Graduation time

Today Seth (who has been helping me in the field) and I found our first white-plumed honeyeater nest in weeks. It was very exciting because I really need lots of honeyeater nests so that I can conduct egg-swap experiments to see if the birds can recognise the foreign eggs and reject them. The eggs look like they can hatch pretty soon so I thought about planning a trip to Namadgi National Park tomorrow to look for other nests to swap the honeyeater eggs with. However, the vehicle I need to take will be sent to the repair shop and will not be available. This completely ruins my experiment. Not only that, but Jim (who works in the BoZo workshop) told me that next week they are planning to sell that car! It is the only car I can drive for my research! How can I finish the final two months of my field season?? Argh!

I went in to work this afternoon and I saw two people I know, which was a big surprise because I almost never see anyone familiar. The first person was Mag (Hawk's sister), whom I had not seen since leaving Oanh's house in February. She is such a fun and nice person, and Seth and I are always thinking about her, so it made me sad to think that it has been nearly a year since we had last seen her and her family.

The second person who stopped by was Kevin, a friend from Johns. He had checked out of College for the summer and was about to hop on the bus to Sydney. This was also a little sad because I had worked three of the past four nights and have not had a chance to say good-bye to certain people. In fact, I already regret not spending more time with people this semester. Between being fairly busy, working at Dash, and having to wake up at 6am every morning, it is hard to go out and socialise.

Today definitely has that nostalgic end-of-the-year/graduation feel, where everyone goes their separate ways. What makes it weirder is that Seth and I will be at Johns (practically by ourselves) for another month, and when everyone is travelling and/or going home this summer, we will be here doing fieldwork. When they return in February, we will be living somewhere else off campus. I just hope we can meet up with everyone periodically when the year starts back up!