Weather: Sunny in the afternoon about 60-65 degrees. Rainy and a bit chilly at night.

Today was my first day of Module 1 (aka my first real course). I'm starting off my studies with Wildlife Conservation Biology taught by Dr. Rebecca Zug. We typically have class 9-12, and it flew by today. This class was so interesting and it more interesting than any course I have taken at UMaine. I'm thrilled I have the opportunity to take a course like this in Ecuador because it will allow me to learn so much more about biodiversity. We take several field trips during this course including one this week Thursday - Friday to a cloud forest, and then all of next week I will be in the Amazon!

Today was also the start of classes for everyone else at USFQ so there was us (the international students) in the midst of a sea of Ecuadorian students. I hope I get to interact with some of them before leaving instead of just staying around my fellow study abroad students. It's harder than it seems to branch out though because we have no classes with Ecuadorian students..plus there's a bit of a language barrier. One thing that surprised me was how many students smoke cigarettes, it truly disgusted me.

To end the day we had a mandatory drug and sexual harassment orientation. They told us that in San Cristobal they hired 30 more police officers for that island alone to combat any drug activity taking place. Having weed on your person here is equivalent to having cocaine and if you have it on you it doesn't matter if the drug was for your use, you will be considered a drug dealer. The talk was to mainly scare us, but it was my first look into the fact that the Galapagos are not as pristine as everyone thinks they are. The picture that comes to mind is uninhabited, untouched land. However, just like the rest of the world the islands are having major drug issues with the people that are going/living there.

To round out the day I had a phone call with a recruiter for an internship I applied for. He will be referring to me to the hiring manager for an interview some point soon, so that was really great news. I don't know if I want this internship or not since it would be with Ahold, meaning another office internship. He said that I would be working on a project start to finish and it's a really fun internship. I would be the Environmental, Health, and Safety Intern for Ahold in Quincy. I am definitely keeping my options open and it would be a great opportunity. Another door opened for me as well today, I was in contact with one of my professors I will have for Political Ecology and she put me in contact with a woman who is in San Cristobal. Long story short, I will be doing research with this woman Daniela and her partner Juan Pablo when I arrive in the islands. I believe the research will be focused around different types of plastics that have been washing up on two different beaches on San Cristobal.

Overall it was a great and productive day!