The Tres

Day 22 here on the east coast. The end of week 3. The following is an update.

Watch it fly.

What did I last talk about? When did I last post? Time really moves in strange ways here. P.S. I'm pretty sure that the last post is labeled as being posted on Sunday. That is false. It was in fact Monday.

Okay, so Monday was Monday. The rest of it was spent doing nothing. Fun.

Tuesday was fun. By fun, I mean at least I was doing something. I helped Erin and Corey pull up swallow wart again. This time in an open field. The rain from the night before made the ground perfect for pulling weeds which is basically what were doing. But even with the earth all dapm and soft, the swallowart was a bigger pain than dandilions by 100 fold. It's funny that our hearts lept when we saw a large mature plant. The majority of the plants in this field were tiny little "saplings" about an inch high. They blanket the ground in large green patches and took to hiding amongst all the tall grass so that you had to dig through all the other plants just to get to them And I am pretty sure that we only got 70% of the plants just because of those stupid saplings. It came to the point that all three of us were sitting in a 30 sq foot area sitting on our buts pulling up th plants all around us because staying on our knees was too painful and pointless. It took 1o minutes just to clear the area immediatly surrounding you because you kept finding new plants! It was very frustrating. The good that came out of it is that we decided that we were done by 2:00. EARLY!! Corey showed me where the Stop N Shop is in Wakefield. I got smores fixins. I;ve been craving them But since fires aren't really allowed, I've been improvising with my gas stove. Not a very safe plan. But it works. Later I showed Corey where the post office is. I had finally found it after getting lost a second time.

Wednesday was great. It began at the infant hour of 4:20am. I awoke and got myself ready for a full morning of mist netting. This took place from 5:00am to about 11:30am. Please allow me a brief rant. we didn't do much "flushing" that day. The birds were flying right into the nets of their own accord. Three sometime four at a time. Usually I allow the banders to de-net the birds. It is, after all, their job. But at one point there were two badly tangeled birds and two more that needed to be gotten out. I was going to assist and nab one of the birda myself. But as I began, Rhonda stops me saying, "No, just hold the net so it doesn't get out and we'll handel it." o I watched as she got the third bird and then went for mine. I am one of those people who over analyze situations. My overly sensative brain said, "Oh. she thinks that I'm not good enough to do this. She thinks I'll mess it up." This stung me a little bit. This thought was quickly followed by a more bitter one..."So what am I even doing here? All I'm good for is walking forward clapping my hands? Thats all I get to do? Three people can do that easily, so what it MY purpose. I'm not needed. Superfluous." I tried to reason and conceeded that maybe she just thought that this particular bird was too badly tangeled for me persnoally to handel. I still stewed in these thoughts for a good while, trying not to look too downcast. I busied myself with scribing the data whlie the others banded. The next round there were 4 birds again and 3 of them were badly tangeled. This seems to be a pattern with sparrows. I tried again. I offered my assistance to Rhonda. She looked a little uncomfortable and told me that she wasn't sure that with 4 people there were enough of us for her to take me aside and teach me how to get the birds out of the net. She told me that Suzanne also hadn't made it clear whether or not the interns that aren't secifically on the banding team are supposed to handel the birds. This brought on a whole new wave of bitter thoughts. The others got the birds out and went to the banding station. I remained by the net to allow myself to think alone. I wandered the marsh coast seething a little and feeling ashamed that a few tears were leaking past my defenses. The thought "Why am I here" kept playing over and over. I also felt like it was silly of her to think that I don't know how to get a bird out of the net. I've never done it before, but I have seen it done and I think that I could have managed it (looking back now I see where her worries were). But I also was angry because how am I supposed to gain experiance if I'm not allowed to learn or to EXPERIANCE? I was pretty unhappy for the rest of the netting session. I tried not to let it show. Once again the job had proven to be less than I expected that this only made things worse added to the emotions from Monday. After we were done I took an hour break and then spent the rest of the day canoing on the Kettle Pond with Amanda looking for pond critters. By the time we got back it was 6:30. So I put in a 12 hour day. I was absolutly exhausted and every single muscle ached as did my morale just a little bit. Thanks for endulging me. I do tend to rant a lot. Sorry.

