It doesn’t matter where you are on the globe when you’re within twenty four hours of taking an exam, unless you’re in Jamaica. While there was a general level of stress residing within my colleagues and I, we all still had a sense of morale and drive to get some last minute cramming in before our identification and course examination on Tuesday. Lucky enough for me I was able to snap some quick photos of a pelican that landed at the end of the lab’s jetty while I was wracking my brain with Latin names of tropical fish. Originally I felt a bit overwhelmed and intimidated since this is my first marine science course, but I really feel like I’ve got a pretty firm grasp on the material. All of the help I’ve gotten from my new Stony Brook friends [Ed: Ian's joining us from one of the other SUNY campuses, Binghamton University] has made it much easier to adjust to course work outside of my regular academic interests (micro-biology).

Once the test was over we were all finally able to relax again, as highly caffeinated as most of us were, residual from our evening and morning study sessions. To say we all had merely a sigh of relief would be a severe understatement. In light of this we were finally able to have a one hundred percent completely stress free day, and only worry about planning out our proposals for our research projects while we scaled the rapids of a waterfall and explored the city of Ocho Rios. Getting to briefly experience the life in a Jamaican city first hand was without a doubt one of the most interesting and eye opening experiences of the trip for me so far. The locals were all really nice and a store keeper that I spoke with seemed to be sincerely interested in my research ambitions. With a great locally cooked meal, live band, and the hustle and bustle of the streets of Ocho Rios lumped on top of a day of climbing waterfalls I was reminded why I started pestering professors Warren and Peterson back in August about applying for this program. In terms of the research project I don’t have a concrete idea of what I’d like to do as of yet, but I’m pretty sure I want it to involve Diadema antillarum.

– Ian

A pelican resting on the jetty near the docks of Discovery Bay Marine Lab.

One of the main streets of Ocho Rios, Jamaica.