The answer is blowing in the wind..

I was actually wrong about the date that we are leaving for the South Island (someone can't read their schedule correctly, woops). We are leaving for Opoutere tomorrow morning for 4 days, coming back Friday night with a day off on Saturday, then taking a ferry on Sunday morning to an island off the coast of Auckland and staying there for a few days. We'll return to Ecoquest for a couple days and then depart for the South Island that Sunday (the 26th, I believe). Sorry for the confusion.

In Opoutere we will be staying in a YHA (chain of youth hostels) and it sounds like we have the place all booked up, haha. The vans are fully with all of our field equipment, kayaks, and food for the next few days. I definitely underestimated how much food/supplies are needed for a group our size, but it seems like the field leaders have packing for these kind of trips down to a science. We are going to be doing a few days of work on the estuary which sounds fun in theory but it will likely be very windy and rainy. The first day we also have to do skills training on the kayak which I'm not psyched for because it involves flipping yourself upside down/underwater in the kayak, undoing the skirt, and releasing yourself in the water. For some reason that just kind of scares me and I know it shouldn't. Cold water + cold weather + bathing suit = unhappy Bella. Maree said they will try to make the drill as quick as possible.

Today I did a bit of weeding (it was my turn for this Monday morning task) and a bit of class and finally got started on my work journal, which was a bit of a struggle but I managed. It was just hard to get myself into work-mode because we have done a lot of listening/lecturing and lot of group work and hands-on learning, but very little paper writing or anything intensive. I got it all done and went for a run with Kim and Kelsey, had a delicious dinner, started formulating some plans for my mid-semester break in Nelson with some other people, and watched Wayne's World.

Now it's bed time for this girl.