november update

November has definitely been a month of firsts.
Here’s a start for the list:

I killed chickens with my bare hands during the process of learning how to necropsy them.

I saw albatross and blue-footed booby chicks

I swam with clownfish and angelfish that seemed as big as my head on a reef full of colorful corals

I ate raw clams and shrimp in cebiche, this from the girl who hates seafood

I swam in the ocean without my bathing suit much to the delight of early-morning fishermen. At five in the morning after running for an hour strange things seem like good ideas.

I have 10 plants pressed, mounted, and preserved in an herbarium

I ran a half marathon (21 K) and actually ran the whole way, despite the altitude in Quito.

I learned how to collect semen from and subsequently inseminate rabbits

I successfully made an Ecuadorian dish that my host mom did not know how to make but that we both love: pan de yucca

I went to my first concert (popular concert, that is...I’ve been to lots of concerts of classical music)

There are more firsts, but these are the coolest (or grusomist as is the case with the chickens).

Selected elaborations:
The race: My friend Angie has been running basically since we got here but she always runs for an hour and I was convinced I could never run that far. So I had just been running around my house for under 30 minutes until one day about 2 months ago I decided to try and run the route that Angie uses. I ran most of the way and it took me about an hour and before I knew it I was getting up at 5am every day and running for an hour. Then about a month ago I saw an advertisement for a half-marathon that kicks off the Fiestas de Quito (a sort of week-and-a-half-long celebration of Quito’s independence). They had a relay option where you could split the race between two people and each would only run 10.5K. I thought it sounded really cool so I asked Angie if she wanted to do it with me and she said yes. We were all set to go when Angie started running two laps around the park that constitutes about half of our running route and decided she wanted to try the whole thing. So I conned Amelia into running the other half with me but then she decided she was going to go somewhere with her family that weekend so Angie convinced me that I should run the whole thing with her. We did a practice run the weekend before and Angie easily ran at least 21K but I gave up somewhere around 18. I had myself convinced that with the adrenaline from the race and Angie to distract me I could make it the last 3K on the day of the race. Then three days before the race something happened to Angie’s legs where it was painful even to walk (we think it might be shin splints) and she couldn’t run in the race so I ended up running the whole thing all by myself. I actually wasn’t even that tired until the last kilometer because the last two kilometers were a huge hill and by the last kilometer I wanted to stop so bad but then I thought: when is the next time I am going to run a half-marathon let alone a half-marathon in Quito? I tried really hard to convince myself that it wasn’t going to kill me to run one more kilometer and kept thinking about how cool it would be to actually run the entire half marathon and how mad I would be if I stopped in the last kilometer and suddenly I was crossing the finish line. It was crazy because there were so many people. I don’t know exactly how many people ran but many thousands of people at least. Saturday I had to pick up my registration packet and chip to monitor my time and it was a huge fiasco. I waited with Angie for two hours in the morning until we finally found out that the chips were being held hostage in customs and they wouldn’t be there until 2pm. So we came back at 4 and at that point Angie had decided not to run but I waited another 2.5 hours until I finally got the stupid chip. I was so mad a good part of me didn’t even want to run. But since I woke up at 5am anyway the next morning, and because I was really stubborn about the whole thing I got up and drank the avena (a shake made of oatmeal, cinnamon, water, and naranjilla, a fruit that’s kind of like a cross between a tart orange and a tomato) and set off for the race. The route was so beautiful! For a good part the moon was still out and the sun was rising over the mountains and the scenery in general was amazing. Plus there were tons of people on the street cheering. And I was on TV :) My mamá turned on the tv just as the guy who won the race was finishing and then they started showing clips of other parts of the course and she saw me passing the halfway point. Yep, as the winner was finishing the whole darn thing I was only halfway. But oh well. I made it in 2 hours 12 minutes and out of women 19-29 I came in 40-something but out of everyone I came in in the 1000’s somewhere. Besides, it was really fun and I still can’t even believe I ran the whole way. As a super-bonus not only do I have a cool t-shirt (albeit a pretty big one since they were all out of smalls by the time I finished) but also a bag that says Quito Media-Maraton on it and a medal. And of course I am keeping my number.

Inseminating rabbits: Apparently my animal nutrition and reproduction professor developed the technique for artificially inseminating rabbits as his master’s thesis (why you would want to artificially inseminate rabbits is a question I am still grappling with). The morning we were going to learn how to collect the semen samples the custodian had found the artificial vaginas we were going to use and not knowing what they were tossed them in the garbage. Fortunately this did not stop us. My professor quickly manufactured new ones from glue stick cases with the ends sawed off, the finger of a disposable rubber glove and some hot water.

Juanes Concert: So cool, we were on the field which meant we were very close to the stage and in such a dense mass of people that I couldn’t move enough even to lift my hand enough to scratch my nose. The acoustics were great though and I love Juanes’ music and he sang all my favorite songs so all in all it was a great first concert.

more photos!

until I figure out how to link pictures from webshots, check out this site for the photos that were supposed to be on this entry--
http://community.webshots.com/user/ecornwe

a long overdue update from Ecuador

First, Ecuador is amazing :). I live with my mamí Christina my papí Jaime and my little one-year-old sister Paula in the bottom floor of a beautiful house in the northern part of Quito. I arrived in the night and spent several hours talking with mis padres before finally I became so tired I couldn’t speak any longer. The morning after I arrived I went with my family to see a little bit of the city. We went to this hill above the center of town where there is a huge statue of La Virgen de Quito who stands on top of a serpent signifying the dominance of good over evil and I suppose the dominance of Spain and its Catholicism over the indigenous people of Ecuador. We walked around the center of town with them at night and all the churches and old colonial buildings were lit up. We saw a bunch of chivas, which are these converted trucks that have a band playing on the roof and people travel below in a sort of parade. They played Quito’s anthem and my abuelo tried to teach me how to dance to it, but it wasn’t too successful. Most days, though I spend hanging out with my mamí and Paula talking about life and holding Paula’s hands while she tries to learn to walk. Paula is learning all the sounds of animals so I have been learning all the songs that she listens to in an attempt to participate in talking with her.

Papi and Paula at Mitad del Mundo

Mami and Paula

The university is amazing…a little, no very grandiose. There are tons of fountains all over the place and a lake (well, maybe a pond) filled with goldfish and koi. Needless to say I spend a lot of time at the pond staring at the fish. In addition to the carp, there are these black organisms that look like a cross between a tadpole and a fish larvae. I can’t find anyone who knows what they are.

