The little escape artist...

I woke up this morning (unfortunately) to my alarm blasting and rolled over to see this...



Every night I chuck the teddies and extra pillow of my bed and onto the chair before I crawl into bed, but this time one of the teddies seems to be trying to escape when I woke up and caught him.


In other news, I made a really nice vegetable soup for tea tonight. It had pumpkin, sweet potato, potato, carrot, parsnip, onion, lentils, garlic, pepper, and curry powder. I am immensely proud of it.

Maria Island Adventure

Well, as you know, as a requirement for my Marine Ecology course I had to spend a week over Easter working on Maria Island.

The first day of the field trip started out very badly. Bonnie, Alysha, and I waited on the docks for hours before we were deemed a high priority to get onto the island. The boat trip over was fine, even if I did get wet.

Then we had to put up our tents quickly so we could begin work. I got the tent out of the bag and found that it had two (out of three) broken poles and about half the compliment of tent pegs. When I had almost got my tent up the weather turned- it started raining and was windier than you can imagine. My tent was flattened by the wind, but some friends helped me move it into a much more shelter position and get it up and all my gear inside out of the rain.

Then we had to rush over to meet our tutor for the week, J.S, and his partner, Tera. We met up and hiked the 1/2 hour walk over the hill and down the cliffs to the rocky platform below fossil cliffs. This was our study site for the next six days. Our project was to survey the rockpools to find relationships between the volume, depth, surface area, and rugosity (roughness of the bottom) of the rockpools and the number of species they contain. That first day we didn't get a lot of rockpools done because we were only just figuring out exactly how to do things.

On the walk back to camp we all got windburnt and ended up with ear-ache from the wind howling past.

Dinner was enjoyable, though, as Bonnie, Alysha, and I set up our cooking on the picnic table together and ate together.

Then we had to go to the evening lectures held at the convict built mess hall. Every evening except for Monday there were two compulsory lectures on Marine biology.


The next day was a far better day. I woke up early and had the chance to enjoy the beauty of the island- here are the photos I took.


The rest of the days passed in a blur of getting up, getting to the study site, sampling rock pools, going back to camp, having dinner, and going to lectures. Bonnie, Alysha, and I were seperated for less than ten minutes the entire week- we did everything together.

The highlights that you should know about were sampling the large rock pool (big and deep enough that it required wetsuits and snorkels to sample), going snorkelling around the jetty (which was awesome- I took some photos on Ayden's underwater camera, but they have to be developed), and the bbq on Monday night (where all of the lectures and most of the students got extremely intoxicated except for a small group of us who only had a glass or two of wine).

The rest I will tell you in pictures so I don't bore you sensless with the details.

The Study Site...



The wildlife...

The snorkelling site...

Maria Island Adventure

I found this photo of Maria Island on google, but when I get back I'll be able to put some of my own up- I just wanted you to see the beauty I'm going to enjoy for the next week.

I'm writing this post from an internet cafe in Triabunna. We made it to the wharf on time this morning and I am now awaiting my turn to be shuttled accross to the island on one of the uni boats.

I will be on the island for a week so you won't hear from me for a while, but when I get back I should have quite a bit to tell you.

I hope you all have a fantastic Easter long weekend. Don't eat too many eggs.

"Hannah, get out of the car"

Ok, so picture the scene-
Everyone was just leaving Pastor Smith's house after Youth Group last night. Its a dark night. I open the passenger door of my car... Martin gets in the backseat... Hannah gets in the front seat... I go around to my side of the car... I get in... I put the key in the ignition... and then I see IT.

There is a rather large huntsman spider sitting on the dash of my car, right in front of the steering wheel- staring at me.


I remember the last time Hannah saw a SMALL spider and wonder how she would react if she saw the huntsman.

I hear this strange, flat, calm voice come out of my mouth saying "Hannah, get out of the car."
"What's wrong?"
"Just get out of the car, Hannah"

Apparently I sounded as if I had just discovered a bomb in the car.
Hannah got out of the car.
Still with my eyes on the spider I explained to Martin and he got out of the back of the car and came around to my door. I got out and showed Marin where the spider was. That's when we noticed IT.

There was a second huntsman coming out of the vent.

I went back up to Pastor's house to get bug spray, rang the bell, and explained. Mary came out to see the spiders- I don't know why, she's terrified of them so she probably shouldn't have.

