Pre-lize

Well, I have a sinus infection. And my study abroad trip begins in less than two weeks. I had to quit my job today and go on antibiotics, but this infection really wants to go out of the country using me as its suitcase. At least I made enough money this summer to be able to get most of the things I want to pack, plus some spending money, and emergency money. And the lack of responsibilities up until the flight means I have plenty of time to pack, as long as I can muster up the energy.

Basically, that means I am MEGA STRESSED OUT! Any type of packing makes me worried, and in this case I’m not even sure what to be packing for. And I’m sick. And I’m not going to be able to afford bringing everything I want to bring. I’m also stressed because I don’t do well in heat, or in the sun, and Belize is a tropical country. Why would a sheltered redhead with pink skin venture so much closer to the equator?? Am I an idiot, or what?

I went through a lot of pros/cons last Fall, trying to think of why I would do this. Early in the semester, my bio professor Dr. Rimkus asked some students if they’d like to join a little research club to look into some turtle stuff, and I readily agreed as I had jack to do. A poor commuter student doesn’t get to be involved in a lot of campus-related ungraded assignments. At the time, I had no thought of actually going to Belize to see the research through, I just thought of it as some fun research. (Yes, I said fun, because I like researching!)

Then, I slowly but surely got sucked into it. As an organized and thorough person, I went deeper into the research I was doing. I was assigned with researching the previous use of satellite telemetry with hawksbills in Belize and surrounding areas, which I had to go deeper into because as far as satellite telemetry in Belize, there really weren’t any published articles. I couldn’t find publications from any organizations tagging a hawksbill sea turtle in Belize, or near Belize. There was lots of information from Costa Rica, Mexico, and Hawaii, and that helped with what I needed to know for the club. But the fact that the search of “Belize” and “hawksbill” in any scholarly search engine came up with very little, shocked me into being intrigued by it all. Just because it was rare, I became interested—despite never having had an interest in turtles or satellites before.

I came to believe in the importance of what Hawksbill Hope was doing (cheesy as that sounds) and even more the importance of what I was doing. I was spending WAY too much free time learning about a sea turtle and an electronic device that had nothing to with my own life, and I wasn’t even going to go to Belize to see it all go down! I was just going to wash my hands of it all and never know what happened with all the research we had got together.

And when I realized how much I was wasting my precious semester time, I instantly decided I would try to go to Belize, even though (as a person who hates beaches and tropical weather) I wouldn’t have wanted to go there in a million years for any reason. But I worked for it; so I found a way to go and signed up. And ever since then, I’ve been thinking of reasons why it’s kinda dumb for me to go…but I’m committed, and I’m excited to tag a dang turtle. That turtle will make anything worth it! (Hopefully…)