An Upbeat Christmas

Today was Christmas, and the family grouped together last night for our annual Christmas Eve party, here are the highlights:

We spent most of yesterday at my grandmother's house cooking, getting her ready, and visting with my mother's aunt and cousin. There were no big problems this year, and we all got out the door on time.

My uncles Dave and Johnny went in one car, and were supposed to follow us in my mom's car. Somewhere on route 2 we started questioning whether or not they were behind us. We got off the highway to get some coffee, and they were nowhere to be found. Neither of my uncles had their cell phone, which was highly unusual.

Dave and John, running out of gas, got to a McDonalds and finally called us. The two trouble makers were having a grand old time. Once everone was back on track, my mom went out to meet them and retrieve them. So dinner started late, but here were plenty of snacks to hold everyone over.
Dinner was great, as usual.

Present opening happened promptly this year. My poor grandmother's bad memory meant she couldn't remember that she had gifts for all the grandchildren. This meant that every 5 minutes or so we were weepily informed that she had nothing to give anyone. It's heartbreaking that 1) she can't recall anything 2) she can't figure out that we'll make sure she's got everything she needs and 3) she doesn't realize that all we really care about is her being there.

Lauren and I exchanged gifts with each other this year. I got cookie cutters and a new rolling pin. I gave her the card game "Fluxx", the version that has a zombie theme. Very holiday appropriate, I must say.

For the first time ever, Lauren and I interacted with our other cousins Sydney and Hannah. Buying that game was the best thing ever, the four of us played for the rest of the evening. Lauren's parents were in a rush to get home, so I told them I'd get her back so they didn't make her leave. I didn't want to cut down on the already short time we had together. This was the best part of the evening, for me anyway. It really meant a lot to have all the girls doing something together.

Matt wasn't there, which I think really dissappointed Aunt Kim. Neither of my aunts have met him yet. I don't know when we'll finally have the family meet him, officially; but, first we need to sort out the technical details of the holidays a little better. Matt has already said that next year, we're traveling together. I concur. An impending snowstorm for Monday is going to spoil my travel plans, and it looks like I won't get to PA or see Matt and his family until Tuesday.

This morning mom and I exchanged gifts: I got a really cool sweater and a jewlery organizer that was shaped like a tree. The sweater is really great, it's warm and looks awesome. I need to cull my sweater collection when I get back to school, I have too many old and out of date sweaters. I'll probably donate them, there isn't anything structurally wrong with them, and I'm sure there are people that could use them. I keep seeing nice sweaters that I would like but that I refuse to buy. I have nowhere to put them because the old ones are taking up too much space.

Mom and I were so busy yesterday that we didn't quite get everything we intended for dinner this evening, and absolutely no grocery stores were open today. No big deal, we improvised with what we had around the house and what we could locate at convenience stores. We ended up having roast pork tenderloin with squash and scalloped potatoes. For dessert, an apple tart. Everything ended up coming together well, despite the initial setback.

Dave, my cousin JP, and my grandmother all came over for dinner. The five of us had a really nice evening. I don't spend that kind of time with JP, ever. He's usually working or out doing something, and I only ever catch him briefly at my grandmother's house.

This year I not only got to spend time with the family I'm already close with, but I got a little extra with those I haven't interacted with in a while. I hope that we can repeat this next year.

Why I Keep This Up (Christmas)

The truth of the matter is, I don't know my family all that well. I mean I really don't know a good majority of them. Sure, I know their names, their rough ages, where they live, and a few other broad details. However, I know the same things about other people I casually interact with. In total, I probably spend more time with one random person at the bus stop every year than half of the people I am blood related to in some form or another.

I'm going to venture a guess that my situation is the same for many people, especially those who have moved further than 100 miles away from the place they grew up. I can only assume that part of this is because for seven years I lived over 300 miles away from home. Now, I'm a three day drive - 1700 miles. However, I felt this rift start long before I was even out of high school.

Blood relation doesn't guarantee a relationship. There is a degree of effort that is essential to building bonds. It's the reason that some friendship that lasted throughout 12 years of grade school can dissolve quickly after only a year away at college. Some family members have invested this effort, and I've reciprocated, and those relationships are strong.

I'm a picky person with friends, the people with whom I choose to associate with more than necessary. I can get along with almost anyone, but there are a select few that make the cut. Some happen to be family members, others I've collected from various places along the way. I like to think that I like people as a whole, this is exemplified by my annoyance with people who loath humanity.

I find it rather disturbing how little I know about some of the people I have a family relationship to. Shouldn't I know more than name, age, occupation? Shit, I'm not even sure I know occupation for all of them. I don't really know. I just know how things are.

So why do I, year after year, get together for Holidays with people I hardly know, that I hardly have anything in common with? I'm not even entirely sure that all of my relations give me a second thought, so why do I persist in this ritual? I've thought about this at length (especially after daydreaming about not coming home for Christmas and going on a cruise because Christmas in Connecticut it cold, and cold sucks). The conclusion I have reached is that, unlike the friends I have, many of my family members have been around for all or most of my existence. They can remember things from when I was too small to recall anything. They know about people that I never met, who in some way influenced my existence (deceased grandparents, for example). They hold all this information; and, if I lose them, I innevitably lose a part of myself. Maybe that's why every time I go away it's painful for me with the special ones, the ones that know me best, the ones I actually know something about.

I will say this: I spent my first Thanksgiving without a blood relative this year. I didn't have much of a shared history with anyone there; so, as much as I love them, and as nice as it was, it wasn't the same.

So, despite the fact that I don't know much about some family members, I'm going to keep up the ritual of getting together a couple times a year for as long as I can. I like rituals, they are predictable and they make me feel safe. Besides - despite the fact that I can't logically explain the warmth I feel towards these people, it is nice so who really cares? And it could be worse. Much. Much. Worse. I've heard about worse, and I'll take my chances with my own family, thanks.

So, bring on the perogies, and I'm sorry if the eggnog sucks this year.

Northeast For The Holidays

I've been slacking, as in slacking off on seeing people since I've been home. It's not that I don't want to see people, I do; this time of year, being home alone while mom is at work, and the chaos puts me in a droopy mood.

