A few dates...

I'm starting to get the scheduling worked out for the next couple of months. My tentative plans are to leave Terre Haute on April 28 to head back to Missouri for a couple of weeks before I go to Africa. As of right now, it looks like I will be flying out on May 23rd (although that can still change), so I'll have almost a month to kill. During that month in Missouri, I plan on doing a lot of fishing and turkey hunting, but I'll still have quite a bit of time and I'd like to see all of my friends and family before I go.

It looks like I'm heading to Africa!

Many of you already know this, but I've basically finished my Ph.D. (I know, finally, right?). I've spent the last year or so considering potential post-doc positions for when I leave ISU and one of the top options has always been at the University of Pretoria in South Africa. I was recently awarded a UP fellowship so the money is available and, barring any big changes in the next month or two (like getting a real job, which is a really long shot), I'm going to take it. That means I will be leaving for Africa sometime in late May and I'll be gone until December 2010.

I will be working with Prof. Andrew McKechnie. Andrew is a fairly young professor, but he's already developed quite a reputation as a top-notch researcher. We will be doing most of our research on birds, but we have ideas for projects involving a couple of crazy little African mammals as well (like elephant shrews--Google them, they're awesome!). There is a possibility that my research could take me to several countries in southern Africa, including Madagascar.

I was thinking about starting a blog to keep friends and family updated on what's going on while I'm there because I'll be 7-8 hours ahead of most of you and communication may be tough. I figured I might as well go ahead and get it started now to keep you all in the loop as I make preparations. Also, for those of you that are interested, I will be posting pictures on my Flickr site (found here).