Plaza at USFQ

Koi pond at USFQ

School is a little bit different than I expected. My lit professor is crazily strict, the exact opposite of what Ecuadorian professors are stereotyped as. On the first day of class she instituted a one dollar fine for being able to see a cell phone, let alone if it rings in class. We also have to be in class every day or we can lose up to 10 percent of our grade in the class. And if we are more than five minutes late to class it will count as an absence. Fortunately, the subject matter of the class sounds really cool. Basically what we are studying is the literature that is passed through generations of campesinos in Ecuador and for a final project we have to collect stories from an area in the province of Pinchincha and record the storytellers and present them in class and enter them into a competition of sorts in the city.
My tropical ecology class is in English :( and the professor can be pretty annoying. He asks questions as if he wants to start a discussion but then has a very specific short answer in mind that usually doesn’t follow the question he asked at all. But the material in the class is super interesting, and we get to go on a lot of trips on the weekends. We are basically learning about the ecology of the vegetation types that occur at all the different elevations in Ecuador. Because of Ecuador’s unique landscape, the only tropical vegetation ecosystem it lacks is savannah (dry grasslands at low altitudes).
Ecoanthropology is very cool; I learned today that I am quite the reductionist as far as anthropologists go. That is, I seek tangible/material explanations for symbolic aspects of culture. For example, many indigenous cultures in the east of Ecuador practice infanticide of females because they need men to fight wars with other indigenous populations. Soon, since they have been killing all the females, they need females to produce more men so they capture females from other tribes spurring more wars. The rainforest of Ecuador, while very diverse, is not very easy to live in and can only support small populations of humans. So while a culturalist would argue that the widespread practice of female infanticide is a cultural anomaly, I as a reductionist would argue that the culture of female infanticide probably arose as a method of self-regulating the population.
My animal nutrition and reproduction class is amazing, too. The professor is really friendly and we just chat about nutrition for the class hour. Yesterday he brought in samples of foods commonly used to feed livestock in Ecuador and we got to try them so that we can recognize them by taste, smell, and appearance. In case you ever are faced with the choice to eat fish meal, you might want to consider declining. It is pretty gross. However, crystallized methionine (an amino acid) is really good—it’s kind of sweet and tastes almost like sugary cereal :). We have to bring 25 samples of animal food into class soon so a few days ago I embarked on a mission to find animal food. Stumbling across a factory, I began talking to the owner who ended up being friends with my professor and quickly agreed to give me samples. He was not so satisfied with my intended containers: snack sized Ziploc bags. Instead, he sent me to a local pharmacy for “jars with tops”. I tried to explain what I needed to the guard at the entrance to the pharmacy but he didn’t understand what I was looking for so in an attempt to think of another way to describe them the first thing that came to mind was urine sample containers. Fortunately, he knew what these were and quickly led me to the counter where I had the pleasure of asking the clerk for 25 urine sample containers. The look I received was unforgettable. As he returned with a large shopping bag filled with urine sample containers, he managed to muster up the courage to ask me why in the world I needed 25 but my explanation that it was for a class to collect food samples didn’t seem to clear things up. The owner of the factory and I had a good laugh about the whole experience later that afternoon.
Finally, I am taking a class at the veterinary school called veterinary histology and embryology. This is probably tied with nutrition as my favorite class. There are six students in the class, all first year Ecuadorian vet students and our professor is a young veterinarian who just graduated from veterinary school in Venezuela and we spend the hour looking at tissue samples from different parts of the body. I am probably going to start an internship with the professor’s husband who is a veterinarian specializing in chickens. Overall, classes here are a lot harder than I thought they would be and I am kind of mad at myself for that preconception because I feel like I the assumptions originated in part from a hidden belief that schools in Ecuador could not be as good as schools in the US. Granted, if I was taking classes in English, they would not be nearly as hard as they are at Kalamazoo College but they are definitely challenging.
Between settling in to the university and now, I have been to the zoo and touched Galapagos turtles, been cleaned by an indigenous healer, along with many other adventures, but those are stories for another day.

Galapagos turtles at the Quito zoo

So the real reason I started writing this letter was to describe an amazing trip with my medicinal plants class this weekend. My professor, Vlasti, smokes approximately a pack of malboro cigarettes daily and his skin clearly reflects his habit. He accompanies the cigarettes with copious amounts of coca cola (carried in his rubber boots while in the field) and coffee despite his doctors’ warnings against it (he has serious ulcers). He is extremely skinny because according to him he was bitten by a poisonous snake as a child and can’t gain weight. Despite his rather feeble appearance, he is quite adventurous. We left Friday afternoon to collect plants we will study for the rest of the semester. As we ascended to the páramo armed with pencils, field notebooks, plastic shopping bags and rubber boots it began to rain. Regardless, we all scrambled out of the bus and Vlasti’s supreme knowledge of plants began to impress me. He would pick out plants with medicinal properties and give us the family genus and species name as well as the common names and medicinal uses. Finally he would describe the identifying characteristics of the family so that I can now identify Asteraceae, Piperaceae, Solamanaceae and Euphoreae families with ease. In the páramo, I excitedly tested my rubber boots in knee-deep mud collecting Solamanaceae for people and became immune to the stinging power of nettles thanks to a prolonged wrestling match with the herb in which I finally emerged victorious with a two 20 cm sections of plant with flowers stuffed into my supermaxi shopping bag.
We began to descend into Guajalito, a cloud forest reserve owned by Vlasti and some friends, as the rain began to increase and the width of the road narrowed and pavement disappeared. Nevertheless, our bus (equipped with red and green Christmas lights, blue tasseled valences and several images of Jesus) valiantly traversed the mud at surprising speeds. After several hours, we arrived at a series of concrete buildings. That evening, we learned how to press our collected plants in a concrete room scattered with newspapers and discarded plants in various stages of decomposition. Much to our surprise, after a couple of hours of pressing, we were greeted by warm soup, spaghetti, and peaches by Rosa, a native of Guajalito. That evening, warmer and with full stomachs we went to bed with much anticipation of the next day when, according to Vlasti, we were going to get very dirty.
Between collecting plants, learning how to identify them, and scrambling up waterfalls while navigation through a maze of fallen logs and mud I realized I had found my favorite place in the world. The palms and piperaceae plants generally have leaves longer than my entire body, I spent the better part of the day inside a cloud, learned how to ward off bulls while eating lunch in the company of a small herd of cows, scaled a tree, swung from a vine over the edge of a cliff, and fell in love with my rubber boots. And Vlasti was right. After several falls in the mud, I did return dirty. After an entire day of collecting and hiking through the forest, we returned in the dark to press our plants. Honestly, I wasn’t looking forward to the hours it would take to press our collections but after the first few plants the process of positioning the plant just so it fit perfectly in the square of newspaper, adjusting the flowers and choosing a leaf to flip over became very calming and enjoyable.
Our final day I awoke well before the sun rose to embark on an expedition with some Ecuadorian students to see a lek of cock of the rock birds sing. We found the lek just before the female began calling the males and quietly listened to their songs. The birds are huge with brilliant red heads and necks and black bodies with white stains on their wings. Coloration aside, they rather resemble a rooster. On our way back we walked along the pipeline that runs from the Amazon to the refineries on the coast and I was surprised to find that the pipe was quite hot; apparently to keep the crude oil flowing. After rinsing off in a waterfall, we left Guajalito and descended further into a tropical rainforest in La Perla. Walking through a bananna plantation to arrive at the reserve, I picked a banana from the tree for a snack. While the size of the trees in La Perla definitely impressed me, I was most fascinated by the leafcutter ants who crossed the trail we were following several times.

Vlasti in a tree

Butressed roots in La Perla

Walking along the oil pipeline after bird watching in Guajalito

Downtown Quito at night

it just gets worse...