I am glad to be home though. It's so important to me that I'm getting to see my mom, Grandma, and Uncle Dave. I'll see the Georgiades clan on Friday evening, as per usual holiday plans. We pack the car up, and head on out to my Uncle Rob's house for a tall tree, fireplace, and more food than any human being should eat in one evening. I'm making egg nog again, as usual. I wonder if Mom has reminded Dave that he is invited? This year I think I'll make some cookies while I'm home: some to bring to Christmas Eve, some to give away to friends.

I have been successful in seeing Jenn. We had breakfast together my first morning back. We went to the Glastonbury Coffee Shop, one of the best places to get breakfast. It's kind of small, which means it can be kind of drafty in the winter, but it has a charm that is quinticential to this area. And it's been around forever, I've been going since I was an infant. My family used to go every weekend.

Jenn and I met up again this evening to puts around the mall area. We hit Target and Red Robin, and then went to the dreaded mall. I promised myself I wouldn't go to the mall until Christmas was done, but we met up with Katie and she needed to return something. I didn't have any shopping to do, so I figured wandering around and looking at sparkly objects wouldn't be too bad. It was a nice evening; homefully I can see Jenn again next week before I head out to Virginia.

I haven't seen Lura yet, but we've made Facebook contact. It's just a matter of time, and not having work or something else in the way, until we hang out. Maybe this weekend? If not, it'll have to wait until I return from PA with Matt on Tuesday.

Being back home where there is TV is SO dangerous. I've been wasting my life watching stupid things, and it's really rather pathetic. My mom and all my friends aren't available till the evening, so I've just been kind of vegging out. I did go out yesterday to try to complete my Christmas shopping. I'm about 98% done. I found a really cool shop, but I can't talk about it yet, or people will know what I got them for gifts. But it was so neat!

There was coffee and cookies with Uncle Dave on Sunday, and lunch with Mom today. So, I guess after the final analysis, my break so far has been fairly productive, after all.

I should be getting my publication together. Hmm, yes.

Cookies!

So despite the bah humbug feelings I was having earlier this month, this past week I've been attempting to get into a better mood. How, you may ask?

Cookies!

And I made a WHOLE bunch of them, too. This past Tuesday I had some of my favorite UNM girlies over (with their boys, whatever, ha!) and we had a cookie swap. A cookie swap is where you bring cookies, and you must leave with some that others brought. I figured out a way to make vegan gingerbread cookies, which was good because Meghan was back! She and Jason are looking for a place to live next semester. Actually, seeing her and seeing that she was okay really picked up my spirits. I was so excited when she showed up.

I also made some pretty delicious butter cookies. I put an orange glaze on them, and then sprinkled them with dried cranberry bits.

Matt and I also checked out Old Town while shops were still open. We stayed until it was starting to get dark. A lot of shops had lights on, and it was really pretty. Unfortunately, there were no luminarias out, which I still need to get pictures of for myself and for the blog, of course. As we were getting ready to leave I spotted this very huge, but oddly shaped Christmas tree.

Upon closer inspection, we realized this was actually a bunch of trees lashed together to make one monster super tree. Sort of like one of those Japanese super fighting robots, except a tree. So, yes, the top of this "tree" is a tree, and all the "branches" are trees too. Very bizarre, but still cool.

Tomorrow is my last day in ABQ before I head home for a long and much needed break. I have much of my shopping done, but there are a few things I still need to pick up. The only thing keeping me from going home at this point is A) proctoring a test, B) laundry, and C) packing.

Angry People

During my time on campus yesterday I saw some kind of demonstration going on, and it turns out that a bunch of angry "Christians" with signs and lists of people who were going to burn in hell were drawing an equally agitated crowd. I didn't get close enough to see if I made the list, though as a scientist I think I'm included by default. I had no interest in these people, I didn't want to give the impression that I was involved in any way. There was a girl holding a "Free Hugs" sign several meters away. I made a bee-line for her, gave her a hug, and we both agreed that this whole things just makes us angry. And then I started heading for home.

Much to my dismay, they were asked to leave while I was walking to the bus and I found myself in the midst of about 6 wackos carrying signs and dressed in stupid anti-gay clothing, asking guys around them angrily if they were homosexuals. Thankfully they went in the opposite direction I was going when I crossed the street for the bus.

Never mind that the Bible doesn't technically advocate this kind of behavior. The last time I checked, Shmucky McShmuck with a sign doesn't decide anything for any deity.

Without giving these people too much of the attention they are so desperate to acquire, I just want to say a few things. I often hear people say that these people "make Christians look bad". It's true, they repel people from religion and give the absolute wrong impression. The point for these people isn't to draw anyone to Christianity, all they want is to be "persecuted" while making their testament to Jesus. That is the ONLY goal: it isn't about getting people to change their ways, it isn't about bringing people around to their way of thinking. They will say anything, no matter how backward, to get people angry at them, so the fact that they were removed from my campus just strengthens their cause. I know it doesn't make much sense to normal people; but that's because we're - well - normal.

If you want these kinds of people to go away, all you need to do is ignore them. Which of course goes against all normal human nature, and it sort of sounds like the lame advice parents give children who are dealing with a bully on the playground. Christians are told they will be persecuted and ridiculed in the name of God, which is very true and I've experienced it myself as a scientist of faith. However, THESE kinds of people have perverted and distorted this aspect of the religion. The absolute worst thing you can do is give them the time of day when they are behaving like this.

3rd to Last TA Duty: Done

Yesterday the lab coordinator and I got all of the grades for my classes settled. I have nothing left to grade until January, and it feels great. All I have to do now is attend the wrap-up meeting on Monday to talk about successes and problems with the course, and proctor an exam on Friday of next week. That leaves the whole week more-or-less open for me to do things for myself.

Yesterday started off kind of lame, however. Matt was up at 6am to go birding, and by the time I got up to get ready for the day he was already long gone. I got up as usual and took my usual shower. As I was drying off my foot, however, I felt myself tipping in slow motion. One minute I was standing up, the next I was splayed out in my bath tub, all alone, naked, and worried I had seriously hurt myself. I felt like such an old woman, falling in the bathtub like that. Thankfully nothing was broken, but I twisted my elbow enough for it to smart all day. This morning when I woke up my who body hurt from being tossed around like that. Falling is nothing that an adult human body was designed to deal with.

Aside from my trip down old person lane, yesterday was a decent day. I took not one but two lunch breaks. I spent some time with Clare, who I haven't seen much of lately because we've been busy. The poor girl is wearing herself out, it's a good thing we have a break coming up. I also went to Annapurna's Ayurvedic Cafe and Chai Shoppe. I had some chai while other friends had their lunches. It was some of the best chai I've had, and I'm eager to go back and have some food. It's all vegetarian or vegan.

