It's been a good four years. See you again sometime.
Graduation!
First off, here's what the mortar board ended up looking like:
In case you can't tell, that's a plastic submarine bathtoy on my head, with blue sparkly "waves" around the edges. I obviously take my B.S. seriously. Sadly, I don't have any detailed pictures of some of the other, more spectacular decorations of my classmates, though I do have pictures of a few of my classmates and me on parade.
Looking from and then back at Drake Stadium, where we had lined up. My friends and I were about halfway through the Life Sciences Division line. Remember - here at UCLA, you're one in a million!
The big Letters & Science graduation ceremony seen above was on Friday evening. Saturday, Grandma, Aunt Beth, and Uncle Todd joined us in Westwood where we watched a bit of the World Cup at BrewCo, then went to the LACMA and later to the Getty for a very nice dinner.
Ariel, Emily, and me at the Getty. (Yes, Em's making a silly face but I still like the photo a lot. She should learn to stop making silly faces in all of my pictures.)
Sunday was the EEB (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) graduation ceremony. The marine biology majors were first on stage, and I managed to get myself into third place in line, so I was graduated and done long before the rest of the bio nerds.
Jess K, Romina, and me just before the march into Wilson Plaza. Jess and Romina were my two roommates in Moorea. (The two guys in the background are Wil and Antonio, two of my groupmates on the MBQ research projects.)
After the graduation, we all wandered into Westwood for lunch at Damon & Pythias. Grandma and the San Franciscans drove home soon after, while the rest of us returned to the Getty for a few hours. Emily, Ariel, and I fancied ourselves artistes, so we took a lot of random scenery pictures.
This particular shot is part of an LA skyline panorama. If you click the picture to see the full-size version, you'll see that I added a few key landmarks in the Westwood region. Essentially the last four years in 740kb. How convenient.
In case you can't tell, that's a plastic submarine bathtoy on my head, with blue sparkly "waves" around the edges. I obviously take my B.S. seriously. Sadly, I don't have any detailed pictures of some of the other, more spectacular decorations of my classmates, though I do have pictures of a few of my classmates and me on parade.
Looking from and then back at Drake Stadium, where we had lined up. My friends and I were about halfway through the Life Sciences Division line. Remember - here at UCLA, you're one in a million!
The big Letters & Science graduation ceremony seen above was on Friday evening. Saturday, Grandma, Aunt Beth, and Uncle Todd joined us in Westwood where we watched a bit of the World Cup at BrewCo, then went to the LACMA and later to the Getty for a very nice dinner.
Ariel, Emily, and me at the Getty. (Yes, Em's making a silly face but I still like the photo a lot. She should learn to stop making silly faces in all of my pictures.)
Sunday was the EEB (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) graduation ceremony. The marine biology majors were first on stage, and I managed to get myself into third place in line, so I was graduated and done long before the rest of the bio nerds.
Jess K, Romina, and me just before the march into Wilson Plaza. Jess and Romina were my two roommates in Moorea. (The two guys in the background are Wil and Antonio, two of my groupmates on the MBQ research projects.)
After the graduation, we all wandered into Westwood for lunch at Damon & Pythias. Grandma and the San Franciscans drove home soon after, while the rest of us returned to the Getty for a few hours. Emily, Ariel, and I fancied ourselves artistes, so we took a lot of random scenery pictures.
This particular shot is part of an LA skyline panorama. If you click the picture to see the full-size version, you'll see that I added a few key landmarks in the Westwood region. Essentially the last four years in 740kb. How convenient.
Graduation Stuff
First off, I've made it back to the U.S. and am making a half-hearted attempt to switch back to California time (though sleeping in certainly does have its perks). For the next week I'll be getting my Cayman work visa in order, starting to pack up, and getting ready for graduation, which is where you folks come in...
Postcards From Moorea is hereby announcing its first contest! I am planning on decorating my mortar board (the INCREDIBLY dorky hat we're forced to wear) with marine bio-related stuff. If anyone has any good ideas as to what I should include or do, please let me know. I figure one last bit of irreverence and individuality is in order, especially in a class of thousands. The winner gets their design (or inspiration from the design) on my mortar board at graduation, which will be seen by thousands of people and undoubtedly please my parents.
The Rules:
No animals may be harmed in the making of this design.
