Duck Sex

For those who don't know, mallards are pretty aggressive this time of the year. They're kind of mean jerks most of the time, but late winter/early spring they are particularly bad. The reason for this increase in obnoxiousness is, obviously, because it's time for the ducks to start pairing up and mating.

I've been attending college for the better part of a decade. All of those campuses I've been at have duck ponds, with a ton of mallards, yet somehow I've never seen "the deed" being done. I'm not a wildlife voyeur mind you, but as someone who is interested in nature and spends a lot of time outside I just think it's kind of weird this has never happened. All that changed yesterday.

I went out for tea yesterday morning and wandered down to the bridge at the duck pond. I was pondering the mysteries of life enjoying my London Fog, and as I was standing there my friend Lee walked by and we chatted for a bit about ducks and Pleistocene fauna. As we were standing there I noticed something weird; I thought I had been observing two ducks, but for some reason I now only saw one duck sort of struggling in the water. It turns out that there WERE two ducks, but one was under water, beneath the other duck. It was a strange moment, one where it probably took me longer to figure out what was going on than it should have. Awkward.

The whole incident probably took all of 5 seconds, so the female wasn't in any real danger of drowning. But the most ridiculous part came at the end, when the male bit the female in the head and then did a victory lap around her.

I told you mallards were jerks.

In Memory of Wolf Scott-Cohen, February 21, 2012

Part of living is dying, and part of getting close to a person means eventually having to part with them. Last night a friend died. This is my message to Wolf who, in the words of my friend Jacqueline, "discovered the last great mystery of life" yesterday evening around 8pm...

Wolf, teaching you last spring was a privilege. There are some students I will never forget, you are one of them. You were always asking questions (SO many questions), always right up there in the front, making an impression. Driving me crazy, but in a good way. I remember you as lively, but mostly I remember you as being a friendly, bright, and honest guy. You would have made a devoted and talented doctor, the passion you felt for helping people was some of the most intense and sincere I have ever seen. I admired and respected you immensely. You became my friend, and I wish I had known you longer.

The outpouring of love I've seen for you over the past 11 days has been overwhelming to watch unfold. You believed in so many things, and were unrelenting when it came to trying to do good in a world that has so much wrong with it. If I know anything about your character, I know you were fighting as hard as you could till the end.

I'm feeling so many mixed emotions with the loss of a friend, and I'll never get used to the idea of not seeing you around or talking to you. I can't make any sense of it. My first impulse is to try to make something, anything, good come from this. I feel like that would be most fitting to your memory. There's so much left that this world needs from people like you.

I miss you, rest easy. ♥ Mel

The Blues

If I was a song writer I would be putting out some seriously depressing stuff this month.

I just haven't been able to get out of my funk. I've been moody and irritable for weeks, and it's really getting the better of me. It hasn't been good for relationships and it hasn't been good for productivity either. I've likely killed one friendship, and I'm just not feeling good about graduate school at the moment either. I've been asking myself a lot lately "Why am I doing this?"

In other horrible news, my friend Wolf is in the hospital in a coma. He suffered traumatic brain injures when he was hit at 4pm on Friday by a drunk driver while he was on his scooter, and I'm impatiently waiting to find out what's going to happen next. He was in critical condition as of yesterday, and they have no idea if or when he is going to wake up. The news of this happening really shocked me. He is a former student of mine, a nice guy, and I would see him around campus pretty regularly. I can imagine very few things more unfair happening to a person, and this kind of thing is completely preventable. I really feel for the family, the uncertainty of the situation has got to be awful.

Uncertainty. I think that's the biggest thing bothering me. Uncertainty with everything. While I like surprises, not knowing what the future holds is scary, especially when things aren't going the way you thought they would.

Misserable Couple of Weeks

This semester has been rough going from the start.

Beyond PMS, being a moody pain in the arse, and not feeling well I'm finding myself in the unusual situation of wishing school was over for the year already. The only really good thing going for me at the moment is that my cough appears to be going away. This virus just wouldn't let up for almost 2 and a half weeks, though the folks at the health center didn't seem at all concerned.

Then there is my car. You know it's not a good thing when multiple alert lights turn on and you're still in your parking spot. For the next few months I'll be trying to put some money away to get it looked at/fixed.

I guess things can only get better from this point?

Stop the world, I want to get off.

Am I Sick?

