The Adventure of Whitney and Clair

Apparently today is Best Friend Day. Until about 10 minutes ago when I saw on someone’s Facebook, I was unaware that there was even a day set aside to time with your bestie.

Today is the perfect day for Best Friend Day. On Sunday June 10th Whitney and I are sharing our six year friendiversary. That’s right! The two of us have been friends for six years and we are going to celebrate that today with high calorie Mexican food and diet cokes :)


Several people have told me how ridiculous it is for me to be so excited about a friendiversary, but the past six years with Whitney have meet a lot to me. I wouldn’t say being Whitney’s friend is always the most fun or the easiest thing, but being my friend is not either. There have been times where we have fought like crazy, ignored each other’s phone calls, and straight up not talked for a while. Each time this happened we had our reasons, sometimes it was right, and sometimes it was wrong. Most of the time when we fought it was because we knew the other girl was doing something she would regret. It is very hard to see someone you care so much about get themselves hurt.

Being that I am a reader, I have mentally divided my life into different chapters. Whitney is one of the few people, non-family members, to be in so many different chapters of my life. Being that she has been my friend through different situations, she is able to understand my reasons and feelings on different situations.





I just really want to tell Whitney that I appreciate her as a friend and that I am glad we’ve stayed so close for so long. I love you, Wikki!

Pomp and my Circumstance

Today is the day that I have been waiting for, for my entire college career. Today, is GRADUATION from college for those of us that started four short years ago, as I did, for those of us who keep to the same major, as I did, and those of us who took where full-time students, as I did.  But as many of ya'll probably know. Today is not my graduation day.

I thought that when my original graduation date rolled around, that I would be upset and disappointed that I wasn't in school, but I am not--AT ALL. I will be excited to graduate in December of this year, but there are things I need to do first. I have a small ULM Bucket List that needs to completed before I can walk through Fant-Ewing in a goofy gown and dumb hat.

One of the other reasons why I am happy to continue my college career into the fall is because of HPA--Harry Potter Alliance.  It is the first, and only, nonacademic school club I have ever been a part off. It is really cool to meet new people in different majors, which is something I am not used to. I am so looking forward to another semester hanging out in the Room of Requirements with my fellow Potter-heads.

HPA Members 2011-12

Even though I did not graduate today I have learned a lot in the last four years. Here are my top ten most important things I have learned in college.

1. Always make sure your teacher know you.  It's good to introduce your self to him the first couple weeks of class.
2. Genetics is hard. 
3. Strangers sometimes become friends, and friends sometimes become strangers.
4. You don't have to be a red-neck to look cute in waders.
5. It's good to know pick-up lines related to common majors--you never know who you'll meet.
6. Wikipedia and Google are great, but you need to be familiar with databases like JSTOR and EBSOHost
7. Full Throttle evenings often lead to Red Bull mornings.
8.  Study groups are great... but only if ya'll study.
9. It's not paranoia to save things to your flash drive, Google Documents, and your email--just in case.
10. Breathing is important.

I have two more weeks left of my "mini-summer" then four weeks of chemistry, and then I will be free to do as a please for a couple weeks before beginning the fall semester. I'm pretty excited about the fall because all of my Doomsday classes (genetics and chemistry) will be done with and I'll only have to focus on about 12 hours of classes.

As for after my graduation in December, I'm not too sure. I hope to get an internship or something. I think that is most to stall graduate school or whatever my next step is.  I am very interesting in herpetology (reptile and amphibians).  I wouldn't mind working in an outreach education position--not teaching more like at a zoo, museum, or something of that. I am interested in conservation methods. So as you can tell I'm not really sure what I want to do. If anyone knows of any ideas, I'd be happy to hear them.

Congrats to Tech and ULM graduates.

Looking into the Future from the Past

Junior High Clair

In the eighth grade my English teacher--who I despised--gave us a journal assignment.  Every week or so we would walk into the classroom and a journal topic would be on the board. We would have a couple of minutes to write our response before the normal class would start.

Today's Clair

In September 2003 (about nine years ago), our topic was "Where do you think you will be in ten years".  So, as a 12 year old I wrote about how my perfect 22 year old self would live.

"I will still be in college working on a Ph.D. in Herpetology and working part time as a zoo keeper. I will be attending a college in Virginia or North Carolina.  I plan to at least have a serious boyfriend, who shares my love of science.  By this time I have four years of Latin and two years of French. I will be successful and happy at the age of 22."



Even though I haven't exactly accomplished everything that junior high Clair thought that I would, but I think junior high Clair would be proud (or at least not disappointed in) Now Clair.

Field guides or reference books?

Happy Dance

At the beginning of the year, I wrote half a blog entry about each month of 2011, and what it was like and what I did, but I never posted it. I'm not sure why, I just never saw the need to. The jist of it though, of the post and of 2011, is that some of the people I was friend with at the beginning of 2011 are still with me (Whitney, Alyssa, Joel, Les, and Anna--who  doesn't have much of a choice) and others are not. The most surprising thing though is at the beginning of 2011, Stormy and Chelsey were just two girls that sat in the back of my herp lab by the only other person I knew. And now they are two of my best friends.

But that's enough of 2011, its twenty-twelve now. Its once again the future.  It is also the year I graduate in. Yes, the calendar I currently own has December 16th on it, the day I (once again) get all fancied up and walk around Fant-Ewing and get a piece of paper with a signature on it. This piece of paper will mean that I didn't give up and that I got what I have been waiting for my biology degree.

