The last two n a half weeks before returning to the states from Panama were amazing. It was the marine biology part of our whirlwind wour of Panama ecology. I had so many interesting experiences! (some with pictures)

Here's a partial list:

We saw leatherback turtles laying their eggs on the beach [link]

I had a bull shark swim right beneath me!  [link]

I got to swim beside and touch a hawksbill turtle [link]

I got suuuper close to an ostrich (totally random) [link]

Plus I saw plenty of angelfishes, damselfishes, moray eels, trumpetfish, puffers, and a huge ray!

The research center we stayed at bred huge yellowfin tuna, which can be two meters long!

In a resturant on the water (which they all were) the owner had hung up a nector station and I got to see a hummingbird really close.

Overall it was awesome. I totally recommend anyone who likes nature to go to Panama. It's pretty safe and I didn't even need my malaria pills. There are nice properties there for good prices too . . . keeping Panama in the list of Awesome places to Retire.

Good to be back though! Back to my tablet - Oh, How I missed you!

Oh! And big news! Huge news! My senior thesis advisor was able to get the funds for me to study zebras in Kenya! I'm going to Africa in about a month! Woohoo! Bring on the next adventure!

Myst Island? In Panama?

The third part of our Panama adventure brings us to Barro Colorado Island. The island sits in the Panama Canal and is owned by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute. They are letting us spend three weeks here to do research, learn and have a good time exploring the forest. The island is pretty big and is covered in tropical forest, replete with agouti, coati, hundreds of different kinds of birds, and even ocelots and tapirs. We can freely walk around the island paths day or night, without fear of snakes or poachers attaching. It's so cool.

Anyway, there are steps that zigzag through the forest near the main research facility and also pipes that are suspended above a trail that disappear mysteriously in the soil. It's very Myst-like. I wanna follow those pipes and see what they power . . . grab a blue page, turn a switch and find the linking book behind the door on the second elevator ... Oh, why did I uninstall Myst from my laptop! Arg! The only thing is, I'm sure there we're so many ticks on Channelwood. ow. Good thing they don't carry lime disease here b/c I pulled about 40 the whole time this week.

I'll try to get a pick of the pathway with the pipes and post it soon Till then,  I have a bit of random stuff for scraps to share ^_^

No it can't be true. No way.

Is the rainforest doomed?

As much as I hate to admit it, I'm feeling pretty pessimistic about it. The rainforests are need for our expanding numbers and are going to be destroyed. As important as I think they are, most people don't care all that much about the rainforest. The need to save it are not urgent enough. I may believe the rainforests are filled with undiscovered miracles in medicine, provide protection against global warming and are more productive in the long run as standing forests opposed to clear cutting, but these things are not immediate enough in benefits and people don't care. Do they have to? Probably not. Whatever costs there are to destroying all the world's rainforests are probably things that humans can and will deal with in the future. But it's just sad to think that I could be raising my children or grandchildren in a world where the blue whale, the biggest mammal on earth, and the chimpanzee, our closest relative, are extinct. Mythical. It's too sad. There aren't enough people who love standing in a tropical forest, with the parrots cawing, insects humming and lianas dangling above your head. There will probably still be areas that have untouched forest: areas that are too remote to considerable practical to cut. But then even fewer people will get the chance to see the forests. I'm sorry this is so depressing. Today we read an article about the ancient pre-Columbian Indians of South America and how they we well in their way in destroying the environment. They paved roads, practiced slash and burn over huge acres and planted monocultures. The shape of the forests in the Americas is much due to Indian activity thousands of years ago. The forests recovered somewhat in the 200 year period when the Indian population fell ~90% by the arrival of the Europeans (and their diseases) but before the replacement of the huge Indian numbers with Europeans. Isn't there anyway to live in harmony with nature? (cue cheesy music)  

Sorry, this is so depressing. Just though I'd open it up to the community. I know there are a lot of nature lovers out there.

Still in Panama, but back from Ecocamp. Back to internet, phones, hot showers and no cockaroaches (which are part of the order Orthoptera, we learned)

Ecocamp, as we called it, was this wooden compound/campsite/living quaters thing in Chiriqui Province in Panama. We spent the last week or so (time has become useless, like our bugspray). We went to rainforests at different elevations and learned a lot about animals and plants.

Anyways, glad to be back to a place to check deviantart! Yay for everybody who left me messages

It's only been a few days, but I thought I'd drop a note to say that I'm leaving for about two weeks for a place called Fortuna in Panama. I won't have internet or nothing, so . . . yeah. I'm going to miss you guys though.  I've never really tried animating on paper and doing the whole flipping/rolling thing and since I don't have my tablet ( T_T ) I thougt I'd give it a shot. Maybe I can upload it tonight. :shrugs: (Not a big fan of the super bowls)

-Heather

PANAMA! woohoo. This place is awesome. It reminds me of Puerto Rico. We've been going to the rainforet everyday. It's awesome. I love it here.

