38 days away

I have about 910 hours (~38 days) until I depart Canada and head back to the African continent.  The last week or so has felt pretty scary, but am finding myself to be getting more and more excited, given the cold temperatures outside and the fact that I've almost completed getting ready for this trip (i.e. paperwork, moving, etc.).

It also helps that I know more about where I'm going to be staying, who I'm going to be staying with, and what I'm going to be doing. I might as well lay it out for all of you who are curious...

Here's the general breakdown:

Myself and a couple of other people I've met via email (Jon and Karen) will be helping a master's student (Miranda) and post-doc (Richard) with their vervet monkey research on the Samara Private Game Reserve in South Africa. I'm not sure what Miranda's thesis consists of, but I do know that Richard is working on some kind of behavioural thermoregulation project. This research is conducted by the Barrett-Henzi lab from the University of Lethbridge.

We (Jon, Karen, Miranda and I) will be sharing a project house on a neighbouring game reserve called Asante Sana. From the research that I've been doing on this place, it sounds like there are various large animals roaming the reserve such as elephants, rhinos, zebras and giraffes. I'm pretty much going to be living an African Safari for an entire year!

Which brings me to my next point - Yes, I will be gone an entire 12 months.  Never have I ever been this far away from home, not to mention for this length of time. But I am absolutely stoked! I feel overdue for my next adventure, and this is it.

Are you guys falling asleep yet? I still have to write down my goals! This blog post is more for me than you, so don't worry about reading the rest...

For the year 2013 I would like to gain more experience collecting behavioural data, meet more like-minded people that I can network with and learn from, and spend time figuring out what I would like to do for my own Master's degree (what general topic to study and what universities to apply to). And for a slightly unrelated goal, I would like to spend my downtime learning French.  Apparently Canadian universities require their PhD students to be bilingual. This is going to be a challenge. 

Anyways, that's the general breakdown. I'm sorry I'm such a horrible writer, but I think this blog will help me get back into putting my thoughts down into words.  Practice will make perfect - so expect more posts from yours truly!

May this blog help my friends and family understand me a little better. 

Peace and love,
Kira

links:
This is where I'll be working 12 hours a day, 5 days a week: http://www.samara.co.za
This is the Barrett-Henzi lab: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3098948/B-HWEB/index.html