I also worked toward getting my class schedule for next semester finalized. This involved physically going over to the registrar, for stupid reasons I won't get into here. But, with signed forms in hand, I will now be taking the following in the spring: a GIS course through the Civil Engineering Department, paleoecology, Bio BLOG, Seminar in Interdisciplinary Biological and Biomedical Science, and Graduate Evolution Core. It's a pretty full schedule, and I wasn't able to fit everything I wanted in. I wanted to take a research computing course over in Anthropology, but it conflicts with something I need to take. I'm going to ask the instructor if I can sit in on the part of class that I can make it to.

Coming, Ever So Slowly, to a Close

It's been a while since I posted last, and there's a lot that's happened.

Let me start out by saying, I hate this time of the year. I love going home, and I love that I am going to be done soon with the first semester of my PhD. However, this is the worst time of the year for me emotionally, and the past week has been awful.

I'm no Scrooge, but I don't like Christmas. It arrives in October, I'm sick of it by November, it reminds me of my father's death, and I find that I become more and more bitter about how selfish and materialistic people are. It all comes to a head on Dec. 25th, and no one seems to recall why we even have this holiday in the first place. Here's a hint: the reason isn't to give snotty entitled brats (young and old alike!) gifts that they don't appreciate. Christmas is very much like Valentine's day, and I find it absurd that people need an official reason to be nice to each other. You can do that any old time of the year, and it would probably be a more sincere gesture.

I'm going to make an effort to get my mood in a better place before I go home. I'm just happy to be going home. That's all I really care about this year: seeing people.

The whole death thing reared it's ugly head again last week. I was shocked and saddened to find out that the father of my friend / lab mate / cohort member passed away suddenly last week. The whole thing sent me into an emotional trip down memory lane complete with sadness and guilt that plagues me during this time of the year. And what's worse is I want desperately to do something to help her, but I can't. Not yet anyway. She isn't coming back until the spring.

In other news...

Mom is in the hospital, again. She ate nuts, so now she's undergoing treatment and procedures for ileitus. She's been in there for several days now. I feel awful. I wish I could be there. Although, she doesn't like company when she isn't feeling well, and this is the worst bout yet. She'd just send me home. We've been talking on the phone pretty regularly, though. At least there is that. I hope that she'll lay off the nuts and take it easy for the rest of the year. This is a bad time for both of us, and I wish I was going home sooner.

All this hospital time is taking away from the time she planned on spending with me before Christmas. We were going to see the King Tut exhibit. It's going back to Egypt for the foreseeable future. Maybe she and I could go during a weekend, instead of during a week day like we originally planned. Hopefully she'll be getting released from the hospital soon. I just hate being so far away and having her be there. It makes me nervous. She's in no mortal danger, but I can't help it. We'll just have to make up for it during the evenings and weekends I'm home.

In other, other news...

My teaching duties are coming to a close, thank God. I spent the weekend trying to grade papers that didn't live up to my expectations. I finally concluded that I would grade them tough, and then the lab coordinator and I would figure out a curve. It is VERY difficult for me to ease off on my standards for grading and still grade consistently, so this was the best way to go.

I made a student cry. I hate this.

Monday was the final exam. I was very pleased with it. It took me an entire afternoon to craft, and I think it was a challenging but fair test. It was mostly multiple choice, and I have the talent of being able to write multiple choice tests that are actually difficult. Most students think that they will be a breeze: not mine. I got what looks like a pretty good distribution of grades. Not too many A's, not too many F's. The average is a tad lower than I would like, but I'm trying to get these students to work at the university level. They fought me on that all semester; I don't hand hold. It's mind boggling that some people expect to do almost no work but get a good grade. That's not how I operate.

The beauty of designing a good exam is that it is a cinch to grade. I think in all it took less than 3 hours to grade all three sections and get everything into my spreadsheet. Matt helped, too, which was awesome. I'm hopefully meeting with the lab coordinator tomorrow to discuss appropriate adjustments to the overall grades or for specific assignments. Tomorrow is also my last class of the semester. After that, I have a take home final that is due on Tuesday and I'm proctoring a test on Friday. In my down time I'm going to: register my car dammit!, get the oil changed in my car, and do the little bit of shopping and errands I have in preparation for the break.

And a whole lot of nothing. Much needed nothing.

Thanksgiving Weekend 2010.2

This is the second post of my two post entry on my first Thanksgiving in NM.

The day after Thanksgiving Lev, Matt, and I went out and about to burn off some of the extra calories from the previous evening. We went to the west mesa volcanoes, which are part of the Petroglyph National Monument. It was refreshing to see that a lot of other people had the same idea; rather than go shopping like too many people do the day after Thanksgiving, they were outside enjoying the good weather. It was, indeed, a beautiful day, and the scenery was equally lovely.

Matt, Melissa, and Lev. Two paleontologists and an astrobiologist. In the background, a volcano.

We hiked around for a good 2 hours. From up on the volcanoes themselves we got a great view of the city of Albuquerque.

Far background: the Sandias. Foreground: west mesa. Middle and below: Albuquerque, NM

The mesa is made of a volcanic rock called basalt. Rifting in the area caused the valley and volcanoes to form. The rift is still somewhat active, so the volcanoes themselves aren't totally dormant. I seriously doubt, however, that they will be doing anything interesting in the near future.

The tall rectangle that is roughly in the middle of the picture is the Bank of the West building. I live about 2 blocks to the west of that building. In the far background are the Sandia Mountains to the east.

It's amazing how pretty the high-desert is, desolation has its beauty.

One of a number of volcanoes. We wandered around this big one for a while, it was too tall for me to want to climb, as I was running out of water.

Sitting, watching the daylight run out.

Saturday was an entirely different adventure. For those of you who remember "Contact", the array of what looked like a bunch satellite dishes in the middle of nowhere was filmed for the movie at a real place 44 miles west of Socorro, NM on the Plains of San Augustine. The Very Large Array (that's its real name, also referred to as the VLA) consists of 27 209-ton antennas ("dishes") that can be moved around into different configurations to look at objects in space. This is similar to using a typical telescope, only light waves aren't observed. Objects such as planets, black holes, stars, etc. give off radio waves; these are collected by each "dish" and interpreted by a computer so that scientists can look at the images.

