One reason why I've been so busy lately: school. I'm taking a full courseload of science and math this year, in preparation for my application to the program I'd like to get into next fall. Having attended school at Cornell, balancing coursework and exams for three classes has been a bit of a challenge! Although the benefit of not having to complete a class in 18 days outweighs that greatly! (One of my classes is the first in a sequence of biology classes for majors. I've been taking photos of the slides I have to learn to help me remember them, this one is the antheridia of a moss, Mnium.)

I've also been participating in a program called Citizen Action Training School, or CATS for short. It's a twelve week training program put on through the state agency Puget Sound Partnership, and my local fisheries enhancement group. (There are altogether five such schools planned throughout the state, but ours was one of the first to begin.) The goal is to educate concerned citizens on a wide variety of environmental issues that affect Puget Sound, including watershed pollution and stormwater. Each week we have speakers come in to impart their knowledge upon us about a specific topic. The range of topics is wide: tribal treaties and fishing rights, logging, rain gardens, and marine mammals are just a few topics that have been covered. We've also had a few field trips, although we've had such bad luck with the weather with those! (Saturday I found out about a hole in my boot, thanks to a downpour and some lovely wind.)

(It's been a good experience so far, and not only have we been learning from the speakers that have come in, but with such a wide variety of personal and professional experience, it's been really fun!)

The point of all of this training is to give citizens some tools and knowledge about how to affect change in the community. This school will end in a service project of some kind that is meant to have a lasting effect. Mine will most likely be on water quality, but no details have been hammered out yet... should be interesting!

Learning about the Lummi shellfish farming operation. (Algae is being grown in the bottles.)

CATS class at the south fork of the Nooksack River.