A Whale of a Tale

Hello all,
I'm finally easing into the pace of life here and beginning to feel less like a tourist and more like a resident of this wonderful city. Yesterday, I was even mistaken for a local and asked for directions:) Quite an achievement, I think.

The reason I'm feeling much more settled in these days is because now I have my internship figured out, my class schedule created, and have the feeling that I can be dropped into just about any crook of Sydney and find my way out to a destination I know. Of course that may be preemptive, since it hasn't been tested (yet).

A little about my internship. Last Monday, I went out to Sydney Harbour to meet Megan Kessler (the graduate student who I will be working for), and she took me along with her on a 3 hour whale watching tour to fully immerse me in the project. I was wonderfully lucky to get the opportunity because, not only, was I able to see two beautiful humpback whales rolling, breaching, and swimming alongside our boat for two hours, but I also got to meet Jonas: the professional whale photographer whose photos I will be working with for the next two months. Ironically enough, my immediate task for this internship is something that I feel like I've been raised to do, crop and photoshop photographs of whale tails:)

Basically, Jonas takes thousands of photographs of humpbacks that migrate past Sydney each year, and each whale can be identified individually by the "fingerprint" on the underside of its tail. My job is to get the perfect "shot" of the tail to enter into a program that will be able to identify the whale based on previous data. So, that will be my task until the middle of October. Once the system is up and running, we'll be able to know if the same whales (out of a population of about 10,000) migrate past Sydney each year or if it is a random distribution each time. After October, the fun job begins:)

For her PhD, Megan is testing whale watching and boat guidelines that dictate how close boats can approach whales, by looking to see how the presence of boats affects the natural migratory behavior of the humpbacks. Right now there are mainly adult humpbacks migrating past Sydney, but in October, the majority of humpbacks will be mothers and their calves. And, that's when I will get to spend a full day a week out on the boat with Megan setting up field experiments to determine how boat interactions affect the whales' behavior. Basically, I'm pretty ecstatic. Also, this Tuesday, Jonas will be giving me Lightroom, an onslaught of whale photos to crop, and teaching me to surf at Bondi Beach, so, it's a pretty sweet deal:)

And, speaking, of "sweet deals," I just got my class schedule yesterday and it looks like I will only have classes on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, meaning that every weekend is a four day weekend. Unfortunately, that means that my Wednesdays and Thursdays are "jump off a highrise" days because they begin at 9am and go until 6pm or later with practically no breaks, but, I'll suck it up for a four day weekend:) Also, it shouldn't be too bad because all of the classes I'm taking are amazing classes I'm really interested in. I'm enrolled in two upper level marine bio classes (Marine Birds and Mammals and Temperate Marine Biology) and then a Marine Geoscience class and an anthropology course (although, I haven't decided which one yet). From here, it's looking like my best semester yet:)

So, that's the main update for me. Today's my day to sleep, read, swim and write since yesterday I was stuck in the city until an ungodly hour of the night (but it's very safe, so don't worry!) See, I went into the city last night with some friends, for an orientation cruise around the harbour, after which we walked the town for a good 3-4 hours, until we realized around 2am that neither the train nor the buses were running to the University anymore. Ironically enough, we ended up meeting up with a big group of American students from the cruise who were stranded on the town hall steps around 3am, waiting for a bus that wasn't coming until morning. We decided to find another way out though, and caught a bus to a suburb that is "relatively" close to the University (as in, closer than Sydney Central), and then spent the rest of the night walking through the suburbs. One nice thing about this adventure was that I got the chance to appreciate the stars here. It's very strange to look up at the night sky and find it full of constellations you've never seen before. Well, that's what you get for going to the Southern Hemisphere:) But yeah, that's it for me.

I would like to say one last thing though. Today, Cody is getting promoted to Captain! And, I would really appreciate if everyone could give him a really big congratulations (hug, message, email, facebook, anything), since I can't be there to do it in person. It's a sad day to be away for:( Also, less than one year left in the Army, so, that's also something to be happy about!

Here's a funny link about Australia you might enjoy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy_TB6onHVE

And, here's the link to some more photos, these with Humpbacks and Sydney at Night:)
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2022449&id=1125810475&l=b0d3e188a3

Thanks for reading! I will try and update again soon:)
<3 Tashi