We were at the VLA right before dusk with Dave and Mouse, and I got some rather neat pictures before the sun went down.

Tracks which are used to move the antennas around.

National Radio Astronomy Observatory VLA.

Radio telescope sentinels, standing in a row

Sunset on the Plains of San Augustine

These a really rather large

Looking up

Thanksgiving Weekend 2010.1

I stayed put in New Mexico for Thanksgiving, which makes this the first time I've ever missed it with my family back in Connecticut. Thankfully, there wasn't a shortage of activity this weekend. So although I missed my mom, grandma, and uncles, I had a very good holiday weekend.

UNM was only closed Thursday and Friday, but all my classes were canceled on Wednesday, which gave me a jump on the weekend. The professors had their own families to prepare to cook for, and my adviser was entertaining about 10 people and needed to get ready. Lev was coming in later in the afternoon on Thanksgiving day, so we spent a good bit of Wednesday cleaning the apartment up so that he'd have a reasonably comfortable place to sleep. I also did some of my much needed grading, which is still ongoing because it is such a long, painful, assignment.

The morning of Thanksgiving I continued with the cleaning and got started on making our contribution to dinner. I had six sweet potatoes that I boiled and whipped up with orange juice and butter. We also experimented a bit and created a new dish which we have yet to come up with a name for. It was quinoa with dried cranberries, golden raisins, toasted pine nuts, caramelized onion and garlic, and citrus. It ended up being very tasty, at least by my tastes. It'll need a little tweaking, but I wrote down everything we did so that I can play with it in the future. Matt and I have become big fans of quinoa, which is a South American grain that cooks up very much like rice. It has a lot of nutrients that rice lacks, and it is a very good base for a lot of different flavors.

While I was cooking my mom gave me a call with everyone who was at her place for dinner. My family does more of a Thanksgiving lunch than a dinner; I guess the idea being that you can relax more afterward and you don't go to bed overly stuffed. They passed the phone around, and I got to briefly talk to everyone. I really miss being home, and I'm hoping that I can make it back for Thanksgiving a couple times during my time in NM. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, hands down.

Matt and I left for Socorro around 2pm, and got there a little after 3. Mouse had her parents over, and we were waiting on Lev who was driving in from Phoenix. He showed up a little later than we expected; that was okay, since the turkey was taking its sweet time cooking and he showed up shortly after the bird was done. Dave had put a glaze on the turkey, and the whole thing was tender and delicious. Actually, pretty much everything we had was delicious.

After dinner, we played a board game. About midway through we stopped to have some dessert, and I had a very satisfying piece of pumpkin pie. Mouse also made chocolate martinis. The game went of for a very long time, which sometimes happens with these German strategy games when you play with a lot of people. Matt ended up winning; I haven't won at Settler's in a while. We didn't get back to Albuquerque until 1:30am.

Unfortunately, neither Matt nor I had our camera for all of this. I had grabbed mine initially, but in juggling the food around I accidently put it down in the living room and didn't realize this fact until we were already at Mouse and Dave's house - an hour away. Matt didn't bring his because I was (theorhetically) bringing mine. So, there is no photo documentation of our first Thanksgiving out here. Thankfully, I did bring a camera for the rest of our weekend adventures, but that's another post.

Death Valley Trip

This past weekend our lab group jam packed two SUVs full of gear and people and headed out to Death Valley to clean up the field site and do some additional data collecting.

I've never been driving through California, Nevada, or Arizona before, so it was cool to get that far out west. I've officially stayed in California now, so I should really update the list of states I've been to as a result of this trip.

Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the US that forms as a result of the damming of the Colorado River by the Hoover Dam

I drove past the Grand Canyon two times during this trip, but yet I have still not seen it. This is unacceptable.

Our main purpose for this trip was to try to retrieve as much field equipment as possible. That included animal traps, wire, and lost i-buttons. Ian, equipped with a map and metal detector, found a good number of traps, but none of the i-buttons. i-buttons are data recorders that are attached to tagged animals, and you get the data back when you trap the animal again. The obvious flaw with this technique is that animals die or get eaten and you just never see them again. The hope was that we would find some lying on the surface, get some additional data, and also save $20 a pop on each data logger. Sadly, that didn't happen. For some reason, a lot of the rocks in the area were setting off the metal detector, so it was a waste of time using that particular piece of equipment. We checked any coyote scat we saw on the surface for i-buttons, but this also turned up nothing.

A panorama of the field site.

Another shot of the field site, the big bush-like things are mesquites.

The other data we collected were branches and thorns and leaves from mesquite bushes. The project was on how the woodrats in Death Valley survive, and they make their middens in these horrific mesquite bushes that will stab you even if you look at them. I've never held so many thorny branches in my life. The idea was to bring back samples to see how much water the woodrats are getting from these plants. This involved carefully stripping leaves off of the branches, and placing the branches and leaves in separate collection bags. We'll weigh and dry the leaves and branches to see how much water they have back in the lab. I think I still have mesquite spines stuck in my fingers.

An adorable young (and healthy) woodrat that was trapped in our campsite!

The whole trip was enjoyable over all. I got to bond some more with my lab mates, and I find camping to be fun in general anyway. However, Friday evening the wind really picked up and it didn't subside for the rest of the weekend. This made every task much harder, and I'm glad I brought ear plugs. Otherwise, I doubt I would have gotten much sleep with the flapping of our tent. In addition to the wind, there was this raven on our camp site that was awake at the crack of dawn making this horrible "warking" noise. It sounded funny but was annoying Fred.

The view from our campsite.

We (as in the Smith Lab girls) proved ourselves to be giggly and upbeat throughout the weekend. Meghan, Fred, and I crammed ourselves into a tent that was really only intended for two people, and hilarity ensued. The first night Fred and I were in the vehicle that arrived early to set up camp, and we had an early dinner with Ian and Summer before calling it a fairly early night. I had gotten a little sleep when the second car finally arrived, and Meghan had her sleeping pad and bag to get into the tent with us. The sleeping pad was more like a raft, and it was a ridiculous effort at first to try and get it in the tent over me and Fred. We had a pretty good laugh about it. Meghan is officially the happiest most excitable person I know, regardless of what time of day it is.

The afternoon of our last full day was spent in Titus Canyon, scoping out midden locations. It was full of amazing geology and I did a lot of climbing around on rock faces looking for little caves.