I thought I had my adventure with first aid on Thursday with the formalin incident. I was very, very wrong. I woke up Friday excited about rounds at the aquarium and quickly finished the water change on my fish (second day of no mortalities!) before heading through the blackberry-lined route to the aquarium. I spent a little time writing on my favorite palate of bricks while I waited for the veterinarian to arrive. I had even remembered to bring chai tea in my nalgene so I was feeling altogether good about the day as the veterinarian and I walked toward the otter enclosure. I wasn’t so sure how my nalgene full of tea would be received by the marine mammal keepers so I left it outside with the rest of my stuff and followed the veterinarian (who was still carrying his steel coffee mug—this detail will become very important shortly) toward the gate. Aialik, one of the otters, was in the water right by the gate entrance. I liked Aialik—I would usually shake his paw as he stuck it though the fence when I left the otter enclosure, but I knew he was going to try and escape. As the veterinarian walked through the gate Aialik started to get out of the water and I tried to quickly follow the veterinarian through the gate and shut it behind me to prevent Aialik’s well-planned escape. Unfortunately, this decision left me between Aialik and freedom with a wall on one side and water on the other. As soon as I pulled the gate shut behind me I realized my mistake. Aialik was out of the water now and climbing up my legs. Now otters look very, very cute but they are really vicious wild animals and I knew as soon as Aialik started climbing that I was going to be bitten. Aialik extended his hind legs, coming up to my chest. We made eye contact for a second as I froze in terror then he struck. After the first bite, I started to turn because I decided I would rather be bitten on my back then my front and as Aialik struck again the veterinarian saw what was happening and hit him on the head with his coffee mug, causing Aialik to slink back into the water. The funny thing is that there is nothing I could have done to prevent the bites. I had nothing to protect myself with when I entered the enclosure so once I was blocking his exit I was pretty much doomed. I now however have some pretty cool bite wounds on my chest and back as well as scratches from his claws on my stomach. The bites hurt but all I could do was laugh as for the second day in a row I filled out an accident report. At least this time I didn’t have to go to the emergency room, too. The response of the nurse I called at my insurance company to find out if I needed any vaccinations or treatment for sea otter bites was priceless.I think my phone conversation went something like:
Me: Hi, my health record number is 475 82 84 and I am calling because I was just bitten by a sea otter and I was wondering if there was any special treatment I should receive.
Nurse: You were bitten by what?
Me: A sea otter.
Nurse: Um, where did this happen, in the ocean?
Me: No actually all the wild sea otters in Oregon have disappeared due to overexploitation and the removal of their major food sources. This was, uh, at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport.
Nurse: Um, what were you doing to get bitten?
Me: Oh, well I was on rounds with the veterinarian and….
Nurse: Well, I have no idea what you would do for a sea otter bite.
Me: Well do you think you could check with someone who knows. I don’t know if I would need antibiotics or a rabies vaccination or something else. I have been cleaning it with chlorhexidine scrub but I don’t know if there are other tings I should be worried about.
Nurse: Well honestly no one here would have any idea what you would need. We’re not used to seeing sea otter bites. I don’t think they are very common. I am looking at your record and it says here that yesterday you splashed formaldehyde in your eye. Is that right?
Me: Yeah that was me. It’s been a rough week. Well, thanks for your help. I will call back if I start to see signs of infection.
Nurse: Yeah, I guess that would be good. Bye.

a stupid thing to do

This year my list of stupid things I have done has lengthened substantially. It probably started with my 80 mile bike ride with my roommate the day before finals for Spring Quarter where we did not bring a bike repair kit (and as a result I got a flat tire). Then of course there was the continued running after my vaccinations to the point where it was painful to walk. Today however, my stupidity rose to a new level. In a desperate attempt to save the rest of my fish, they are now being treated with nitrofurasone (a scary antibiotic) and formalin (to kill any protozoans) and each tank is on a UV sterilizer courtesy of Dennis. Since the antibiotic is killing my biological filter, I am having to do frequent water changes again so this morning I was going through the water change and everything was going really well until I went to add formalin to raise the concentration to therapeutic levels (every time I do a water change now I have to calculate how much water I removed and add the appropriate amount of medications to the water I put in). Anyway, the formalin is at a very low concentration so I was trying to get an accurate measurement and there was an air bubble in the syringe I was using to draw up the medication. I tried tapping the syringe and the bubble didn't budge so I did something I have done thousands of times before as the tried-and-true method of releasing bubbles from syringes: flicking the syringe. Well, there happened to be a small amount of formalin on the outside of the syringe and when I flicked the syringe the air bubble rose gracefully to the top of the syringe but some of the formalin on the outside of the syringe spashed into my eye. To make matters worse, this particular medicine is 37% foraldehyde, 10-13% methanol and the rest is an inert aqueous solution. Approximtely two seconds after the flicking, my left eye started to burn. To give you an idea, this particular mixture of formaldehyde and methanol has an OSHA health rating and contact rating of 3 (severe). According to the bottle, a spash usually causes blindness. Formaldehyde of course is a suspected carcinogen as well so things were not looking good. After I screamed for my supervisor, Pete, I was whisked away to an eye wash station (never mind that this station is connected to the same water that is likely poisoning my fish) I flushed my eyes for about 5 minutes (that whole 15 minute thing seems really long when your eyes are burning) and then was rushed to the emergency room. While my eyes were being flushed, the burning was so intense that I was gasping for air. If I thought the 5 minute flush at Hatfield was bad, I was in for a treat at the emergency room. I was hooked up to a wonderfully painful apparatus that flushed a steady stream of saline into my eye for over half an hour. They took the pH of my eye afterwards and it was still too basic so they had to reinsert the apparatus and flush again. I think my eye was starting to hurt as much from the flushing apparatus as from the formaldehyde. Finally, my pH was close enough to normal and I got the pleasure of going through an eye exam. Fortunately, I still have 20-20 vision and there are no abrasions on my eye. I keep closing my good eye and checking, though, because I am super worried I will wake up tomorrow and be blind in one eye.
Besides the scary contraption, the emergency room visit wasn't all that bad, though. My wonderful supervisor Pete sat patiently through the whole ordeal entertaining me and asking the nurses what if they would give me more saline to prolong the embarassing and painful situation I was in. The doctor was pretty cool, too. He quickly realized I was a geek and told me all sorts of cool stories about strange cases he had seen throughout his career and gave me the product information sheets for all the drugs I received so could read them tonight. Thanks to the other person helping with my eye flushing, the entire staff of Hatfield quickly knew about my accident and the story got embellished to the point where I pointed the syringe toward my eye and squirted the entire contents into my eye and there was some debate as to whether I got formalin or nitrofurasone or both into my eye. I think I spent a good portion of my day explaining what happened to people.
I spent the rest of the day at work, despite Pete's protests. I finished taking care of my fish and saw a seminar entitled: "snailfishes: why?" by the world expert on snailfishes. Where else can you eat cookies and drink tea and listen for an hour on someone's expeditions in the sub-artic searching for snailfishes? I love Hatifield :)

you gotta love research...

