Today on this cold February day where classes were actually cancelled, I finally received an e-mail offering me a position as a Summer RA on Gibraltar Island at Stone Labs!! I’m sooo excited! Not to be too conceited or anything I did expect to get the position because I wanted it that badly and I would have been severely hurt if I had not received it! Here is the e-mail I received from Shanny O’Rourke.

Hi Derron,

At this time I would like to offer you a Summer RA position at the Stone Lab. The interview process was a challenge with so many awesome candidates. We are looking forward to an energetic season. Your first Island experience will be April 20th–April 22nd for a paid “work weekend”. We will transport you to the Island from Columbus on Friday afternoon and return you to Columbus early Sunday evening so mark your calendar!

Please respond through e-mail or you may call the office to let me know if you accept or decline the position. Thank you for your patients and I look forward to hearing from you. Thanks–Shanny

Shanny O’Rourke
OSU Stone Lab

HOW AWESOME IS THAT?!!!!! This is going to be totally cool! We were suppose to receive the e-mail at the end of last week but it took them a little longer than expected and I was soo anxious and ready to find out that I could barely contain myself! It is going to be a great summer I can tell!

This post is stored in the category of Made in USA, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Gibraltar, RA, Shanny, Stone Lab

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So I had my interview this morning at 8:20 over in Jones Graduate Tower. I dressed to impress wearing khakis, white shirt with a green tie and a matching green blazer. I first interviewed with Shanny who will be my boss on the island if I do get hired and she asked me general questions about the job and the interview went great. I obviously want this job really badly and I tried my best to impress them with the real me and hopefully the real me sold! After chatting a bit with Shanny I went next door and talked with Patrick and Kelly who also work for OSU on the island. Kelly actually works on South Bass Island in Put-in-Bay at the field station office. They basically wanted to get to know me better to help them make a decision on who they wanted to hire.

I don’t want to be over confident but I think I got the job which will be amazing. I can’t wait to live on an island during the summer!

This post is stored in the category of Made in USA, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Gibraltar, Jones Graduate Tower, OSU, Put-in-Bay, South Bass, Stone Lab

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Last year I received an e-mail that there were positions open for the OSU Campus’ Stone Laboratory on Gibraltar Island in the Put-in-Bay Harbor on Lake Erie. Since I already had a job for the summer I didn’t think twice about applying. I deleted the e-mail and that was the end of that. I thought about the job at the beginning of this year and looked into it by going to the the Ohio Sea Grant’s website on Stone Lab. The website is http://ohioseagrant.osu.edu/stonelab/. The website didn’t really have any information about jobs as a summer assistant except for those positions as research assistants. Somehow I got into touch with Ron Kochendoerfer who is an Associate Director of University Housing and he gave me lasts year information which obviously made me more interested in the job. I made up a cover letter and a résumé for the job and have had it ready since September when I first sent Ron an e-mail. Over that time I have researched about Gibraltar and the Stone Lab Campus on the island.

The actual name is The Franz Theodore Stone Laboratory. It is located on Gibraltar Island which is in the Harbor of Put-in-Bay on South Bass Island. It was created in 1895 and is the nation’s oldest freshwater biological field station. It was recently featured on the Discovery Show “Dirty Jobs”. A reasercher, Kristin Stanford, who works with Lake Erie water snakes was the theme of the show which highlighted Gibraltar Island. You can read more about Kristin and time on “Dirty Jobs” here.

To read more about Stone Lab and its history click here.

The official e-mail to apply for the job came out about two weeks ago where I promptly sent my resume and cover letter to both Ron and Shanny. I talked to Eric Emch who had done it last year at the Building Renewal Fair and it made me want to do the job all the more. I’m not afraid of hard work or labor I mean come on, what did I do at Kenworth my first summer? I also met Jessica Boor who will be returning to the Island and she seems so cool and I really hope that I will get to work with her. I’m sure it will be difficult at times to be on a new staff but she will handle it because that’s what us RAs do!

Tonight was the first information session for the job and I basically heard everything that Eric had told me. I can’t wait for the interview that I scheduled on Friday, February 2, 2007 (which is two days but I wanted the date to clarify to my readers.

I decided to start this blog now in case I get the job. It will be a great way to keep up with my experience on the Island if I actually do get the job. I can set goals to writing each day and to sharing my experience for whoever else gets the opportunity to do the job! I will let you know how it goes when I find out if I get the job next week! For now I will leave you with a beautiful picture of Gibraltar!

This post is stored in the category of Contains Photo(s), Made in USA, Personal Post and was written by Derron Borders

Tags: Gibraltar, Kristin Stanford, OSU, Put-in-Bay, Stone Lab

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