Off to a terrible start.

So, in theory, I'm flying right now on my way to Dakar, Senegal, then to South Africa, where I will spend the night in Johannesburg, and then fly to George, where someone from the SAMPLA lab will pick me up to start my internship on Friday. In theory. But clearly, I am not flying to Senegal right now. Which means I won't be in Johannesburg tomorrow night. And I definitely won't start playing with Great Whites on Friday.

We got to the Atlanta airport today with more than enough time to spare, and I went to check in while Mom parked. My bags were tagged, my tickets printed, and the guy was checking my passport when he realized there was a problem. Remember how I had to bribe the customs official in Cambodia last year? (Okay, I just looked, and I never wrote about that. Nevermind.) Basically, there are no empty pages in my passport anymore. Well, there is one, but it's not a specified "visa" page. And in Cambodia, for $20 (shockingly, didn't get a receipt for that one), they will just put your visa over existing stamps. Guess what? You can't do that in America. So as the Delta guy was checking me in, he realized that my passport is completely full, and it turns out I will be issued a full-page visa upon arrival in South Africa. Which means they won't let me on the plane without an empty page. The guy thought that the non-visa-specific page would be fine, but he figured we should go check with George. So we cruise upstairs, where George tells us that if I arrive in South Africa with no blank pages, Delta gets fined $2000. So obviously, they were not about to let that happen.

So I was sent to the Denied Boarding Desk, which totally sounds like I would be surrounded by terrorists and war criminals. Turns out, it's just a division of the visa service. They were nice but not that helpful, so Mom and I hopped on our respective phones and started calling everyone we could think of. (Okay, I'll be honest. Mom hopped on her phone. I sobbed for a while because OH MY GOD THE WORLD WAS ENDING. Then I tried to call my dad. Then I sobbed for a while. Then I texted Ryan, sobbed some more... you see where this is going.) So after talking to four different visa services, Mom realized that there was no way I was getting on my flight, which was in like an hour and a half at this point. In order to get extra pages in your passport, the US Passport Agency has to physically sew them in for you. And there is not a passport agency in Atlanta. Awesome.

So now my passport is on it's way overnight to Texas, where someone is taking it for me to the Houston Passport Agency tomorrow and will overnight it back to me (or courier it on a plane and meet me at the aiport, if necessary). I rebooked my flight for Friday, booked a new hotel for Saturday night, and scheduled a new flight to George, where (presumably) someone can pick me up and I will start playing with the sharks on Sunday.

So, I suppose, the world is not ending. I was just so ready to get there and start this. I've been anticipating it for so long and putting it off for two more days is just pretty heartbreaking. I guess, on the bright side, finding this out upon landing in South Africa after a 19 hour flight would have been worse... especially if I got deported or whatever. The guy at the Denied Boarding Desk was telling us about three people who had just been sent back from India for a similar thing. So it could have been worse, but hearing all this in the airport as I've got everything prepared for this trip was pretty crushing. Hopefully now it is all sorted out, and we will try again on Friday, I suppose. I'll keep y'all posted.

Still here.

It's been a while. Hi! Some people at home mentioned that they still check to see if I still have a blog, and apparently I do. I just haven't written for like seven months. So here I am. We (I) live in Hermosa Beach, which is outside of LA (we... yeah, I'll get to that). It's a nice little beach town with lots of fun bars and restaurants and surfers and stuff. It's pretty inconvenient for... well, basically anything in LA, but the apartment is a block from the beach and therefore totally worth it.

(Hermosa)

PS I'm watching Top Gun right now and I always forget how awesome it is. Don't laugh.

Anyway I have a job, like a real one. It doesn't even involve tourists! I'm working for LA County Sanitation Districts' Biology Group doing water quality bioassays. Got that?

(That's our lab, from the LACSD website.)

Basically it's lab work, which I actually really enjoy. I was talking with some of my co-workers about how you have to be kind of OCD to really love lab work, which I guess works out for me. Pretty much we use tiny fish and invertebrates to test waste water that's been through the treatment facilities and is being released back into rivers and the ocean. So in theory we're using clean water (although that's not always necessarily true... but if it were, there would be no reason for us to be there). It's very science-y, like microscopes and beakers and pH meters and stuff. Which I like. The people are awesome, and much cooler than I expected, considering I work in a lab.

(The biology group plus a couple of randoms)

The bad part of my job is that it's 35 miles away in beautiful Whittier, California, in the shadow of the world's largest currently operating landfill (which actually was really interesting when my boss took us on a tour). I spend a lot of time in the car, so if you ever want to chat, call between 6 and 7 AM or 330 and 430 PM pacific time and I should be available. Yeah, I also work really early, and sometimes weekends. I think it's worth it, at least for the moment.

Which leads me to future plans. Next fall I'm spending two months (specifically August and September) in South Africa doing a Great White shark research internship. I am so excited for a number of reasons, not least of which is the fact that it's just going to be so damn cool. It should hopefully help me figure out what I'm doing with the rest of my life as well. (Maybe?) Regardless, it hopefully will be important to me both personally and professionally. Check them out at www.sampla.org.

(From the SAMPLA website. This is basically what I'll be doing... I hope.)

Top Gun continues to be great, in case you were wondering. Love that volleyball scene.

What else? Oh right, the big one. Jon and I have decided to break up, for a variety of reasons which you can ask me about sometime if you want to know. Bottom line, it sucks but I think it is for the best. What that means now is I have no plans for the future any more (I had been planning on following him to where ever he got into med school). It is a scary but exciting feeling, and at this point I really have no idea what I will do. I'll be in LA at least until April, I'll be in South Africa in August and September, and I am continuing my tradition of intending to apply to grad school in the fall (for those who aren't keeping score, next year will be my fourth year in a row that I will have planned to apply to grad school). I might really do it this time, though. And that's my entire life plan! Oh, the other thing I have planned is a half marathon on February 3rd in Huntington Beach. This will be my first race ever and I'm excited. I ran 10 miles yesterday, so 13 should not be a huge problem. Feel free to come watch, I'll let y'all know how it goes. So anyway, if you're doing anything in 2008 (or early 2009) and you think "hey, Tricia might want to come do this with me," let me know!

So that's it, just thought I would bring everyone up to speed and hopefully I'll write more often now. Love you all, and you can be my wingman anytime.

Picture link

Hi all!
We're back in California, looking for an apartment and on our way to becoming real people. I posted 60 of my favorite shots from Asia on Facebook, and supposedly this link will let even non-Facebookers see the album (but if there are problems, please please let me know). Enjoy!

http://ucla.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2171830&l=aa076&id=2504404