Sometimes I wonder how nurses become qualified to practice any kind of medicine at all. I deal with animals where you sometimes can't even feel a vein, let alone see it yet I manage to draw blood with decent success and even though I don't have the lisence required to give immunizaitons, I know how to give them and could recite a list of side effects about each one. A nurse however, gets to draw blood out of an arm where you can clearly see and feel a large vein and can tell the patient to stay still. Yet somehow a nurse has managed to miss my vein hitting a nerve in my arm (this happened a couple of years ago, but I am still bitter) and on Friday, my opinion of nurses certainly did not rise. The nurse I saw for my second rabies vaccination started by not being able to find the vaccination in the fridge. When I asked her about the muscle pains I have been having, she looked confused, then walked out of the room. Turns out she was consulting the product information included with every drug and called me in when she saw muscle pain as one of the side effects. "Yep, looks like it's a possible side effect" she said, with an air of finality. Well, I knew it was a side effect, but what I was wondering was if it was normal for it to be this painful. She had no idea. But she did offer the following brilliant tidbit of knowledge. "You know, I was talking with a doctor the other day and he told me that sometimes right around where you get the vaccine feels warm and that is because your body is making things to fight the vaccine and he said that is a good thing." I tried to smile back but I couldn't help but think: yeah, that warm feeling might be called inflamation because your body is increasing blood flow to the area so it can make antibodies for the killed virus you are about to inject into me more quickly. But that of course has nothing to do with the pain I am feeling in my legs. Grrr. She seemed much more concerned about the small bruise the last vaccination left on my arm. We are talking about a bruise about the size of the top of a thumbtack, but she thought it was a big deal and made a huge show about giving me the new vaccination a couple of millimeters underneath the bruise so it wouldn't hurt as much. It was all very silly. I felt pretty sick after this vaccination too, so I think it is the rabies that is making me sick as well as sore. So much for the triathlon that I was going to run this summer...it just happens to fall on the day after I have to get my third and final rabies vaccination.
As far as fish go, this week has not been good. Everything was stable until Friday afternoon when I was gone and they started dying again. By Sunday they were dying faster than I could finish necropsies on them and neither Tim nor I could figure out anything. As a last result, we came up with two crazy theories and decided to treat the remaining fish in each of the two tanks with one of the treatments to see if any helped. Pete suggested that there might be toxins in the fresh water we were using to lower the salinity so in one tank we started to raise the salinity again and get rid of the fresh water. I suggested that maybe there was something to the parasites we were seeing occasionally on the skin of the fish so we treated the other tank with formalin. This morning, a day after treatment, the formalin-treated fish were all still alive and every fish in the higher-salinity tank except two had died. We quickly placed the other two fish in a formalin bath and hoped for the best. As of 5:30pm today, we had not lost any more fish but at this point it is pointless for me to continue with the rest of my experiment because the fish are obviously really stressed out and there will be way too many confounding variables. So I really don't know what I am going to do to show that I accomplished something with the grant I was given. Something to think about tonight, I guess. So goes the joys of research :)

the fortune cookie

Dennis gave me a fortune cookie from his lunch today and the fotune said "more effort and hard work is required to make a precious dream come true". So now even fortune cookies are asking me to work harder :) I laughed for a long time when I read the message. Things are stable here again as far as fish. I haven't had any more die since last Friday and I should get the histopathology report tomorrow and hopefully know why I lost an entire tank. My cousin Caroline is coming to visit Oregon tonight and I am going to kidnap her for the weekend and show her the aquarium and Hatfield and other quirks of Newtown such as Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum and the Wax Museum. I am so excited to see her!
A strange thing has been happening this week, though. I didn't run at all a week before my yellow fever/rabies vaccine but I was biking pretty much every day. I biked for a long time on Friday after finally getting back from my errands across Western Oregon then felt sick on Saturday so I didn't do anything. On Sunday, I went for a pretty long run that included a huge hill, but it wasn't any more difficult than other runs I have been doing this summer. I was really sore that evening and the next day--so much so that I had trouble walking because every step hurt so much--which was strange since I usually don't get very sore, even when I overexert myself. The next day, I was mad at myself for being sore so I ran the same route without the hill (making it 1.5 miles shorter and completely flat) thinking that warming up my muscles on something easy would be good for them. However, I was even more sore the next day. It's kind of scary--I have to use my arms to get out of chairs because my legs can't hold the weight. I didn't do anything yesterday then today I was still as sore as I was after my second run but I decided to run a flat course at lunch anyway. Then this afternoon I was just walking at the marina and fell because my leg basically collapsed from under me. So, I am getting pretty worried about what is going on and I wanted to know if anyone had any thoughts on it. I know I should probably stop running until it gets better and I am going to the doctor again for a booster of the rabies vaccination so I can ask the nurse then, but I have never been this sore/stiff in my life and I can't think of anything really strenuous I did to bring it on. I am kind of wondering if it has something to do with the vaccinations I got last Friday, but I don't know. Hmmm.....

the day from hell

So three days ago, fish in one of my tanks didn't eat. I didn't think too much of it and Tim didn't think it was a big deal, either. However, late that night when I came in to check on them, a couple had died. That was weird, but it was close to midnight so I couldn't exactly call Tim or Pete (especially because I didn't want to admit to them that I was in there checking on the fish that late). I necropsied the ones that died and found white granulomas (spots) on their liver and spleen, characteristic of mycobateriosis (the same bacteria that causes tuberculosis in humans). Even more scary. But mycobacteriosis is a chronic disease so I checked my water quality and went to sleep. The next morning, I came in to change water in the tanks quickly before rounds at the aquarium and...only two fish were left alive in the tank. Of course, they had to die on the day I had rounds that couldn't be rescheduled and the day that someone was coming to pick me up all the way from Dallas to take me home so I could drive another hour to get vaccinated for Ecuador and return to the coast. It was five minutes to 8am, rounds started at 8, and she was coming at 10. I quickly removed the fish, placed them in a cooler so to slow down the decomposition process, jotted down some quick notes for Dennis and Pete and ran over to the aquarium. I finished with rounds around 9:30 and returned to Hatfield to find Dennis and Pete arguing over a dead fish--the two that were left alive this morning had died, too. I tried to perform quick necropsies on the fish and on almost all of them found the characteristic white granulomas. I didn't get it though, this was one accute disease, and it didn't mesh with the mycobacteriosis theory. I checked and re-checked my water quality and it continued to be fine. My friend showed up to take me home right on time so I had to ask her to drive me to the local vet clinic to get formalin to package the fish and send them to the veterinary diagnostic lab at OSU for a histopathology. She was really nice about it, but the clinic's mail had already gone out so we had to drive to the post office, too. Unfortunately, the post office refused to take the package because my kidney cultures were taped in an envelope on the outside of the box containing the fish and they didn't have any materials to repackage them with. I was so frustrated at this point, I just left the post office and decided to figure out how to send the package later. My friend drove me straight home so I could make the mail in McMinnville but on the way I decided that it might just be easier to drop off the package at the lab myself since it was kind of on the way back to the coast. Our plans for a leisurely lunch ruined, I made her a quick peanut butter and jelly sandwidch at home and left for Salem to get vaccinated. When I was finally seen by the nurse (after waiting half an hour) she informed me that they yellow fever vaccine I was about to receive was a live virus and would make me very ill over the weekend. Grrr. On top of that, the rabies vaccine I was also receiving often made people ill. The one good thing about the whole day was that I finally made it to the diagnostic lab before they closed and dropped off the samples before heading back to the coast.
Fortunately, none of the fish in the other tanks have died yet. I am feeding them antibiotics in their food and waiting to hear back from the histopathology report on what killed the other fish. I was pretty sick on Saturday, but not nearly as bad as the nurse made it sound like I would be, so I guess that is a plus. It just seems like no matter what I do I cannot keep the clownfish alive. I just keep hoping that the histopathology will come back with a definitive cause of death so I know what happened.
I guess this is just one of the many joys of doing research with live animals :)

Emergence at last!

