Well, it's hard to believe it's been more than a month that we've been here in Mo'orea. I think all the work has made things move real quickly by. It may not be as exciting as sharks and dolphins, but teaching is why I'm here, and there are a lot of exciting things about it that I'm really enjoying.
Us three GSIs each work about 2 days a week (well, now that we are in more of a routine that is). You get up and take people to the grocery store, if that's on the schedule, and then at 8 am, everyone gets driven out into the field. After coming back to the station, it's a couple of hours of office hours, which involves trouble shooting everything from identifying rays by the scars on their backs, to setting up aquariums so that hermit crabs don't escape. Etc. This part of the job is the most interesting, challenging and rewarding. All our little wee larval scientists are getting very into their projects, and it's great seeing how much progress they make each day.
After the many hours of advising (my stats brain is getting a bit of a workout already, and I'm not so excited about the end of the course!) I whip back out to pick up everyone in the mid afternoon. Usually they are smelling of bug spray or dripping with sea water and have some good stories about how many plants they collected or how many spiders they measured.
Back at the station, if it's Thursday or Friday there is a Tahitian language or dance lesson, but mostly we just cook and eat and talk.
Lather, rinse, repeat!
I have been trying to fill my days off with exciting things like scuba diving, and hopefully soon some good hiking, but more often than not I find myself doing dissertation work. All this typing makes me jealous of the students who get to spend their days collecting data instead of just interpreting it and writing about it! I guess they'll get to this point eventually too. But ah, the days of being a larval scientist when you could shut off your brain for a little bit and play Catan until all hours of the night.
No comments:
Post a Comment