April Showers Bring May Flowers

Happy May Day! Time flies, indeed.

Blake and I are moving to Texas on July 6th. As of now, we are inhabiting Cambridge. It's a long story, I'll get to it some other time.

Among the many surprises in the last twelve months, I have found myself as a kitchen employee at the local nursing home. No, I do not cook. Yes, I wash dishes. My other responsibilities include: setting up the dining rooms, clearing the dining rooms, pouring drinks, serving meals, serving desserts and salads, and various small tasks. The job is fairly easy but it requires immense patience, empathy, intense multi-tasking, and a quick pace. You also have to suppress your stress and frustrations for the sake of the residents. Enter immense patience. Residents frequently die. They are here one day and then gone the next. Sometimes you cannot understand what they are saying. Funnily, about 60% of them cannot hear you.

"Edna, would you like some eggs today?"

"EHAAAH?"

"EGGS"

"AGATES?!"

"NO, NO, EGGGGGGS!"

And so on. Sometimes they forget their teeth in their rooms. And sometimes, they forget their teeth in a cup or on their plates. To make things just that much worse, it is hot as a sauna in the upper level dining rooms (the elderly are always cold, it seems) and about five or six different requests come at me every twenty seconds or so. My caffeine tolerance is so high that it takes approximately 20-30 oz of black coffee every morning. It keeps the headaches away. On the bright side, at least I am not doing meth.

Visit from the Friendly-Neighboorhood Jehovah's Witness

Since my current job requires me to be awake at 5:30 AM, I am up by 6:30 or 7:00 every morning on my days off. I have been cleaning the house all morning. As I sat down to take a break from mopping the floors, the doorbell rang. "Who could that be?" I thought. As soon as I peered out the door I knew who it was; the Friendly Neighboorhood Jehovah's Witness. She stood at my doorstep bible in head and dressed in her black suede shoes, dark green sweater, and a calf-length skirt.

"Hello, I am a Friendly Neighboorhood Jehovah Witness. I would like to share with you the joy of a Bible verse!"

"No thanks, I do not believe in God or any diety."

The Witness laughs. "And, dear, can you tell me why? Is your mom or dad home?"

"Uh, I am almost 23, I do not live with my parents. I do not believe in God because there is no evidence. I received a degree in Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior. We know from the fossil record, morphology, and molecular biology that evolution is fact. Life arose a long time ago, 3.8 billion years ago and we know from fossils that the human family only arose around 2 million years ago."

She continues to laugh and smile, a sort of generic, fake smile. "Well dear, carbon dating is inaccurate. Man only arose 6000 years ago."

"Wait, what? Carbon dating is not inaccurate."

"Actually, it is," says the Witness matter-of-factly, "DNA is a much better dating technique. I just saw the Dead Seas Scroll at the Science Museum..."

"Can you explain to me how to date with DNA and the supposed error of carbon dating?"

"Well, the Bible says that Jehovah created man...."

And the conversation continued like this, the Witness had a lousy case. She did not make that much sense and contradicted herself. She informed me that God gave me a conscious. I told her that natural selection gave me a big brain and that an awareness of self is not restricted to humans. Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans, and cetaceans (dolphins and whales, who are very intelligent) all have a "sense of self". She just "no" and changed the subject. It was then that I told her I did not want to talk to her anymore and that she should think about some of the things I said (an old universe, natural selection, etc). Her response?
"That will NEVER shake my faith."

I am so ready to move to Texas and start graduate school.

The Great Birding Adventure Part 1

This past winter and spring I have had the absolute pleasure of tutoring three fantastic high school honors biology students. The last subject we talked about was one of my favorites, evolution. Following high marks on their exams, I thought that birding would be a wonderful activity to teach the young whippersnappers about evolution, sexual selection, and give them a introduction into ecology, my other favorite biology subject.



After dragging the high school students out of bed at 7 AM on a Saturday, it started to downpour. Hmmm. How disappointing and how I wish I could control the weather. Instead, my 12-year-old cousin made about three dozed perfectly round, golden pancakes for myself, her siblings, and the high school students. It was a morning filled with backyard bird watching (full of American crows, robins, chickadees, cardinals, downy woodpeckers, and an undetermined species with a nest and offspring on the side of the house), youtube videos demonstrating the use of a male giraffe's neck, bird call quizzes, and photo sharing. It was absolutely wonderful.
Hopefully we will be able to try again before I head to where the deer and antelope play and have nice weather for part II.

Greetings!

Hello Friends/Readers!

As most of you know, this summer I am heading to San Marcos, TX with the cats, the rats, a corn snake, and of course, my sweetie Blake. We may be moving as early as June but no later than mid-July. I am going to start a Master's of Science program in Wildlife Ecology at Texas State University.

We would like to host a celebration at the house in Cambridge before we leave. Details will follow soon, I hope.

I am going to have an incredibly busy May, which includes: hosting two young cousins for a sleepover, birding part II, Mother's Day, a friend's birthday party, and sorting and packing my things. All of those things are happening on weekends. Did I mention that I work every other weekend and might be moving in six-eight weeks?

Coffee, yoga, hot tea, coffee, Blake, and chocolate just became my new (old) best friends.