Thursday was the last school group for the rest of the summer. And it was a doozie. 104 kids and 15 adults. here are the highlights.

• Three trips to the kettle pond with still sore muscles. Not the happiest experience.
• Chaos. Thats a lot of kids.
• I got along well with one of the parents in the first group and he teacher in the second group. I think I'm getting better at talking to people though I'm still not good at starting the conversation.
• Weather was beautiful.
• Leading the last group myself with Amanda but no Janice. I was the head of the group.
• The kids called me "Miss Sarah" and were always running up to me excitedly showing me their nets full of muck and extaically pointing to what was moving. Looking to me for verification.

It was lots of fun. I find it interesting that so far some of the most fun I've had is working with the kids. I never thought of myself as that kind of person. Hmm...

Friday was spent at the frint desk and was pretty boring. But there were no volunteers for that day so I suppose I was needed. We had some people come in and some even bought from the gift shop. I went home early. Friday night I went to Rhondas with Courtney to have cake. It was her hubbies b-day. All bitterness that I had felt on Wednesdy had long since faded. Cake was good. So was the homemade strawberry ice cream. We played Rummy and Hearts. It was a good relaxing evening.

Saturday I washed my sheets and towls. I had a great pancake breakfast. I watched some lost. I called some people. I took a nap. At 5:30 Sarah and Kristi from church came over to visit teach me. I can't tell you how nice it was to have them there and to know that I have members of the church that I can call on if needed. We went to Wal-Mart to get snacks and then headed to Westerly (right on the boarder of Connecticut and Rhode Island) to see the local choral group and a Boston orchestra (not the pops) perform in one of those free open outdoors concerts. They played a good selection including the olympics theme, a meldy of South Pacific songs and Stars and Stripes forever. We left early to avoid crowds. It was nice to sit and talk with Sarah and Kristi (we were really far away from everything so we weren't being rude). We talked aobut favorite music, movies, musicals, tv shows etc. I realize that I may think that I have a broad selection of music that I like. But I really know nothing of the 70's 80's or even really a lot of the 90's. I am quite musically uneducated when it comes to those eras. It makes me feel too young, naive and like I follow the crowd too much. I hate that feeling. And I hate that I hate that feeling. The desire to be completly against the crowd is just as bad as the desire to be exactly like the crowd. It's just two different end of the same spectrum.

Anyway, I end another long entry with a description of what has been that worst experience of my life the whole week starting Lasy Sarutday.

STATUS UPDATE(Poison Ivy)-It seems to have gotten wildly out of hand. It started on my arms and was bad and only seemed to get worse even though I washed it thoroughly. It looked horrible all week as the other interns kept reminding me. Not to mention the whole uncomfortable itching that NEVER CEASES. Plus on Friday, I found some on the top of my left hand, on the top of my right foot and ankle. Today, I found more around my waiste and on my thigh. WHERE IS IT COMING FROM?!?!?!! What more can I do than bathe in Technu and wash all my sheets and towls which I did? I NEVER WANT TO GET POISON IVY AGAIN!!! I would rather be horribly sunburned. I really want to chop my arms off. I feel like it's this horrible invisible demon that seeps into everything and you can't see if you've gotten it all or not. I feel like poison ivy oil needs ot be pink so you can always know where it is. It could be on any number of things that I keep touching and then spreading it to other places. ALst friday when I thought I was safe but really had it all over my arms I touched tons of things without a worry. It could be on a door knob or a pen or on the string that pulls up the blinds and every time I touch it I get more of the irritating oil on me. It's really frustrating. I am now intensly paranoid. I guess it's better to be safe than sorry from now on. There are pictures that you will all get a chance to see.

Goodnight all. I go to sleep hoping that I won't wake up with any new signs of more poison ivy rash.