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It's official!! At approximately 6:15ish this evening I legitimized my expertise - becoming a specialist of evolutionary adaptation theory, primate cognition methodology and hominoids. What does that mean exactly? Go ahead, ask me anything about the evolution of intelligence in apes.... it's all about the hands! :) Just another thing to check off my list of things to do: --Take the scariest, most uncomfortable exams of my life. CHECK

You are NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE WHAT HAPPENED!... Ha, ha. Just kidding. I just did that to see if I could freak my Mom out. Sorry Mom :) Don't worry, there are no tigers here anymore... well maybe there is still one left, we aren't sure...and by "we" I mean the park staff along with myself :) These are pictures of the stuffed toy tiger we have at our place that was once used in a predator alarm call study on the gibbons. And seeing as it made me nearly jump out of my skin pretty much on every one of my nightly trips to the bathroom, I thought I'd give it a try on YOU... ha ha ha :) So my "business" trip to Thailand is coming to an end. I'm heading out this morning for the airport at 3:30am and my flight leaves at 6:50am. Not so much looking forward to the 27 hour trip home, or having to make another 24-27 hour trip back here in another 4 months or so, but as for THIS trip. I have had a BLAST! Being back in Thailand at Khao Yai and in the forest ha

This video is of the infant in group R, he’s a little over two years old and almost completely independent from his mother now. The last time I was here, he was still in the weaning phase and she spent a lot of time carrying him. Now he’s flinging himself all over the canopy, exploring and practicing his locomotion. His older sister is VERY rambunctious and he is CLEARLY following her lead because the two of them get pretty feisty with their play bouts, wrestling and chasing each other around. In this video, Rarin was crossing over me quite close, so I got out the camera and then he got a bit nervous – you can see he keeps looking down at me, and looking up (at his parents), so I put the camera away to calm him down. But it’s a pretty cool shot, the quality is not the best, it’s a bit out of focus but next trip with the super camera for my research the videos will be AWESOME! Here’s another cool video. This is of Rarin’s mother, Brit, traveling from one feeding tree to another. G

I forgot to mention in my last blog one of the coolest things we saw on our drive into Khao Yai on the first night back! So we were driving up the winding roads of the park and it was around 8:30 at night and dark out, when in the middle of the road crossing from one side of the forest to the other was: A BANDED KRAIT! Banded kraits are rare snakes here at Khao Yai, but they are one of the most deadly snakes in the entire world. They are very distinctive looking with black and white bands all along their bodies. Unfortunately because it was dark out, and because I was too freaked out to get out of the car, I just took a picture from inside the car and this picture is not good quality. But if you click on it and enlarge it, you can see the snake on the road. It was pretty exciting to see it. One thing that was super cool about it, was that when the car approached it on the road and we stopped for it, it started to move sideways to move away from the car. That was really neat! Then it

I’ve been in Khao Yai now for about a week and I've gone in to see the gibbon on four half days. So let’s recap: First day back : Jackie is taking Norberto (the new guy) into the forest to find gibbons – it’s her first day back, will she find them? Will she get lost? Does she still know what she’s doing? BOOYA! Jackie finds group N within 10 minutes. YA THAT’s RIGHT. Then over comes Chu from group A for an encounter... but where is everyone else? We better go find them – what’s that you say, TWO GROUPS on day one?! In yo’ face! Once the encounter was over and group A started heading down a valley, I decided I was not up for following them into the valley, so I suggested we go find groups B and C. Up the main trail we head to the crest of the main hill in our field site, after a brief pause for reflection and some discussion about where we are in the forest to help Norberto orient himself, we head down another major trail to find the other gibbons – not 1 minute of walking down

Yesterday was an overwhelming day spent at school from 8:50am to 5:30pm. I don't even spend that much time at my OWN school doing school work. SHEESH! Once again the majority of time was spent by me sitting around waiting for others, but all the paperwork is done and ready for submission of the permit... it just needs the signatures now. Yesterday morning I was supposed to meet with one of those people to give their signature, but it turned out his father became ill and was hospitalized, so he couldn't meet, and that will have to wait to next week. Oh here's a fun tidbit that nobody mentioned until yesterday to me. Next week is a three day holiday for everyone in Thailand... oh ya, that's right Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - EVERYONE HAS THE TIME OFF. So basically for the next five days I am going to be sitting around waiting for the week to end. Mai dee. We are heading to Khao Yai this afternoon and I'm not sure how frequent my communication with the other side o

Two nights in Bangkok and you've lost 10lbs of water weight just from carrying your backpack down the street to the skytrain, you now own a dress that does not fit (always too small), you've purchased two universal adapters because you didn't read the package the first time and had to go back for another one after realizing that the plugs here are two prong, not three prong, and you've quickly realized that you walk faster than EVERYONE in this city, even when you are trying to walk slow! So... I have arrived once again in Thailand. Got in pretty late last night around 11:30pm, though my flight arrived an hour earlier then scheduled, so that was cool. Here's a picture of me sitting in the Tokyo airport, click on it and you will see the board with the flight info. I managed to click the camera right after the English turned to Japanese, so you will just have to trust me that it says Bangkok up there. And yes, this picture was also partly about the skinny Hulk Hogan

Good question... ...probably somewhere that way.

There's nothing like gathering up all your personal belongings and cramming them into a trailer in a shadeless parking lot on a balmy 35 degree day of sweltering heat and humidity. Oh the joys of Carbondale. I have to say, after 5 years of shacking up in the Chateau #3, no matter how happy I am to be "temporarily permanently" moving out of Carbondale, I was still a bit misty eyed to see my place so barren on my last night there. Even though Carbondale is not my favourite place in the world, I really did create a nice little "Canadian Haven" for myself to hangout in... or hideout in... to help pass the time while I've been down there for school. Moving is hard work - with all the sorting, organizing, stacking, packing, taping, labelling, carting stuff around, loading things in then taking them all out when you've found something else that should've gone in first, re-loading, re-positioning, trying to balance the weight in the trailer; and then final

The title of this blog is a note that has been posted on my wall for a while now. At the time I had to skip out on my office hours to run to the International Student Centre to get my tax packet and my signature for travel, so I can not come back next year (take that C'dale), and then drop off some scantrons at Instructional Student Services for my class' midterm. fhhhghghghghghg <- and apparently that's what Juan has to say about that ( Get your own blog Juancho !). It seemed fitting for this blog also :) Well after two weeks of not so good workouts and slogging through wet runs, longs swims and limited bike rides. This week I finally kicked out some good runs at faster paces then ever for my outdoor times - dropping my average run pace 10 seconds, and finding a convenient "add on" section of road to include in my lake running route. Splendid splendid. Last week I thought intensively about how good the forest smells after it rains, and tried to remember if

A human being is a part of the whole called by us Universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires. Our task must be to free ourselves by widening to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. - Albert Einstein

Note: this list is in order of importance (1 being least and 10 being most)

I have arrived in smalltown USA, once again. Everything appears to be as I left it. Made it to school to meet with my people, get the updates... turns out nothing happened while I was gone... yup that sounds about right :) Still settling in, just got some groceries... NEW SHOES ARRIVED, and they are FANTASTICO. Still need to unpack, put things back into place, and then back to the grindstone with writing and training.

The end of one stage is only the beginning of another. Any dangers overcome are the necessary preparation to do better in the next stage. - Paulo Coelho And so it begins.