Weekend In Review

Ok, so it's really hard to do multiple-day entries, but I'll try my darndest.

The rest of the week was not very exciting. I did lab work, narrowly averting disasterous mistakes on more than one occasion. I learned how to get bacteria to colonize squid, and how to squish up the squid afterwards. I also saw some beautiful microscopy at the lab meeting on friday. . .ooooh pretty! But other than that, I'm still waiting for primers that I ordered to do a PCR, which is the important first step of getting my project underway basically.

Saturday started out with plans to go snorkelling, soon giving way to a spontaneous invite to a lab barbecue. . . how could we refuse? So I got some interneting done a the lab, performed a simple cell transformation while I was there, and then we went off for groceries and then off to the barbecue, where we were met by kewalo lab folks Christian, Francois (who IS french btw), and Kate (who is british, I think). We spent a goodly time lying about getting sandblasted, and eventually grilling with other folks that arrived. There I was introduced to the new love of my life. . . poke. Poke is raw fish marinated in delicious things. It is even better than sashimi. Holy Crap.

I like the people in this lab. The grad students aren't much older than I am, and they have great senses of humor. I think they're not used to me yet, but I don't care if they never are: I'm happy just to be here.

Went home, watched most of "My Fair Lady" for the heck of it, and fell asleep

Today has been much more adventuresome. First of all, went to the lab as always and I got to chat a bit, and I got an e-mail from Dave D. that just made my day completely, so off to a good, glowingly happy start. We drove to the North Shore of Oahu, passing through beautiful green valleys so green I was almost convinced it was plastic--which hasn't been disproven yet. Our first stop: the Dole Pineapple Farm. fields and fields of pineapple, and tourists, and also the largest maze in the world? I got a delicious pineapple sherbet in waffle cone, which was great enough. TO top it off, they had a super cute giftshop, and I got a hello kitty shirt that says "Want a slice?" and also the cutest hello kitty watch in the history of the world, with little pink plastic beads floating around the dial. I like hello kitty.

Then we went to SHARK'S COVE---oooh! sounds so scary! to try out our snorkel gear. Supposedly, this place is great for such activities, but after braving the rocks and waves out into the open water, we both found the visibility poor. . ..but right off, we did see A GREEN SEA TURTLE! Yeah! It swam quite close to us, checking us out a bit as we did the same, and then was on it's way. And then we were on our way. The ocean swells were picking up, and we thought we better get in before it was too dangerous. But we weren't sure where to go back in through the cove.

It was at this point we met a man with long sandy hair and mustache in a wetsuit swimming around without fins. He quickly told us "Hey man, whoah, that was the biggest shark I've ever seen! I'm getting out of here!"

We didn't buy it.

"Oh man, just kidding ya" he admitted. He then told us there was an 8 foot monk seal out past the rocks, which we half-way believed. "Oh man, I'm like bleeding from five different places you know"

At which point I backed away.

"Yeah man, I went out there without fins man, I went out there to die, you know? To suck down the water totally"

Cheryl still wasn't buying it, she smiled and laughed.

"Seriously, I went out there to die today, but I ended up helping some folks out there. Hey, do you guys need help in?" He asked. We did, so we took his advice, which led us over the rocks to get to shore. The waves were getting rather furious, and there really is the danger that they'll lift you up and drop you on a sharp piece of coral and you won't be happy. It was kindof surreal, knowing you could really get hurt. I did a good job, flipping methodically over some rocks to safety.

To Be Continued.