I'm staying here for the next three months, until April 28th. I'm staying at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and basically taking four classes in ecology, anthropology, marine biology, and another class, I can't remember . . . something with birds and us going into the forest at night with flashlights.

I've got mosquito bits galore and I think I might have chigger bites too, but I don't know what they look like. Chiggers ... I had no idea there was an insect with such a name till I came on this trip.

I don't have constant connection to the internet . . . gotta share with everybody so, I can't check my devwatch and answer comments as much as I'd like to.

Did you guys like the Enough animation? It was simple and I just did in a few hours, and I got really really tired at the end (It was the day before I left for Panama and I hadn't finished packing yet and it was 1:00 in the morning). But yeah, would you like more of that? I like doing it. Do you mind not having color and crisp lines  n such.

--Heather

There's good news (for me) and then there's bad news . Good (for me) news is that I'm going to Panama tommorow!!!!!!! :woot: Yay!!!!!!!!

Bad news is, I can't take my tablet with me and work on the Zelda animation. Gomen nasai! I'm sorry! I really appreciate everybody who has supported this project. You gave me a lot of helpful input and I learned a lot. If anything, it was a successful experiment.

In Panama, I won't have time to work on animations, but I will definitely be drawing and taking wildlife photos. I hope you enjoy them too.

A quicky update:

Yesterday was Dean's Date, which, I don't know if this exists at other schools, but at Princeton, it means rushing to a departmental office to hand in a paper (or papers) you just finished writing four minutes before the 5:00 deadline. It also means a nightime of going out to the "street" and getting drunk in celebration. The past couple two weeks have been nothing but papers and more papers and I was too exhausted to go out.

But Dean's Date is only the lull of the storm. Next comes another two weeks of finals that I haven't begun studying for. I have one tommorow. I should be studying, but I thought I'd take a minibreak to give you guys the scoop. I disappeared pretty much, just been checking DA as a shadow. I want to continue working on the Zelda animation as soon as possible. I should have a bit of free time over the weekend, considering that after friday my next final isn't unti wednesday. Too much information, but anyway.

I also just wanted to mention that my roomates threw my friend and I a going-away party. We had cake and played with clay. Yay! I made a small clay Link figure. You can see him here: [link]: He's so sexy.

Anyway, where is it I'm going? To Panama! My major (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) has this program where you go to Panama to study ecology, and biology and all that fun stuff for the semester. I'll have internet access so I can keep up to date with you guys!!  Though I probably won't be posting anything more than wildlife pics. gomen nasai!

One last thing. I know I should have been studying, or at least working on Zelda animation, but I couldn't help myself. I began a never-ending quest to find Steamboy. There's one version floating around the internet, and I managed to get my hands on it. The version was really crappy looking, but you could still see the animation, which is all I really care about anyway. It was gorgeous animation. I can't wait till it comes out here, so I can go see it. I saw it in Japanese without subtitles and, while I could understand basic stuff, when the adults start talking philosophically, I get lost. My favorite part was, not to spoil anything, when Rei says "naka ga suita, okaasan!" (Mom, I'm hungry!) really whine-y like. It was such a simple thing, but it was really cute and funny the way they animated it. Ther was so much more I enjoyed, but I'll wait till it comes out in theaters to bring it up again. ^_^

sigh. Ok, back to studying. Sorry for the not so exciting journal entry.

Okay, so I just heard about Steamboy a few days ago, when I went to Kinokuniya bookstore downtown. I saw a book with what looked like Tetsuo from Akira on it, except . . . her was smaller, and was wearing early European clothing. I couldn't read everything, but it looked like a "making of" type book  . . . more just a book full of screenshots. It was definetly of Akira quality, and Akira was written all over the place on the book too . . . So . . . a quick google reveals:

Steamboy
The first film Katsuiro Otomo has directed since Akira
Coming to US: 7/17/05

Exciting no?

I saw one bad review already saying it was a cliche story with 45 minutes of explosions, but I don't care. I still wanna see it.

It's feaky becase the story is more family oriented, more of about a righteous hero type deal . . . Steamboy, or Rei, (the main character) is a young innocent boy who is an inventor and he saves the world . . . Tetsuo (who Rei looks exactly like) was an angry adolescent with a lot of issues who wanted to destroy stuff.
From reading Otomo's comic, Domo, and reading and watching Akira, it seems like Otomo likes pretty dark themes and characters . . . where did Steamboy come from? I'm curious to see what kind of story he tells ...

Steamboy webpage: [link]

My never-ending quest for the internet brings me to the Mid-Manhattan library, which has wireless on the fourth floor. This is good. There are only a precious few number of outlets, however, and I gave mine up just now to grab some lunch. Hopefully I can reclaim it sometime within the three hours of battery life my poor lappy has.

And. sugoku samuii da yo. It's cold. Very very very cold.

Ok, gotta get back to Japanese homework.

Ok, now that its Christmas Break for me and I'm home . . . I've got nothing but dial up at home. Now, don't get me wrong, I used to live on dial up and had few complaints. But after having three years of a t1 line, it's hard to go back to dial up.

