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About Justine |
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Justine is in her third year at Colorado College,
studying biology. This means she gets to do a lot of fun
field work: below left in March, collecting river health
data in Colorado for her ecology class, and below right
with her final research poster based on her research on
baobab trees in Africa. |
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She loves biology best, but over the summer she was hired to teach chemistry to eighth graders in a program called Summerbridge in San Francisco. It was a lot of work (she had to create the curriculum from scratch and manage lots of extra curricular events for & with the kids), and required long commutes from Byrd Lane by bike and train, but she really enjoyed teaching. But the most exciting part of Justine's year was being in Tanzania for 4 months! She got to know the city of Dar es Salaam ("Dar") really well, including learning enough Swahili to get around and negotiate with the locals for just about everything. It's a very crowded city with poor infrastructure (water and electricity went out regularly), but she made it through with help from some great new friends and she now views that time as a great experience. More enjoyable than her time in Dar was the six weeks she spent out in the Tanzanian National Parks. She studied baobab trees (below left, she's climbing one), saw an amazing number of wild animals, milked a goat, slept in a tent for six weeks, got to know how the Masai live, and had some fun with the 14 other students in the program (below right... is that a tree?). See more of her Africa pictures here. |
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Over the past few years she's taken to extreme exercise. She's very fit, doing lots of running, biking, hiking, climbing, backpacking and generally enjoying the outdoors with gusto. Often with her boyfriend Flo, who is a kindred spirit. The two of them seem to end up out of cell phone coverage quite often. Exhibit A, at right: here she is at the beginning of her first marathon-length run, a 28 mile trail called Skyline to the Sea. She did it solo, enjoyed it a lot, and plans to do it again. She also completed several long bike rides including an 85 mile solo ride in Colorado. |
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Two other favorite
activities: reading and baking. We all benefit from her wonderful baking, even Shuma, shown here waiting patiently (?) for the apple cores from a forthcoming apple pie. |
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of time with her four-legged friends. Here she is with Loyd's dog Sealy, in a field of Texas Bluebonnets in Lampasas in April. She runs lots with Flo's dog Zeppelin ("Zep"), makes sure to rub Shuma's belly as much as possible, and like the rest of us, misses Sirius Black quite a lot. |
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...friends (inner-tubing in Washington with best bud Jacqueline)...  |
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