Hello! It's been a while, hasn't it? Since I last wrote, not much happened for a few days, and then lots happened! Well, maybe not a lot to most people, but it was a lot to me. And it was good! I went out on the shore with Spencer and Megan one day. It was nice and not raining. And then Karina sent me back edits on my paper (I'm preparing it for submission to a journal for publication), so I was back to working on that. It's been fun. I'm just like a real scientist! Look at me go. I did a second day of field work with Spencer and Megan too. We collected teenytiny snails, which I then photographed and measured during yesterday and today. That job is tedious, but I like having a job to do.

Spencer has been busy busy working lately. The marine station got internet back though, so that's helped a lot. We've been socializing a little bit as well. We had Megan over for dinner earlier this week, and then we went over to Chris' (Megan came too) for dinner the night before last. The meal was tacos and salsas! And it was very good. Last night I made a delicious peanut soup, and my mouth is still watering about it. It was very awesome.

Have you heard of this website: www.electoralcompass.com? I think the word about it is getting around. You answer a bunch of questions and then it shows you how you relate to the presidential candidates. Me and Obama are TIGHT. I don't know if I'll be voting, but it was still interesting to see.

The new camera is great and I love it. I took the photo above from our dining room a few days ago.

Not much else has happened since then. I've gone out for a couple of walks to the beach this week. Kylee (who lives upstairs now) and I took 3 dogs (Max, Lucy, and Maggie) down to the beach to play, which was fun. Speaking of playing, here's a photo of Max. Spencer took this one and I love it.

Oh, right. I remember the other thing that's happened this week. I was finally awarded my Master's degree. "But wait!" you might say. "Didn't you graduate already?" Sortof. First was my defense in August, then I got my thesis signed by my committee in September and I turned it in to the graduate coordinator for the university. But it still had to be approved by him. So there were a couple of minor things I had to fix up, and I did that over Christmas and sent it back to him. Then a couple of weeks ago he wrote and told me there was a problem with one of my grades, and I couldn't graduate until it was fixed. It turns out that for some of my units from last spring, it was entered in somewhere that my instructor was someone who actually doesn't exist! So they couldn't issue me a grade, obviously. Karina helped get it all straightened out for me last week, and now it's all done. ALL DONE. There is nothing left to do, and I have been issued my degree. Cool. As a bonus, when the error was fixed, my gpa went up! Woo!

Don't forget to vote about Tracey and Wayne's baby! Wayne says my intuition sucks because I got Roly and Christine's baby wrong, so I'm trying to provide him with a second opinion.

Ok, stay warm everyone! I'll talk to you again later.