Southern Migration

For much of my life, I've had a mediocre to grim outlook on the state of Ohio. As a child, it represented the wedge that separated me from my beloved hometown and friends of Charleston. As an adult, it represents the geographic void between the east coast and the great plains marked by rolling hills, corn, a river that once caught fire, and the one and only gem that is Cedar Point. All said, I know that I am a bit hard on the buckeye state. I have more loyalty to WV and love it dearly but to be fair, Ohio really is a wonderful place to raise a family and go to school. It's not a state in which I will ever reside again for as long as I live, but it has a lot going for it and it is home to a lot of good people.

Mom and Dad sending me off

I am putting Ohio in the spotlight because it is where I spent a large portion of my winter break. After returning on the 23^rd of December (a 4-month absence), I managed to meet up with a good portion of high school and college friends as well as a number of family members from my father's side of the family. I wish that I could have spent more time with all of them but due to an upcoming interview on the 13^th, my departure was moved earlier. An interesting side note is that this break marked the longest amount of consecutive time at home since the summer of 2008.

My southern migration started with lunch in Columbus and dinner in Dayton with high school friends. I made it to Oxford by night, spent the next day there, and left the following morning for Charlotte, via Cincinnati. Due to a serious snow/ice storm in the southern states, I was forced to reluctantly alter my course. Instead of driving through Kentucky for the first time in my life, I re-routed myself through Charleston and onward down I-77. The logic here was that if in fact I became stranded and could go no farther, I could fall back on any of a number of contacts that I have along 77. Due to serious pressure from family members, I decided to change my plans such that I would spend the night in Charleston regardless of the weather conditions. At the moment of writing, I am currently in Charleston, freshly showered, significantly tired, and prepared go to Charlotte by morning.

All Roads Point North

Renee

I left my home in warm sunny Coconut Grove in search of family, friends, adventure, and unfortunately cold. Spirits were high as I was looking forward to being rewarded by Kristin's welcoming smile and hospitality in Atlanta. I heard rumors the night before that Renee, one of my best friends from my semester in South Africa was possibly in Atlanta at the same time. Up to this point, I have only seen one of my 18 other housemates from that semester.

Kristin

On the 12^th Since Renee is doing grad school in Cape Town, it was a shock that we were not only going to be in the same hemisphere, not only in the same country, not only in the same state, but in the same CITY at the same time. A phone call confirmed the rumor and I decided that I would figure out how to see both Renee and Kristin during my time there. Without disregard to my long-planned rendez-vous with Kristin, I talked to both of them and found it appropriate to hang out with Renee for dinner before going to stay with Kristin. Being able to see both of them was so great that I'm still happy about it a week and a half later.

From Atlanta I traveled northeast to Charlotte where I stayed with Mike's family (Mike is my sister Liza's fiance). While there, Liza and I took care of some shopping and all of us went out for a fantastic Vietnamese dinner. After a few nights I packed up and rolled on through the mountains up to Lynchburg, VA where I met up with family. I saw cousins, aunts, and uncles during my wonderful stay there and for the first time saw some stunning mountainscapes. Living in Miami has some disadvantages one of which is elevation. Let's just say if you draw Florida on a piece of paper, you instantly have a 3-D model of the lovely sunshine state. Anyway from VA I packed up and picked up Nathan from Charleston.

Typical scene when hanging out with Nathan.

Nathan is one of my college roommates and good friend from Denison. He lives only blocks from where I grew up and we most certainly would have crossed paths if I hadn't moved to Ohio. We headed up to his apartment together in Morgantown where he goes to school at WVU. That night was filled with hot chocolate, movies, reminiscing, and shooting each other with his extensive artillery of nerf guns. The fun finally ended when the clouds blocked our view of the mesmerizing lunar eclipse. Together we went out to Wisp Resort the next day in MD to ski. It ended up being a brilliant decision because there were hardly a hundred people on the entire mountain spread among 30 runs.

I was worried it would take me a while to warm up and that I would probably end up breaking a leg, but after the 2^nd run I felt as if the 8+ years of non-skiing completely disappeared and I was swooping, gliding, turning, cutting, jumping, and carving like a champ. The entire day was nothing short of invigorating.

