summer summary

As a college student again, I get these long summers that stretch from the tail end of April to late August. Without classes, it’s the time to catch up and make headway on research projects. Many of my classmates in the School of Forestry are away at exotic locations doing the brunt of their fieldwork. Our lab is more local, working mostly in springs, forested watersheds, and Big Cypress. To do our research, there’s a fair bit of construction and working on electronics down at the compound.

Many days, folks are down at the compound, so the carrels are quiet, especially in the morning. Without classes chopping up the day, I get large chunks of time to write. Ultimately I’m working on my proposal, but really, I’ve been doing a literature review. My dissertation topic – riverine respiration dynamics – is not something I’m explicitly studying in any of my classes, so I’m learning on my own. The one synthesis book that I have found about aquatic respiration has chapters about oceans, estuaries, and lakes, but not rivers. I depend, instead, on journal papers, most of them published within the last decade. Each paper is narrow in its focus, so I don’t often have the context. I look up the paper’s citations, scan those papers, which may lead me to other papers that I don’t understand, so again I look up citations, etc. Days later, I realize I’ve wandered far down this path of a related concept, but I’ve got to wander back to my dissertation topic. Now that I’m back to my topic, where do I go next? What are the gaps in my understanding? What kinds of information would be relevant? There’s no textbook when you’re pushing the boundary of knowledge: In fact, you’re the one having to synthesize and evaluate information, which ironically is the opposite of what school has been thus far. [Note: This is only the literature review. I still have to lay out what I’m going to do in my own research project and defend it.]

So the proposal has been my main project this summer. I’ve been helping to get a nutrient enrichment project online at the springs. I also put together my own sensor suite and did a little exploring with it on Silver River. I feel like I’ve been working hard when I’ve been here, but this doesn’t sound like much. I probably need to be collecting more data and should be further along on my proposal. I also can’t put off any longer planning for the Environmental Science Lab I’m teaching this fall.

Perhaps all the working through the weekend doesn’t make up for the breaks, though. Oh well, because I wouldn’t give up these visits to see family and friends and to maintain those connections.

In late May, I celebrated Chen-Yee’s graduation from Harvard Business School with her family and mine. Led by history buff Grant, we walked the entire Freedom Trail. I enjoyed getting to know Chen-Yee’s parents and older sister, who had flown over from Malaysia. After they left for more sight-seeing in the big cities, Mommy, Grant, and I toured Harvard and MIT. I never did a tour of colleges back when I was applying, so this was my chance. I extended my stay further to visit Norin and Fahim and meet the twins. Every morning I was greeted by two happy babies sitting in baskets clamped to the kitchen island, milk and soggy Cheerios everywhere. There’s lots of love in their brick townhouse.

During the first weekend of June, our lab spent three days/ two nights paddling the lower Santa Fe and Suwannee Rivers. Nelson and Paul planned it, but almost our entire lab joined in, plus Matt and Uwharrie. On our first day, Nelson insisted that we visit every major spring, never mind the throng of humanity screaming, splashing, and milling around each one. We were dumped on by two thunderstorms, which quickly cleared out the springs and gave us a chance to enjoy them by ourselves. On the second day, Jing discovered rope swings. They made great breaks to the long paddling miles. We camped at Turtle Spring that night and made calzones. I noticed that we’re all quieter people, but we like each other, work well together, and share interests. It’s a great lab to be part of.

The next weekend, Jesse and I caught a ride with his mom down to South Florida. We visited Christen and Rodney and their three extroverted kids. (Another rubber band: We’re all back in Florida.) Christen cheerfully drives everyone around in the mini-van, and her kids can’t wait for the next adventure. They also love the pool. And since they so sweetly greet the neighbor, she brings by ripe mangoes from her tree for all of us to enjoy.

In early July, I took a week off to take the Hydric Soils short course with Tracey and Paul. (Speaking of, I still need to complete my exam…) It’s probably the only time I’ll have the commute advantage to class since it took place out at the teaching forest. The afternoon field sessions were rough in the summer heat and humidity, but they were really valuable. I liked soils so much I borrowed an auger from legendary Wade Hurt to take with me up to NC.

Stripped matrix is a hydric soils indicator.

The latest vacation was a roadtrip to North Carolina and Virginia in mid-July, and I’ll send you over to Matt’s blog for photos. In addition to the adventures and wonderful friends he writes about, I was able to see Frindy and Maureen and Jim, however briefly.

The impetus for this roadtrip was that Matt was speaking at the ATC biennial conference in Winchester, VA. He was able to publish his book Fast, Light and Free in time for the talk, which is no small feat. (While Matt wrote his book, I wrote my proposal, and Uwharrie bemoaned the fact that both of us were glued to our respective “silver boxes”.) Matt read excerpts from his book and spoke passionately at the conference about his self-supported record hike, and the audience gave him a hearty, extended applause. When he has a goal, Matt is on fire and he achieves great things. I am so proud of my husband.

It’s good to be home for the rest of summer. After relaxing today, I’m enthused to go back to work on Monday.