A fairly large cave on a rock face in Titus Canyon. There was a huge midden inside, and some bones from something that was roughly sheep sized.

View from the exit of Titus canyon. All that tan stuff is dust being blown around by the wind. The wind didn't let up for a full 48 hours.

I took more pictures, but there are more than I want to put up here. I'll probably put them in an online album to share, where the beauty of Death Valley can be done justice.

IMPPS Research Coordinated Network

Before it gets pushed back too far in my memory, I wanted to spend a little time talking about my weekend sitting in with my adviser's research coordinated network (RCN), IMPPS. IMPPS stands for Integrating Macroecological Pattern and Processes across Scales. I could spend an entire post trying to define what exactly that all means, but essentially they are interested in large scale patterns across life that can be described fairly succinctly. Their focus is on body size: how it has changed through time and how physiological constraints on body size have shaped evolution, with an emphasis on mammalian evolution.

I did a lot of intensive listening all weekend which, surprisingly, took a lot out of me. It was interesting to see how a large research group functions, since that is something I have never participated in. The group publishes a lot together, but there are also small sub-projects within the group. I was impressed at how much got done over a few short days. This is a very productive group of scientists.

I can't say for sure if I will be collaborating with them in the future. Their NSF funding is running out, and they only have a few more meetings in the future. I'm also not sure that I am interested in all of the same research questions that they are; but, there are a few. I did a little data mining this weekend for a fairly new project, and if I get sucked into that it could result in something good for me. Felisa said I was welcome to get as involved as I wanted with the group, if it was something I felt I wanted to do. I think the project I was helping with sounded interesting, but I'll need to learn more about it before I get myself invested in it.

In general I like the members of the group. I have some disagreements with some of the opinions that I heard this weekend, but that isn't a bad thing. That's just something that naturally occurs. I don't think I'm going to agree with Felisa or Jim or anyone on everything; that wasn't even the case with Russ. I think it's important that everyone in the group enjoys working together; they are friendly. That makes it possible to actually accomplish things.

On Saturday evening we had a fancy pizza party at Felisa's house. It was make your own pizza: home made dough, interesting toppings, and lots of wine followed by dessert. It was good way to break up the hard work of the weekend. Plus, I can only listen to work related things for so long before I get burnt out.

In conclusion, I would say that it was a generally good experience and I'm glad I went. I also got to hang out with Meghan a lot, and I got to know her better.

Tomorrow the lab group is leaving for Death Valley for a few days. When I return I will give my account of that little adventure.

The Importance of Communication

Humans are animals; however, we have several characteristics that make us stand out as unique. Our large brains have allowed us to be able to do some pretty amazing things. Aside from being able to walk upright, solve problems, and be self aware, we also engage in fairly complex relationships. Those relationships are possible because of the complex ways in which we communicate: visually, verbally, and through writing.

I want to talk about science communication. Or rather, the lack there of. Communication is especially bad between scientists and non-scientists. The point of science is to answer questions and produce new information. It's rather ironic, then, that there is such poor communication of scientific ideas. Many scientists seem unwilling to ensure that their research is known and understood.

Before I go on, I know some of my more "sciency" friends might claim that the general public is unwilling to learn, or even listen to what scientists have to say. I agree, but only to a certain extent. I believe this is partially true, because scientists have allowed a stereotype about themselves to perpetuate, to a point where it is coming back to bite us in the butt. That stereotype is: scientists are cold, uncaring, arrogant people who can't be bothered to explain what they do. This is the point of view that exists, and it is largely the fault of scientists who are, in fact - cold, uncaring, arrogant people who can't be bothered to explain what they do to those people who are (in their own minds) too stupid to understand anyway.

Now I ask my fellow sciency people, would you want to LISTEN to a person with that kind of attitude? Of course not! Yet we expect the general public to just listen to us, even when we don't take the time to explain to them what we are up to in a way that is accessible. Then we lose our patience if they can't understand, in spite of the fact that a lot of what we do is confusing. This, my friends, is called a superiority complex. It is based on the false assumption that somehow we are smarter or better than "they" are. And, it is going to make it really difficult to get people to listen to us in the future when we have something really important to say (if you can imagine it being more difficult than it is already).

I know for a fact that a lot of scientists don't write well. I do a lot of reading, that comes with college and graduate school. Scientific papers are dense, in every definition of the word. This isn't always the fault of the author; limitations and requirements imposed by editors and journals often make it impossible to write something pleasant or intelligible to a non-expert. As a result, scientists learn to communicate well with others in their own specific area of interest, but they can't always communicate adequately with outsiders. This is a deficiency, and it poses a huge problem when trying to solve multifaceted problems that require interdisciplinary collaboration. This is compounded when the results of research have political or economic implications.

The simple fact remains: a lot of research funding comes from the government. Ultimately, that money comes from taxes. So in a sense, we are being paid by the general public to do what we do. Therefore, it benefits scientists to effectively communicate; not just with each other, but with everyone.If "they" don't understand what we do, "they" will stop paying us to do it.

We are facing many troubles: environmental, biological, and economical. And the people who can make meaningful policy, laws, and decisions are either not listening to us, or they don't understand. In reality, it's probably a little of both. We can spend a bunch of time and energy going back and forth, arguing about whose fault it is. We can ignore people who are perceived to be too "dumb" to know what's good for them. Or, we can take a proactive approach and commit ourselves to communicating more effectively. I'm not saying that we need to restructure the way in which we publish original research (although, one could argue, that might be a good thing). What I am saying is that scientists need to get outside of their individual bubbles, and interact with regular people. We need to reach out. We need to talk and write in a way that is accessible.

Even if you are a scientist who hates humanity, who thinks people are stupid. You should make an effort to give your wealth of knowledge to someone other than yourself, if only for the sake of getting things done.

Next semester I will be participating in a class that runs a biology blog. It will highlight research as well as other things going on in the department of Biology at UNM, as well as other biology related topics.
Matt and I also have plans for starting a science blog, with the explicit goal of making science accessible to the general public.
My plan is to connect those blogs to my PhD blog in some fashion, with the hopes of increasing outreach.

Geological Society Statement on Global Warming (with references!)

