... Cuenca, here I come ( Read more... )

Quito became a ghost town New Year´s Eve. Wandering down Mariscal with Ali, which is usually packed, was mostly empty, and almost all of the bars were closed. The viejitos were burning, making random bonfires with their paper mache bodies and wood chip flesh. Every once in awhile we saw one of the men who dress like women, in black dresses, ( Read more... )

(... and anything you celebrate or choose not to celebrate that I´ve neglected to specifically mention ( Read more... )

item the first: so there are some biologists here in Ecuador studying the brainybits of a certain type of songbird, because apparently there is a region of the brain that about doubles in size every spring that helps with song memorization, and then shrinks back to normal after the mating season. Why is this awesome as all hell? Because, ( Read more... )

Emily and I walked down to Mariscal today to check out their artesanial market, and I ended up buying...oh yes... more stuff. But there was art I just couldn´t turn down. Also some really cool handmade ceramics, but I resisted on those out of fear of breaking them in transport ( Read more... )

Suddenly realized I still haven´t updated all of you on the results of the second and final round of elections here in Ecuador. So, Correa won by at least 10%, which made ME breathe a sigh of relief because I would have felt uneasy living in a country whose president looks like Oswald Cobblepot (ok, twos and twos of you will get that, so let me ( Read more... )

So, apparently about five years ago, back when he and Cristina got married, my hostdad promised to make sancocho, a Colombian type of soup/stew, for Cristina´s family.
( Read more... )

In art we´re still working with oil pastels, and I think I am finally getting the hang of them, though they´ll never be my medium of choice. We are on our final project, and all that´s left is a border to design ( Read more... )

so, I´m going to put up all of the National Science Foundation´s Research Experiences for Undergraduates that I am interested in, all of which seem pretty damn superior to projects I had looked at before, in that these immediately hook me up with a mentor, give me stipend, and lead me in some direction ( Read more... )

So, Emily landed yesterday and is now staying with us through Christmas. We had an excellent talk on biologyness and K and such yesterday, and she gave me some good direction on SIP (Senior Individualized Project) hunting. Also, I think I am going to take Entomology intstead of Population and Community Ecology in the Spring, because it´s another ( Read more... )