island life

Sorry for the distinct delay in blogging.  Hopefully the following will help explain what I've been doing instead of keeping you all up to date.

I'm now SCUBA certified!  Well, almost certified.  I took the class here at Wreck Bay Diving Center, did all my dives, and just have to take the final exam.  Unfortunately, everything on the islands moves a little slower than back home, so we're still waiting for our books to study with.  I'm not too concerned about the test though, and for some reason i feel like studying out of a book won't be quite as exciting as the sneaking up on sleeping sea turtles, investigating sunken boats, and dodging sea lions that we did on our practice dives.

Salsa classes are 4/6 of the way done.  We're on a little pause right now because our instructor had to go to the mainland for a bit.  At this point the moves are getting tougher to learn, so i've found that the best strategy is just to spin your partner around in circles for about an hour until the class is over.

For my new class, our assignment for the next three weeks is to film, interview and edit Galapagos residents on life on the islands.  We'll be focussing on how the communities have changed, with each classmate taking a specific category like health, education, conservation.  My portion is on the political structure here, and i think will be really interesting.  Hopefully we'll get a good movie out of it, i'll let you know soon.

Mom and Dad came and left.  I won't go into detail about their trip, but will instead let you question and look at the 3 or 4 million photos they have.

As far as scheduling goes, we finished our second class of the semester a week ago and are now a third of the way into the third class, "Political Ecology."  Each class is three weeks, and for the third week of this class we'll be studying on the island of Isabela.  From Isabela, we'll take a cruise around the islands, and wind up on Santa Cruz.  My class will spend 3 more days studying on Santa Cruz before heading back to our home island, San Cristobal.

It's hard to believe that tomorrow will be the halfway point of my time here.  With the upcoming traveling, i think the second semester is going to fly by as fast as the first.  I miss everyone from home, and love hearing about how everyone is doing.  Keep me updated.  I may even post my mailing address soon.  Don't forget it will probably take over two weeks to get any packages, and will cost a fortune.

Enjoy autumn.  As it gets colder there, its getting warmer here : )