The Final Countdown

As time has gone buy I have thought a lot about a few blogs I really want to do, but right now just isn't the time. So look for some interesting blogs in the future!

This will be short and sweet because 1. I don't have a lot of time, 2. I don't have any pictures to contribute, and 3. my life is pretty boring.

What is life like right before you turn in the written thesis of your year-long's work you ask? Busy, awful, and one big headache! To start, a couple of weeks ago my wonderful bio-stats helper let me know I had done the order incorrect on my model. Little did I know this would create a fourth variable being very significant and would really need a four-dimensional plot to help visually interpret the results! 4-dimensional plots were beyond my ability in R and created a lot of stress. After talking to my supervisor, we realised we could omit that variable and stick with my two-dimensional plot... phew!!!

Later, I had to give a presentation on my project in front of the other students and some of the biology department that showed up. I'm not nervous typically with giving presentations, but I still hadn't figured some things out and I was most afraid they would ask difficult statistical questions. Luckily, I could easily answer their questions and another milestone was completed. 

With that over, I had tons of writing to do! Each day I finished writing a section and sent it to my supervisor (except she isn't allowed to see the discussion). My mom and step-sister were also willing to take a look at the finished draft including the discussion and now I am just waiting on feedback from everyone while also doing my own edits. The final printed product is due this Friday and needless to say there is no time for several drafts to be made. Since, there is no thesis defense in Australia, I won't get any other feedback until the reviewer's decision. The reviewers give you a final grade, which may include compulsory revisions to be made before the award can be accepted. As much as I may wish to be completely done with this already, I have revisions to do now, possibly more in late November, and next week I have to make a shorter journal article version to try and publish. The work is never over!

I know I will get this done and am looking forward to moving on from this! I can't wait to finally leave behind all the stress, politics, and frustration involved in my Master's. I'm happy with what I have been able to accomplish despite all the roadblocks I've had, but I am so glad I am not jumping into another three years of it with a PhD. Where do I go now? I have no idea. I will be spending the next three months de-stressing, living life, and doing some serious contemplating about what to do next. I trust the Lord to guide me to my true 'purpose' (see figure) and perhaps it is with animals and perhaps not. I'm lucky that although I've spent so much of my life seeking a career with animals, I would be happy in many different careers. With all the student debt I have accrued, I think it may be time to find a career that I can enjoy and still pay off debt. 

Food and Figures

After my last post I developed a lovely cold that persisted for five days. I never fully recovered from the last cold and this one was just as persistent. At least this time I wasn't coughing all the time, but I had a sinus headache and no energy for days. Terrible timing when my thesis due date is getting closer!

Conveniently, Saturday 13 of September I was fully recovered to go out to a tea party that my friend Josie Mackie had organised. Dressed in our tea party finest, we had a photo scavenger hunt and then had herbal tea, milk, and yummy snacks. To add to it we all brought an "un-birthday" gift which we played a game to distribute. It was a great afternoon and a wonderful way to enjoy the fine worth after being cooped up for 5 days.












The following Sunday was bright and sunny so Matt and I decided to walk to church (which resulted in a blister later). It seemed like such an awesome day until I realised I was asked to give a talk for sacrament meeting! The first speaker was already up and I made eye contact with the bishop to confirm that not only was I next, but that I forgot! Quickly I looked at my e-mails to see what the sacrament meeting theme was (I choose the hymns to fit the themes in advance), and was relieved to find that it was "favourite conference talks." I hurriedly looked at last General Conference and found a couple of talks that I really liked and had good notes from - thank you technology!! The first speaker was an old man who they thought would take half the time and ended up taking 10 minutes! Since our Relief Society president was just released they had the old and new president give their testimony to fill up the time. I still had 20 minutes and used all of it up speaking from my own experiences and how they applied to the conference talks I had chosen. Although it was not as fluid as I would have liked, I know the spirit guided me and I don't know that I could have done better had I prepared more! In case you wanted to know, I used parts of "Spiritual Whirlwinds" by Elder Neil L. Anderson and "What Are You Thinking" by Elder W. Craig Zwick from the April 2014 General Conference.

