i don't want you to be totally jealous of the seasonally-themed spooky paper lantern hanging above my desk, but you probably will be...

its from an incredible surprise package i just got from kara-arlene in richmond. it was the best day ever because i also got a package (with pictures!) from niko in georgia! AND today i got three letters in the mail. i'm completely riding a news-from-home high right now, and loving halloween for it!

people, i love you. letters (and emails, and blog comments) make everyday that much better.

it's almost halloween! i'm working on a robot costume fashioned from boxes. (gotta work the cheap angle wherever you can when you're living on a stipend!)


a couple other pictures, of the shells i collected at ahnd atoll a few weeks ago. i've had them buried in the back yard for a while to clean out the old creepy crawlies, and it was a lot of fun to dig them back up again!

a week

things i have done in the past seven days:

-driven a right-hand-drive car
-gone scuba diving for the first time
-fainted at school
-played ultimate frisbee in monsoon-like conditions
-done laundry in a MACHINE
-used a DRYER and gotten the smell of mold out of my towel


also, for the last seven days, the island has been out of eggs and diet coke. how eggs can be totally unavailable on an island with so many chickens is beyond me, but at least my caffeine addiction is finally wearing thin.

scuba!

just a quick post to share my excitement over starting scuba certification tonight. (!!!) i'm super-pumped, and really happy to finally be getting started. tonight and next thursday its just the classroom portion, but after that - the ocean!

















if this is what i can see from the surface, i can't wait to see what lies beneath!

ahnd atoll

last weekend, i took a boat ride to an outer atoll. it was pretty freakin' beautiful.

we ate freshly caught wahoo and lobster for dinner. (wahoowa, anyone?)

we saw a waterspout!

there was a full moon, and it was crazy bright all night. not so good for admiring the stars, but excellent for our lobster-hunting adventures.

here we are!

ready for the sad part? climate change projections are that all atolls worldwide will be under sea level by 2050. while the cold facts are that the number of people living on atolls is negligible, globally speaking, its heartbreaking to consider that such beautiful cultures and sites are about to be complete history.