Let me introduce you...

Hello and welcome to my blog, if you are reading this you are probably a relative of mine or some facebook friend who was bored and decided to keep up with my somewhat exciting life (jokes on you). I decided to make this blog about my summer internship for four reasons:

Reason one: My grandmother. Hi grandma :)
Reason two: in hopes to avoid the question, "so....what exactly are you doing?" and so I can stop annoying everyone on facebook/instagram with constant pictures bragging about how my life is more interesting then yours.
Reason three: to keep me busy and hopefully not so homesick, which has been happening the moment I had to sleep on the hard-rock mattress.
 Reason four: maybe some poor future REU intern reads this to see what the program is like.


Let me introduce you to the program I am attending. The program is funded by NSF (nation science foundation). I received a 5,000 dollar stipend plus my housing taken care of, and apparently a lobster dinner coming up soon here. Don't worry you old folks at the movie theater, I will have to pay taxes on it, so the money comes full circle.
Next I am living in East Boothbay, Maine. Which is 2540.3 miles away from my hometown Orem, Utah. Or to give you a even better idea... two uncomfortable plane rides and an awkward 1.5 hours drive with Stan the taxi man who asked if I was drunk. "NO STAN i'm not drunk...just exhausted...ooohhh snowcones".

I live right next to the Ocean, here is the picture of the pier that is about 3 minutes walking distance. The water is well below my comfort of sticking the top half of my body in there, so I will wait for sunnier days.
For 10 weeks I am working for a Marine Biology Lab called Bigelow! Here is a link to their website and the wonderful man Dr. Jose who took a chance on a landlocked girl on his marine biotechnology  project. HAHA foolish man indeed. You can read a little bit about what I will be researching, but hopefully I can make sense of it on this blog thingy. https://www.bigelow.org/research/srs/jose-fernandez-robledo/

 This is a picture of me freezing my little Utah buttocks off in the fog of Maine. Holy cow of baby jeez it was cold when I got here. The first couple days were really tough for me. I have never lived on my own before. Did you guys know that butter doesn't just show up in your fridge? I found that out painfully quick. Also the bed they have me sleep in (as mentioned before) doesn't have quite the same comfort as my body-shaped-indented queen size mattress like back home.

It isn't that I don't love it out here. It's just that I miss my friends back home and my family and my dog. Lately I have had the feeling of being stuck. Have you ever tried to take off a shirt that was just a little too tight and you can't get it over your head and your hands are stuck and you just start to panic? It is that feeling. It doesn't help that I can't stop thinking about being back home. Social media consumed my life for the first couple of days. It really didn't help that I left Utah in a hurry to restore my mental healthiness and now I find myself checking to see if the world burned without me on facebook. The past 6 months hasn't really been the best for this little tough brain of mine. Too many emotion towards boys, too tough of coursework, too much working, and not enough sleep and chocolate ice cream. Don't worry I'm okay. I will always be okay. Boys are temporary..but ice cream is forever.

The first couple of days here was a world wind between having nothing to do, and everything to do all at once. Like trying to run a race but not knowing where the track starts. It is getting much better though. I have read the papers I was suppose to (kind of) and I even started my first project. Everyone in the house has had really good attitudes and we get along really well. They don't really understand that I'm also sarcastic 90% of the time. Also 65.25% of my stats are made up.

Sorry that was a long introduction and you probably are sitting there still not understanding why you are here reading this. "THIS HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH DOLPHINS?!" I know, I know..i'm just as disappointed as you are. Hopefully throughout these 10 weeks I can explain to my grandmother the research I am doing (because I know she is the only one reading this) , and hey stick around there might be some cool pictures of lobsters (boston accent is required when saying lobster here...you get a ticket by the Maine police if you don't).