Summer time!

I survived the term! Yay! Spring term ended two weeks ago. Spring term involved teaching a very time intensive course, having my first committee meeting about my proposal, and taking two classes. One of the two classes was decent. The other was lame-o and I, channeling my inner undergraduate, skipped the last 3 weeks of class. Now the fact that I got a 94% on the final despite this lack of attention shows that this class was in fact worthless.

My proposal meeting went well. There we some concerns about the feasibility of my projects, but my committee members seemed really supportive. So, you may or may not know that I started my PhD thinking that I would examine the salamander mating system from the female point of view (what the pheromone does to her, what her mating history is like, her motivation, etc). Well, at this point I am doing a complete 180. I'm only looking at the male's side of the equation because females don't mate enough to make working with them feasible. Its a shame, but males are totally the way to go. The best thing that comes out of doing a proposal meeting that that I have a 24 page document with all my experiments already planned out that I can use for the next two years. Convenient!

Once school was out I started on my first experiment of the year. I'm trying to determine sperm precedence. The idea is that if a female mates multiply (which is very very common in nature) do males in a certain position (the first male to mate vs the last) consistently father most of the offspring. So, I'm trying to get females to mate once with two different males and then I'll determine the father of each of their offspring using genetic markers(microsattelites). It should be cool, assuming I can get the females to mate, which is happening very very slowly. I was watching them, but when you are sitting in a room for 4 hours in the dark and only getting one mating you go a little crazy. Now I'm letting them go overnight and checking them in the morning.

On the fun front I have a lot going on this summer. I've already been to eastern orgeon and spent 4 days running from mosquitoes, getting sunburned, catching snakes, seeing 4 new herps and 23 new bird species. It was pretty great.

Brett, Justin and Brian came down last weekend and it was much fun. I'm guessing justin might blog about it so I'll let him cover it, since he is much more entertaining than I.

I'm going to Philly for the 4th of July to hang with my cousin Karen. We are going to NYC to see a comic book/fashion show at the Met.

I'm spending a week on an island with my parents and some extended family. We are right on the beach (tide pools! otters!) and my uncle has an ocean kayak, so it is much fun! And of course the food is great!

I go to highlands NC again near the end of July to collect salamanders.

See lots of adventures!

Oh and I'm moving this weekend. The place is cheaper, larger, has a fireplace and a back porch. I'll have to send out a new address at some point because I know you all like to buy me presents!

Alright, well this was a longish post, so I'm done.

See ya in the future!