plane tickets part 2

I do, in fact, have round trip airplane tickets and a place to stay once we arrive in Manila... at about 5:30am their time. Departure is set for Mon, Sept 24th around 10:10pm (arriving 2 days later on Sept 26th) and return to LA on Oct 18th around 7:30pm (arriving three hours before we are to leave Manila, i.e. departure time in Manila is 10:30pm on the 18th...) Backwards time travel! :)

I'm a bit relieved... and a bit stressed out in a whole new way. Now I do actually have to pack... for a place that is pretty much on the equator and the local culture is not fond of sleeveless/tank tops nor shorts/skirts that don't cover my knees. It's going to be very warm and muggy!

plane tickets

It sounds as if plane tickets have been purchased! I have been told that I will find out on Monday the exact itinerary, but it looks as though we will be flying the night of Monday, Sept 24th...

excellent!

Excellent! [rubbing my hands together in a Mr. Burns-ish way]
By the way, that's a photo of Bogie. I don't think he appreciated me taking a bunch of photos of him with flash... Sorry, boy.
edit: apparently if i put "less than" and "greater than symbols" around words, it doesn't appear in the published blog on the website. i had to change to the square brackets instead so that my mr. burns comment would appear on the blog webpage. i'll have to remember that.

testing the photo sending capabilities...

I'm attempting to email a photo (taken at the lowest resolution
setting on my camera) to see how it may or may not post to my blog.
We shall see how this works.

we are a go!

Well, the ROV is on the ship which is on its way from Dutch Harbor to Manila. So barring any terrorist activity, major storms, boat failures... etc... we are a go for the Celebes Sea trip! More later.

a long time in the making...

So this trip I've been talking about has been in the works for about 4 years now. It will be amazing if it indeed actually happens.

Four years ago, WHOI (Wood Hole Oceanographic Institution), National Geographic, and NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration- part of the US Dept of Commerce) began trying to coordinate a trip to Indonesia. Needless to say, it did not work out. I think the Indonesian government thought the people from WHOI were spies. It may have been because of the federal funding (from NOAA)? But I don't really know. They tried for two years to work with the Indonesian government to get the trip to happen to no avail. They switched their focus to Malaysia, but that did not work either. So far, this Philippines proposal seems the most likely to work. However, I don't think any of us will believe it until we are all on the ship with all the proper equipment and we are leaving port!

So the reason I get to go is basically that they need help. The scientists onboard need help with their projects while we are underway. My boss (and formerly my Masters thesis adviser) and his wife (my other, more immediate boss) had been trying to go on this trip for four years it has been in planning. The reason that I get to go is sort of a "right place, right time" scenario. In the past years, they have had students (graduate and undergraduate) that they could have taken along. But since my boss is technically retired and his graduate students have all finished (including myself) and gone away (excluding myself), he does not have any more students. Since I'm around working for them, they asked me to go. I've known my bosses for 10 years now and have worked for them on and off during that time doing K-12 teacher education, so it's more of a "right place, right timing" scenario. :)

a year later

So, I didn't end up applying for the Teacher At Sea program (at least not yet) and I didn't do much testing of my blog over the last year. But I do think I mostly know how to utilize blogspot now. And I may be going to the Celebes Sea (out of Manila) on a National Geographic/NOAA/WHOI research cruise very soon as a research assistant! There have been countless hurdles, but it looks like we might at least get to the point that we will buy plane tickets. Our tentative departure date is Sept 24th and return on Oct 18th. We should know later today (Friday) if the ROV is on the ship in Alaska ready to sail to the Philippines.