I'm Back Baby-doll!

The summer begins now, in my case.  It's that time of year, my friends... DISL time!  I arrived at Dauphin Island's Sea Lab on May 25th and will be here through July 18th.  This is going to be a wonderful two months of learning and enrichment in two classes: marine vertebrates and marine ecology.  Lots of studying and research and memorization and reading and writing awaits me. But before you start feeling sorry for me, please note: I'm on a beach. I'm studying on a BEACH for TWO MONTHS.  That can't even really count as studying!  I'm just saying... I'm pretty much the luckiest college kid on the planet right now.  Well, me and the 150-ish other students studying here this summer.  We have a fabulous summer ahead of us, and I can't wait to get started!

For those of you who are reading this blog for the first time, welcome to the Daily Hailey!  Which isn't actually "Daily" at all.  I try to post about once a week.  It just depends on what happens here.  I can't write until something exciting happens, and that always manages to happen but is never planned (which only hurts my Type A personality a smidgen).  This is my second year on the island, and I'll keep up this post the same way I did last summer.  It may be helpful for you to read those, if you'd like to.  Start here (http://baileyheck.blogspot.com/2013/06/180-to-dauphin-island-sea-lab.html) and read everything May-July 2013.  But really the two May posts are most important to know what DISL is.  You'll notice that I write random things about class and research and spontaneous adventures and mischievousness and such.  I write the way I talk to people--nothing fancy or formal, but hopefully entertaining.  When in doubt, read this with an overly excited tone.  There's a 99.9999% chance that the really obnoxiously happy tone you try to read this in is exactly how I feel about whatever you're reading.  I write this primarily for those who want to keep in contact with me, but can't due to the lack of service and civilization on the island.  So that means half of the views will be Mom and Dad refreshing the page a million times to make sure I'm still alive... just being completely honest here. (Love you two!) But I love all the people that read this!  Really, I'm very excited when I get comments on my posts, and I'm always very flattered by the number of people who care about my life enough to read about it.  You guys are great!

I just got here yesterday, but I can give you a quick update and what to look forward to this week.
First, the theme song for my life right now...

That is "The Man" by Aloe Blacc.  And, yes I am, yes I am, yes I am... Apparently, I'm The Man.  I get to live in the lovely room 119, which is on the guys floor. How did I get so lucky?? Well, there are 44 ladies and 22 gentlemen in the dorms, so I got to be the "overflow" on to the guys' floor.  Not complaining though. My new roomie is super cool (s/o to Morgan!), and we've come up with a few perks...
1.  No stairs: Move-in was a piece of cake.  We walked in the building and our door was a couple yards away rather than a flight of stairs away.  My calves thank you, 1st floor!
2.  1 Restroom for 6 ladies.  As community showers go, that is fabulous.  This means we have 4 showers for 6 girls.  Odds are, I'm never going to have to wait to use the best shower.
3. Moths:  They enjoy coming into our air conditioned room and take over the place.  But that means we have a million new friends, right?!
Alright, so we're out of perks.  But it's really not bad at all!  It's just funny that we're "guys" for these two months. Go ahead and tell everybody.

My first full day here was obviously spent on the beach swimming and laying out (but not getting tan...the struggle of my life) and reading.  It's been lovely!  But this week is full of excitement waiting to happen!! Tomorrow is the first day of class, and Saturday is my 21st birthday!  Woot! Woot! One of my best friends is coming down to see me for my birthday, so I am incredibly excited! Stay tuned to hear about the fabulous week coming up- I think it'll be one of my personal favorites :)