But what will this degree really mean? My grades may not get me into graduate school, if I chose to apply. I may not get to go to some far off land and study some unusual lizard.  I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't want to work in a zoological field.  Wildlife biology something I have ALWAYS wanted. But is it realistic? Maybe if the economy was different or if my grades were different or if the system was different.  But I am not going to blame the government, ULM, or any one else. There is a good chance that even though working with animals or working to educate people about animals is something I've wanted to do with every atom of my being, that I will not be able to do it.

I currently have a great job, that I love. I am not saying that working in the library is perfect, but it is very fulfilling. I love it when someone tells me that the book I suggested was fantastic, or when some tells me that the history project idea I found books for got their child their first A in history. Today, I had a lady tell me that she would always be grateful for something I did for her back in the summer--to be honest I had forgotten I'd helped her out back then.

I love my job, and I love encourage people to read, but I don't know if that is what I am meant to do. I don't know if library will be obsolete in a couple years. What if when I turn forty I'll look back and regret giving up waders and field guide for pencil skirts and reference books. I know it is normal at 21 to not know what you want to do with you life, but I always thought I was immuned to this feeling, because I always knew what I wanted to do.


“So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.”  --Stephen Chbosky

Disinterest

One hundred hours of credit completed,
Two more semesters to go,
Three and a half years completed,
Four year degree,
Five different calendar years at ULM,

Spider outside of Joel's house

I know that it is normal to not graduate on time, but it is none the less frustrating. Many of the people I have had classes with have applied for graduation or plan to in the spring.  It makes me slightly envious, and a little bit sad to see people moving on and moving away, but mostly it makes me tired. I am so tired of school, of course work, and of waking up every morning to learn things that don't seem relevant.  I don't know why I am yearning to graduate, probably because I'm just looking for some change in my life. I'm getting bored with: school, library, home, repeat. As soon as I graduate I'll just have to get a "real" job, and my life will be work, home, sleep, repeat for years and years. So I don't know why I want out of school so badly. I think the reason is, I'm pretty much done with my "woah" classes. The classes where I continuously think "Woah, that's really cool" or "Woah, I had no idea that happened". The only classes I have left are lame: English, stats, organic chemistry--BLEK! No woah, no ah-ha, no interest. I miss chasing salamanders, vivisecting crawfish, observing microbes, setting beaver traps, and identifying leaves. Now there is only carbon chains and unobservable operons.  Trying to learn about all these seemingly abstract things is very frustrating, and more than anything tiring. I am tired all the time.

Yesterday, I went to a lecture presented by Dr. Daley-Engle, she gave a fantastic lecture about shark and there sexual dimorphism. It held my interest, I learned a little about sharks, sexual habit in the animal kingdom, and about different mating habits--all very interest, but not the most important thing I learned from her lecture. I realized that even though genetics seems abstract, I need to learn it if I want to do field research, or be successful in graduate school. I always viewed genetics as one of those classes that I just had to get through to get my degree, but I have realized that genetics is something I actually need.  Hopefully, this new outlook of these course will make genetics more interesting to me. Hopefully, it will make it easier to study, and hopefully therefore easier learn. 

So, hopefully I'll be able to stay interested in the next two and half semesters. Or at least interested enough to do well. Hopefully, the weekends and Thanksgiving Break will be enough to get me recharged to finish out this semester without going nuts.  Hopefully, I'll be able to be interested enough to care.

With a Little Help from My Friends

Sometimes its the littlest things that make the biggest difference.

Canoeing on Bayou Desaird

Like someone texting you "Good Luck" before you have a big test, or someone just asking you if your okay, when it is obvious that you aren't.  You really know that someone cares about you when they realize that your favorite Icee flavor isn't at the gas station, and so ya'll go to another to find it.  When someone makes you yellow cake cupcakes with chocolate frosting, that is certainly a sign that your friend cares about you.  Friendship is sometimes is a fifteen minute phone call talking about nothing in particular, but it is at the exact right time. And sometimes its a text that says a lot more than just the two sentences on the screen. A good friend knows that sunflowers mean more than gerber daisies. Most important your friends never stifle your you-i-ness, they help you be the youiest you that you ever could be.

Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da

 Hello People of the Interwebz!


Its been a little while since I've updated.  Well, I have started back school--my senior year! Once again, I am being submerged in science, and once again I love it.  I'm taking two biology classes, two geology class, and organic chemistry.  I love learning about dinosaurs, minerals, heredity, and homologous organs, and I guess alkenes and the likes aren't too bad.

I really don't have much to say. I like school. I like work. I every much like my evolution class especially because of Joel's and Stormy's company.  Its a very interesting class and probably my favorite of the semester, but I'm not in a biology lab this semester.

Grasshopper that I saw at the La Purchase Zoo on Labor Day.

I miss not having a biology lab. I got so used to putting on my boots or waders and catching amphibians, learning how to identify specific oak trees, or looking at gram stains under the scopes. I miss just bio lab so much.  It makes me think that I may be leaning towards a career in field biology that would require graduate school. I would love to go to graduate school and study ecology, but I also think that a career working in a natural history museum would be cool.  I know that I would love either career path. Musuems or the outdoors? Dress pants or waders? Two very different career paths with so many options. 

I am not a spring chicken any more. As of Saturday I am 21.  Does this give me anymore clarity on what career path to chose? No, of course not, but it does kind of mark the beginning of a new era.  Friday I was twenty, but now I am in my twenties.  Does this make me feel old?  Kinda.  Am  I having my quarter life crisis?  I think I already did that after I turned 20.

My two besties! Wikki and Eagle Eye

Well, that's really all I'm going to leave you with a fun fact like usual.

*~*Megalosaurus was the first dinosaur ever described scientifically.*~*