The Trouble with Alpha Males

I'll have to preface this entry by letting you all know that my sister has never ever been characterized as "tough" or a "tomboy" in her entire life. To the contrary, the very notion makes me laugh out loud. I should also mention explicitly that the following is an email I received from my sister who is doing monkey research in Costa Rica. It was brought to my attention a few weeks ago that this was not always clear. A friend of mine thought I was in Costa Rica. I assured him I spend my days in a cubicle just like him. :(


Hey Dude.

So all is well here. Two new girls arrived. One, a Canadian who is 27 and the other a Brit who is I think my age. Both very nice. Both a little overwhelmed I think. They aren't quite as tough as me. Ha ha. But seriously, they aren't. They have only been going in the field one day, then a day off, then one day, and another day off. I went right into two days in a row, and was all bloody and messed up but never complained. These newbies are getting pampered. And they got tired yesterday and just sat in the car for a few hours. I certainly never did that!

I'm saying this with a little sarcasm....they are very nice girls and I hope they don't get too overwhelmed.

I was aggresively chased my a monkey the other day. He ' s a new alpha male who has become quite a dickhead. That does not happen often, that they act out towards us like that. He chased one of my co-workers and I away from the group twice while aggressive coughing, which they very rarely do, so he meant business. I think it may be because he is new as alpha male, and that group had not been observed on a month, so he was just a little out of sorts. He has been fine since then. And no one has ever been attacked (bitten) by a monkey in 17 years of this project. So no need to worry.

Oh! I thought this was pretty funny........ I was at a bar last night meeting some of the other gringos in town...some Canadians and Brits that work for a computer company. I overheard Isaac describing me to some girls as ''kind of a tomboy'', and I laughed and thought he was being sarcastic. He turned around, and was like, '' Oh, I dont mean it in a bad way. But you are definitely sort of a tomboy.'' He was SERIOUS. I am fairly certain that is a first for me....being called a tomboy. When I asked why he thought that, he said "I don't know you just are....and you love Pearl Jam; that's pretty tomboy. And you might be tougher than me.''

I just thought that you might find that entertaining because I did. Ha ha. I'm a tomboy. ???????????

Vacation starts on the 26th or 27th. Going to Monteverde with some peeps. Supposed to be so amazingly beautiful. We're going to take a canopy tour of the rainforest. You get strapped into a harness and go on a zip line in the canopy. Supposed to be real cool. We'll see some active volcanoes too. You can see lava and everything. There is one active one very nearby me as well, that I can see on the way into and out of the field every day. Pretty cool, right?