For the past several days, I have spent evenings after work locked in a house with two dogs and two cats a block from one of the most beautiful beaches on the coast (with the bonus of having incredible tide pools). Grrr. It is all because I had to do a ton of research on the physiological stress response in fish for Tim. Don't get me wrong: I am probably one of the few people who find the topic "physiological stress response" fascinating, but I discovered shortly after I began my research that this response is a lot more complicated than it appears. After reading a few articles, my head was spinning with so many acronyms that I couldn't keep track of half of them. So, I got the great idea to make a diagram explaining the many feedback mechanisms involved. Two days and over 10 hours of work later, I had developed what I think is a pretty amazing diagram for only being able to use microsoft word. I think I will go tidepooling for a little bit with two stir-crazy cockerspaniels before doing a little more research on syngnathids.
Click the empty blue box at the top of the post if you want to see the diagram...and you know you want to see it ;)

some explanation:

I worked all by myself today and it was pretty invigorating to realize that I was actually capable of getting everything done. We have several medical cases that need treatment at the science center and all the warm marine fish needed a serious water change. I woke up feeling very overwhelmed by all the stuff I had to get done today, especially since I wasn't going to get any help, but in the end I just felt much more empowered as I kept crossing things off my to-do list.
My mom came to visit me this evening and we went for a long walk on the beach before eating dinner at this very cool, hippie place where everything (including the kitchen) is outside and there is a playground of old ropes and barrels for kids and they have live music in the form of an old man playing a song on the guitar every now and then. I walked barefoot on the way to the beach and on the sand and now my feet are really sore from all the gravel on the way there :(

ready for a long one...

Early one Monday morning, almost four weeks ago now, I moved into my apartment for the summer, and the next evening I evacuated along with everyone else living at Hatfield thanks to a tsunami warning. There are so many tsunami evacuation route signs in Newport that you can’t actually tell where they are telling you to go so my roommates and I decided to drive to Toledo, a tiny town 7 miles inland, and hang out at a dairy queen until the warning passed. Apparently, everyone else who didn’t know much about tsunamis had the same idea. Unfortunately, the dairy queen is the only place that sells food in Toledo, and it was closed. So a good portion of the population of Newport would pull into the Dairy Queen parking lot, pull on the door, realize it was closed and go back and sit in their cars; luring more people to the ice cream shop. Turns out the assigned evacuation route for Hatfield is actually about 100 yards inland at a ‘point’ aka the parking lot of a local hotel. Well, I guess I will know for next time. In the mean time, my mom has completely freaked out about me being washed to sea in a tsunami. Now I realize that I am hard to reach at the coast—up until two days ago I had no phone and now my phone has no answering machine and I am rarely home to answer it (let alone update my blog ;)—but it is much more likely that since Newport decided not to purchase tsunami warning sirens I will be walking on the beach completely unaware of the impending wave. Personally, I would rather die naive watching the sunset on the rocky shore than pedaling as fast as I can on my bicycle down the highway that parallels the coast.
Alright, back to my internship :) I struggled for a long time this school year with the decision of whether or not to return to Hatfield this summer. I finally decided that out of all my other options, it offered the best opportunity to experience first-hand aquatic research and veterinary medicine. However, I questioned that decision a lot the first couple of weeks because sometimes it seems like an easy way out of the tumultuous beginnings of experiencing something completely new.

About that blond-haired best friend…

I have this best friend who used to be my roommate. We should have been roommates this year, but I decided to live in an on-campus house and she decided to be an RA; a mistake for both of us. She is the most amazing person I have ever met. She generously mentors elementary kids while at school and is so committed to it that her mentees come before her schoolwork sometimes :). We play music together and I always feel so much more comfortable playing the piano when I can hear her cello next to me. But possibly my favorite thing to do with her is going on really long walks around town late at night. We just talk and walk and completely lose track of time: once, I think we walked for over four hours. I had to say goodbye to her yesterday knowing that it would be the last time I saw her for almost a year since we are both studying abroad in different countries next year. I am going to miss her so much.
Saying godbye to her made yesterday even worse. It was over 90 degrees in Kalamazoo and very humid. I had to pack all my stuff and fit it into a very small locker on campus. Then I had to say goodbye to people who have really become my family. While I am certainly excited to see my 'real' family again and spend time with my mom and brother and dog, we have a completely different relationship now that I spend over half the year away. It is really my friends at school who are my support system when life becomes overwhelming. I don't know what I am going to do without them.

It's officially summer!!!

I just finished my last exam for the quarter...cell biology (yuk). Actually, it was the best cell exam I have ever taken. I knew all the pathways and all the definitions and could answer all the questions with sufficient wordiness to finally please (I hope) my human-focused professor (it helped that I actually studied for this one, if only for a few hours). Anyway, now I get to eat pizza and drink beer and listen to a lecture about sea turtles from the chair of the bio department then go bowling with the chem department and finally, one last building blocks celelbration. I guess somewhere in there I will pack :)
Keep an eye out on the news because thanks to my awesome classes this year I am smuggling a live fish and a preserved shark embryo on the plane with me. I have come up with some elaborate plans to avoid capture, ranging from swallowing the fish in a plastic bag to storing him in my water bottle (the latter seems slightly more palatable), but hopefully he will arrive home safely. Mom: don't forget to have a tank waiting for him with 24-hour old water :) I almost conned my professor into giving me a chick to take home that I could raise into a chicken, but once he found out it would have to fly with me to Oregon, he refused. Dang it.

In the midst of final exams...

I'm sorry it has been so long since I've last written.

I've had a lot of time for introspection (having changed my major to phys-ed), and I've decided to make a few major life changes. First of all, no more introspection. That's for tree-hugging, barefooted hippies.

Second of all, I have modified my diet. I now only eat heavily processed, chemical-laden foods; I try to stick primarily to rare meat. I feel this is the way to best exert my authority as Lord of the animal domain. (yes I have "readjusted" some of my religious views). My new diet motto, “If it has a face, sear it lightly and serve with ketchup.”


Third of all, I have changed my political affiliation. I have joined the Republican party, though I feel some of their stances are a little too moderate for me. I think that we should spend more on strengthening our military. In particular, I don't think the "nuclear option" should just apply to ending filibusters. I think we should use it to destroy all the countries that harbor people that don't agree with me. Fall-out shmalout.

While I'm at it, there's not nearly enough evidence to support the claims of the so-called "Greenhouse Effect." I've decided to buy a Hummer (I know I don't have much cash, but don't worry, I took out a loan). I think its gas mileage is just perfect. Plus, all the money I give to the oil industry will be used for the good of our economy.

