Planning and more planning

that's all i've really done this week. yesterday i finished up draft 3 of the prospectus. i added six pages to draft 2, which had 4 fewer pages than draft 1, so draft 3 was really only 2 pages longer than draft 1. it turns out that i should have included some detail in my methods section, after all. oh well.

today has been spent gathering information on what collecting and resesarch permits we already have for the three areas in the florida panhandle where all of my research will be done, as well as trying to find out whom i need to contact to get the ones we don't already have. oh, and the one for perdido key requires a state and a federal permit. isn't that delightful? bless dottie, who has graciously provided me with most of the contact info i need. she's the permitting guru of the marine ecology lab. i'm sure i'd be pulling my hair out by now without her help.

i've also been trying to construct a timeline for all the stuff i need to accomplish by the end of october while keeping in mind that from the middle of august to the middle of september i can't really do anything. yikes. i don't really know how long a permit application takes to go through, but i hope i won't have a long wait. i'm planning to head over to port st. joe the week after next. i think i'm good for that, though. the permit we were using last summer doesn't expire until the end of the month, so that shouldn't be an issue, at least.

oh yeah. i also did a bit of light shopping while i was waiting to hear from people. i bought a new one piece swim suit (for only $13.86), since it's a little... awkward doing field work in a bikini even though that's what i've always done. i got some new snorkel gear, too. my old fins were full-foot, and that was a pain in the ass. allow me to explain. you cannot simultaneously wear dive booties (to protect your fragile footsies while stomping around a seagrass bed full of urchins, clams, empty shells, snails, crabs, and all sorts of other potentially painful critters) and full-foot fins. the booties must be removed in order to don the fins. so, i was having to wade into the water until it was deep enough to snorkel without my dragging the bottom (i sliced my knee up pretty awesomely last summer when i tried to snorkel in about a foot of water), then take off my booties, put on my fins, snorkel out to where the urchins are, take off the fins and put the booties back on so i could stomp rebar into the sediment to secure our cages, take the booties back off and put the fins back on to snorkel back in to shore, then take the fins off and put the booties back on to walk the rest of the way back to the beach. whew. life would be much easier with fins that you strap on over booties. that way, i won't have to take the booties off to put the fins on, etc., etc. so i bought fins that you strap on over booties. hooray for me.

tomorrow i'll finish up the timeline and hopefully start applying for permits. friday, i'll start gathering things and making sure that we have all of the materials i'll need to start my sampling. if we don't have it, i'll order it. we also have a meeting about the spain trip that day.

it's going to be a busy summer here in latina land, folks. busy, indeed.