This is going to be big. Buckle up.

So I finished my internship at the local newspaper on the 10th. Eight weeks goes by quickly, especially when you spend every Tuesday and Thursday getting paid to hike. (Sweet deal, I know.) I learned a lot about working in a real newsroom and having regular deadlines. Time management is key. So is persistence.

No one else really cares about your work -- especially if you're an intern -- and you have to push hard and sell your ideas if you actually want to get published. I had a meeting with the higher-ups at the beginning of my internship about what I'd be working on. They mentioned that a hiking blog would be cool. And that was that. No more forward progress. I was told the following week that it would take too long to set me up with a blog and that the tech guys are too busy anyway.

Well, I talked with the tech guy and he said it'd take 5 minutes. I'm still not sure if I circumvented the higher-ups or just made things happen myself, but either way I have a hiking blog . It updates every Friday and coincides with the short trail description that runs in the Lifestyle section.

Outside of the newsroom, I discovered something about myself while hiking: I don't like bugs. You'd think that a Huxley graduate would at least appreciate the largest and most diverse lump of biomass on the planet. Perhaps I despise them simply because they outnumber me. (I usually went hiking alone.) As soon as I would stop for a drink or for a glance and the scenery, a horde of flies, mosquitoes and bees would descend upon me like yuppies to an REI sale.

The flies seemed persistent on penetrating my leg hair and gnawing on my legs. I'm glad I have rather hairy legs. The mosquitoes were smarter and went straight for the forearms of the back of my neck, both considerably less hairy than the legs. The bees were close talkers. They would circle my face several times and then investigate whichever orifice looked the most interesting, which was most often my ears. The thunder of a bee approaching my ear usually got me moving. Stupid bees.

Now I'm reading up on Costa Rica, preparing my three-week vacation. I'm a little nervous; I've never gone on such an adventure. I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and tell you all about it when I get back. If you're lucky, you'll get a post card.

Perhaps the most difficult part of preparing for Costa Rica is figuring our what I'm going to do when I get back. I need a job and I need a place to put all my stuff while I'm gone. I had a job interview with the Bellingham Business Journal yesterday. I'd really like to work there even though it's not an "environmental journalism" type of job. Since it's a monthly, the staff has time to work on long feature stories, which I'm now craving after my strict diet of 300-word or less newspaper articles. I'm ready to start my career and the BBJ is a good place to begin that journey.

On a lighter note, here's a list of places I'd like to visit someday: Chile, from north to south; Alaska, from the Aleutians to Barrow; the plains of Mongolia; the Ural Mountains; Italy; from Rome to Milan; New Zealand; and South Africa to see how they produce such great musicians.

Ike -- who is breaking in a new pair of climbing shoes