Heavenly father made the structure of the tree so intricate and resilient because he cares about them, so imagine how much more he cares about us! (Racheal Laugery's comment from my talk)

This last week has been quite eventful. I ordered a Ninja Mega Kitchen Blender set to try out for 30 days. I really wanted a big blender that can completely break down frozen fruit for smoothies as well as to make sauces and things. This way I can see if it can do all I want to. Taking this to heart, I've made daily protein smoothies, homemade oreo ice cream, basil pesto, and pineapple juice for TGIF's Jack Daniel's sauce. So far it has been a success, but I am not sure it's worth the money ($500 AUD).

Jack Daniel's steak and homemade french fries

My cooking theme for the week doesn't compare to all the figures I have been making for my thesis this week! So many figures and plots and tables and diagrams (samples below) to make anyone go crazy. I am a little less than three weeks away from turning in my final printed thesis and the clock is ticking! I met with Jennifer and confirmed a lot of the figures I needed to include, but I had to redo a lot of them to make them thesis ready. Not to mention I needed to find the best spectrogram examples of my vocalisations and make those pretty enough to include. I also had to do more statistics - it never ends!! I met with my awesome biology stats guy (Drew Allen) who helped me figure out a bunch more stuff. After three hours of work and about to finish up my last question or two, my R statistical program decided to quit. I lost everything from that three hours and a little of the coding I had done earlier! Blahhh!! I spent the next two hours in a study space re-creating everything - I must be getting pretty good at R. One test took me most of that time because I couldn't get it to work and had to constantly google search examples.

Just when I think I had figured it all out, these two guys randomly asked me if they could borrow my computer to print out Conception Day tickets from their e-mail. As a little background....Conception Day is basically a big event to celebrate with lots of drinking from 12pm onwards. Both of these guys had obviously been drinking a lot and one of them openly admitted he was drunk, but I saved everything and helped them out. The drunker one had to give me his gmail address and password because he couldn't read anything on the screen. The other guy when he found out I was from the US asked me if I knew anything about Oregon State University in Corvallis! Crazy! It turns out he is going there next year and apparently is mostly planning to party. Although I did my undergrad there I am certainly no help with the party scene. Nevertheless I gave him my e-mail if he had questions and the other drunkard was so happy to get his tickets he gave me a hug (twice).

After all of that I hoped to meet with Drew again to confirm I did things correctly, but he was gone. When I got home I just got straight back to working on cleaning up my figures and getting the labels perfect all the way until 10pm! This morning I got up early since I didn't sleep much constantly thinking about labels and figures and writing. I am definitely in for a long three weeks!

It's not all stressful and frustrating though. Every morning I get to wake up with this cute guy:

Matt also recently built cat shelves to help Shade get to the window....

It's actually quite a difficult task when you can only use command strips to hold the shelves up. Shade loves it!

Tonight I am going to a Relief Society activity and tomorrow is my 3-yr anniversary. No special plans to celebrate 3 years of marriage, just hanging out with friends. Is it bad that each year I can't help but think "Wow, we made it another year!" Marriage has been quite rocky to be frank and although I love Matt with all my heart he can be the most frustrating and annoying man I know. I cannot say I married my best friend, but I can say after 3 years, he is the only person I want to share everything with. When it comes to movies, music, random videos I find on Facebook, and random daily occurrences (like the two drunk guys), Matt is the first person I think of to share it with because I know he'll appreciate it as much as I do. After 3 incredibly long years, he has BECOME my best friend.

So long for now! If there is a massive gap between this post and the next one I am obviously working hard at finishing my thesis! It may be due in three weeks, but my supervisor needs time to go over it!

The Bake Sale

The last couple weeks have been filled with two things. Statistics and baking. 

