Campus has begun to quiet down again, as K2 and K3 have left again to finish the remainder of their wilderness trips. Run and swim track begin again today, training for our super swims and half marathons. The twenty four of us who are still on campus have continued with our academic rotation and are now nearing the end. It was an interesting experience to have classes with just so few of us. Yet, the lack of people was made up for by even more exciting classes. Today I experienced my second to last Human Ecology rotation. Meaning that every other morning block so far has been an elongated human ecology class. Each of these stud different topics, such as Permaculture, Aquaculture, Aquaponics, and energy. I was luck enough to have Aquaponics on the day where there was a Tilapia harvest. I spent a large portion of the morning about shoulder deep in the Tilapia tank, which has about 300 fish, catching as many as I could with a net. It turned out to be one of the best mornings I have had here so far, especially after we got to fillet the fish and make some pre-lunch fish tacos.

Some of us have been going the smallest bit stir crazy, as we were not allowed to leave campus for several days because of the high winds, waves, and storms. Our biggest excitement was going to high rock that week, one place we were allowed to go with a faculty member. Driving up everything seemed average, but after walking out from behind a turn onto to rocky coast everything was wild. [slideshow]Huge waves surged out in the sound, some of them surging into the rocks of high rock and creating a fifteen foot high wave of water that splashed everywhere. That combined with the powerful wind made for an incredible experience. Finally yesterday, I was allowed to sign out to go and play soccer with a few faculty and other students. Trying to ignore the few sunken boats in the marina and the heavy winds, we played till dinner.

Many of our other classes differ slightly from what we were doing during our normal academic weeks. Literature has switched from the confusing Omeros to Jamaica Kincaid’s, A Small Place. This short books shows an interesting perspective on life in Antigua as a native and made for some great class discussions. Our research classes are all looking forward to the day long research class we have coming up. I will be going out with the Sea Turtles program to help catch turtles, something that I have not done in my own research.

We all eagerly await the return of K3 and K4 back to campus and are all excited to start the upcoming weeks as a group.