Sunburn Season

well, guys i have officially received my first burn of the season. i went to dauphin island today to meet with ken, and i came home much redder than when i left this morning. i happened to arrive at DISL a bit early (which turned out to be a good thing), so i stopped by my mailbox (also a good thing - it contained a form that i needed to return to the graduate school by tomorrow), and then sally's office, where i ran into dr. v. i informed him that i was meeting with ken, and i was in turn informed that ken was not there (and no one bothered to tell me he wasn't going to work today) because he was attending a funeral (the dept chair's mother died the other day). i knew that there would be a funeral but not when or which faculty members would be attending.

the trip to dauphin island was not wasted, however. i took care of the payroll paperwork i needed to fill out for my TA. i also decided it was time i got a sea lab id (i know, i know. i should have done that a year ago). then i stopped in the library to copy a couple of articles that weren't at USA's library. i also had a nice chat with dr. v. about our research this summer, as well as his marine ecology class, which it turns out that i will also be the TA for (charlie and i have been discussing who would be his TA this summer. we'd figured it would be derrick. we were wrong, apparently). dr. v. advised me to go through the lab manual from last year so we can make any necessary changes and to pick a few labs that i would like to teach (translation: pick some labs that i have to do the pre-lab lectures for). i'm looking forward to some teaching. i also gave him a good idea to remedy the lack of pre-lab reading done by the students. it was what i did when i taught freshman labs senior year...but we had lab quizzes every week, anyway, and i just had to add questions from the current lab's reading. anyway, this summer, the marine ecology students will have a mini-quiz before we go out for each lab exercise to ensure that they read the labs beforehand. it will count as 5% of their overall grade. my idea, so i will now also have the responsibility of thinking up 3 questions for each lab. oh well. i need a little more responsibility in my life.

after my rather productive chat with dr. v., i decided to head for the beach for a while before dropping off the fellowship form at the gradute school's office at USA. obviously, i spent a little too much time wandering around the beach...which i didn't realize until i had been in the car for a while and noticed that the backs of my legs were burning and sticking to the car seats (and no, i do not have leather seats. they're just plain cloth, nothing that legs woud normally stick to...and the AC was cranked up, so it wasn't hot in there after a few minutes). anyway, after i got home, i stripped down to my swim suit and took a look in the mirror...and saw a latina-shaped lobster staring back at me (but my face wasn't at all lobstery - i wore a visor). this is weird. my legs don't usually burn, but there is no question that they are well on the way to roasted. so now i have to sit funny. i'm trying to just sit on my butt and not touch my legs to anything, which makes my butt bone hurt after a while, no matter what i'm sitting on. on the upside, my back isn't too bad, so i can at least lean back. anyway, i guess i should get used to this. the time of year that i like to call sunburn season has arrived, and i have greeted it appropriately - with a sunburn.