So, this holiday season, I'm going to spending my holidays, here, in Barnes and Noble. I found out that they have a wireless service for 4$ for 2 hours, which is not bad. So here I am, sitting on the floor next to the "family and Childcare" section (because the cafe is filled to the brim and very few people seem to come to this section). I don't know how long I can do this though . . . I can't do my homework (I have finals after break) on the floor with my textbooks and folders sprawled in the Childcare section . . . . Also, I don't know how much longer I can take this Christmas music. Seriously. It's driving me nuts.   

Yay, 1000 pageviews!  woohoo

If this journal entry ends abuptly it's becasue I've pased out due to exaustion. This week was torturous. It's of course my fault because I didn't start what I had to do earlier, but <whining voice> it was Thanksgiving break, I can't do work at home, I was relaxing . . . .</whine>So the biggest thing was this week was due the first draft for Japanese paper thing we had to write. I wanted to do something "fun", like write a story . . . but my sensei said I had to incoporate research. Not that it wasn't going to take enough time to try n learn how to write stories in Japanese . . .  So, I remembered talknig about mizu shoubai in a Japanese culture class. Mizu shoubai describes Japan's underworld of hostess clubs, bars and other establishments where men can satisfy their desires. I won't go into it now, but if you are curious, google Mizu Shoubai (or shobai).  

So my story focuses on the particular establishment of the hostess club, wear wealthy companies as well as independently wealthy individuals can go to spend an evening with hostesses whose only purpose is to light their cigarettes, fill their drinks, laugh at their jokes, flirt and massage their egos. So my story is about a housewife who's husband has been recently been going to these clubs along with coworkers. Eventually when I finish the darn thing I'll put it up, with an English translation. I also plan to illustrate it, which will hopefully distract from my poor story constructing and writing skills.

Okay, I guess that's all I wanted to talk about. I should get going. Going home tonight cause it's my mom's birthday! Yay. Hopefully I won't pass out during dinner.

Jya ne!!!

I just came back from watching Maria Full of Grace for the second time. It's a great movie, and if you haven't seen it you should. My best friend lives in the area of Queens NY that part of the movie was filmed in!!! Go Jackson Heights!

Anyway, back to work.

ooooooo yah

I just a meeting with a possible junior/senior thesis advisor. I told her I was interested in going to Japan over the summer and studying the Japanese macaque and she told me that that was definetely something she would be willing to help me out with. I'm so psyched. Even if I go with another advisor, this is a great backup. It's more than a backup.

So far the only other person I'd be interested in as my advisor would be the chair of the department. He doesn't allow as much freedom with choosing your topic, but he would be a great person to work with. His students are guaranteed to go to either North Carolina (meh) or Kenya (:woot!. Apparently he's hard core . . . so I don't know.

BTW, does anyone know anyone who works in a research facility in Japan that studies Japanese macaques? by any chance  . . . .  

I spent about 6 hours trying to finish the "Defiant" animation, which I was thinking of somehow somehow squeezing into a 50x50, 15kb animated gif for my avatar. Ho-ho was I confused. So, it being 3:00 in the morning, I just scrambled together an aniation using my stork sketchie animation (the origional is in my sketchs). Oh well. And I had planned to do so many other things tonight . . . I gotta be more time efficient. doshite watashi no atama ga yokunai deshyou ka.

I went back to NYC for one day just to see The Incredibles with my mom. The movie was just as the title implies. It was another great Pixar movie, and being directed by Brad Bird, it had plenty of adult humor to that my mom enjoyed too. A++++

A computer science professor at my school spent a year working at Pixar and he said that, with the Incredibles, one the most challenging parts was the hair. And it came out great, especially for the women. THere's a part where the mother and the kids are all wet and their hair is down and soaked, and it looks really awesome.

Arigatou kami-sama, Midterms are over and I'm free to spend the week doing those hippie things which I love to do. I know first I want to start working on my Inspirations constest entry. woohoo!

I also got some really fantabulous news yesterday: There's this program my school has for my major (Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) where we get to go to Panama for the semester and study in the rainforest. I was afraid I couldn't go because so many more people applied then last year and my grades couldn't compete. However, they decided to let everyone go, and so whoohoo, come January I'm heading to Panama!

I can't be more excited. I've always want to go to a real rainforest, with Toucans and howler monkeys and snakes and lianas and big trees and rain, rain, rain. I'm so excited. Besides studying for my major, I can get loads of inspration to finish Kanook's story. My mom on the other hand wonders why I didn't sign up for a study abroad in Tuscany or Paris. Oh, okaasan.

Jya, owari da. mata ne!

There's nothing more I'd like to do right now is take a nap, boil some udon noodles, and do some animation. Alas, there's so much work to be done. Statistics, puh! Like I'm ever going to use that~~~

Soshite, sugoku takusan nihongo no syukudai mo aru. Hima na toki ga zenzen naindesu yo!

syukudai ga takusan arimasu yo! taihen da. Demo, kyou, kuukou no tomodachi wa kimasu kara, ureshii!