December - The Summary

Final Exams.

Bonnie's Visit! Two days in Key West, a tour of the Sea Turtle Hospital, dinner at my new favorite restaurant, lots of beach sitting and an evening with MAFers.




Amy's Wedding. A beautiful ceremony, a beautiful bride, a beautiful cake.





Christmas in DC. Arrival on the coldest day of the year. No joke. 17 Degrees. The niece and nephew still had school through the 23rd. Yet another sad attempt at procuring mistletoe. I made curry fish cakes and artichokes for Christmas Eve dinner. Midnight Mass in the choir loft. Santa came! All was merry! Duck for Christmas dinner - yum! Twelfth Night at the Shakespeare Theatre followed by a delicious Indian dinner. A visit to Mount Vernon, complete with top secret tour of the basement.

Busy Bee!

The weekend after Michael's visit Tine flew over. We spent a day in the Miami area before driving over to the west coast for a couple days in Everglades City. Saturday we went out for a kayking trip in the Everglades - it was beautiful! It reminds me a lot of the South Carolina saltmarshes but with lots more birds. We had herons and egrets and osprey back at home but here they seem to run the place. That night we enjoyed a local "delicacy" - stone crab claws. YUM! The next day we explored the Everglades again but this time on an airboat. I had never been on one before and they're really awesome! We were in only inches of water a couple of times. The birds didn't enjoy the noise so much, but the gators didn't seem to mind (and I'm glad we didn't see any kayaking). Another fun visitor!

Since then I've been working like a crazy person to finish my proposals for the National Estuarine Reserve System and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowships. I'm not very good at tooting my own horn and these have required all sorts of tooting. Not to mention a scientifically sound research plan. As of this afternoon at 3pm both of them are in so hopefully they'll show me the money! I the meantime I had various exams (like Biometrics, ugh!) and assignments due so I feel like my brain might just explode.

I did take a break Friday night to celebrate Halloween in the Grove (as a pirate, ARG!) and Tuesday night for...the most amazing election day in the history of time! I'm so glad I registered in Florida so my vote wasn't wasted in South Carolina. I even volunteered at the Obama campaign office down the street entering data from those annoying phone calls people get. At least they didn't ask me to call anyone...

Diving Key Largo

My brother Michael and I started our day bright and early, meeting at his hotel at 7am for our ride down to Key Largo. It was a perfect day for diving - sunny, no wind, no current, small group. We had a thirty minute boat ride out to our first site which was at the Christ of the Abyss. It is a bronze statue that was placed out in the reef in 1965. It has a pretty interesting story - read more about it here. We had to have our photos with it of course (aside - thanks to my roommate for letting me borrow her amazing underwater camera!!), but once we did that we were pleased to find that the surrounding reef is really nice with lots soft corals and finger reef formations. We had an hour of diving there and then moved to another reef nearby called Dry Rocks. Again lots of soft corals but this site had more fish. We saw quite a few barracuda (including 5 little ones about a foot long prowling around together), a goliath grouper and schools of others. A great morning of diving! For more photos see Michael's Fotki.
No big plans yet for tomorrow but I'm sure we'll find something exciting to do....

My New Profession - Travel Agent!

Well at least I've been feeling like one lately planning fabulous weekends for Michael and Tine. But unlike a travel agent I get to do the things I'm booking - I'm really excited! Michael and I are diving on Saturday in Key Largo and I'll be heading out to the Everglades with Tine next weekend. I may need a weekend to catch up after these two, but after that - who's coming to visit??

Luckily I survived my Biometrics exam on Wednesday and may have even passed. Not without three study sessions organized and taught by...us, the students. Sunday we were at it for five hours, and we only made it through about half the material. Anyway, that pretty much consumed my life for the first half of the week. Now I can focus on the grant applications that are due at the end of the month. After the weekend. I've got my priorities.

Goodbye 'Lady'

Thursday night I was officially welcomed to Miami when my car was broken into - in my driveway! - and my GPS (named Lady) was stolen. I was taking the trash out Friday morning and discovered glass all over the driveway. Great. For those of you thinking "Well Katrina, you were asking for it leaving Lady up in the car" I had hidden it under the seat. I'm pretty sure they were after my CD player but they couldn't figure out how to get it out (they broke it but it's still attached) , so I guess they starting looking around and found Lady. They also swiped my ashtray that had mostly pennies in it. The glove compartment was open and emptied all over the place but there was nothing exciting enough in there to take.

I know of at least two other people within a block that have had break-ins in the last couple days. And I haven't seen any cops in the area. At all. They could just drive through on their way to the doughnut shop but I guess that's too much to ask.

In other news, my Biometrics class sucks and we've got a test this week. The class is meeting Sunday to try to teach ourselves everything since our professor can't do it. Luckily I'm enjoying my other two classes, Environmental Law and GIS...

Thanks for the mail

I just wanted to thank everyone who has sent snail mail since I moved in. I put everything on the windowsill in my bedroom and every time I see them I smile!

Exciting news for the day - my roommate and I bought not one but TWO couches yesterday off of craigslist. The first one we got needs a little work (like de-stinking) but the second one is in amazing condition (see below)! Our living room is almost complete now - just need a coffee table and some fun pillows. I promise not to post every day, I'm just in the blog honeymoon phase at the moment...

Finally a real weekend!

So after seven pitiful excuses for weekends (sitting at home watching tv) I've had in Miami so far I finally had a great one! Friday I went to lunch with some people from my division after our seminar and then we went to the beach (my first real trip to the beach here!!) I haven't really made friends in any of my classes yet - except my roommate who is AMAZING - but it was nice to meet some other people.

Saturday I had tickets to a wine tasting but the girl who was going to go with me backed out. I asked everyone at lunch Friday and a girl from my class said she could go. We had a great time! We were still hungry after the tasting so we went to a really good sushi place afterwards, and finished with a coconut crème brulée. Yum! Great weekend!

My entry into the blogosphere!

In my silly little head there are a few people that would like to know what I'm up to now that I live in sunny Miami. Whether or not that is true is irrelevant - if no one else reads this thing then it's simply here so I can remember what I've been up to...