Aloha!

Hello all! Here I am in lovely Hawaii. It's been very interesting so far. On my first day I got stung by a jellyfish, got a 2nd degree sunburn, was nearly drowned, and got caught in a huge wave that scraped my face against the sand ( a picture of my booboo is below). On my second day, I tried poi. Poi is a paste made from the root pulp of the taro plant, and its really good for you; its has all the vitamins minerals and good stuff you need to survive. Unfortunately, it looks like gray silly putty and tastes like... well, like it came from a root. My second day was kind of rough, since I found out that mom and dad had to put Skippy to sleep. I miss my baby boy very much but thankfully I'm surrounded by animal lovers and they were all very supportive. I'm still healing day by day.

Work is fun! I do all kinds of fun lab procedures and I get to get really close to the animals- the other day I got to watch an ultrasound of an unborn baby dolphin! I also assist in blood draws, run tests, prepare slides, and twice a week I wake up at 4 am to spend four to six hours standing in a freezer sorting through 35,000 fish- that part isn't so fun.

On one of my days off a few of us went to Hanauma Bay to snorkle and see the fish- it was so gorgeous!! The rest of my time off has been spent being lazy. Eventually though, I plan to go surfing and see what else the island has to offer. More later.

Aloha,

Jenna