To cover the boring stuff first, I'll explain a little of my statistical dilemma. After collecting all my data on different tiger vocalisations I needed to do tests to determine how well my measurements help predict each tiger call. Additionally, I needed to find the probabilities of all my observations based on the measurements. After multiple days of working with two people that are very knowledgeable in biology statistics in R, we were able to perform the tests I needed and relevant plots! Now I just need to recreate some more plots and figures and get to writing!

Besides the many days of stressing about getting my statistics done, I also had a big bake sale to worry about. Our stake organised a fundraiser to help our youth raise money to go to what is called "FSY" (previously EFY - especially for youth). Each ward young men and young women had to come up with something to sell and we decided on baked goods. We didn't know what other wards would have or how much we would need so we guessed. Our plan was to bake with the youth Friday night before the activity, but knowing we would not be able to get a lot done in one day each young women leader prepped and baked a lot in advance. Friday I ended up cooking from 2pm to 7pm at home, then 7 to 9pm with the youth (which there was actually only one youth and a whole bunch of leaders), and then from 9pm to 11pm. I made orange cake, no bake cookies, snickerdoodles, apple cake, and cupcakes. I started worrying I didn't make enough so I got up the next morning at 5:30am, went to the store, and baked more cookies until it was time to go. 

The day of the fundraiser it was raining and I assumed the sales would occur indoors but when I arrived everyone was outside under canopies. Luckily another bishop had provided our ward with a canopy so by the time I got there we had cover. It rained most of the day and when it didn't we had cold winds. I was proud of our youth getting up early and manning the car wash in the rain!

We ended up having so much food! The issue was that many of the other wards had big meals and a few had baked goods as well. One ward in particular had a member who made professional cupcakes. Needless to say we didn't sell many cupcakes. We earned about $400 and overall the stake made around $7700! It was a big success as a stake and hopefully will help many of the youth to attend the FSY in January. Our ward luckily has few youth and we are able to help all of them to go. 

Sunday was Father's day and we provided all the leftovers of the sale to the families in the ward. Unfortunately, I still have the majority of the apple cake and my body is not enjoying all the sugar. Did I mention I also made cinnamon rolls? They didn't turn out right so I didn't sell them, but now I have too many sweets! 

Playing with Numbers

This last week has seemed to have an overall theme with numbers. Every day I have been working on my tiger project data and working out what statistics to do. I spent many hours just researching two different tests, and I had to spend a lot of time setting up my data sheet to be stats ready. After I finished that I couldn't remember how to even load it to R (my stats program) and had to review many of my notes from courses I have had. This morning I realised I had missed something and need to fix my data sheet again and then load it into R again. Hopefully today I will be able to start playing with tests!! Stats and I seem to have a love/hate relationship as it takes so long just to figure out what test to do, how to do the test, understand the results, etc. In the end though, statistics are awesome in telling you a lot of things about your data!

Additionally, Matt and I met with an H&R Block accountant to sort out our Australian taxes. Since Matt is basically self-employed it is so much easier to have a professional do our taxes. In case you are wondering why we chose H&R Block....we chose them because I wanted to make sure we had a reliable and trustworthy accountant to work with, and they also have an expat division that will help us do US taxes as well. Last year I estimated how much Matt would owe in taxes based off how much he earned and what percentage is owed to taxes. I figured we would owe around $8000! To my surprise our accountant said we will likely owe less than $1000 after he enters in all our deductions! This is huge!! Matt made a lot less for our US taxes in 2013 and yet we owe $3000 to the IRS. I had to spend the next day creating a spreadsheet with all of Matt's business expenses, counting receipts, looking up house bills and whatever else the accountant needed.  It may seem like a lot of work, but it is worth it. There are definitely some differences between US and AUS taxes!

Matt has also been working with numbers, but in a whole different way. He has spent many numbers of hours working and earning extra money. For the past month he has been working his regular job and then every night and all day Saturday he has been going to a side job. This particular side job is at my colleague Tim's home which he has recently been renovating. What we thought would be a weekend job ending up taking way more time! He hopes to finish this week.

