Hey world!

My family lives in Bartlesville, Oklahoma (north of Tulsa), but I spend most of the year at St. Olaf College where I study Biology with a focus on ecology and environmental studies. Any pursuit that allows me to enjoy the outdoors and nature, and I'm on it!

On campus I am involved in student government and attempt to participate in the environmental coalition, when I find time. I play on the badminton club team, and have attempted to persuade people that badminton is actually a legitimate sport, when played at a high level. Games can get really intense, seriously! It's not like your Sunday afternoon lawn games. I dabbled in research with data gathered from a class excursion to the American deserts last spring and hope to get seriously involved in independent research at Olaf next spring.

I chose to do this program because the idea of camping in the field while devoting all my time to a research project really appealed to me. I can get a taste of what real ecologists do! I also am very interested in learning foreign languages and experiencing a foreign culture - with this program I get to learn and use Swahili in Tanzania. I have been spending my summer as a counselor teaching Norwegian language at Skogfjorden, where children learn the language through immersion. It's a lot of fun, and also pretty intense because you are expected to completely immerse yourself in the foreign language and culture - that means no english and no fast food! (but we still have pizza, because Norway actually has the highest per capita consumption of pizza in the world) I hope to learn a lot about doing research in the field as well as being able to study an ecosystem completely different from anything I have seen in the U.S.

At the moment, I am most excited about the sights - seeing urban Dar, the university, and also what Tanzania looks like outside the city. I am excited to be surrounded by completely different animals, plants, sounds, smells, and people. I can't wait to learn Swahili and use my new skills to talk with locals.