The only disclaimer I will include here is that I did not write this: this is the official statement on Global Warming from the Geological Society of America. All credits go to those parties listed at the end of this statement. I am merely passing this along, because I feel obligated to help educate the public on what is arguably one of the most pressing issues faced by humanity. This disclaimer was added on July 1, 2011. I will also add that the most current pdfs of the IPCC report can be downloaded for FREE online.

97% of scientists agree: climate change is happening largely due to human (anthropogenic) activities.


The Geological Society Statement on Global Warming

Climate change is a defining issue for our time. The geological record contains abundant evidence of the ways in which Earth’s climate has changed in the past. That evidence is highly relevant to understanding how it may change in the future. The Council of the Society is issuing this statement as part of the Society’s work “to promote all forms of education, awareness and understanding of the Earth and their practical applications for the benefit of the public globally”. The statement is intended for non-specialists and Fellows of the Society. It is based on analysis of geological evidence, and not on analysis of recent temperature or satellite data, or climate model projections. It contains references to support key statements, indicated by superscript numbers, and a reading list for those who wish to explore the subject further.

What is climate change, and how do geologists know about it?

The Earth’s temperature and weather patterns change naturally over time scales ranging from decades, to hundreds of thousands, to millions of years¹. The climate is the statistical average of the weather taken over a long period, typically 30 years. It is never static, but subject to constant disturbances, sometimes minor in nature and effect, but at other times much larger. In some cases these changes are gradual and in others abrupt.

Evidence for climate change is preserved in a wide range of geological settings, including marine and lake sediments, ice sheets, fossil corals, stalagmites and fossil tree rings. Advances in field observation, laboratory techniques and numerical modelling allow geoscientists to show, with increasing confidence, how and why climate has changed in the past. For example, cores drilled through the ice sheets yield a record of polar temperatures and atmospheric composition ranging back to 120,000 years in Greenland and 800,000 years in Antarctica. Oceanic sediments preserve a record reaching back tens of millions of years, and older sedimentary rocks extend the record to hundreds of millions of years. This vital baseline of knowledge about the past provides the context for estimating likely changes in the future.

What are the grounds for concern?

The last century has seen a rapidly growing global population and much more intensive use of resources, leading to greatly increased emissions of gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, from the burning of fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal), and from agriculture, cement production and deforestation. Evidence from the geological record is consistent with the physics that shows that adding large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere warms the world and may lead to: higher sea levels and flooding of low-lying coasts; greatly changed patterns of rainfall²; increased acidity of the oceans ^3,4,5,6; and decreased oxygen levels in seawater^7,8,9.

There is now widespread concern that the Earth’s climate will warm further, not only because of the lingering effects of the added carbon already in the system, but also because of further additions as human population continues to grow. Life on Earth has survived large climate changes in the past, but extinctions and major redistribution of species have been associated with many of them. When the human population was small and nomadic, a rise in sea level of a few metres would have had very little effect on Homo sapiens. With the current and growing global population, much of which is concentrated in coastal cities, such a rise in sea level would have a drastic effect on our complex society, especially if the climate were to change as suddenly as it has at times in the past. Equally, it seems likely that as warming continues some areas may experience less precipitation leading to drought. With both rising seas and increasing drought, pressure for human migration could result on a large scale.

When and how did today’s climate become established?

The Earth’s climate has been gradually cooling for most of the last 50 million years. At the beginning of that cooling (in the early Eocene), the global average temperature was about 6-7 ºC warmer than now^10,11. About 34 million years ago, at the end of the Eocene, ice caps coalesced to form a continental ice sheet on Antarctica^12,13. In the northern hemisphere, as global cooling continued, local ice caps and mountain glaciers gave way to large ice sheets around 2.6 million years ago¹⁴.

Over the past 2.6 million years (the Pleistocene and Holocene), the Earth’s climate has been on average cooler than today, and often much colder. That period is known as the ‘Ice Age’, a series of glacial episodes separated by short warm ‘interglacial’ periods that lasted between 10,000-30,000 years^15,16. We are currently living through one of these interglacial periods. The present warm period (known as the Holocene) became established only 11,500 years ago, since when our climate has been relatively stable. Although we currently lack the large Northern Hemisphere ice sheets of the Pleistocene, there are of course still large ice sheets on Greenland and Antarctica¹.

What drives climate change?

The Sun warms the Earth, heating the tropics most and the poles least. Seasons come and go as the Earth orbits the Sun on its tilted axis. Many factors, interacting on a variety of time scales, drive climate change by altering the amount of the Sun’s heat retained at the Earth’s surface and the distribution of that heat around the planet. Over millions of years the continents move, ocean basins open and close, and mountains rise and fall. All of these changes affect the circulation of the oceans and of the atmosphere. Major volcanic eruptions eject gas and dust high into the atmosphere, causing temporary cooling. Changes in the abundance in the atmosphere of gases such as water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane affect climate through the Greenhouse Effect – described below.

As well as the long-term cooling trend, evidence from ice and sediment cores reveal cycles of climate change tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years long. These can be related to small but predictable changes in the Earth’s orbit and in the tilt of the Earth’s axis. Those predictable changes set the pace for the glacial-interglacial cycles of the ice age of the past 2.6 million years¹⁷. In addition, the heat emitted by the Sun varies with time. Most notably, the 11-year sunspot cycle causes the Earth to warm very slightly when there are more sunspots and cool very slightly when there are few. Complex patterns of atmospheric and oceanic circulation cause the El Niño events and related climatic oscillations on the scale of a few years^1,18.

What is the Greenhouse Effect?

The Greenhouse Effect arises because certain gases (the so-called greenhouse gases) in the atmosphere absorb the long wavelength infrared radiation emitted by the Earth’s surface and re-radiate it, so warming the atmosphere. This natural effect keeps our atmosphere some 30ºC warmer than it would be without those gases. Increasing the concentration of such gases will increase the effect (i.e. warm the atmosphere more)¹⁹.

What effect do natural cycles of climate change have on the planet?

Global sea level is very sensitive to changes in global temperatures. Ice sheets grow when the Earth cools and melt when it warms. Warming also heats the ocean, causing the water to expand and the sea level to rise. When ice sheets were at a maximum during the Pleistocene, world sea level fell to at least 120 m below where it stands today. Relatively small increases in global temperature in the past have led to sea level rises of several metres. During parts of the previous interglacial period, when polar temperatures reached 3-5°C above today’s²⁰, global sea levels were higher than today’s by around 4-9m²¹. Global patterns of rainfall during glacial times were very different from today.