There we stood, 4 humans against 2 spiders- Afraid.

Martin did most of the executing, and was by far the bravest among us. Hannah briefly took over to squish the one that wouldn't die because she just couldn't stand it being alive anymore. Her bravado only lasted until she hit it and spider juice sprayed up her arm- needless to say, she ran inside to wash it off.

With both the spiders dead and removed from the vehicle we decided it was time to do a check of the entire car to make sure there were no more. Martin, torch in hand, bravely did the job.

Then came the hard bit- getting back in the car and driving.

We only had to go a couple of minutes drive to the Pilgrim's, but with 2 spiders already appearing out of the vents I was convinced there would be more- a whole nest of them.

We made it to the Pilgrim's without anymore unwanted company and Colin and Marin sprayed every vent and opening in the car for me. It took me a while to want to get back in the car and take Hannah home, but I had to stay there for a while anyway to witness all the signatures on Martin's passport application.

I did eventually leave, Hannah did get back in the car, and I didn't even have nightmares.
But I still want to re-spray the car again to convince myself that I'm not going to have another visitor while I'm driving.
YUCK!

Well, you probably want to know what I have been doing for the last couple of weeks. I want to know what I have been doing the last couple of weeks, too- I seem to have been flat out the entire time but haven't really achieved much.

Recently, the most noteworthy things that have happened have probably been up the North end of the state over the long weekend.

I went up to Mum and Dad's on Friday night after uni and didn't get back to Hobart until Tuesday evening so it really was a long weekend. I got a chance to spend some quality time with my family and my beautiful pussy cat, got spoilt rotten on a shopping spree, had a chance to sleep in, and had a party so it was definitely worth going home for a while even if I didn't manage to get much homework done while I was there.

To make up for the lack of homework over the weekend I was at uni finishing off an assignment until after 10:00 last night and back again before 8:00 this morning to proof read it and print it out. As I'm sure you can all imagine I'm tired of looking at a computer screen (considering that I had a 4 hour statistical prac on the computers this arvo as well) so now that I've said hi and you all know that I'm still alive I'm going to go and do some serious relaxing.

In Memory of Gran

Like my brother on his blog, www.jawapro.com, I didn't quite know how to handle this post. Usually my blog is full of the randomness and chaos of the uni student life, but today's post is much harder to write than anything else has been so far.

The reason is that my great grandmother died on Saturday.

Gran was 91 so many people have said that we were lucky to have her for so long, but in many ways I think I wasn't because the extra time with her allowed me to really grow close to her over the last two years. I used to visit Gran every week or two and sometimes stayed and talked for hours depending on how well she felt. There were many times lately that my visits were cut short because she didn't have to energy to sit and gossip anymore, but then in the last few weeks of her life she regained her energy and when I visited her on her birthday I didn't plan to stay long but Gran hardly let me get a word in edgways for almost two hours. I'm glad that this is how I now get to remember her forever. Even when we visited her in hospital a few hours before she left us she was all Gran in spirit just a little more tired.

I'm really going to miss Gran.

For selfish reasons I wish she could have stayed with us longer. While Gran was alive I knew that only 10 minutes drive away there was someone who always thought I was perfect even when I had managed to convince the rest of the world I wasn't, who was always proud of me even when I was only just passing at uni, who truely loved me unconditionally no matter how unlovable I felt at the time.

It feels like the world should stop turning for a while and life should halt to pay respect to the loss of one of the most wonderful women I have ever known, but it hasn't done. I feel like I am simply going through the motions of life, unable to feel anything other than the trenendous pain of losing Gran. I look forward to the day when the wonderful memories of her no longer hurt and I can get used to not being able to go and visit the small nursing home room filled with photos of her great grandchildren just sitting for hours just gossiping about what was going on in all of our lives and feeling safe and loved next to Gran.

My great grandmothers have all taught me wonderful lessons about life. Nanny Tat showed me how to live out her Christianity without being ashamed, Nanna Kerrison taught me the true meaning of a Lady, and Gran has showed me unconditional love. I hope that I will be able to keep the memories of all of these women alive for the rest of my life as I strive to be like them.

I love you, Gran- as I know you loved me. Thankyou for your unconditional love.