Animal accoutrements (shells, etc) must have been dead for at least two weeks prior to graduation (they're kind of stinky while they're still rotting)
The board itself is 9.5" square
Andrea reserves the right to disqualify any design at her whim and leisure
Andrea also reserves the right to just wing it Friday afternoon
Deadline: Undie Run (Wednesday at midnight)
Disclaimer: Unlike certain other schools, graduation is quite a bit more laid-back here, and the decoration of one's mortar board is considered normal (and expected for some majors). If nothing else, it'll make it much easier to find me in the sea of humanity that is a UCLA graduation ceremony.
In other news, I would also like to pass on an open invitation to my graduation party being held at Chateau Robertson in Monterey at 1pm on July 1st. If you're reading this you're invited, but you'll have to ask me for directions (unless you've passed this rigorous security system before and already know where we live). There are rumors of a pirate theme, so you may want to consider bringing some dubloons so you can tip the valet.
Postcards From Moorea is hereby announcing its first contest! I am planning on decorating my mortar board (the INCREDIBLY dorky hat we're forced to wear) with marine bio-related stuff. If anyone has any good ideas as to what I should include or do, please let me know. I figure one last bit of irreverence and individuality is in order, especially in a class of thousands. The winner gets their design (or inspiration from the design) on my mortar board at graduation, which will be seen by thousands of people and undoubtedly please my parents.
The Rules:
No animals may be harmed in the making of this design.
Animal accoutrements (shells, etc) must have been dead for at least two weeks prior to graduation (they're kind of stinky while they're still rotting)
The board itself is 9.5" square
Andrea reserves the right to disqualify any design at her whim and leisure
Andrea also reserves the right to just wing it Friday afternoon
Deadline: Undie Run (Wednesday at midnight)
Disclaimer: Unlike certain other schools, graduation is quite a bit more laid-back here, and the decoration of one's mortar board is considered normal (and expected for some majors). If nothing else, it'll make it much easier to find me in the sea of humanity that is a UCLA graduation ceremony.
In other news, I would also like to pass on an open invitation to my graduation party being held at Chateau Robertson in Monterey at 1pm on July 1st. If you're reading this you're invited, but you'll have to ask me for directions (unless you've passed this rigorous security system before and already know where we live). There are rumors of a pirate theme, so you may want to consider bringing some dubloons so you can tip the valet.
One Final Dispatch From the South Pacific
So here we are, 55 days later. Today's our last day here in Moorea before we fly back to Los Angeles. I would just like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who's been following my exploits for the past two months. It's been a nice link to you fine folks back home, and I have appreciated it very much.
Although this is technically the last real Postcards from Moorea post, I will most likely be putting up return trip and graduation pictures in the coming week, as UCLA is notoriously stingy on the graduation tickets (that and we're a little far away). I still haven't decided whether I'll keep a blog going when I move on to the Caymans, but I'll be sure to let you all know.
So to bring the Moorean side of things to a close, here are the sunsets from the last two nights.
Night before last, taken from across Cook's Bay.
Last night, taken just east of PaoPao.
Au revoir!
Although this is technically the last real Postcards from Moorea post, I will most likely be putting up return trip and graduation pictures in the coming week, as UCLA is notoriously stingy on the graduation tickets (that and we're a little far away). I still haven't decided whether I'll keep a blog going when I move on to the Caymans, but I'll be sure to let you all know.
So to bring the Moorean side of things to a close, here are the sunsets from the last two nights.
Night before last, taken from across Cook's Bay.
Last night, taken just east of PaoPao.
Au revoir!
Another [Project] Bites the Dust
Long time no blog, eh? Well the internet cut out a few hours after my last post, and the only way we've been able to connect is by sneaking into the library that's supposed to be off-limits to us and hooking up. So guess where I am now...
Anyway, we finally finished our second project today. Again, here's the general idea in bullet point format, with the full version available to anyone who wants me to email it to them:
What we did:
Stuck latex tags on 15 urchins (see previous post)
Tracked said urchins for three nights, going out every 2 hours
Mapped the resulting home ranges and found the range areas
Measured urchin size, number of neighboring urchins, and algal cover of each home range (urchins eat algae)
What we found:
Larger urchins have smaller home ranges
Urchins with more neighbors have larger home ranges
Larger urchins have fewer neighbors
Algal cover doesn't affect range size
What we think might be going on is the larger urchins are better able to defend the better crevices and territories from other invaders and would-be usurpers. They drive off neighbors and get the coral head to themselves. Smaller urchins are forced to aggregate for safety against predators, and their home ranges overlap much more, forcing them to have larger home ranges so they can still find enough food. So basically we came out 0 for 4 on our original hypotheses - we predicted the exact opposites of those points listed under "what we found". Oh well. Our data is very convincing, so we're hoping to publish when we get back to the U.S.