Despite Matt's long hours we were able to have some nice evenings together. One night we watched Divergent and the following night we went to TGIF's for dinner. We may have had to wait nearly 30 minutes just to have someone take our order, but the food was awesome! Their Jack Daniel's sauce is so good and I wish they would sell it! It's nice to get out and do something together once in a while.

Saturday I also spent a couple hours doing some much needed cleaning! As I mentioned before, we decided to dispense with teaching our cat to use the toilet. Well, we have had issues with going back to litter boxes. We bought a storage container with high walls, but he didn't seem to like it so we switched to the small litter box from when he was a kitten. That didn't work either because he would dump so much of the litter out from trying to cover up his messes. Finally, I found the holy grail with a cheap $10 storage bin that has slighter higher walls and is quite long. It works great and he doesn't get litter everywhere. I was so happy I had to take a picture of the new set-up.

Sunday was a busy day. I got up early so I could make a red velvet cake for one of my young women's birthday. After that I had to prepare my chastity lesson for the class. It's not that easy to think of ways to explain to 13 to 17 year old's the importance of keeping themselves sexually pure. In the end I think the lesson worked out well, but the highlight was easily my red velvet cake with homemade cream cheese frosting! I wish I had taken a picture because I think all those episodes of Cake Boss paid off because I impressed myself.

Some other Sunday events was Matt's discovery of a blue-tongued lizard in our back patio. He was so excited about that and made me run to get a camera. Although those lizards are quite common he hadn't actually seen one yet and not only did he get to see it but he got to catch it! We were a little worried about the cat attacking it so Matt released it behind all the townhouses and watched it run to a nearby den.

Also, we had Brock and Kaytlin over for FHE that night. We had a nice dinner, lesson, and then watched Meet the Robinsons. Kaytlin's lesson was about provident living/food storage and preparedness. It really got me thinking about some things that Matt and I could be doing better with emergency preparedness. We have a 72-hour kit that my dad bought me one Christmas, but that's not enough for two people. Kaytlin also mentioned about having a USB with any important files for an emergency and I had never thought of that. I think I am going to work on finishing my Master's project first, and then use my time off to look into things I can do for emergency preparedness. Hopefully no major disaster happens in the next month and a half! It's back to numbers for me! An what would a blog be without cute cat pictures?

Cold Weather Brings Illnesses

Some weeks just fly by and the last few weeks certainly have for me! With the end of winter we have some varying weather with super warm days and then all of a sudden pouring rain. The flu has been going around and many people are getting sick either physically or mentally it seems. 

I got a really bad cold at the end of July. I had a cough early in the morning and on my home from uni that day I officially decided I was sick. This developed into a really bad cold that lasted about 9 days. The frustrating thing with colds is that even if you do everything you can to get better sometimes you just have to let it run its course. I got plenty of sleep, stayed warm, had tons of vitamin C, and didn't push myself, but my lack of energy and cough took forever to dissipate. Apparently the flu has been going around so I'm glad all I had was a cold.

The third day of my cold I had a rolfing appointment that I didn't want to miss. Running on dayquil medicine I miraculously made it through my appointment. This time the rolfer did something called Gua sha at the end where he basically scrapes the skin with a Chinese spoon. It's painful but helps heal really knotted and sore areas which in my case was my upper back and shoulder area. A couple of days later the whole area was bruised but I did notice that the really bad knots in the area were gone.

The darkest spots were the worst areas

Another interesting occurrence is that my little sister returned home from her LDS mission in Dallas, TX! She was struggling with some health issues and difficult circumstances and was given an honourable release. I know without a doubt the Lord wanted her home even though she just left in February of this year. Many people don't realise or understand how stressful a mission can be and the toll it can take on your mental and physical health! I have no doubt she'll be an awesome ward missionary. To this day I still feel I have done more for missionary work after my mission than I did on my mission.

