When I grow up I want to be...

I've been pondering my future lately. Lately as in, this afternoon.

As an Administrative Assistant at the rec center (btw, I started as a permanent employee on the 15th--benefits here I come!!), I am surrounded by people who majored/are majoring in Sports Management, Sports Administration, Exercise Science, Physical Education, Nutrition & Dietetics, etc. Because I enjoy my work so much, I ~naturally~ thought I might explore these majors a little more to determine if it might be a path I'd like to go down. The only one that remotely piqued my interest was Nutrition. After looking at the course descriptions, I thought, "Uh, maybe not." They just seemed so dry. And I'll be the first to admit that biology courses (Behavioral Ecology for example) seem really cool, but then two weeks into it you're thinking, "Seriously??" Perhaps it's just me.

Anyway, so as I'm sitting at my desk working on May's newsletter (& having tons of fun btw), I thought to myself, "Self, why don't you look into doing something like this??"

So long story short, what would making things look nice (be it newsletters, blogs, business cards, etc.) fall under? Graphic design?? Is that what this is called? How much money is in this profession? I hate to admit it, but yes, money does buy some happiness--NOT ALL, but definitely some. Would I enjoy graphic design?

I shall look into it & perhaps take a class or two to feel it out. If I continue down this road, I might just be a perpetual student--a "lifer" if you will.

*image from http://www.jbzarchitects.com/cms/news/

Awwww, I want one!

Is this legal??

Song of the Week

If you ever wondered what my field research was like...

I thought I might post a youtube video of the northern flying squirrel for my readers.  Little did I know I would stumble upon this gem of a video.  This is as close as you can get to understanding what I did out there.

I kept thinking, "Wow.  This is exactly what we did.  Wow.  They're talking about the subspecies I'm studying.  Wow.  They just mentioned the NCWRC (who I worked with)...& there's a comment below about the squirrels crossing the Cherohala (my study area)."  But I don't think it was filmed on the NC side of the Cherohala because there wasn't a tunnel on the road we took.  It might've been filmed on the TN side.

So yeah, that's part of what I did out in the field.  And when she was complaining about the poop--I would've been collected it in a vial for later DNA analyses.  We also set traps along traplines that we checked every morning & I did vegetation surveys in 10x10m plots around every place we found/trapped a squirrel & random plots corresponding to the known squirrel points.

Anyway, not sure why I'm blogging about it when I should be writing about it in my thesis.

Later gators!  Enjoy the video below!

Well then, what CAN I eat?!

I have a system.

Eat a snack around 10:00am (99% of the time it's a banana).

Eat another snack before working out (today it was a 100 calorie cheese nip pkg).

Work out, then eat lunch.

Today I had a turkey sandwich.

Then I ate my kiwi and started in on my grapes.  At that point my stomach starts doing somersaults. 

So what do I do?  I go online and search for the fructose to glucose ratio in kiwis & grapes.  Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure enough, they're both >1.  We're aiming for <1.  Granted, their ratios are only 1.06 and 1.04 respectively, but apparently it's enough.  Bananas are 0.84.  And apples?  The fruit that led me to these stupid fructose posts??  They're 2.83.  Uh huh.  Yeah.

Let's see, what are my options...prunes, prune juice, dates, apricots, plums, sweet potato (okay, I can handle this one), & figs.  Great.  Looks like I'll be venturing outside of my taste bud comfort zone.

Sorry, I'll try to be more pleasant in my next post.  :o)