brr

Well, today was day 3 of work. It was about 20 today but the sun was out. Yesterday was really bad - it was about 15-22 with extremely high winds. I'm still in training, but I'm starting to get the hang of things. The nice thing here is that the interns are considered staff members, so we are included in just about everything. I attended a staff meeting today, which lasted about 3 hours (I don't think that is typical). I am getting better at knowing my crane species - I still need to practice a couple of them though. The hard part will be learning all of their names and where they are located. That will mostly just take time, getting to know each one. Yesterday I observed the socialization of two black-necked cranes. I watched them for almost 2 hours, recording down behaviors to see how the two will do as a pair. Today I watched some videos of crane behavior which I thought was really helpful. I also had the honor of collecting a few fecal samples today.
The roads around here are becoming more familiar to me, and I actually know where I'm going most of the time. I have yet to get really lost (knock on wood).
I'm getting to know my roommates better also. One of them (Maureen) is an intern in the field ecology department and the other (Cynthia) is a little older and is a temporary hire in the education department. I expected I would get to know Maureen better than Cynthia since we are about the same age, but Maureen tends to keep to herself a lot. I have been talking to Cynthia a good amount when we are both home. She lives in Madison, so she will be going home on the weekends. Maureen is actually from Toledo.
I thought being away from home would be hard, but so far it hasn't really seemed different than being at college. I'm sure after a couple months I'll be wishing I were only an hour away. I guess a few days isn't long enough for the reality to sink in.