Week 1 Favorite Places

Since I grew up in a military family, I moved around a lot as a kid and as a result I experienced many different locations and cultures. Here is a list of my favorite!

Okinawa, Japan. I lived in Japan from 1999 - 2004. Because I was so young at the time, many of my early memories are of Japan and its culture. We lived in a small house maybe a ten minute walk from the beach, I have fond memories of the ocean and visiting the many temples and sacred areas scattered throughout the island. In 2004, just before we left, my family and I visited Tokyo to soak up the more face paced city culture and climbed Mt. Fuji, quite a feat for an eight year old!

Here is an image pulled from the web of Mt. Fuji! When my family and I climbed it, there was actually a typhoon coming in. At one point, the wind was so strong that I got blown off my feet.
Photo by hoge asdf on flickr

Territory of Guam. On multiple occasions whenever my parents were deployed, they would ship my brother and I off to see our "uncle" at his house in Guam. He would always take us on long camping and fishing trips to help pass the time. Mainly we ate food that incorporated avocado since he had his personal avocado tree in his backyard. They make great batting practice too.

While more touristy than Japan, I have more fond memories of Guam and the more easygoing time I had had. I think the reason I love camping so much is because many of my first experiences were so positive.
Photo by Janine on flickr

Athens, Georgia. During this summer I did an internship at UGA studying the genetic diversity and host-parasite interactions of the Dracunculus parasites. During this internship I got do a lot of field work that involved hiking and camping in remote areas of Georgia and South Carolina to trap animals to examine if they were infected with the parasite. I had the time of my life, it was very educational and applicable to what I want to be doing with my future career.

Here is an image of a marsh near Savannah, GA, a location that I did field work in. My mentor and I would get up early to watch the sunrise and go canoeing before we would run the trap line and see what we caught.

During one of our days in the field, my mentor and I were running the trap line and we found a stray dog in one of them near Waynesboro, GA. Without a home and likely to be euthanized if we took him to a shelter... I decided to take him home with me. His name is Scout and he will likely be the protagonist in many of my derivative stories.