After months of writing grant applications, discussing research protocols with advisors, and applying for research permits, it's amazing how overwhelming everything feels when you finally get around to packing your bags to leave home for five months. Will local assistants be available for hire? Will the research team get along well? Do my remote collaborators even know I'm coming? Have I set up all of my auto pays correctly? Why hasn't my absentee ballot arrived yet??? WHAT IF ALL OF THE LEMURS ARE GONE??????
Starting each new field season sure has its ups and downs, one of the most challenging being that funding often isn't fully secured until a month or two in! Thank goodness for online banking and parents willing to cash a check or two. How anyone did remote tropical field work before the advent of mobile phones, internet, and Gore-Tex is beyond me.
Once you're in country things really pick up, and it's a rush to do as many face-to-face meetings in the big city before you're isolated in an ever-moving field camp and nothing to eat but rice and beans. But that's where the magic happens!
Sunrise breakfasts with a cacophony of birds and insects to break the early morning silence, the smell of smoke and weathered tobacco from locally rolled cigarettes, the sight of a family of lemurs still huddled on a branch after a cold night, the feel of wet bark and moss on the twisted roots of ancient trees, and the taste of bitter mokotra fruit as it slides through your teeth... It's amazing what the senses can take in when they rise above the constant buzz of the modern world.
Then suddenly it all comes to an end! Just when you've finally accepted that you've eaten more than your weight in rice and a midday forest nap is no longer enough to help you feel rested it's time to go back to the hustle and bustle of the big city. Samples have to be sorted and packed, permits put in order, good byes said, and an army of people thanked.
Just like that, you're back in the real world and everyone you've left behind wants to know how you've been. Every once in awhile you feel like you really get someone to understand an experience from the field, but then you realize that was one moment of a thousand and you have to get back to entering data and writing grants for next year. And who even really understands what you do at home in grad school or why you care so much about a monkey-looking thing that lives half a world away?
So here goes, a blog on all things from the field, the lab, and the life of a grad student. Hopefully someone gets something out of it :)
Starting each new field season sure has its ups and downs, one of the most challenging being that funding often isn't fully secured until a month or two in! Thank goodness for online banking and parents willing to cash a check or two. How anyone did remote tropical field work before the advent of mobile phones, internet, and Gore-Tex is beyond me.
Once you're in country things really pick up, and it's a rush to do as many face-to-face meetings in the big city before you're isolated in an ever-moving field camp and nothing to eat but rice and beans. But that's where the magic happens!
Sunrise breakfasts with a cacophony of birds and insects to break the early morning silence, the smell of smoke and weathered tobacco from locally rolled cigarettes, the sight of a family of lemurs still huddled on a branch after a cold night, the feel of wet bark and moss on the twisted roots of ancient trees, and the taste of bitter mokotra fruit as it slides through your teeth... It's amazing what the senses can take in when they rise above the constant buzz of the modern world.
Then suddenly it all comes to an end! Just when you've finally accepted that you've eaten more than your weight in rice and a midday forest nap is no longer enough to help you feel rested it's time to go back to the hustle and bustle of the big city. Samples have to be sorted and packed, permits put in order, good byes said, and an army of people thanked.
Just like that, you're back in the real world and everyone you've left behind wants to know how you've been. Every once in awhile you feel like you really get someone to understand an experience from the field, but then you realize that was one moment of a thousand and you have to get back to entering data and writing grants for next year. And who even really understands what you do at home in grad school or why you care so much about a monkey-looking thing that lives half a world away?
So here goes, a blog on all things from the field, the lab, and the life of a grad student. Hopefully someone gets something out of it :)
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