I've been working on my paper...

This is going to be my reward for working hard for an hour and getting 2 pages written! Granted they're not the most brilliant or riveting 2 pages that have ever been written, but this means that now I only have to write one more page then I can be done... And move on to the next thing I have to work on. Like almost everyone else in class I'm really stressed right now and was close to have a panic attack earlier and crawling into my bed and not getting out ever. Maybe that's a little dramatic, but that's how I feel when I'm too stressed. And trust me, it takes a lot to get my stress level that high...A lot being the following: An essay about 5 really long articles that's due tomorrow, reading a book then writing another essay similar to the one that's due tomorrow for next week, writing another essay about a primary history source that is also due on Thursday next week, writing up my proposal for my super awesome biology project, and finally writing an annotative bibliography from all the amphibian decline papers I read a while back. And I think that's all... Oh wait I forgot the history terms... Darn... Well I guess I better get working since all of this has to be done in the next 19 days! AHHHHHH!!!

Copious amounts of Beatles music and a super tasty smootie from the SUB calmed me down enough to write the earlier mentioned 2 pages and I'm feeling a bit better. Also just writing all of what I have to do has calmed me down too... I don't know why but it feels more achievable now...

Frog time!
Hylomantis lemur
I can't really find too terribly much about this frog except for the fact that it used to be found in Columbia, Panama, and Costa Rica. Now it's endangered. It's also a member of Hylidae, which means it's a tree frog! I probably won't get to see this frog while we're in Panama....
Now to get back to work...

More from week 2

So now that the second week of classes is over lets really go over what we did this week. As I mentioned before we finally finished presenting our pie chart ins JINS. Since that is finally over we're not moving on to presenting our academic discipline presentations, which are more exciting than they sound. Surprisingly the history majors have more in common with us biology majors than we all thought. More importantly these presentations are showing us that we all have no idea what we want to do with our lives. :D

I also still really like our history class. Latin American history, though really depressing, is really interesting. This week we really got into the independence movements and how the caste system played a huge role in the Latin American countries. The thing I found most interesting was the fact that the richest colonies are now the poorest countries, which made us end yesterday's class on a very depressing note about Haiti...

Moving on to my biology project I spent a lot of time reading about the amphibian decline and the possible causes of it. Overall it's just very depressing reading and makes me very upset. The poor frogs...

Amphibian Decline
For those of you that don't know since the late 1980's there has been a worldwide amphibian decline. There are several reasons for the decline, including climate change, habitat destruction, and an aquatic fungus called chytrid. This fungus uses amphibians as a host, which it usually eventually die from the infection. It goes through and pretty much wipes out almost all the amphibian population since most rely on water sources for reproduction.
From what I've read it takes about 5 years for the population to go from healthy to nearly gone. It is also moving very quickly through Central America. It is not known how many species have been lost...
The area that we're going to had chytrid come through a few years ago, so we're looking to see what the amphibian population looks like now. So pretty much our project is going to be really, really depressing.

On that happy note lets talk about a frog shall we! I've been meaning to start talking about different species of frogs, but haven't had time to start posting them, so here we go!


Panamanian Gold Frog (Atelopus zeteki)
This frog is a national symbol in Panama. Though called a frog, the Gold frog is really a toad, but it is a very frog like toad. It doesn't have rough skin like most toads, but it is considered a "true toad." This species is thought to have been extinct in the wild since 2007, but individuals have been captured for captive breeding. It's official conservation status is critically endangered. (Thank you Wikipedia ;D)
Look how pretty it is!

Sorry about the super long post...

Me as a Pie

So yesterday in class we finally got through everyone's pie charts after sitting in class for almost 4 hours...I was the sadly the second to last person to go and was super nervous. But then I mentioned Star Trek, and to my utter surprise everyone was super intrigued by it and asked a million questions about it. Who knew Star Trek would be such a hit. The rest of my presentation was so-so, but Star Trek was the superstar. I got really nervous and had issue actually getting my point across, but I hope people don't judge me based on that, I'm way cooler than a pie chart.

Mental note to self to mention it more around this group of people :D
Live long and prosper.

First Week

So after finishing the first week of classes it finally feels like going to Panama is real. I mean it felt real before, especially when I got all those vaccines, but now it really feels like it's going to happen. Our first week of classes was pretty uneventful. Only having classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday really makes my life great. Four day weekends every week for the next month? Yes please!

In JINS we're talking about identity so I had to make myself into a pie chart, which I super didn't like. I hate labels and didn't like having to break myself down into smaller pieces since I really feel like they all just come together to make me, so it really doesn't matter what percentage of my personality goes into making me me. Besides the whole pie chart thing I'm liking class a lot, especially the history part since I haven't taken a history class since my junior year of high school and I forgot how much I enjoyed history. Class has been fun and not super stressful yet, so it was a good week.

I also started thinking and working on my project a little bit this week and am super excited about it. For one thing I don't have to work alone cause someone else thought my idea sounded interesting, so yay Leslie! Amphibian decline is a cool topic, even though all the papers I'm reading about it are making me super sad cause I hate to think about all the frogs that have died and how many species may be lost. It's kinda depressing, but I'm still super excited and can't wait to go see what we can find when we finally get to Panama.

So yeah, exactly one month until we leave! So exciting!

Also please take joy in this cute frog I found!