Has sudden climate change occurred before?

Yes. About 55 million years ago, at the end of the Paleocene, there was a sudden warming event in which temperatures rose by about 6ºC globally and by 10-20ºC at the poles²². Carbon isotopic data show that this warming event (called by some the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM) was accompanied by a major release of 1500-2000 billion tonnes or more of carbon into the ocean and atmosphere. This injection of carbon may have come mainly from the breakdown of methane hydrates beneath the deep sea floor¹⁰, perhaps triggered by volcanic activity superimposed on an underlying gradual global warming trend that peaked some 50 million years ago in the early Eocene. CO2 levels were already high at the time, but the additional CO2 injected into the atmosphere and ocean made the ocean even warmer, less well oxygenated and more acidic, and was accompanied by the extinction of many species on the deep sea floor. Similar sudden warming events are known from the more distant past, for example at around 120 and 183 million years ago^23,24. In all of these events it took the Earth’s climate around 100,000 years or more to recover, showing that a CO2 release of such magnitude may affect the Earth’s climate for that length of time²⁵.

Are there more recent examples of rapid climate change?

Abrupt shifts in climate can occur over much shorter timescales. Greenland ice cores record that during the last glacial stage (100,000 – 11,500 years ago) the temperature there alternately warmed and cooled several times by more than 10ºC ^26,27. This was accompanied by major climate change around the northern hemisphere, felt particularly strongly in the North Atlantic region. Each warm and cold episode took just a few decades to develop and lasted for a few hundred years. The climate system in those glacial times was clearly unstable and liable to switch rapidly with little warning between two contrasting states. These changes werealmost certainly caused by changes in the way the oceans transported heat between the hemispheres.

How did levels of CO2 in the atmosphere change during the ice age?

The atmosphere of the past 800,000 years can be sampled from air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice cores. The concentrations of CO2 and other gases in these bubbles follow closely the pattern of rising and falling temperature between glacial and interglacial periods. For example CO2 levels varied from an average of 180 ppm (parts per million) in glacial maxima to around 280 ppm during interglacials. During warmings from glacial to interglacial, temperature and CO2 rose together for several thousand years, although the best estimate from the end of the last glacial is that the temperature probably started to rise a few centuries before the CO2 showed any reaction. Palaeoclimatologists think that initial warming driven by changes in the Earth’s orbit and axial tilt eventually caused CO2 to be released from the warming ocean and thus, via positive feedback, to reinforce the temperature rise already in train²⁸. Additional positive feedback reinforcing the temperature rise would have come from increased water vapour evaporated from the warmer ocean, water being another greenhouse gas, along with a decrease in sea ice, and eventually in the size of the northern hemisphere ice sheets, resulting in less reflection of solar energy back into space.

How has carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere changed over the longer term?

Estimating past levels of CO2 in the atmosphere for periods older than those sampled by ice cores is difficult and is the subject of continuing research. Most estimates agree that there was a significant decrease of CO2 in the atmosphere from more than1000 ppm at 50 million years ago (during the Eocene) to the range recorded in the ice cores of the past 800,000 years²². This decrease in CO2 was probably one of the main causes of the cooling that led to the formation of the great ice sheets on Antarctica²⁹. Changes in ocean circulation around Antarctica may also have also played a role in the timing and extent of formation of those ice sheets^30,31,32.

How has carbon dioxide in the atmosphere changed in recent times?

Atmospheric CO2 is currently at a level of 390 ppm. It has increased by one third in the last 200 years³³. One half of that increase has happened in the last 30 years. This level and rate of increase are unprecedented when compared with the range of CO2 in air bubbles locked in the ice cores (170-300 ppm). There is some evidence that the rate of increase in CO2 in the atmosphere during the abrupt global warming 183 million years ago (Early Jurassic), and perhaps also 55 million years ago (the PETM), was broadly similar to today’s rate³⁴.

When was CO2 last at today’s level, and what was the world like then?

The most recent estimates³⁵ suggest that at times between 5.2 and 2.6 million years ago (during the Pliocene), the carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere reached between 330 and 400 ppm. During those periods, global temperatures were 2-3°C higher than now, and sea levels were higher than now by 10 – 25 metres, implying that global ice volume was much less than today³⁶. There were large fluctuations in ice cover on Greenland and West Antarctica during the Pliocene, and during the warm intervals those areas were probably largely free of ice^37,38,39. Some ice may also have been lost from parts of East Antarctica during the warm intervals⁴⁰. Coniferous forests replaced tundra in the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere⁴¹, and the Arctic Ocean may have been seasonally free of sea-ice⁴².

When global temperature changed, did the same change in temperature happen everywhere?

No. During the glacial periods in the Pleistocene the drop in temperature was much greater in polar regions than in the tropics. There is good evidence that the difference between polar and tropical temperatures in the warmer climate of the Eocene to Pliocene was smaller than it is today. The ice core record also shows differences between Greenland and Antarctica in the size and details of the temperature history in the two places, reflecting slow oceanic heat transport between the two poles¹⁶.

In conclusion - what does the geological record tell us about the potential effect of continued emissions of CO₂?

Over at least the last 200 million years the fossil and sedimentary record shows that the Earth has undergone many fluctuations in climate, from warmer than the present climate to much colder, on many different timescales. Several warming events can be associated with increases in the ‘greenhouse gas’ CO₂. There is evidence for sudden major injections of carbon to the atmosphere occurring at 55, 120 and 183 million years ago, perhaps from the sudden breakdown of methane hydrates beneath the seabed. At those times the associated warming would have increased the evaporation of water vapour from the ocean, making CO₂ the trigger rather than the sole agent for change. During the Ice Age of the past two and a half million years or so, periodic warming of the Earth through changes in its position in relation to the sun also heated the oceans, releasing both CO₂ and water vapour, which amplified the ongoing warming into warm interglacial periods. That process was magnified by the melting of sea ice and land ice, darkening the Earth’s surface and reducing the reflection of the Sun’s energy back into space.

