Busy, busy bee

So far, so good. I have had one of the craziest weeks/ten days that I’ve had for a long time. It started last Friday, with the T party that I mentioned in the last post. I spent most of the evening explaining to the Americans that because I was British, that Stop Lights were actually called Traffic Lights. There were some awesome photos. Fancy dress parties are so under-rated, you can’t beat costumes. Some of the other costumes included........ Mr T., Transvestite, Tennis Player, A Telephone-taped Tetrahedron, Toga, Tourist, Tourettes, Twins, Tiramisu, a TV, Thing 1 and Thing 2, a Tracheotomy, a Trashed Trace-metal chemist, a Tea bag (which generated a lot of tea-bagging jokes), John Travolta, a Thug and possibly the funniest of all, Tu-Pac. Done with the liberal application of dark foundation. Which hilariously then didn’t come off for a few days :D Kept us all amused anyway! It was a very good evening. Ended up being thrown in the Reach (the sea in front of our bar) fully clothed including my jeans and my shoes. Pretty standard really for a Friday night here. Well, Friday night turned into 5 am in the morning before I went to bed. Saturday started with a fry up (general state of shabbiness on Saturday morning necessitated someone going to buy fry-up ingredients), and then went out on a friends boat for a cheeky little snorkel. Did the trick and felt great after that. Evening was a BBQ with our lab group here at our boss’s house – more awesome food and beer! They’ve got a 2 week old baby who is just gorgeous.

Sunday was July 4^th – never really something that we bother to celebrate, but seeing as we’re surrounded by Americans, we felt we probably should join in with the fun :D So, back out on the boat, with a cooler full of beers to a sandy harbour.

Anchor up, crack open the beers, and float in the water. Occasionally climb up a really freakin high cliff and jump off into the water.

Note; do NOT hold your nose whilst you do this, otherwise you risk punching yourself in the face as you land, and cutting your mouth open. Fact. Once we got back in the evening, a July 4^th BBQ, followed by climbing up on top of our bar, and watching the fireworks from Tucker’s Town with a beer. Perfect.

Monday evening was a friend’s birthday, so I played chef and cooked dinner. First time I’ve had access to a proper kitchen since I got here! J what was supposed to be a ‘quiet’ night turned into another 5am bedtime. Not so much drinking, but just a lot of chatting with friends. Had a year’s worth of catching up to do with a friend of mine, so we talked into the small hours. We talked a lot of shop, lots of science, and what we were trying to do with our lives. It made me do a lot of thinking about life. Although having said that, it did make me realise that the next few years for me could be pretty good, as long as I make the most of them.

Thursday was another big night, as my Canadian friend Mark left to back to Canada. Trivia night, and then back to the bar for free Rum. Always dangerous. Lots of banter that night, more swimming in the Reach, this time mostly without clothes though J However, I would just like to point out, that I have been in work by 7.45 every day this week, and have had a super productive week. I don’t mind working hard, so long as I can play hard too. Friday night was ANOTHER leaving do, this time we went out into Hamilton (the capital of Bermuda) and started of the night with sushi and Sake. I’ve never had sushi before but it was absolutely awesome. And then out to the clubs, went to one where we had to go through a freakin’ metal detector to get in!!!! WHAT??!! And then a few armed police came in and took a wander around....... this is so not how things roll in the UK...

I am going to miss this place in a big way, but my liver will be exceedingly happy to get home and have a break whilst I hit the training. Hard. Been managing to keep up ok with the training, despite the playing hard, playing soccer, running, playing ultimate Frisbee...... but I am missing being in a boat. We’re still having problems with finding the funding for our crew to get out to our EUSA competition; our University don’t seem too keen on supporting us which I think is pretty shit. Fingers crossed. I feel a bit useless because I’m not much use to the others trying to sort things out from here. Lazy weekend this weekend, BBQ last night and early bed for me, and a trip to the beach today with some snorkelling :D

Judging by the amount I seem to write each week, maybe I should start posting a little more often..........

Seriously? It's July already?

Well, my intention of writing every week somehow fell by the wayside. Firstly I blame having what essentially boils down to a ten day holiday when my boyfriend came to stay, then a week out at sea, and then, well, just general laziness. I will endeavour to update this more often, but in reality I probably will forget again.