Finally, I have dropped out of school. I have learned that a women learns everything she needs from her father and husband. An education is a waste of money. I devote myself to finding myself a respectable marriage rather than getting a useless education.

You're either with me or against me. Let me know.

building blocks, third week

Ahh, the joys of sociology....

On Tuesday, we were finally able to meet with Tom to discuss the agenda for our first meeting. After Monday’s class, Sarah, Sam and I were feeling a little concerned that we had not yet met officially with our residents. Adding to that concern was the fact that we hadn’t met with Tom for over a week, and had no idea what would be happening at the meeting. I typed up a rough draft of an agenda for the meeting before we met Tom and it turned out that Tom had made his own agenda. We spent a long time compromising between the two and figuring out in what order we would discuss each topic we wanted to cover. Tom was keen on Sarah, Sam, and I running the majority of the meeting, so in the end Tom only talked about his job as a supervisor and then explained an outcome based model to organizing a project.
We arrived at the ENA with great anxiety the evening of our meeting. Before we had arrived, Greg had stopped by and explained to Tom that although he would not be able to attend the meeting this week, he was still interested in participating. Someone in his family (we haven’t figured out who, yet) died recently, so Tom gave him the forms we were handing out at the meeting and explained what would be going on. Many people had informed us that they would attend the meeting, but we really didn’t know what to expect. My heart jumped when I saw Amy and John approaching the door. I wasn’t sure if they would end up coming because Amy works so much. I know they had to sacrifice a lot to make the meeting. Soon more families began to arrive, many with their kids, (Sarah saved the day by convincing her friend to baby-sit) and it still wasn’t seven yet. Talking with the families who came, most of them had canceled prior engagements to come to the meeting. It was encouraging that they were already so interested in the program. At 7pm, we had 16 families and the room was packed. We started the meeting by playing a variation of a game we heard about in class on Monday. Before the meeting, we laid masking tape on the floor of the ENA, creating a smaller version of Bellaire Street. We then had all the families line up in the order their homes appeared on the street and introduce themselves, the house they lived in, and one defining characteristic of their home. Finally, Sarah, Sam, Tom, and I reintroduced ourselves, jumping into corners of the room to represent the different corners of the country we come from. It seemed to work, neighbors had to talk to each other a lot to figure out in what order to line up, especially because their were some gaps from households that did not attend the meeting. After everyone sat down again, we passed around cookies and donuts and served drinks. As soon as the food appeared, the room became much louder. Food has amazing powers!
I was in the middle of laying the ground-rules for the meeting (keeping to the agenda, not complaining about neighborhood problems yet, etc) and discussing the purpose of building blocks when Sue’s family and José showed up. I was so excited to see José (who does not speak a lot of English) because I had translated our forms into Spanish for him and the other Hispanic families in the hopes that they would come. He was having trouble understanding everything that was going on in the meeting, so I sat with him and translated things he didn’t understand throughout the rest of the meeting. It was a very interesting experience because I felt removed from the rest of the room, as if José and I were having our own conversation apart from the rest of the meeting. A couple of times when I returned to the front of the room to talk about another topic on the agenda, I had to work really hard to speak in English. I wanted to slip into Spanish. After the meeting, José and I were talking and he asked me if building blocks could help him fix his . I couldn’t understand what he wanted to know if we could fix, so I kept asking him to explain it. It turns out, he was talking about his heater but he was saying ‘heater’ in English and because I was in Spanish mode, I could not figure out what he was trying to say. It took him translating ‘heater’ back into Spanish before I understood what was going on. I told him that we only work on exterior home improvements, and he asked if there were any organizations in town that could help him find the money to buy a new heater. Apparently, his heater doesn’t work at all and he had to survive the entire winter without any heat. It sounds like he needs the whole heating system replaced because his heater, from what I understood, pumps hot water in pipes around the house to raise the temperature. I told him I would look into places that might be able to help him, but I am not really sure where to begin. I am going to go back and visit him and help him fill out the homework we handed out at the meeting.
Although our meeting ended fairly promptly at 8:10, more people than José lingered far longer into the evening. Jane and Sue and Margaret and their families all stayed for over an hour chatting with Tom, Sam, Sarah, and I. Several of them would like help filling out their project estimate forms, and Sarah, Sam and I were more than willing to help them, but Tom suggested that we not so that they won’t rely on us as much. I understand what he is saying, but I think that many of them feel overwhelmed by the ‘homework’ they have to complete, and not all of it is very clear. I think they also are convinced that the stakes are very high: that if they fill out something incorrectly they will be considered ineligible for the program. When Sam visited Miriam on Saturday, she helped her fill out her forms and when I went to talk with Miriam on Sunday, she was immensely appreciative of Sam’s effort because she didn’t know where to begin. She said that it didn’t feel like Sam was doing the work for her, but rather that she was helping her make sense of it all and feel more confident in what she was putting down. I have this gut feeling that many of the other residents are feeling the same way and that we will lose them if we don’t give them any support. So Sarah and I are going to return to the neighborhood Tuesday morning and afternoon to see how things are going.
Sarah and I were planning on visiting with the residents on Sunday afternoon, bringing them cookies and asking how things were going since the meeting. Unfortunately, Sarah had an emergency where she had to go to Chicago and could no longer visit Bellaire Street with me. I was a little hesitant about going by myself for a while. Sarah and I work really well together and I thought that maybe her not being able to come was a sign that I should use the time to study for my cell biology exam on Monday and finish my vertebrate biology homework. I had almost convinced myself not to go when I remembered how wonderful it felt to have so many people come to our meeting. I think a large part of why they all came had to do with our efforts door-knocking and I didn’t want to leave them without any support until Tuesday. So, I stuffed cookies in my bike bag and headed toward Edison. I had four hours until my SI session so I figured I would be able to check in with most of the residents. I especially wanted to talk with the few families that weren’t able to come to the meeting to see what happened.
I thought it would be no different being in the neighborhood by myself, but the truth is that when I got there, I was really nervous. I walked up and down Reed Court, a street perpendicular to Bellaire Street, before I got the courage to knock on the first door. I talked with Tomin and Joe first. They are a Caucasian middle-aged couple who live in the house closest to the creek. Sam talked with them previously, but I had never met them. They explained that they had every intention of coming to the meeting, but that they lost track of time and at 7:30 realized they were supposed to be at the meeting. They promised they would come to the one this week and I made arrangements to drop off the forms they would need early Tuesday morning. I was feeling a little more confident after talking with them. Next, I knocked on Miriam’s door. Miriam also has a good relationship with Sam already, so I had to remind her who I was. She immediately invited me in to her home to chat, exclaiming what a wonderful visit she had with Sam the day before. I walked in, expecting to be there for no more than a few minutes, when she asked me if I would like a cup of tea. I said sure and we sat at her kitchen table with Raggedy Ann mugs of white tea and my cookies and began to talk. The first thing she told me about was her cat, Freckles, because I noticed the cat food in her kitchen. Freckles is eleven years old and hates it when Miriam reads the newspaper because she has to take a break from petting him. He is orange and white with black spots on his nose, but didn’t appear until right before I had to leave. Miriam was very impressed because usually he never comes out to meet visitors. Apparently, Miriam started keeping cats because her daughter liked them as a child, but Miriam is much more partial to dogs. Nevertheless, she sustains a small pack of neighborhood cats by leaving food out for them on the back porch. We had a lengthy discussion about the travesty of stray cats and dogs and whether it is better to feed them or let them starve. I asked her a little more about her daughter. She is 50 and lives in Lansing. She has been married twice, something that Miriam seems conflicted about: although because of her religious background, she thinks that people should stay together, she is impressed that her daughter had enough courage to survive on her own. Her daughter is an artist who draws beautiful pictures, mainly of science fiction characters (she showed me lots of photos of the artwork). She also has a son, who had two children. Her granddaughter is a freshman at a college in Wisconsin and wanted to be a marine biologist until she failed freshman biology. Her grandson goes to college part time and is engaged to a pre-veterinary student at MSU. Miriam’s son’s family comes to visit her each Christmas, which is one of her favorite times of year. Miriam didn’t have a very good relationship with her husband. They had very different interests and priorities, but they “stuck together because they didn’t have any other choice”. She almost seemed jealous of her daughter’s ability to leave her husbands. Miriam’s husband was an architectural draftsman who worked a consulting firm in Kalamazoo. Their favorite thing to do was take road trips around the country. Miriam told me of one trip when they were stuck at a national park in the Appalacian mountains and had to take everything out of their station wagon and sleep in the car, which Miriam described as “a coffin that smelled like burlap”. (They had to keep burlap in the windows so their cat wouldn’t escape).
Miriam has lived in her home on Bellaire Street since she was 19 years old (that was 60 years ago). And although she never thought she would stay in one place for so long, she couldn’t dream of leaving her home now, even though her son and daughter are pressuring her to buy an apartment. Her home was recently the victim of an attempted break-in, which concerned her a lot. Freckles helps her to be brave, though. She spends a lot of time with her sister, who lives in Kalamazoo and is also a widow, and in her spare time she really likes to read mysteries. Not scary mysteries, though. She likes Agatha Christy because she remains separated from the story line. When she was explaining how scared she gets, she exclaimed, “I’m 79 years old and I still can’t watch Bambi, for God’s sake!”
When Miriam was pointing out another drawing by her daughter, I happened to see the clock on her wall. I had been talking with her for over three hours and had completely missed the SI session I was supposed to run that evening. I eventually found a way to excuse myself, telling her that I had to run to a meeting. I still don’t know where the time went. I got back to my room just as the sun was setting. I hadn’t accomplished anything that I had originally set out to do, but I felt like my visit to Edison was fruitful nonetheless. I had to quickly send out an e-mail to my chemistry class with the SI worksheet and an apology for missing the session. Fortunately, they were very understanding today in class. Upon reflecting on my visit with Miriam, I became concerned that Sam would be worried that I was competing for her unique relationship with Miriam. So, I sent her an e-mail as well, explaining what I accomplished (and what I didn’t) in the neighborhood and I hope when I talk with her tonight she will be okay with that.