Sis Serisa Woodruff in Texas

Our adorable bengal cat turned one year old August 9th! He is still an amazing kitty that loves to play and cuddle. We didn't get him any presents since we recently bought him an automatic feeder, but I did just order a bunch of cat toys for him! I left a cat teaser out and he not only destroyed the feather toy but cut the string it was attached to. We need extra durable toys for this guy! Matt and I also decided to give put training the cat to use the toilet. We have worked with him for eight months on this and honestly we have not been very good at training him and so he just hasn't progressed. This week we will get him a new litter box and finally dispense with toilet training! In the end I don't know that training your cat to use a human toilet is worth it. I am also working on clicker and harness training him so some day I can take him on walks.

Around 8 weeks old

Now

We also had to say goodbye to a missionary in our ward that had finished her 18 months and was going home. Sis Church has been in our area for a long time and so we've had her over many times. I also helped register her for college classes since she was unable to do it. I'm hoping she'll do well at school and that we'll keep in touch!

Although I haven't talked about my project much, I have been doing a lot of measurements on my data. At this point I'm just trying to do what needs to be done, but I don't find any real joy in my project any more. In the end I feel that because of all the issues with this project I'm not very proud of what I have accomplished. Nevertheless, I can't do anything more than complete it with what I have been able to obtain and I'll be happy to be done with this research project. If I had another year or two I think I could've come up with something really good but so often you just have to work with what you get!

Shade helping me work

I would also like to mention a little about one of the major events that have occurred recently. Most, if not all, of you have probably heard about Robin William's death by now. It has been confirmed he committed suicide and had been suffering from severe depression. As many people have heard I suffer from depression some have thought of me in relation to this tragic news. I would like to clarify now that I am NOT suicidal! At times when I am really low, it does seem that living with the pain and anxiety is too much for me to handle, but I never completely lose hope. I just finished the chapter regarding suicide in my Feeling Good book and I learned a lot about how those that are suicidal feel completely hopeless - they do not believe things will ever be better in the future and often feel things will only get worse either for them or others around them. When you are suffering from depression your thoughts are so distorted that this is an easy conclusion to have! If you have not suffered from depression you may never understand, but for those that have or are currently suffering understand why suicide can seem like the logical choice. Why do I not have this issue? The answer is simple: I have an unwavering testimony that my Heavenly Father loves me and has a plan for me on this earth. It's impossible for me to completely lose hope in life when I have such a good understanding of why I am here on this earth and what my purpose in life is! I know without a doubt that the Lord will never give me any trial that I cannot handle or survive. My current trials are simply teaching me better coping mechanisms! Additionally, I know that suicide would prevent me from receiving the greatest blessings and peace after this life. I am blessed because I have this knowledge, but I know there are many that don't.

Please be careful that when you or someone you know has depression or may be suicidal that you look to reputable sources or professionals for advice. I have seen a lot of bad advice out there and having personal experience does not make you an expert! I have been using a self-help book that I trust and although I highly recommend it, what works for me may not work for everyone.

Well it's back to work for me! Hopefully I have more interesting events to report next time!

Spiders, Taxes, and Desserts!

The after-effects...

As I mentioned in my last blog I was ready to pick up all of my audio equipment from the zoo. That was the first thing I did on Monday which proved to be more interesting than I expected. The tiger keepers had collected all the equipment for me so when I got there I just had to pack it up in a duffel bag I brought with me. I had two cables attached to mic's that were zip-tied to metal brackets and I couldn't remove the zip-ties so I just shoved cables and brackets into my backpack. When I got to my bus stop to leave the zoo I decided to try again to cut the zip-ties off. After cutting them all off I noticed there was a bunch of web stuff on the metal bracket. I poked it and some baby spiders started crawling out. At this point I freaked out as it was all still in my backpack so I frantically ripped open my bag and pulled out the cables and metal brackets. One metal bracket had a couple spiders on the webs so I found a stick and started scraping all the web stuff off and killing any spiders I could find. With my limited knowledge of spiders in Australia I assumed they were the very deadly funnel web spiders and wasn't taking any chances of them to hang around. Later my lab mate Tim informed me that they were definitely not funnel web spiders and I have since decided they were sac spiders. Still, who wants those hanging out in your backpack near your head?