My final drive home yesterday marked the conclusion of 1800 miles of driving, 60+ gallons of gas, 11 family members, 3 college friends, 9 states, and (only) 4 months of being away from home.

Saving the best for last

Did you ever see the Harry Potter film where Harry drinks the potion that gives him good luck? Today was perhaps the best day of the entire semester. For the first time I was cold when I woke up (it's what happens when it finally drops to 60F and you're sleeping in only shorts with a thin cotton sheet and have your windows open). I reluctantly pulled myself out of bed as my muscles were crying out to just put on a pair of sweats and curl back up and go to sleep. Not this morning. No, not when I decided last night that I would go for a bike ride. That's right folks, within 30 minutes of rolling out of bed, I was mounting my bike and pushing off for a long ride. Literally moments before embarking, I received a phone call from the dive shop asking if I wanted to teach a Discover Scuba Diving course on Saturday in Key Largo to which I happily accepted. Even before my day started, I was seriously loving life: great weather, the promise of diving and money, and a great big bike ride ahead.

I hopped back on my bike, strapped my feet in, turned up the volume of my music, and forged ahead. Although it was quite cool, the temperature warmed up very quickly and I was sweating within the first mile. The weather was absolutely gorgeous and the scenery of quaint little houses punctuated with palm trees simply does not get old. The ride took me all the way to Bill Baggs State Park at the end of Key Biscayne which is about 11 miles from the house. The first 3 miles are not very well suited for cyclists but once I reached the bridge to cross into the keys, I had the bike lane all to myself. I fought a warm breeze somehow in both directions and was simply beside myself about the beauty of the area: it is so much more organic and natural when experienced outside the confines of an automobile.

I found my way back to the house and had time for a much-needed shower before heading off to school where a sandwich was calling my name from the food court which ended up being a delicious decision. Before leaving, I was checking facebook and noticed that NASA had found new life forms in Mono Lake, CA whose building blocks were made up of arsenic instead of phosphorous which turns biology (particularly genetics) as we know it on its head. Crazy!!! From there I made my way toward my final Marine Biology class with Dr. Glynn but not without first seeing a small flock of massive wild parrots that are seldom seen flying around the region. The birds are uncannily loud and obnoxious but their plumage is absolutely stunning and it is a treat to see them. For some reason Dr. Glynn's lecture ended up being a much more engaging lecture than usual and even finished 15 minutes early. He announced that he had seen manatees in the canal on his way to class and offered to lead whoever wanted to see them out to the lookout point and I quickly opted to be late for geology so I could see manatees.

Unless you have some sort of a manatee fetish, the gentle beasts are no more than interesting. They don't move very fast, are not particularly active, generally stay just beneath the surface of the water, and really don't do anything. That being said, I was pumped to see them because it is such a treat and I ended up loving it. It turned out that geology was canceled (the professor was there to offer help to anyone working on labs) so we didn't actually end up missing anything. I turned in my lab and went merrily on my way with a spring in my step despite the soreness deep in my thighs from the morning ride.  This concluded my semester of undergrad courses at the University of Miami.  All I have left is the take-home lab which is due tomorrow, then one very very very difficult marine bio final exam.

After an uneventful dinner, I found out that the Miami Heat were playing an away game against the Cleveland Cavaliers. Not only was it a big game because LeBron was playing for his first time as an opponent in the Quicken Loans Arena but everyone back home was tenaciously rooting for Cleveland. Never being attached to Ohio, my loyalties are not deeply rooted there and now that I'm living in Miami I felt that it was fair to cheer for the Heat. Too bad I didn't bet on it: entering the stadium to a chorus of aggravated and betrayed “boo”s, LeBron went on to rack up 38 points and lead the Heat to an easy win over his former team.

Oh, then I found 20 bucks. Seriously. (Well, it was at lunch but I couldn't resist putting it at the end.  The picture is taken long after the fact b/c I didn't have my camera with me at the time and honestly, who's going to take a picture of a 20 on the ground of a food court?)

WFR - FTW!

I'm behind again. This is starting to become the theme of the blog. I suppose it's due to the fact that I have much less time to blog nowadays as compared to my time on Gili T for instance.

