The week after we came back from our Spring Break were crazy. We had so much to get done and almost no time to do it in. I had the bad fortune of getting sick the moment we got back to Monteverde. I had a fever Friday night and a bad sinus headache and sore throat for the next three days. The headache kinda went away except in the mornings but the sore throat stuck around for two weeks. It was not fun. In the slightest. In the time I was sick, I was supposed to be collecting data for my final project for my Tropical Ecology class. I did get all of my data collection sessions in, but it was a close thing. My saving grace was the fact that I didn't need to turn in my paper until several days after my final presentation on my project. The presentation got done, not early or anything but it was finished and, I believe, went well. I am pretty good at public presenting so generally I'm OK. We went out to get vegan ice cream afterwards, as we have three vegans in our group, and I got pistachio. It was a nice treat and we got to spend some out of class time with our professor, who is such a cool lady. Honestly, otherwise I just got a few grades back, not great ones but I'm not failing anything. We also went on a field trip to visit local businesses and see how they work with the sustainable model. It was interesting. I am always impressed by how hard the people of Monteverde work to keep their town healthy and pristine, even with a quarter of a million tourists visiting every year. Oh! We also spent one morning when the Institute internet was scheduled to be down in a local bakery, Jimenez, and had tea and pastries for breakfast. It was very appreciated. Honestly, being sick and swamped with work occupied so much of my time that this was my whole week. The only other thing was that when I was at the Institute Sunday night, I ran into the director. We chatted and she mentioned that starting the next morning, the Institute would be mist-netting birds up in the reserve for a week. It was something I had been looking forward to and so I asked her at what time it started; 5:30 AM was my answer. But that is a story for next time.
OK, so some other stuff did happen. I generally hole up at the edge of a balcony in front of the Institute and to the side of it is a Cecropia tree. Currently nesting in said tree are White Masked Tityras. They are a beautiful bird that sound like squeaky toys. It's great and I love to see them. They are sexually di-morphic and the male is the white one, the female is more brown. Also, one day my host families dog followed me to school. It's a twenty five minute walk and he just stayed with me. He was at the Institute with me all day too and then we walked home together.
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