While these past climatic changes can be related to geological events, it is not possible to relate the Earth’s warming since 1970 to anything recognisable as having a geological cause (such as volcanic activity, continental displacement, or changes in the energy received from the sun)⁴³. This recent warming is accompanied by an increase in CO₂ and a decrease in Arctic sea ice, both of which – based on physical theory and geological analogues - would be expected to warm the climate⁴⁴. Various lines of evidence, reviewed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change clearly show that a large part of the modern increase in CO₂ is the result of burning fossil fuels, with some contribution from cement manufacture and some from deforestation⁴⁴. In total, human activities have emitted over 500 billion tonnes of carbon (hence over 1850 billion tons of CO2) to the atmosphere since around 1750, some 65% of that being from the burning of fossil fuels^{18,45,46,47,48}. Some of the carbon input to the atmosphere comes from volcanoes^49,50, but carbon from that source is equivalent to only about 1% of what human activities add annually and is not contributing to a net increase.

In the coming centuries, continued emissions of carbon from burning oil, gas and coal at close to or higher than today’s levels, and from related human activities, could increase the total to close to the amounts added during the 55 million year warming event – some 1500 to 2000 billion tonnes. Further contributions from ‘natural’ sources (wetlands, tundra, methane hydrates, etc.) may come as the Earth warms²². The geological evidence from the 55 million year event and from earlier warming episodes suggests that such an addition is likely to raise average global temperatures by at least 5-6ºC, and possibly more, and that recovery of the Earth’s climate in the absence of any mitigation measures could take 100,000 years or more. Numerical models of the climate system support such an interpretation⁴⁴. In the light of the evidence presented here it is reasonable to conclude that emitting further large amounts of CO₂ into the atmosphere over time is likely to be unwise, uncomfortable though that fact may be.

Acknowledgements

Members of the working group:

Dr C Summerhayes                                                Prof J Lowe
Chairman and GSL Vice-President                     Department of Geography,
Scott Polar Research Institute,                             Royal Holloway University of London
Cambridge University

Prof J Cann FRS                                                      Prof N McCave
School of Earth and Environment,                       Department of Earth Sciences
Leeds University                                                      University of Cambridge

Dr A Cohen                                                               Prof P Pearson
Department of Earth and Environmental            School of Earth and Ocean Sciences,
Sciences, The Open University                            Cardiff University

Prof J Francis                                                          Dr E Wolff FRS
School of Earth and Environment,                      British Antarctic Survey,
Leeds University                                                    Cambridge
                                                                                
Dr A Haywood
School of Earth and Environment,                       Ms S Day
Leeds University                                                     Earth Science Communicator, GSL

Dr R Larter                                                               Mr E Nickless
British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge                   Executive Secretary, GSL

Background Reading
 

For those wishing to read further, the following provide an accessible overview of the topic:

Alley, R.B., 2000, The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future. Princeton University Press.

Bell, M. and Walker, M.J.C, 2005, Late Quaternary Environmental Change: Physical and Human Perspectives, (2nd edition). Pearson/Prentice Hall.

Dansgaard, W., 2005, Frozen Annals: Greenland Ice Sheet Research. Neils Bohr Institute, Copenhagen. The book can be downloaded for free from http://www.iceandclimate.nbi.ku.dk/publications/FrozenAnnals.pdf/

Houghton, J., 2009, Global Warming: The Complete Briefing, (4th edition). Cambridge University Press.

Imbrie, J. and Imbrie, K.P, 1979, Ice Ages: Solving the Mystery. MacMillan, London.

IPCC, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.

Lamb, H.H., 1995, Climate, History and the Modern World, (2nd edition). Routledge, London.

Lovell, B., 2010, Challenged by Carbon: The Oil Industry and Climate Change. Cambridge University Press.

Mayewski, P.A. and White, F., 2002, The Ice Chronicles: The Quest to Understand Global Climate Change. University of New Hampshire/University Press of New England.

Ruddiman, W.F., 2005, Plows, Plagues and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate. Princeton University Press.

For the more intrepid:

Alverson, K.D., Bradley, R.S. and Pedersen, T.F., (eds.) 2003, Paleoclimate, Global Change and the Future. The IGBP Series, Springer-Verlag, New York.

Burroughs, W.J., 2007, Climate Change: A Multidisciplinary Approach, (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press.

Cronin, T.M., 2009, Paleoclimates: Understanding Climate Change Past and Present. Columbia University Press.

Gibbard, P. and Pillans, B., (eds.), 2008, Special Issue on the Quaternary period/system. Episodes (IUGS Journal of International Geoscience), vol. 31, No.2., (a collection of papers summarising the history of Earth’s environmental and climatic oscillations during the last 2.7 million years).

Langway, Jr., C., 2008, The History of Early Polar Ice-Core records. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Research and Development Center. Available online at:
http://www.nicl-smo.sr.unh.edu/Langway_2008_Early_polar_ice_cores.pdf

Lowe, J.J. and Walker, M.J.C., 1997, Reconstructing Quaternary Environments, (2nd edition). Addison Wesley Longman Ltd.

Milne, G.A., Gehrels, W.R., Hughes, C.W. and Tamisiea, M.E., 2009, Identifying the causes of sea-level change. Nature Geoscience.

Ruddiman, W.F., 2001, Earth’s Climate: Past and Future. W.H. Freeman.

A collection of articles on various aspects of Rapid Climate Change is available from the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences web site at: http://www.pnas.org/cgi/collection/rapid_climate
 

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One Year Later

Today was much better, I got a good nights sleep and had a fairly productive day.

As of tomorrow, Nov. 11th, it will have been a year since I defended my master's thesis, and also about a year since I decided that a PhD was a good idea. I still think it is, but I thought I'd have a better handle on what I should be doing. I suppose that since I switched academic fields, it's okay that I'm swamped with classwork to get me up to speed. As far as research goes, I have actually been sorting through some new data to try and answer some new research questions Felisa and I have been discussing. The first step so far has been to see if the data we need even exists already.

Tomorrow evening Meghan and I are heading up to Santa Fe to sit in with the research coordinated network (RCN) that Felisa is a part of. Felisa thought it would be a good opportunity for us to see what it is like working in a large research group, which is something I have no experience with. There is a chance that we could get involved if the group is going to start working on something that interests us. The meeting is from Friday morning till noon on Monday. Meghan and I are only staying through Sunday, since we have teaching and classes to get back to.

If nothing else, I'll get to listen to really smart people talk about research, and probably hang out with my adviser and lab mate more than I have had the chance to so far. And, I have a biostatistics assignment due on Tuesday, and Meghan and I can work together on it easily since we're sharing a room at the meeting.

I'm hoping it will be an educational experience, regardless.