So here is a brief list of highlights since the last update:

Bernard came to visit while on a business trip here. We went out to dinner at an all-you-can-eat Argentinian steakhouse and it was absolutely stunning. I finished off with a fantastic filet mignon. The whole experience was exquisite and made up for the fact that I had to study for a test the next day and write a paper.

With a bit of magic (not on my part), I got into the scientific diving course that I've been dying to take! It's a graduate level course that meets a minimum of 8 hours/week and is going to be quite rigorous. This will have a huge impact on my decision of where to go post-December. The other class that I was registered for is a graduate course titled Tropical Meteorology based on a recommendation from a marine physics professor.

I bought bike parts. After a mishap with a popped tire, I bought two new ones (of high quality so it won't happen again), as well as head and tail lights. I'm back on the road and as long as there is a minimal chance of rain, I'm taking to the streets! Okay, well, not the main ones. Just the ones where I won't get killed. And the bike paths when available. Actually I'm probably going to go on a very long ride tomorrow since I have nothing to do before 2pm.

I went up to North Carolina for Thanksgiving break! It was great to see family again since the chances I have to be with them have been severely reduced over the past year and a half. We scoped out the venues for the wedding in June which was a bizarre experience for me. Marriage seems so far away for me that I struggle to relate and it's weird to see my sister going through the process. It's not bad at all – on the contrary, I couldn't be happier for her. It's just that it's weird b/c it's such a foreign concept in my life right now, that's all.

The PhD student who is ultimately in control of the lab I'm working in successfully defended his dissertation today. He did a spectacular job and I couldn't help but admire him through it all. Not only his composure, well-made smooth presentation, ability to field questions, but particularly the joy I could see in his eyes when I saw him walking around with his parents after he passed. My degree was earned through 4 years of blood, sweat, and tears but he has been working on his PhD for 4 and a half years. I would be fooling myself if I thought for a second that the joy I experienced when I finished my degree compares at all to the feeling I could see beaming across his face today.

I WFRed a girl at school today. Allow me to explain: I finished a marine science test and as I exited the building, there appeared to be a massive traffic jam. After pushing my way through the crowd, I noticed that just outside the doorway was a girl lying on the ground with a few people around her. Unsure of what had happened, I squeezed my way through a few more people, through the door, and started asking what had happened. Faith in UM students quickly faded when the guy “in charge” told me that he wasn't present when she went down and in fact none of the ones standing there saw it happen. It was between classes and there's no way she could have been in the doorway without traffic. Whoever saw it happen must have actually walked away. Anyway, she was responsive but a little weak. I gathered the facts, found out that she had a recurring iron deficiency, and asked a few other questions. My WFR instructors would not have been entirely pleased because once I figured out what was wrong, I stopped asking questions. I should have taken what's called a SAMPLE history and written it out on paper to hand to the paramedics. There's always next time.

Tomorrow is the last day of classes for me! It's crazy to think that a semester has already passed me by. I don't think I'll have too much to say between now and my exam on the 8^th, but road-tripping adventures are on the horizon!

Campus Safety and Security

I suppose it's only fair that I continue with my post from weeks ago. I didn't mean to leave anyone hanging for that long. After a few days, curiosity did arise as to how many people might ask, but the intention was never to find out. Anyway, on with the story.

I was sitting up on the 2^nd story outdoor level of one of the buildings on campus waiting for a movie to finish so we could go in and see the one we were going to see: Saving Private Ryan. I was with Kali sitting at a table chatting. The second story of this building has a very open area with more open spaces than walls, and several escape routes both upstairs and down. We were chatting when I noticed a police car pull up across the green about a hundred yards away and a bright shining light come walking our way. Seeing a policeman with a flashlight is nothing to get me in a tizzy. Even seeing him come upstairs, seeing another cop car in the back lot in the other direction, and then yet another cop showing up, I was hardly phased. It wasn't until I turned around and saw one of them pull out his gun and suddenly hurry for the stairs that I started to become suspicious.

About a minute passed where Kali and I were left wondering if we should be worried. She pointed over my shoulder and what I saw immediately threw up red flags. There was a very focused policeman walking toward the stairs in full body armor holding some sort of automatic weapon that was about the size of an AK-47. He pivoted back toward the other staircase to exchange a few words with another officer and I immediately hopped up from the safety of my plastic seat to ask what was going on. I was told to evacuate.

