The morning began with a 7:30 wakeup and eggs. On the short bus ride to New Bedford, we listened to music and discussed our excitement for the day. Once arriving in New Bedford, we were immediately struck by the historic appearance of the town. After going over the day’s plans with Dan, we entered the Seaman’s Bethel. Inside the Bethel, we studied the cenotaphs, which are memorials for someone whose body was lost after their passing.

Hello world. Welcome to the first and final edition of Katarina and Nadia’s blog.

Today we woke up to a delicious breakfast of eggs, potatoes, and pineapples (Katarina really likes pineapples, while Nadia did not eat any. She prefers potatoes). It was lively and loud as usual in B House because B house is best house, whereas in C House it was peaceful and quiet.

The course section of the Partnership Education Program (PEP) is over and I have transitioned full-time into the lab at Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) Ecosystem Lab for my research on Sea turtles with Maureen Conte (MBL) and Heather Hass (NOAA). The course section was hard-work but I was able to push through it. I started working on my research on July 5, 2017 and so far I am having the most fun and learning new things that I never thought of.

Today was a relaxing, beautiful morning- we had the latest wake up call yet (8:45), so we could wake up a bit earlier and drink some tea, or sleep in. We had a delicious breakfast of French Toast and sausages with maple syrup, thank you very much Sabrina!

We awoke this morning at 6:45 (or 5:50 to those of us that shower in the morning and have to share a bathroom with 7 other people) to the fabulous smell of breakfast sandwiches and coffee. After breakfast (thanks Sabrina!), we journeyed to the Madden Center, pumped for the morning beach cleanup. Upon our arrival, we entered the lecture hall to the startling news that we happened to be 30 minutes early (I could have slept until 6:20), and that we had an hour long lecture before we went to the beach.

Despite all the research and social experiences I’ve had as part of the PEP program so far, the past couple of days of being in the program have me setting my sights beyond this summer and even beyond graduating college. Several days ago we took the time to attend a panel of WHOI graduate students working on their doctorates, to hear what they had to say about preparing for graduate school.

It was a relief having to wake up at 7:30 today, as we had significantly earlier wake-ups the previous two days. We had cereal for breakfast, and in general, the morning was calm. We attended a drawing session conducted by Victoria Smith, the SEA alumni relations coordinator, in which we practiced natural history sketches. We practiced different styles, such as blind contour drawings, line contour drawings, and timed gestures. It was refreshing to have a less stressful morning than the previous two.

The wonderful 6:15 wake up today had every one of us filled with joy. (jk) We slept walked down to a table filled with bagels and fruit to start our long day ahead. Chores were completed before we all mustered to board our bus to Mystic Seaport, Connecticut. After another two hour nap opportunity most of us gladly took, we finally arrived in Mystic around 10.

When I was younger I would travel to a new place and never think about being there. I would have an experience and not be in the moment, I would passively participate in a moment.  I honestly lacked an appreciation of “the moment”.  I didn’t know that as I got older, most of the people that I had these great experiences with would no longer be part of my life.  I didn’t realize that sometimes there are perfect moments that might only happen once in your life.  I didn’t realize I was having a perfect summer until after it was fall.

This morning we had a voyage to Woods Hole to explore the ecosystem of the Cape’s water. We started the day with a boat ride. On the boat we used many oceanographic instruments such as underwater sled, a dredge, and CTD (which records, temperature, salinity, and depth of water). We used the dredge to get animals that live on the ocean floor. We found star fish, sea urchin, scallops, spider crab, jelly fish and whelk.