The rest of the week did not have any other surprises thankfully. I did have some frustration with other stuff though. To keep a long story short, Matt and I have had all kinds of complications dealing with our US taxes. Because Matt is self-employed we owe taxes to the Oregon Department of Revenue and the Internal Revenue Services. When trying to pay with check information I was told our Oregon bank account was closed. Early Tuesday morning (5 am) I had Matt get up to call our bank to find out what was wrong. When I showed him the checks he told me "Oh, these are really old checks!" Although I had made sure I was using the information on checks that had been used, it turns out Matt had brought a whole box of old checks from a closed account to Australia. He found the current checks and I was finally able to pay the Oregon taxes. Needless to say, I was quite annoyed he not only had kept those checks, but decided to bring them all the way to Australia with us.

Tax frustration continued as I tried to contact the IRS early Tuesday morning. Because we owe so much we need to do a payment plan which requires us to call and make an agreement for that. Also I wanted to understand the bill I had received describing some penalties we had received. I called around 6 am and was told that there would be about a 30-60 minute wait! After being on hold for an hour (I just did other things at the same time) the call just dropped. I didn't have time to try again so I figured I would just call the next day. Wednesday I got up earlier, still had the same issue, and the call ended at an hour. I decided to just try again and this time there was an automated system which of course never understood anything I said. When it put me on hold it somehow was stuck on Spanish. I hung up and called again getting the automated system, but was able to get English. After being on hold another 40 minutes I gave up. Online it said the office was on Eastern Time so I thought perhaps I would try when they were open in the morning (7am EST = 9pm AEST). I tried calling them at 10 pm my time and apparently they were closed! So, at 5am the next day I called again and after 51 minutes of being on hold I finally got a person!! After another hour of being on the phone I sorted out all of our taxes. I hope I never have to go through that experience again.

Unfortunately, there is more to this tax story. After my call finished I did some research and confirmed that even if we become permanent residents here in Australia we will ALWAYS have to do US taxes. This does not mean we pay taxes twice, but the US requires you to claim all foreign income as long as you are a US citizen (see details here). Someone also said because we are on student visas we don't have to pay Australia taxes. Apparently, because I am studying here for more than 6 months Matt and I are considered Australian residents for tax purposes (see details here). So every year we are here we will have to file US and Australia taxes. For all those reading this and thinking that I am wrong....this information is as clear as day on the government websites and I am not willing to risk getting penalised later. In fact, if you live overseas and are a US citizen and not filing US taxes it is possible you will get a large stack of penalties when you return to the US. It's amazing all the things you don't think about when you move to a foreign country! Ignorance is definitely not bliss when you might get a heavy penalty later.

Luckily, everything else this last week has been so difficult. I've been busy getting work done and on Friday I had to attend a compulsory meeting for the Faculty of Science introducing me to Higher Degree Research. It was very boring since I only have three months left and already knew most of what they had to say. The upside is that they had great food and on my way back to the lab I finally remembered to take a picture of these guys...

On my path there are about 20 or more galah's that are just happily snacking on something. This whole week a ton of birds have been there and you have to walk through them. I love Australian wildlife!

The rest of the weekend was great. Matt wasn't working so we got to spend time doing some fun things. One night we went to get burritos and then decided that after spicy stuff we needed some ice cream and went to Gelato Messina. This was Matt's first time going there and he is now addicted of course!