Call me a noob, but I've never been in a situation where the police have told me to evacuate. I instinctively asked where they wanted us to go and my suggestion of the lit parking lot behind the building was confirmed by the body-armored machine-gun carrying officer. Without hesitating I called out to the dozen others that were also waiting for the film and told them we needed to leave motioning to follow me down the stairs. Why the police waited for me to do this is beyond me, but I was happy to feel like I was playing a minor heroic role in everything. My heart rate increased as I took each step down the stairs knowing that there could be a deranged gunman and my courage almost faltered as I turned the corner after the last stair. I honestly didn't know what I was going to see down the hallway. My plan was to ask the officers what exactly was going on as they appeared to be escorting us to our open hideout but as I opened my mouth to pose the question, there came a message across the radio. I couldn't hear all it said, but at the end of the transmission, the gun-toting officer told us all to halt and go back upstairs. “They were Nerf guns,” he said.

Yes, a pretty exciting start to a grueling war film. I was happy to have some excitement and a reminder that life is fragile and you never know when the next assassin is going to come knock you off with a soft foam arrow.

On My Toes

Funny I should mention nothing that makes a good story happening in my life.  Tonight I was told by an officer with a massive gun to evacuate the building I was in.  Loads of police, guns, flashlights, cop cars, and freaked out people.  I'm too tired to write about it now though so you'll just have to wait.

Neglect

I must express sincere apologies to myself and those of you who used to read regularly. My good blogging habits have somehow fallen to the wayside like a stale cookie that's been sitting out for a week with some ants or dust accumulating on it. Let me assure you that is not what I want my blog to look like. In reality I do have good intentions to keep things fresh and exciting. Recently however, my life has not been exciting when compared to my previous travels. I haven't been racing in Hawaii, making plans to up and leave the country, diving in the Philippines, going to traditional Hindu ceremonies, fighting airlines, working on mega-yachts, or diving the Red Sea.

I have been enjoying life as much as ever, but the narrative simply is not riveting at all. “But Robbie, certainly you must be doing SOMETHING down in Miami that is interesting,” you might say. This is in fact true. However, what I've been doing is going to class, playing in the orchestra, going to church and bible study, watching the occasional film, and doing homework. To me, these are interesting activities to do but boring things to write about. Maybe I can write a post about how I slay a mighty dragon, go to Mars, save the world, or something else along those lines where I stretch the truth just enough to make you wonder whether or not I'm being entirely honest.

My time is running out to make up my mind about next semester. The ideas I have had include:

Working for gvi in the Seychelles

Working for Frontier in Madagascar or Tanzania

(both of which I found out about tonight so the probability I'll do one of them is next to nothing for the time being)

Move to French Polynesia and work as a dive instructor while working on fluency in French

Tap back into the yachting industry

Come back to UM and take more classes

The probability of returning as a student is the highest. The others are listed because I don't want to close doors. I'm not worried about what the next step in my life will be, nor am I dying to know. I am praying for guidance and trusting that I will be exactly where I need to be. Life is so much less stressful that way.

Clarifying

I wanted to finish what I was saying last night before falling asleep.  The reason I brought up the symphony is not to try showing off about how I'm in this great group.  I re-read the post from last night and that's what it sounds like.  On the contrary, I was trying to make a point that they're much more serious than I have ever been and ever anticipate being.  The intention was to point out the fact that my hobby of music is beginning to interfere with the research I came to Miami to do.  The trouble is that while I can't bear to give up viola, it's quite nearly impossible to join a research team and be in the symphony at the same time.  It's not a matter of having enough time but rather about conflicting schedules.

Dr. Glynn is apparently a big name in the marine science world, particularly as being one of the key founders of the idea of El Niño.  He's my Marine Biology professor and he has volunteering opportunities open in his lab.  I understand and accept that in order to work up a ladder you have to start from the bottom.  Thanks to this understanding, I'm happy and even excited to be doing grunt work.  It does sound like it could be fun; I'm not doing what I love, but I don't know what I love so I can't think of a better alternative.

I had lab in the Miami Seaquarium today which consisted of observing dolphin behavior and then running around the exhibits like a kid after finishing the lab.  It was fun.