Had an awesome time whilst the boyf was here, it was nice because it meant I actually got off station and went out to see the island and play tourist. Rented scooters for 2 days which was fab. So much fun and freedom compared to having to get the bus everywhere. Managed to get a fair bit of climbing in which kept him happy, I’ve only done one more session since he left due to time constraints and practicality of getting to where we climb.

My 365 project is still going strong, I’ve completed almost a month now which makes me pretty chuffed. Although I am finding it a bit weird trying to think of new ideas and news places to take photos, when I am in a pretty public place I just feel a bit self-concious. Hopefully this will go away the longer I do it :) Have been taking a fair few other photos too, and sticking them up on Flickr as I go along, so feel free to have a browse.

Work is going ok, the last cruise was good, although I find it very difficult to get academic work done whilst I’m on the cruise, sampling is fine, just reading and computer stuff does my head in (and doesn’t help if you’re prone to seasickness). The food however, is awesome. The crew is Filipino, and they cook awesome food for us. Having spoken to people who routinely go out on other cruises, by all accounts we’re very lucky with the food we get served on the ship. Off out to sea again 3rd week of July, and then it’ll be time to go home! Definitely does seem like my time here this year is flying by compared to last year. I think it’s because I know people here already this year, and I was already aware of the cost of food etc so that it wasn’t AS much of a shock to the system as it was last year. A couple of friends are leaving the island in the next week, but a good friend from last year has just arrived back on the island so I guess it’s not all bad :).

Still got 4 weeks left to crack out an awesome tan for the time I go home and make all my friends jealous :) Have upped the training stakes (apart from whilst out on the ship), and at the moment I’m running around 25km a week, playing soccer at least once a week (normally twice), doing yoga once a week, and hopefully I will be swimming once a week from now on too. We are right next to the water here, but I’m a little iffy about training there because it gets pretty busy with boats and jetskis that go pretty quickly, and come pretty close in to the shoreline. I’m going to try going out to one of the beaches and swimming along the shoreline. We’ll see how that goes.

Got woken up to massive amounts of thunder this morning which was quite nice (if not a little bit scary). I love thunderstorms. Particularly at night when you can see forked lightning striking the ground. Party this evening with the theme of the letter T. I’m going as a set of traffic lights. Not overly original I know, but I am severely limited by the amount of clothes I have here with me in Bermuda, and no access to a fabric store, or even more helpfully – Primark!

Ciao.

Another week gone by.....

So, another week has gone by already, and now it’s June! I’ve been in Bermuda now for almost a month, and it has absolutely flown by. Got some good news yesterday, our crew has been selected to represent GB at the European Universities Rowing Championships in Amsterdam in August which is awesome. However this does mean I have to do as much training whilst here as possible, as I’ll only have two weeks or so to train with the other girls once I get back to the UK. So, in an effort to do as much training as possible, I’ve even started playing football twice a week. I hate football. Actually, I should probably say I’ve started playing soccer twice a week, as the majority of people here are American. The England vs US world cup match next week should be fun..... we’re going to have a beer-drinking contest whilst it’s happening (very American concept right?).

I’ve also been trying to do some more photography whilst I’m here, and have a reasonable amount of spare time on my hands (I go in to work pretty early so I have the late afternoon free too). I bought a new camera in October, and am still getting used to what it can do, and learning how to use it properly. I’ve gradually started uploading photos to Flickr, and it’s a wonderful way to spend time, as there are some beautiful photos up on Flickr. I’ve found a couple of photostreams from people who are obviously born to be behind a camera, and it’s a great opportunity to learn new stuff from groups and photos up on there. One Flickr user that I’ve been looking at is a girl called Rebeca, who has just completed her 365 project. It’s inspired me to have a go myself. I think. I’m going to first of all see if I can just make it a week with having remembered to take a photo every day, and see how it goes from there I think! For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it’s a photo a day for a whole year. Some people chose to take a random photo every day; some people chose to do self portraits, or specific themes. I haven’t decided what to do for mine yet. I think it might be self portrait, but watch this space. Once I figure out how to stick photos in the blog too you might see some. For now, my photostream can be found here anyway.

