) to poke anemones and pry off starfish in the dark. We were a bit destructive, having to step on barnacles, but as T.A. Kelli's motto states, "It's all in the name of science!"

These guys are seriously fantastic. Everyone's just SO excited to be here. I love love love that we all share this obsession - it's great to be surrounded by enthusiastic people!


I. Am in. Love.

First Day at OIMB!

Nothing too exciting. I woke up too late, rushed to get ready, and Mom and I headed to the airport where I met up with two of my fantastic classmates, Celina and Paris. Celina drove down from north of Seattle, then continued the drive all the way to Eugene before Paris took over. She drove from Eugene to Florence, and I drove to OIMB here in Charleston, Oregon.TA DAAAAA!!!!

And check out what's right across the street!

All of the buildings here at OIMB look the same - ocean-weathered grey wood. While it's hard to decide if that's quaint or concerning, the insides are much more appealing.
The building to the left is the cafeteria, above which are BYU's dorms. The building to the right are classrooms, and that right thur in the middle is a volleyball court.
Before I leave here, I will discover what lies at the end of that mysterious country road, so help me.


My room! All to myself! Privacy!
.... or not. The walls don't go all the way to the ceiling in our rooms, so you can hear EVERYTHING. For example, one of the girls is watching a movie right now, which is fine, but it's kinda frustrating to have to listen to it without seeing it. Is there a polite way to throw headphones at someone's head?

Earlier today, the T.A.'s found a salamander, and decided to nurse it back to health. (unsuccessfully, this is a postmortem picture. )

And last of all, the view from my window!

I'm happy (mostly) with the accommodations here. I can't wait to get to know my buddies better.... especially because I keep seeming to miss the carpools heading out for adventure time. I'll try to avoid that in the future....

Class starts tomorrow at 8! Wish me luck!

Freshman Year Part 1

Let's see what I can remember.

The first major event of my freshman year happened on the drive down: My niece was born!

She has been such a blessing in my life, and I had lots of opportunities over the year to spend time with her. To learn more about her growing up adventures, be sure to check out

Then I met my fantastic roommates.

Cassie's the sweet blonde, Melissa the fiesty Puerto Rican. I love both of them tons. Cassie and I shared a room, Melissa and I shared a not-quite-as-sweet as Cassie relationship. We both corrupted her. These two were VERY supportive when I was injured in a car accident (details to follow), and I loved having their notes and doodles on the white board (all of which are documented on Melissa's facebook, I'll see if I can get them on here. These two definitely became my sisters over the course of two semesters, and I can't wait to see what they get up to in the future!

My first semester schedule consisted of American Heritage (tons of fun, because I shared it with Cody and Nick - two guys from my Y group that became probably my best friends), Chem 105 (... I basically sat in the back and fooled around with Cody the whole time, as was shown by the C I got in the class), Book of Mormon (Dr. Marsh was a fantastic teacher! And another class with Cody and Nick), Biology (Where I made a great new friend in Muzna), and Intro to Family Processes. I learned a lot in that last class, and used J.J., Erin, and Cody in a mock family ritual, where I made a pumpkin casserole for a Halloween dinner and watched a scary movie - a tradition I hope to continue.

Here we have the gorgeous Cody modeling the pumpkin casserole.

BEFORE this was my big exciting bike/car wreck. When I was cruising down the hill next to the LaVell Edwards stadium, a car cut across the bike lane without looking. My bike flew over the back of their car with me on it, and I caught myself with my hands. I walked away with some annoying road rash, and two sprained wrists.I was blessed to have fantastic roommates and friends to help me out. It was a big trial for me to be the servee instead of the server, but it was a good lesson for me to learn. I called my dad upset about it, and he taught me that sometimes allowing yourself to be served is a way to serve others. Still not totally sure if I buy it, but it helped me get through the frustrating times when I couldn't even make my own food.

After the braces were off, I had tons of fun with Halloween. First things first, I filled my walk-in closet with pumpkins. Then I got people to help me carve them. My dad came down, my friend Hans, but mostly my roommates and FHE family took care of all of them.















Let's see. I don't think anything very eventful happened between Halloween and Christmas. My roommates and I enjoyed decorating up our apartment for the holidays. The first round of finals was a bit of a baptism by fire, but we survived! Now, on to the second semester.

..... whoops

Well that was definitely a vain attempt.... sorry! ( an apology directed to all.... none of my followers. Which is definitely my bad. I am a shame to my older siblings, who would be following this, if I had blogs as interesting as theirs)

I really hope to get better at this. I really like the idea of the blog started by my wonderful sisters-in-law (erm, SOON-to-be in one case). Their blog (which they later added Kandis and myself to) is full of recipes that they're trying out. I might try something like that here. I found that when I think about what did I ate today, and why, and often it's a funny story that I can share with the world. When I try to focus on EVERYTHING, and how I should blog about it, I just don't, because it'd be too hard. But if I recorded my life in recipes, or maybe photos, or maybe statuses.... I dunno. I'll think about it. I'll hopefully come up with better ideas in Coos Bay.

Oh yeah! Coos Bay! I have tons to catch up on, so I'll just put a quick blurb about it. I'm going to be going with about 15 other students to study at OIMB (The Ducks - Blech) for Spring Semester, under the genius tutelage of Dr. B. I. Am so. Excited. One of my classes is a mentored research project, one is embryology, one is ecology. For ecology, I get to take 100 pictures of animals doing things, and labeling what they're doing. DREAM. COME. TRUE. Much of this blog will be dedicated to that, I'm hoping to be updating often once I'm in Coos Bay.

So let's see.... you missed basically the whole of my Freshman Year. I'll try and sum it up. .... but not in this post. It's my bedtime. Goodnight internet!