Fish Have Feelings Too

                For the past few weeks I’ve been working on getting settled, meeting people in the department, and working on my thesis proposal.  This week was the first time I got to get into the field and do some real hands on science (which is why I’m really here).  On Monday I went on a collection trip to a few streams up north with a couple others from the lab.  I got my own set of waders (only a small hole near the crotch), jumped in with nets, and spent a few hours fishing.  Overall we probably caught about 200 fish, pretty good haul.  Sorry, no embarrassing pictures of me in waders, but here’s a good one of the cuties we caught:

                The rest of this week has been spent stressing fish out.  I swear I’m in this field for the overall benefit of animals!  Stress is a really difficult thing to study, but we tried to do a small test to see if handling has any significant impact on sodium excretion (as a stress response).  It will be important to know for the rest of my research.  Hopefully you aren’t asleep yet...here, look at this!

                I also went to the beach a week or so ago.  I meant to write a post about it then, but forgot, so here are a few pictures from New Brighton.  It was a little too cold for swimming, but it was still a beautiful day, and it’s only a $2.30 bus ride from my place, boo-ya.