But enough with excuses, on with adventures!
So what's happened to me since late June? Well, a lot of stuff. In July, this 25-foot steel and fiberglass salmon visited SPAWN on it's journey around the West, garnering support for removal of the four lower dams on the Snake River, one of Save Our Wild Salmon's campaigns. This is a video stolen from the blog of the trip, condensing the trip into about a minute. I'm actually in the movie - the shot of the "It Takes a Valley to Raise a Salmon" is from our float at the 4th of July parade in Woodacre, and I'm the one in the big sunglasses escaping the camera (and handing candy to kids) right before the video moves on.
The thing was hollow and the interior was painted with the life cycle and some other cool stuff, but honestly I didn't explore the interior because a) it was really hot on the 4th and I didn't want to be in an oven very long; b) on the 3rd I was wearing a skirt and wasn't about to climb up; and c) I don't like those kinds of confined spaces.
Fin is the salmon's name
Paola, Heidi, me.
Heidi inside
The hottest day I've felt here thus far - in the 90's(yet still not as muggy as the Midwest)
It was exciting to connect with salmon folks working on a larger scale issue - SPAWN is focused on a small watershed in West Marin, really, the San Geronimo Sub-Watershed of the Lagunitas Watershed. While our salmon population is crucial and the creeks hold the largest wild run of wild coho, the amount of people directly benefiting financially from them is small. The fish in the Snake are, yes, still endangered and thus not fished, but by removing the dams and restoring the fishery, jobs will be created - both in restoration and monitoring, but also in commercial and recreational fishing. I've never worked on an environmental project that made sense even when you ignore environmental impacts.
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Heidi and I held our Independent Service Project in July as well; pictures will be on Flickr, eventually. I promise I'll post those soon and then post here to let you know. Though, honestly, I doubt the pictures are exciting. We recruited volunteers to removed invasive Himalayan blackberry and English Ivy at a property on National Park Services Land, along Lagunitas Creek - a property where SPAWN's office will be moving to at the end of this month.
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Immediately after the Independent Service Project, Heidi and I trekked up north again for AmeriCorps WSP summer training. We all camped for a week near the mouth of the Klamath River, where Dick Cheney may have been responsible for a major salmon kill a few years ago. As much as these trainings wear on my quickly (by Wednesday I can usually be heard whispering to Heidi or Kristin (AmeriCorps WSP at IFR, see below) "it's Wednesday! Almost done!"), this one had some fairly kick ass moments (there is no way to more eloquently say that).
The Klamath meets the Pacific.There were elk, bald eagles, osprey, comorants, AND GREY WHALES. I have never before seen a whale and it was awesome. I also saw an osprey catch a fish, but a) it paled in comparison to WHALES ROLLING IN THE OCEAN; and b) I told my dad and he's like "oh yeah, don't you remember seeing that when you were kids on such-and-such trip?" (I remember seeing ospreys nesting but no fish).
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So my future. I guess that's the next topic I need to discuss, since putting it off in order to write about how I'm starting to like cats (even ones that you cat-sit and that wake you up at 6 am by sitting on you) is kind of lame.
My WSP internship ends at the end of the mouth. Technically, it ends after I complete about 30 more hours, but that's 3+ days of work and there are 3 more weeks left till the end of the month. I'm planning on taking it easy, yet still working until the end.
I'm also definitely applying for another term in AmeriCorps WSP, even though it won't begin until January. My mind is still the same and I'm applying for a position at the Institute for Fisheries Resources (IFR), whose office is in the Presidio. I'm not really worried about the application (though, honestly, at this moment in time my essay question answers -- and I use the term essay loosely -- are not really up to par) or the interview. For a while I was worried about this four month period in between where I would be unemployed, but I think I've got a handle on things now. I'm working part time as a caterer on the weekends and I've been applying for other part time jobs. Since I can take lots of time off, I plan on using it to apply to restaurants and retail places in person. If I work at IFR and life in San Francisco, my rent will be significantly higher than what it is now, so I'll need a second job anyway. What's better than finding that and settling prior to starting stressful, awesome work? I don't know.
As for living situation, I'm attempting to move out of Mitch & Julie's house as soon as possible. The past 11 months here have been awesome; I really cannot say enough good things about living with them, their family, the pets, their house, the location, and on and on. However, I'm still not *really* supporting myself here. I'm also in an area with very few 20-somethings and it's getting kind of tiring. I'm ready to move on.
As I'm writing this, I got my first twang of "wait... I don't really want to leave Mitch & Julie's because I'll miss them!" For a while I knew I'd miss Lily (kitten who stalks me in the mornings and evenings and is currently curled up in the chair next to me), and maybe the sentimentalism has taken hold because I haven't been living in the house much the past 3 weeks (Klamath + cat-sitting) and thus haven't been living with 5 kids (since they are all away this week the house is quiet and empty - talk about an advantage of second marriages with ex-spouses still maintaining joint custody) (not to say I don't love the kids too - but 5 for a full week when there is no school for them is a lot).
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Today I spent the day in the San Joaquin and Central Valleys of CA touring Tuolumne River restoration sites as part of Kristin's independent service project with IFR, thus spending a large portion of the day with my potential future bosses. Like I said, I'm not too worried, though I never ever count on things like that (you never know who else might apply) and I would never not take something seriously because of it. Hilariously, Zeke (exec director) and Pietro (president) both have worked with Jean Flemma (Prairie Rivers Network!). It is truly a small world.
So that's what's been going on. As of now, I've been awake for over 20 hours today and I think it's time to go to bed. Maybe I will roll into work a little late tomorrow... hopefully literally as I want to pump some air into my borrowed bike (!also news though only exciting to me!) and take it instead of the car.
