End of a Chapter

Masters Hydrogeology Office, Photo by Liza Bourchtein.

Back in Utrecht here! Was just thinking how crazy that two years have flown by and come 24 September I will have a master's degree in my hand. All my grades are in and approved and next week I have an appointment with Immigration for a new Dutch visa since I am no longer studying, ack! 

Side note: Here is a link to my masters thesis in case anyone wanted to read or just skim through it. It is by no means perfect (always room for improvement in terms of analysis), but I learned so much this past year about planning, fieldwork, lab analysis, writing and just science research in general.

Alright, having just been back in the US and Canada, many of my friends and family have asked me what my plans are, so here it goes for anyone else interested:

I am planning to stay in the Netherlands while job searching (water/hydrology/geology/geochemistry fields) until at least the winter holiday season. Plus my internship at Deltares got extended for another month to the end of September. For jobs I am searching in the following countries: the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. There is a bit of a range for choice but I figure this is the best time to take a chance and see what is out there. Plus I do not want to limit myself and not take advantage of obtaining experience from the best opportunities. At least I know I don't need visas for the US and Canada, whew. 

Spanish Banks Beach Park looking towards Vancouver

Now if nothing comes up, then I plan to head back to New Jersey, pack up my car and drive on out to British Columbia, get a waitress job or something in Vancouver area and continue on my job search! Not that I don't love New Jersey, which is honestly a wonderful state to be from and live in (to all you haters!), but I want to try living in a province that I really only love more and more each time I have been there from when I was really young taking the BC ferry to Victoria to see my grandparents (and totally freaking out when the horn blew), celebrating Canada Day with family along the river in Kelowna when I was 10, to discovering interior BC and the Cariboo Mountains while collecting samples last fall for my thesis. There is so much I still want to discover there and never have enough time to do, like going to the Queen Charlotte Islands, continue driving north up Highway 97 to the Yukon and Alaska and kayaking besides wild orcas along the coast. So yeah...tentative plans, but who knows, everything could always all go down the drain and I will come up with something else that is just as grand instead!

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To now backtrack to talk about the past as opposed to the future - my trip back to the US/Canada was really wonderful and a much-needed break from all the thesis and internship report writing and conducting groundwater experiments. Definitely needed that breather. There were a number of reasons for the timing of my trip back, some of which included celebrating my mother's 60th birthday, a sea burial for my Oma and Opa, meeting my dad out and seeing the BC branch of his family (remind me I should draw out a family tree for you all, I think I have it down now...), and getting to view firsthand how my mom's new house is coming along!

SeaWorld Dolphin Interaction, CA

Oceanside Harbor, CA

While the weather really was not the best in Encinitas this time around, it was good to see my cousins, aunt and uncle again on top of my mom and sister. My aunt put together a lovely birthday surprise for my mom where she, Gillian and I got to swim with a dolphin at SeaWorld! The dolphin we interacted with was a 25 year old dominant female with a bit of a silly side to her personality. We also had a very nice sea burial ceremony for my mother's parents, both of whom passed away while I was studying the past two years in the Netherlands. It was a gorgeous evening, we left the harbor and saw a rainbow and it was nice to be out on the water as my first memories of them are of playing in their pool or at the beach in Florida!

Deep Cove, North Vancouver, BC

The next stop was North Vancouver where Gillian and I stayed with my Aunt Lynell (my dad's youngest sibling and only sister) and her family. She hosted one evening a nice dinner where my Uncle Warren (my dad's younger brother) and his wife came out from ...well I forget where they live now since they sold their last place, oops! My aunt also has a new dog named Kyla, a 6 month old female who really is adorable! Haha. As a surprise, it turned out my Aunt Marilyn (wife of my dad's oldest brother Roy) and their daughter Courtney were passing through with their 3 Samoyeds and 2 puppies that one had just had. So it was nice to catch up with everyone!

Wells, BC

Those days there we spent visiting the University of BC campus (got to keep PhD in mind!), going sea kayaking (well more like bay), going downtown, and taking a hike along Deep Cove. I then left to head up to interior BC and thus parted with my sister as I will not see her again until at least October. I flew up to north to Prince George, rented a car and headed on down to Wells (in Cariboo mountains more north of where I was last year in Likely/Horsefly) with a good friend for a music festival, which was unlike all the other music festivals/concerts I had been to earlier this summer. Some of the artists I ended up really liking were: Samson's Delilah (husband and wife from Robson, BC), Corin Raymond (man from Ontario) and Tanya Tagaq (contemporary Inuit throat singer). 

This is Corin Raymond singing "Don't Spend it Honey" written about saving and spending Canadian Tire "money" (for non-Canadians - think coupons in the form of bills but only very small denominations that people tend to save for years). He was actually able to pay for all the costs of his album with this money that people sent him. (Skip to 1:39 if you want to listen to the song).

He also did an autobiographical play called "Bookworm" and if you love books and reading, definitely find an hour of your time and watch it HERE.

This is a live improv performance of Tanya Tagaq - just to warn you, if you have never heard throat singing before it is quite different and this is by no means the traditional way as it was normally a vocal exercise between two Inuit women and Tanya takes things to a whole different level. It was amazing listening to and watching her though, she had performed with a violinist and a harpist and imitates many different sounds and emotions, i.e. howling like a wolf (go to 4:26 in this video).

The ArtsWells festival was amazing, and I loved being able to look up at the stars and wake up in the morning, taking a dip in the nearby river, and spend the day volunteering my time and listening to some wonderful musicians. Upon arriving back to Prince George, I got the chance to finally see the University of Northern BC campus and say hello to the two Canadian professors who were able to help fund the fieldwork I did last year for my masters thesis. In a way it brought everything full circle as I had finished the thesis a few weeks earlier and was in the Cariboo region when one year early I had driven out there to start the whole process! What a year! The campus was small but actually quite charming and I have only been hearing and reading good things about the university so was glad to have the opportunity to walk around and explore a bit (again...PhD?? My mind is always buzzing with ideas.)

QRTT Photo Op!

After a 1.5 day process of getting back to Vancouver (took a 13 hr Greyhound and slept for the first time at an airport), I started my journey back east with a small stop in New Jersey. I was able to see both of my parents again, tour around the basically finished with renovated house of my mom's and catch up with my hometown friends! This included another QRTT dinner (QRTT standing for quartet, aka my 3 good girl friends and I) and photo op. :P They also got to shop around all my old stuff as I was trying really hard to recycle donate and get rid of my things I had accumulated over the years. Books though are hard for me to part with, apparently my mom and sister filled a whole car of them to take to storage (mind you there is a good bunch that are science textbooks).

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Well I suppose this will be my last post as a masters student as I will be officially no longer a university student come end of August! Scary...makes me feel older, also knowing that when I go back to New Jersey, it will not be to my childhood home! I will still continue to blog about my travels as I haven't left Europe yet and there is still so much to see and do besides...internship, jobs, Irish dance classes, and any other projects/activities I land myself in :P TTFN!