One of the benefits of being a student is that you get a lot of free stuff and get to do a lot of cool things.  I got a shirt tonight for the marine science club, played volleyball in an incredible fitness center, went to the Seaquarium, and saw Toy Story 3 today all at no additional cost.  I'm going to miss the student life once I am actually too old to pass as an undergrad.

Top 25

For the past 2 and a half months, I've been playing in the Frost Symphony Orchestra, the University of Miami's one and only esteemed symphonic group.  We meet 6 hours a week plus I'm in a quintet that meets at least 2 hours a week, not to mention the optional (for me) viola class and string forum that are each one hour/week.  It's much more intense than I had anticipated but for the work I'm putting in, I think I'm making my way back to the level I was sometime about 3-5 years ago.  It's been a longer battle than I was expecting but it must be paying off.  Again I am glad that I'm not majoring in music because as much as it is wonderful, the amount of dedication by all the music majors is not what I'm willing to put in.

My first concert with Frost Symphony Orch. Photo: Lu Yan

Several people have been quite seriously surprised when I tell them I'm in the symphony because apparently the Frost School of Music is very good and quite selective.  I knew this to be true and I could tell from day 1 of playing with them that the symphony was mind-blowing but I didn't really find out until tonight that they are ranked between 13 and 25 in the country for music schools.  I just wanted a group to play with.  Little did I know that it was going to be one of the top university orchestras in the nation.

I had a few realizations tonight.  First of all, research is more important than class.  I am going to email the lab that might hire me and tell them I'll skip class to do research in the field.




...that's where I fell asleep on top of my computer last night.

Getting Help

I did something out of the ordinary this weekend. I went to Fall Retreat with Campus Crusade, one of the Christian organizations on campus. The first of two most memorable moments was on the second night when all the guys separated from the girls (about 40 of us perhaps) and had some serious bonding time. The other moment I can't forget is the first night when everyone went out on the beach after the first session. There was a ton of socializing going on but at one point I decided to just get up and walk down the beach. Light pollution filled the sky and choked the stars but no amount of light could stop the cool refreshing breeze, warm sand beneath my feet, and soothing lapping of the waves. As I walked I started to pray, asking for help making up my mind about next year and beyond. It went something like this:

Lord, please allow me to find some sort of a research position with the University.

Well...as long as it's your will. Please let it be your will to have me find some sort of field work.

I mean, please let your will be to have me do something interesting in marine science. I mean, I am putting a lot of effort into it after all and it would be great to keep up with it and not have spent this semester in vain.

It was sometime around then that all of a sudden I nearly fell to my feet with an epiphany.

Do not worry about tomorrow.

I have never understood it to the level that I did that night. I had heard it before, I had said it before, and I even have it as a quote on my facebook profile (Matthew 6:31-34) but never before have I understood it so clearly. I expect you to see what I mean but don't imagine you'll “get it” as vividly as I did but that's okay. What it means is that I want God's will to be done. I'm not in control of my life: going to South Africa is a prime example. Because I'm not in control and because my main desire is to be used by God, there's not really much I can do in the way of stressing about my future. All of a sudden, my life became way easier and more fulfilling at the same time. The reason I can brag about this is that everyone can (and should) at least consider trying it out.  It's not a “hey look what I can do aren't I special?” but more of a “woah, this is awesome and you should totally try it!”

I'm still pursuing a variety of different options but my stress level is at exactly 0 and I'm loving it, not that it ever even reached 4 (unit-less and without a reference point just to keep you all guessing). Today while in the library I had the sudden urge to investigate research options online instead of working on a lab writeup or studying for tomorrow's test. I found some really cool projects that would benefit the environment, give me experience, and allow me to travel. What more could I want? It would be on a volunteer basis but as long as I'm paying for classes here, why not try to gain experience somewhere more fun and exotic? Some of the options include Alaska, Thailand, Belize, Antarctica, Thailand, South Africa, Australia, Fiji, etc.

In other random news, I have my ticket to see the Dalai Lama, my camera is being fixed by Canon in VA right now for free (warranties are great), and unfortunately since I chose not to pay the athletic fee, I don't get to go to the U Miami and Florida State U game on Saturday unless I suddenly decide it's worth 200 bucks.  Yeah right.