BULL CAME OUTTA NOWHERE

Tuesday 28

Yvonne and I presented our powerpoint on wind energy in the morning along with all the other groups, who talked about other types of renewable energy like solar panels, biofuel, solar thermal, ocean energy, etc. That morning we could sleep in because the powerpoints didn't start until 10:30, which was lovely. At the end of the presentations, we all voted on which type would be the best to invest in. Photovoltaic energy (solar panels) won and they got $290 million to start their project. Lunch and then an entire day to work on our projects. We all worked in the classroom for a while and Greg and I finished putting all of our data together. Our results showed that there wasn't a significant difference between the two heliconia species (one native and one introduced), which was interesting. We originally hypothesized that there would be a difference. After looking at more research, we realized that just because a species is introduced into an area, doesn't mean it will necessarily be invasive. Depending on the situation, a species can pose a different degree of a threat. All the pollinators that came to the species were endemic to the island. A total of 24 hours of observation - wowee. Later that night, Rose and I watched more LOST.

Wednesday 29

We had the whole day to work on our projects and then Diana gave us a talk on how urbanization has affected marine life in the streams in a watershed close by. It was interesting to hear about her research!

TODAY

Everyone's presentations began at "9 on the dot" (psh, yeah right). It was a great to feeling to completely finish and I realized how much I learned over the last 5 weeks. I was cool learning more details about everyone else's research. The presentations finished and we had a nice lunch. After lunch the whole gang went swimming in the waterfall. I stayed back at the apartments and caught up with one of my best friends that I hadn't spoken to in a month. I had service in the back table and sat there while it rained super hard. We then went to the classroom to talk about the posters we all made. Ashley quizzed us about everyone's injuries - cuts, bruises, strains, infections, stomach bugs, rashes, jellyfish stings. It was quite amusing. Jelly, Clare, and Karissa made a count down starting at 12 days until the end.

It goes like this.

12 bugbites
11 rainy days
10 calls dropped
9 jellyfish stings
8 internet fails
7 evil iguanas
6 wipeouts
5 sun burns
4 stomach bugs
3 broken computers
2 "free" days

I don't know what the last one is yet. Despite all of our trials and tribulations, I had a great 5 weeks! I'm so grateful to have had Omar, Ashley, and Diana as my teachers and to have met everyone is the group!

After the classroom, Rose and I watched another episode of LOST. Then I did abs with the group. Then Yvonne and I went for an hour walk. We decided to turn back from our walk, when we ran into a frickin bull! It was so cool and scary. It had a bull ring too. We were worried it would begin to charge at us as it was given us a death stare.
BEACH TOMORROW and then Diana is driving me to airport on Saturday. Wow - that did not feel like 5 weeks.