breaking up is hard to do...

On Saturday night, I broke up with my 'boyfriend' of a few months. I had been being very unfair to him because I am so busy I never had any time to hang out with him. And school was definitely my top priority, then work, then supporting some of my closest friends and then if I had free time I would hang out with him. It must have been pretty frustrating for him. He would stop by and I couldn't even stop typing my essay that would be due the next day because I literally get up at 5am and start studying and preparing for the day, then finally stop studying around 11pm and read for an hour before I go to sleep. I wasn't in love with him, either. He was very romantic, but it got quite annoying after a while. I guess my mom has ruined me for all that stuff :) I hate it when guys hold the door open for me and make me go in before me. And in a strange twist, I have discovered that I don't really like being told that I am beautiful because that is not who I want to be. I want to be seen as an intelligent, passionate person who is concerned about other people, not her looks. Anyway, despite all this, it is still difficult to break up with someone. On the upside, we had one of the most fruitful discussions ever afterwards.

building blocks, second week

sorry for the delay, here is what has been going on with building blocks. We have our first formal meeting with the residents tonight, so wish me luck :). I will write about it soon.
Since we decided to wait a week to hold our first meeting, early this week Sarah, Sam and I were back to door-knocking. We headed to Bellaire Street around 10 am on Tuesday, hoping to get in contact with several people we still had not met. Unfortunately, we did not meet anyone we hadn’t already talked with. As we were heading back to the car, Sam and I decided to try knocking on Mary’s door again. Mary, a middle-aged Hispanic, was in the middle of dinner when we knocked on her door last week and was not happy to be interrupted. We thought that since she has a young son, Javier, she would be up at 10 am. This assumption was further carried by the muted cries of a toddler emerging from the house. Although I was hesitant to interrupt Mary when she was trying to calm Javier, Sam thought that his would be one of our only times to talk with her so we knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked again, louder. Still no answer. As we were walking away from Mary’s home, Sam noticed a side door and knocked on it. No one answered. Confused and frustrated, we continued toward Sarah’s car, but a couple of seconds later, the side door to Mary’s home opened. Our assumptions were wrong. We had awoken Mary and again tried to talk with her at a very inopportune time. She asked us to come back another time.
As we walked up the second block on Bellaire Street, we noticed a woman sitting on her front porch. Sarah had already talked with her husband and he had sounded somewhat interested. We decided this would not only be a good opportunity to remind her about the meeting, but also for her to meet Sam and I (one of the downsides to the way we approached door-knocking is that half of Bellaire Street is very familiar with Sam and me and the other half is very familiar with Sarah). The woman, a Caucasian in her mid-50’s, introduced herself as Suzanne and to our surprise had seen the flier on the kitchen counter and was very excited about coming to our first meeting. She was watching her grandchildren for Spring Break but ushered us into her backyard to show us her ornamental grasses. The first thing that I noticed about Suzanne was how willing she was to share things with people. Not only did she immediately show complete strangers the garden she took so much pride in, but she soon started asking us if we would like some of her hostas or ebony mambo grass. If not, she suggested that she could donate some to the other neighbors participating in Building Blocks. Her garden was beautiful; the entire back yard had been transformed into a haven overflowing with last summer’s remnants of grasses, tomatoes, and flowers. Overhead, wind chimes and bird feeders crisscrossed on twine strung between her house and the trees. Stone paths wound throughout and there was a prominent strawberry patch that Suzanne was quite proud of. We continued to chat with her while her grandchildren chased each other with super-soakers and soon delved into deeper conversation.
Suzanne, like many Bellaire Street residents, works third shift and has been working at the same factory for around 25 years. She works in manufacturing and is very keen that she is working in a ‘man’s world’. She has apparently been in training for shift manager for a very long time but never actually gets promoted, to her frustration. Her husband injured his back in his previous manufacturing job and so is now unable to work. I think that Suzanne is very proud of the fact that she is now supporting her and her husband on her income. A couple of years ago, Suzanne decided to get her GED. She recounted for us how wonderful it was when she realized she “was the smart one”, not her husband and the he really couldn’t push her around anymore. It seems like Suzanne’s relationship with her husband has changed a lot over the years, from him basically supporting her and she in turn fulfilling a traditional role of housewife, to Suzanne entirely supporting him with an amazingly strong sense of self.
As we turned the conversation back to building blocks, Suzanne began to tell her who, from her perspective, would participate. She first talked about some of the homeowners. Especially those who like her had lived in the neighborhood for a long time. She stressed how they wanted to take care of their homes, although sometimes there was not enough money to do it properly. When we told her of some of the other people who had shown interest in the program, she seemed surprised. “But they’re renters”, she claimed. “They don’t care about their homes.” We gently suggested that just because they are renters doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t want to upkeep their homes and Suzanne agreed that she liked Sophie Perez, a renter across the street. Sophie is a single mom and often uses Suzanne for support and advice. I think Suzanne enjoys helping Sophie because she wants Sophie to survive as a strong, self-sufficient woman. Suzanne, however, was initially not interested in meeting the renters next door to her. “They don’t care about their home,” she said, “and they keep me up playing loud music all the time.” We told her that in fact they were interested in the program, too and that maybe this would be a good opportunity for Suzanne to talk with them, get to know them better and let them know that their music bothers her. “Yeah, I will show them the wrath of Suzanne,” Suzanne responded. Yikes! That was not quite what I had in mind. I think we will have to carefully watch how Suzanne interacts with some of the renters. She is very clear and upfront and I think could upset some of her neighbors with her preconceptions of them.
