Woke up around 8 again , packed up some of my things and got ready to hit the beach. I wanted to check out Longboat key and visit Myakka State Park if I had enough time. Setting garmin for the general area of longboat key, I headed out on the causeway yet again. This time veering left instead of right toward mote. This key definitely felt more private than the others, and I had to continue driving because everything looked private, there didn't seem to be a public entrance to a beach anywhere! There were just a ton of condos, and [View Full Entry]

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This morning, woke up around 8, and went for a swim in the pool. Even though it was early morning, the water wasn't too cold, probably helped being down where it's warm all the time, and also due to warming up as the morning progressed. After my swim fueled up with some coffee, a little informative chat with the front desk guy Michael, and then I was back in the impala ,cruising down highway 41/Tamiami trail in search of some bike shops. Found one eventually, a schwinn store, where I chatted up this guy and he shed some light on the [View Full Entry]

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I could not get to sleep. Could have been because I went to bed way before I normally do, or because of nerves. Regardless, I woke up at the ungodly hour of 2, and half an hour later my mom and I were on 94 heading to Milwaukee's airport so I could make my 5:45 AM flight. Luckily Itrip kept us going and made it there with no problems, although later my mother would get pulled over and receive a warning from a cop on her way back to Madison, but that's another story. My flight to Atlanta was fine , [View Full Entry]

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So I will be heading down to Sarasota Oct 19-21 to check out some housing options, meet/visit the Mote Marine Lab Aquarium , see for yourselves at http://www.mote.org/ and finally just getting to know the city. If you haven't heard by now, I recently received word that I had been accepted to the Manatee Research Internship Program where I will be participating in photo id and aerial surveys of some manatee groups down there. Should be pretty fun, I am pumped. Anyways, a full blog will start up sometime round late december and then I'll try to update it weekly, along [View Full Entry]

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So heading out East again tomorrow evening (or today I should say as it's past midnight) around six. I should get in around eleven, all things going according to plan. And ah, yes, I have yet to pack, should be a fun morning come seven hours from now. Just got back from mini golfing out at Vitense with my roomies (and newly engaged couple ) John and Kelley. Of course I got my ass handed to me(well, not really but I did come in third out of three players) and then we went over to Dennis' and surprised him for his [View Full Entry]

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So just an update in the life of yours truly for those I don't talk to that much, and also I wanted to write down cool stuff I've been doing so I can remember it later when I'm old. A: Took the GRE, waiting on analytical scores, did super on my math, ok on my verbal. Not sure whether I'll retake it cuz what does it really mean if you do better? or what happens if I do worse or the same. The GRE place sends ALL of your scores to the schools, so they would get to see how I [View Full Entry]

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I still find it weird to be back in the states, everytime i look at my pics i just want to go back! My week has been a blast, full of reunions and catching up with my friends from my Ceiba Program. Last weekend I drove up to Northern Illinios, just over the border with bretski and brenna, and met Joe and Cath, Molly and her sister, and some other ceiba kids from past semesters/summers, and we camped out, grilled out, made smores, and went on a hike the next morning/swam. Then mon and tues, moll was in town so bret [View Full Entry]

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So i am in the united states, writing this from the convenient and comfortable confines of my backyard, underneath my gazeebo to be exact. It has been four days since I've arrived in the states and the weirdness of being back is beginning to wear off. The final flight , per my typical nature , carried its own adventures, me , ab , and steve met two body guards from californina, who had justbeen on a detail in the GAlapagos protecting one of forbes 50 richest men in the world, and so we chatted, and they gave me their business card [View Full Entry]

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Its already May 10th. that seems so surreal. my final banquet was yesterday, and the whole time everything seemed to be moving so slowly. It wasnt teary or emotional like i thought it would be, a nice dinner at la choza, then we gave joe and catherine their thank you gift, a yearbook with group pics, and personal thank you letters and im pretty sure they really liked it. Then the suprise was a rooftop ride in this jeep truck thing all throughout the city of quito, and we got free canalazo(hot warm alcoholic beverage) it was freaking awesome! then after [View Full Entry]

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So guess who is scuba certified! the last wednesday we did our pool session, and then thursday and friday we did 2 open water dives. sooooo coool! i saw some green sea turtles , fish, coral, sea snake, eel and some other stuff. also the last night we went to monitor turtle nests, i woke up for my shift at like one, took my time cause i was like they're not gonna hatch, but to my suprise the first nest i looked at had a ton of tiny turtles pawing at the chicken wire fence!!!all i could do was like gasp [View Full Entry]

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