Came second in the Swizzle Inn pub quiz last night which was good, although the other team from the research station beat us into first by a single point! Hmph. We still got a slab of beer from it though, so not an entirely wasted evening :)

Super excited today as the boyfriend is flying out for ten days to see me. Hoooooorah! Lots of climbing on the cards as he’s a climbing nut, and there are a few expats here who are super hard. The climbing itself is pretty sketchy here as the rock is a bit grim, but once it gets to this time of year and the water is over 20C, then the majority of it is deep water soloing (DWS), where you just climb routes that overhand the water, and if you fall off, well you just get wet (I mostly just squeal and fall in the water). Fingers crossed for some beautiful weather in the next week or so.

Have a good weekend xx

Bonjour, Hello, Hoi, Hola, etc etc.

Ok here goes. I’ve never written a blog before, or let’s be honest, even contemplated writing one. For one, it does seem a little weird (perhaps just very English) to write about yourself, hell I even struggled writing my personal statement for university because of this. Secondly, is it not a little bit odd to write about yourself, and then publish it so that complete strangers can see it? Thirdly, why do I feel the need to write this anyway. Perhaps I’d better just stop there and say hi first of all and explain why I am actually doing this.

Well, if any of you reading this know me (who knows, maybe you don’t!), I do love to talk. I can’t help it. It runs in my family, definitely in the genes. So, in order to bore people less with me just rabbiting on about this and that, I thought why not write a blog instead. That way, if people get bored, they can just switch off. Or go and watch something on youTube. Brilliant pastime. Although the whole “strangers reading your blog” idea is a bit strange to me, maybe in some small, unknown way it will amuse/entertain/bore to tears/interest someone, somewhere (I hope?). I also have a fairly hectic schedule for the next few months, so hopefully this will be as good a way as any to keep people updated with what I’m doing, without resorting to updating my facebook status every day (ahem. I might sometimes do that already anyway).

So I begin. A little bit of information about me, myself and I if you please. I’m a postgraduate Marine Biology student, currently around half way through my 3 years of studying for my PhD. I’m already trying to blank out the fact that I have to write a 60,000 word thesis over the next year or so. Maybe writing this will help to write the thesis. I doubt it, but it’s a nice thought.

I’m currently living in Bermuda for three months, as part of my PhD, collecting and analysing data. Bermuda? Isn’t that in the Carribbean? No. And, contrary to popular belief, it’s not always 30 degrees and sunny here. In fact, it hardly ever hits 30 degrees. Having said that, the water is a beautiful azure blue, the skies are (mostly) clear and sunny and there ARE palm trees. Temperature is normally around 25-28 degrees in the summer. Unfortunately there are also ants, cockroaches, and approximately 90% humidity most of the time. The other thing you may not know, is that it is horrifically expensive to live here. Fortunately I’m based at the research institute out here, which is cheaper (I use that word very, very loosely) to live than anywhere else on the island. Food is insanely expensive, and therefore spending any amount of time here on a UK PhD income is the best enforced diet you will ever go on (voluntarily or not).

Whilst I’m not being a scientist (or pretending to be one at any rate), I spend a lot of time doing sports. My mother thinks I’m addicted to exercise. I’m not. Maybe a little. I’ve rowed for my university for the last 6 years (having rowed as a junior for my local town club), and it has become a bit of a way of life. It also provides an instant excuse if you are just feeling too lazy to want to go out on the lash ...... “ guys I’m really sorry, but I can’t. I’ve got an early morning outing tomorrow”. On the flip side of that, if you have an early morning outing, you really can’t go out on the lash the night before (believe me, I’ve tried it. And it wasn’t pretty). Some people can, but I’m a big wimp when it comes to late nights and early mornings. Give me 10 hours of sleep any day!

I think I’ll leave this first entry here. Wouldn’t want you all to be falling asleep in front of your computers now would we? I’ll try and update this reasonably frequently, or just when I get bored / can’t find anyone to listen to my ramblings. Maybe I’ll even stick in a photo or two (another fantastic way to spend time, as I’m quickly learning!).

xx