But on to more fun things... On Saturday a bunch of us went to Papeete, on the main island of Tahiti for a day/souvenir trip. I split off from the giant horde with Romina and Betsy and we toured the city together.
Three of the four Moorea-Tahiti ferries in action. Sadly, ours was the fourth (the Aremiti 5) and we had to wait a little longer after I took this picture.
These are fresh fish for sale in Le Gran Marche (the big market). The next stall over was selling those very same rainbow parrotfish you've been seeing in a few of my pictures. The fish with the orange on their tails are Naso lituratus, a type of surgeonfish we studied in class. Remember, one man's tropical fish is another man's dinner.
Betsy and Romina doing the cruise ship dance. This is the same ship that parks in Cook's Bay in Moorea, just down the bay from our station. It may or may not have been mooned repeatedly by certain UCLA students on various occasions by kayak.
Sunday we drove the trucks up to Belvedere, one of the highest points on the island accessible by car (or truck, in our case). The vista is rather spectacular and we all took a bunch of pictures of the whole north side of the island.
This panorama is made of six pictures stiched together on Photoshop. The version you see here is actually half the size of the original version (I had to shrink it so Blogger would let it upload). Go ahead and click on it to see the whole thing in all its glory (or try to find the seams - I'm getting pretty good, if I may say so myself). This picture is facing north. The bay on the left is Opunohu Bay, with Cook's Bay on the right. The Gump station is near the northwest point at the entrance of Cook's Bay. Note the large volcanic mountains (Moorea and all of the Society Islands were formed by tectonic hot spots, just like Hawaii) and the lush greenery everywhere. Very nice.
On Monday Wil and I decided to take a break from writing our paper and went kayaking over to the Sailing School (a few miles away, at the entrance of Opunohu Bay). The beach was full when we got there, so we started looking around for a place to moor our kayak without bothering the French people sunbathing on their yachts. While we were floating around, we saw some weird brown thing floating in the water. When we started paddling up to it to see what it was, it picked its head up and gave us the funniest look ever, and then the turtle dove back down. We jumped into the water to get a closer look, but the turtle disappeared completely. We still hadn't found a place to moor, so we started paddling out toward the reef. I saw a dead tree caught in the coral, so we paddled over, put on our masks and snorkels and hopped in. The flow wasn't too bad so we swam around a bit. Suddenly a black-tipped reef shark swam through the area. We swam after it so we could watch it, and more sharks started appearing. While we were floating at the surface, we saw about 7 or 8 sharks swimming around us (not the "I'm going to eat you" kind of circling - more the investigatory sort). One swam within 5 feet of me, but I made sure I was on the other side of a huge coral head for that one. I'm fine with sharks, and these were only 7-8 feet long, but it never hurts to be a little wary. We're definitely going to try to kayak back there one more time before we leave.
Speaking of leaving... We depart Moorea very early Saturday morning, and land in Los Angeles that evening. Certain roommates may want to consider having some kind of Welcome/We Missed You/We Could Barely Survive 2 Minutes Let Alone 2 Months Without You thing for us. Just a thought.
Anyway, we finally finished our second project today. Again, here's the general idea in bullet point format, with the full version available to anyone who wants me to email it to them:
What we did:
Stuck latex tags on 15 urchins (see previous post)
Tracked said urchins for three nights, going out every 2 hours
Mapped the resulting home ranges and found the range areas
Measured urchin size, number of neighboring urchins, and algal cover of each home range (urchins eat algae)
What we found:
Larger urchins have smaller home ranges
Urchins with more neighbors have larger home ranges
Larger urchins have fewer neighbors
Algal cover doesn't affect range size
What we think might be going on is the larger urchins are better able to defend the better crevices and territories from other invaders and would-be usurpers. They drive off neighbors and get the coral head to themselves. Smaller urchins are forced to aggregate for safety against predators, and their home ranges overlap much more, forcing them to have larger home ranges so they can still find enough food. So basically we came out 0 for 4 on our original hypotheses - we predicted the exact opposites of those points listed under "what we found". Oh well. Our data is very convincing, so we're hoping to publish when we get back to the U.S.
