The Spring Semester Begins

Just after my last post, my new roommate arrived and things have been going well. It's been fun getting to know each other and telling her about the things we have done so far on the island. Our stats class has started by going over how to use the program JMP. We've been learning how to process data on past surveys that we have done like the coconut crab, bird, and sea grass data.

I've also been going out to the ocean to potential survey sites to practice my methods for my research before class.

 I believe this is a nudibranch!! (sea slug but cooler)

This cute little guy is a trigger fish

And This guy is so awesome!!!!! They almost look fake, the emperor angelfish.

This little guy is a cute pipe fish

It took us 40 minutes to swim out to the barrier reef with the depth of the lagoon only being 2-4 meters deep the whole way. We swam back to shore in time to walk along the beach in the sunset.

 This next site is on the north west side of the island. This is a neat sea urchin.

These are Christmas tree worms :D

 Giant clam :) The clams colorful parts are habitat for zooxanthellae (dinoflagellate algae) which can photosynthesize and the clams gain nutrients from them.

 Oh no! He lost an arm!

So if you recall me freaking out over a live cowrie and were thinking what the heck is that? Well my friends here it is in all of it's glory! 

 Crazy right?!

 Here is another nudibranch.

 Here is Christy working on her project.

This is a picture of a flounder! Crazy as it seems they originally have eyes on both sides of their body and then one of their eyes migrates to the other side so they can lay flat on the bottom and see with both eyes above them.

Here is an odd looking jellyfish we found by itself. It almost looks like it has a Christmas tree on the top of it.

Kendra and I working on methods on our day off.

 

Between the last post and this one I did celebrate my 23 birthday woo! And it was a very special one indeed, I couldn't have asked to be in a better place than Saipan. I am surrounded by new experiences, friends, and extraordinary creatures.  The night before my birthday the group gathered to play once again salad bowl which was great fun. The next morning we went to this delicious crepe place where the group presented me with a very lovely Saipan snail shirt and a container of chocolate sea shells. I will cherish my snail shirt forever :D Later that day we had some work to do but I was able to play frisbee pick up where it did rain but it only made it more fun. When I was back from frisbee the group again was generous enough to present me with a large cookie baked in the shape of a snail! It was very cute and I am thinking now that I should have taken a picture of it. We then played pictonary which was a blast. Then I received notifications online of birthday wishes the next day because it was actually my birthday back on the mainland. So three full days of birthday, awesome. In the weeks to come we will have class during the week Monday-Thursday 2:30-5pm of statistics and then on Fridays we will be having mini presentations to prepare us for ones to come such as an interview on the local radio show here then presenting at a local gathering and finally at UGrads in April at NAU. On Saturdays we will be having discussions on assigned readings that are related to the history of conservation biology. Between those times we are to be working on our individual projects. My research will be involving damselfish and staghorn coral. Only 54 beautiful days left on this island.