I'm still coughing, and now I'm starting to wonder if it's allergies and not illness, or some combination. In the past when I've had this happen a week on Mucinex did the trick. I haven't taken it for a couple days, because I felt like it was getting better. I also used my netti pot last week and was really starting to feel better. Then yesterday I started coughing again. This is either a really persistent respiratory thing, or something in the air is trying to kill me.

I hope it's not the cat. There are several reasons I don't think it's the kitty though. I WAS beginning to feel better. It didn't start getting worse again until the other night where I was out at a loud bar yelling/talking a lot. The yelling seemed to bother my throat and I started having trouble breathing and the coughing picked up. Last night I was hanging around a bonfire and the smoke also seemed to really be bothering me. I don't feel any different when I'm away from the cat, and he's always in my face when I'm home. I feel like if it was the cat I'd feel worse during those time. So I have no idea. This is really beginning to be annoying.

The good news is that this doesn't appear to be affecting my ability to do my Nia class or run, provided I do it inside. I've been religiously using my inhaler for those activities too.

Sick Start to the Semester

Well no sooner did classes begin did I catch a cold. I've been coughing up a lung all week. I've noticed a lot of people around me coughing, so I think there is probably something going around. At first I was worried that it was my allergies (new kitty), but then Matt started having a sore throat and post nasal drip too. I feel pretty confident now that I've been actually sick all week.

Aside from this minor health setback, the first week of school went pretty well. I like my classes so far, although I'm already anxious about Macroecology. We have two assignments, the first being a class project with very little guidance from the instructors. I'm a little nervous trying to work on something with 25 people, but it isn't due until April. The class is already trying to organize itself, and if we can pull it off we'll hopefully finish the semester with a paper we can submit to a journal for publication.

The rest of my classes just seem like they're going to be fun. My working group is also trying to reorganize ourselves to get back to writing our paper. We got an extension, and I've been trying to do more background reading. At the moment I don't feel competent enough to do much writing, but that will come eventually.

Introducing... Donut the Kitty Cat!

On Tuesday we finally brought home our new kitty from the lady who's been fostering him. Yes, I'm allergic to cats, but I'm more or less permanently on allergy medication because a) I'm allergic to a bunch of other things I can't avoid and b) most people I know have a cat or some kind of pet that would bother me if I wasn't on meds. I've always had a cat, or had room mates that have cats, and I just enjoy having one so much.

I've never owned a kitten before. Donut is about 7 months old and despite starting to get big, he's still very much a baby. You can tell he still had a lot of growing to do, his paws seem big and his tail is super long, about the length of his body. His behavior is also still very kitten like; his eyes have been dilated ever since we brought him home, and he is almost constantly in play mode (I've missed most of his cuddly moments because they seem to always happen when I'm at school). I will say, though, that he sat in my lap first. He adjusted remarkably quick, and seemed comfortable after only a few hours. He hasn't tried hiding from us or anything.

This is Donut back in December when we first saw him at PetCo, and before we decided we were definitely going to adopt him. He was already pretty big then, but I swear he seems smaller now.

Taken with the web cam on my new computer. Bad quality, but I'll try to get additional pictures of us together.

Matt took this one while I was at school. That's one content looking cat!

Like most cats, Donut has been waking us up at 5am. Between wanting to suck on my fingers, kneading, purring loudly, and climbing around he is both adorable and frustrating. I know he'll probably grow out  of the cuddlier behavior, and I'll miss it. I also realize this is just part of having a kitten and teaching it to behave in a certain way. Matt has been looking up ways to try and get him to not play bite or attack our feet while we're trying to sleep. As fun as I find under the blanket chase games, I prefer sleeping. He also seems to prefer sucking (nursing?) my hand, and hasn't really done that to Matt since we got him home.

Over all he's a sweet little boy, and I'm already pretty attached. He's absolutely adorable and a ton of fun. I'd say he's good about 90% of the time, and hasn't been destructive really. We're still trying to gauge how he's going to be with Allen the guinea pig, and we don't trust him yet. I think he was used to playing rough with other cats, and that would just be too much. I'm afraid he'd hurt Allen unintentionally, I don't necessarily think he would try and eat him. He does seem very curious about the guinea pig, and is a little freaked out by him too. That's pretty much to same reaction that my room mates' cats had in the past.

I'll try to keep my blog posts more PhD oriented, but my personal life I a huge part of my time here in NM. We'll see how having a new furry room mate will affect it.