But on to more fun things... On Saturday a bunch of us went to Papeete, on the main island of Tahiti for a day/souvenir trip. I split off from the giant horde with Romina and Betsy and we toured the city together.
Three of the four Moorea-Tahiti ferries in action. Sadly, ours was the fourth (the Aremiti 5) and we had to wait a little longer after I took this picture.
These are fresh fish for sale in Le Gran Marche (the big market). The next stall over was selling those very same rainbow parrotfish you've been seeing in a few of my pictures. The fish with the orange on their tails are Naso lituratus, a type of surgeonfish we studied in class. Remember, one man's tropical fish is another man's dinner.
Betsy and Romina doing the cruise ship dance. This is the same ship that parks in Cook's Bay in Moorea, just down the bay from our station. It may or may not have been mooned repeatedly by certain UCLA students on various occasions by kayak.
Sunday we drove the trucks up to Belvedere, one of the highest points on the island accessible by car (or truck, in our case). The vista is rather spectacular and we all took a bunch of pictures of the whole north side of the island.
This panorama is made of six pictures stiched together on Photoshop. The version you see here is actually half the size of the original version (I had to shrink it so Blogger would let it upload). Go ahead and click on it to see the whole thing in all its glory (or try to find the seams - I'm getting pretty good, if I may say so myself). This picture is facing north. The bay on the left is Opunohu Bay, with Cook's Bay on the right. The Gump station is near the northwest point at the entrance of Cook's Bay. Note the large volcanic mountains (Moorea and all of the Society Islands were formed by tectonic hot spots, just like Hawaii) and the lush greenery everywhere. Very nice.
On Monday Wil and I decided to take a break from writing our paper and went kayaking over to the Sailing School (a few miles away, at the entrance of Opunohu Bay). The beach was full when we got there, so we started looking around for a place to moor our kayak without bothering the French people sunbathing on their yachts. While we were floating around, we saw some weird brown thing floating in the water. When we started paddling up to it to see what it was, it picked its head up and gave us the funniest look ever, and then the turtle dove back down. We jumped into the water to get a closer look, but the turtle disappeared completely. We still hadn't found a place to moor, so we started paddling out toward the reef. I saw a dead tree caught in the coral, so we paddled over, put on our masks and snorkels and hopped in. The flow wasn't too bad so we swam around a bit. Suddenly a black-tipped reef shark swam through the area. We swam after it so we could watch it, and more sharks started appearing. While we were floating at the surface, we saw about 7 or 8 sharks swimming around us (not the "I'm going to eat you" kind of circling - more the investigatory sort). One swam within 5 feet of me, but I made sure I was on the other side of a huge coral head for that one. I'm fine with sharks, and these were only 7-8 feet long, but it never hurts to be a little wary. We're definitely going to try to kayak back there one more time before we leave.
Speaking of leaving... We depart Moorea very early Saturday morning, and land in Los Angeles that evening. Certain roommates may want to consider having some kind of Welcome/We Missed You/We Could Barely Survive 2 Minutes Let Alone 2 Months Without You thing for us. Just a thought.
Congratulations!
And now, in honor of Emily and Ariel's impending graduation, a 21-urchin salute:
Alright, so I got tired after four urchins. Either way, congratulations on your graduation from Catalina. I am so sorry that I can't be there in person, but believe me I'm thinking of you both. Remember to smile, stand up straight, shake hands, grab the diploma, and turn the right way. Or the nuns will kill you (no pressure). You both have done wonderfully at Catalina, and I know you'll have an awesome time at your respective colleges. I'll see you both very very soon, but in the meantime, just know that there are now urchins wandering around the Gump reef waving your names around. It's like your own little cheering section. So until I see you next, have fun, harass freshmen while you still can (remember you only have a few days left until you're both back to freshling status), enjoy Class Night, and rock on.
Much love,
-Andrea
Alright, so I got tired after four urchins. Either way, congratulations on your graduation from Catalina. I am so sorry that I can't be there in person, but believe me I'm thinking of you both. Remember to smile, stand up straight, shake hands, grab the diploma, and turn the right way. Or the nuns will kill you (no pressure). You both have done wonderfully at Catalina, and I know you'll have an awesome time at your respective colleges. I'll see you both very very soon, but in the meantime, just know that there are now urchins wandering around the Gump reef waving your names around. It's like your own little cheering section. So until I see you next, have fun, harass freshmen while you still can (remember you only have a few days left until you're both back to freshling status), enjoy Class Night, and rock on.
Much love,
-Andrea
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