Matt with Salted Caramel with White Chocolate

The next day we needed to go to Penrith (40 minute drive) to drop off some of my surveillance equipment that I needed to return. The place was closed but luckily I called them and somebody was there and just had to open the door for us. We decided to check out the local shopping centre and Matt was able to get a new Lifeproof iPhone case. His previous Lifeproof case was completely falling apart and he was using electrical tape to hold it together. We had an early dinner at Hogs Breath Cafe where Matt complained about their $30 steak and decided to get a cheaper meal. I'm hoping we'll go again sometime and try their special 18 hr slow-cooked steak when Matt isn't such a whiner :).

Saturday was also my monthly night with Josie Mackie. We went to Max Brenner for dessert and had amazing cheesecake and a chocolate soufflé. I had forgotten how amazing that place is!! If it weren't so expensive I would definitely want to go more often.

To top off the weekend Matt and I also bought a Wii Guitar Hero set off ebay and picked it up on Sunday. It was a funny endeavour because Matt wouldn't let me bid on it until the last minute. I'm so impatient that I struggled to wait, but in the end Matt was right as there were no bidders until the last five seconds! It was exciting to win since I have searched for this set forever, but the bidding system is ridiculous. Hopefully I can test out the system tonight!

Last but not least, Matt and I tried to make cookies last night. Although, I am usually quite good at baking, cookies are not my specialty. The dough was great but the cookies turned out very flat and gooey despite leaving them in for extra time. Oh well!

Two Weeks Notice

Recently I made an interesting observation. My new years resolution of blogging each week has been blown out the window. Truthfully, I just felt not much had happened in the last two weeks since my last blog. Nevertheless, this is my two weeks notice... my new goal is to at least blog every two weeks.

The last two weeks have gone by fast! Last week has involved a few events. One day I went to the shopping centre and saw a bunch of cops and sections closed off. I found out that a man had been stabbed to death in a store that morning (click here for the story)! Crazy!

News truck outside the shopping centre

I also was able to visit a friend who just had her baby. Her daughter is adorable, and I'm glad they are doing well and that I happened to visit at a good time!

The biggest events last week involved 21 BYU students. A friend of someone I know in Oregon contacted me months ago about a study abroad trip they were organising for some students. Stacey and her husband were doing a big trip with 21 students from BYU (as part of a course) including New Zealand, multiple stops in Australia, and Fiji. Stacey and I arranged for the students to come help with my tiger research for them to get some research experience for a couple of hours. It was a crazy day!

I met the students at the train station and escorted them to my building where I set them up in pairs on computers. One computer died on me, I had issues with two other computers, and my instructions were way too confusing. In the end I was proud of what they were able to accomplish despite my confusing instructions. It was also really nice to hear their comments at the end of how hard they found it. I'm glad they learned that research isn't always easy and that what I do is long, difficult, and tedious at times.

To my surprise the following day I got a call from Stacey. Everyone was stranded at Epping station with all their luggage! They had missed the last bus and couldn't get to the LDS temple housing in Carlingford. I arranged with another church member, Racheal Laugery, to help me pick them up and take them to the next place. Luckily Racheal has a big 7-seater van, I had the car that night, and we live pretty close! I wish I had a picture of them all on the side of the road with their bags. It took Racheal and I three trips back and forth to take all the student and their luggage! I'm glad it all worked out in the end.

As for this week things have been kind of up and down. Sunday I felt very sick to my stomach and I was surprised I survived church. The next day my abdominal pains continued and I felt a lot of fatigue. I couldn't find anything online that fit all my symptoms and I finally decided I needed to see a doctor. Tuesday my supervisor Jennifer drove me to the doctor. I didn't find out what I had, but the doctor told me it was probably bacterial or viral and to just take it easy and see if it gets better. The pains did get less frequent and only flared up sometimes with food. Finally, on Thursday I could eat normal food and had no pains! I still got tired easily, but the last few days have been great and I have gotten some much needed uni work done.

After months of stress working with the zoo trying to get video surveillance of the tigers, Jennifer and I finally decided to give up and move on. Although I'm frustrated I couldn't get any video, this has been a huge relief! Now I can collect my equipment from the zoo and work on just getting through my data instead of still collecting it. Just three months more and I'll be done with my project!