Thursday afternoon, Sam and I returned to Bellaire Street to try and catch up with some people we were unable to meet on Tuesday. To our surprise, our visit was very successful. We thought that since we got there around 6 pm everyone would be eating dinner and that we would be interrupting them. However, we met Greg’s wife, Sue’s daughter, Amy’s husband, and Chris Briggs. We had never met Greg or his wife because they were apparently on vacation in Cancun. Sally, his wife, had received our flier as well as talked with May Willie and was quite excited about the first meeting. Both Sally and Greg are African American, pTomably in their mid-40’s, and have two teenage children. When Sam first spoke with Sue (a young African American single mom), she barely opened the door; she seemed very frightened. We spoke with her teenage daughter on Thursday, who was babysitting her brothers and sisters. She seemed like a very responsible person for being so young. She often takes care of her siblings and is very involved in running her home. She and her mom had been whether or not to participate in Building Blocks over dinner. She promised us she would try and convince her mom to come to our meeting. Amy (Caucasian, mid-30’s) was initially very tentative about participating because she works 3rd shift and was concerned about the time commitment but her husband, John (Caucasian, mid-30’s), had seen the flier on the table and was very excited about coming to the meeting. Chris Briggs, an middle aged African American with two teenage children and married to a Caucasian woman, was very excited about the first meeting. He mentioned several times how he and the neighbors across the street were planning on coming together. It was exciting to see neighbors pressuring each other to get involved. He also initially said that he knew all his neighbors really well because of his kids. Chris lives on the side of Bellaire Street closest to the stream and when we mentioned Andrew and some other kids who lived on the other block, asking if his kids played with them, Chris quickly retorted, “no. We don’t really associate with the people up there. We stick to our own street and they stick to theirs.” I hadn’t really noticed before, but there did seem to be a distinct separation between the two blocks. The kids who knew each other so well and constantly played outside on one block never ventured to the next block. I hadn’t ever seen kids on Chris’s block (except Elizabeth’s). I think that one of our big tasks will be joining these two blocks together more, especially when it comes to working on houses. I think there might be a tendency for people to work only on homes on their own block; both due to this separation and that those houses will be physically closer.
Despite our successful attempts at door-knocking this week, some frustrating things happened, too. I am the coordinator of donations, so I asked several bakeries if they would be willing to donate day-old baked goods to our first meeting. I was unilaterally disappointed. The first store I went to was Kleins, since I know they donate their bagels to Kalamazoo College and have donated to Building Blocks in the past. The manager there that day said that in fact they now donate only to children’s charities and Loaves and Fishes. I think I should go back and talk with a different manager, but it was nevertheless disappointing. I felt like he wasn’t being completely honest with me. I also tried to solicit donations from Panera Bread, since I heard they were also very generous to Building Blocks in the past. There, the manager was very helpful, but said that I would need to contact their corporate headquarters and that the requests could take up to eight weeks. I was talking to my roommate, Jess Walsh, about my frustrations and she suggested that I draft a letter on Edison Neighborhood Association letterhead and get Tom and Pat and maybe ever Terry to sign it. I think that was a really good suggestion, because by myself I really have no credibility so I can see why companies would be wary of agreeing to donations without any proof that I am representing a non-profit organization.
The last rather frustration part of the week was Tom canceling our meeting where we were going to form an agenda for our first meeting. He told us he would e-mail us if he couldn’t make the meeting, but no one had received anything from him yet. About an hour before we were supposed to meet, I tried to call Sam to remind her about the meeting and set up another time to go door-knocking. I accidentally dialed Tom’s number instead and after I realized I was not in fact talking to Sam, he told me that he would have to cancel the meeting. He was very apologetic and I completely understand that he has a really busy schedule, too. I just wish he had let us know a little earlier. I don’t know when he would have told us if I hadn’t misdialed Sam’s phone number and reached him, instead.

my brother is amazing

check out this front page article in the Living section of the Oregonian on the underground newspaper my brother started after being fired as editor of his high-school newspaper :)

http://www.oregonlive.com/living/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/living/1113300166252820.xml

sky dance

Last night, after I got off of work, I rode my bicycle out to the arboretum to see a a woodcock dance. I was really worried that I would get there after he had finished and miss the spectacular display, but as I walked up to the meadow where I thought he would be, I could here his chirping. I sat there for about half an hour before he started to dance and then watched his dance for at least an hour and a half. It was very dark (10:30) when I finished the trip home, but it was totally worth it. Because I cannot explain (without a very embarassing demonstration) what happens during this dance, here is an exerpt from Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac (a much more eloquent description then I would be capable of):

I owned my farm for two years before learning that the sky dance is to be seen over my woods every evening in April and May. Since we discovered it, my family and I have been reluctant to miss even a single performance.



The show begins on the first warm evening in April at exactly 6:50 pm. The curtain goes up one minute later each day until 1 June when the time is 7:50. This sliding scale is dictated by vanity, the dancer demanding a romantic light intensity of exactly 0.05 foot candles. Do not be late, and sit quietly, lest he fly away in a huff.



The stage props, like the opening hours, reflect the temperamental demands of the performer. The stage must be an open amphitheater in woods or brush, and in its center there must be a mossy spot, a streak of sterile sand, a bare outcrop of rock, or a bare roadway. Why the male woodcock should be such a stickler for a bare dance floor puzzled me at first, but I now think it is a matter of legs. The woodcock's legs are short and his struttings cannot be executed to advantage in dense grass or weeds, nor could his lady see them there. I have more woodcocks than most farmers because I have more mossy sand, too poor to support grass.



Knowing the place and the hour, you can seat yourself under a bush to the east of the dance floor and wait, watching against the sunset for the woodcock's arrival. He flies in low from some neighboring thicket, alights on the bare moss, and at once begins the overture: a series of queer throaty peents spaced about two seconds apart, and sounding much like the summer call of the nighthawk.



Suddenly the peenting ceases and the bird flutters skyward in a series of wide spirals, emitting a musical twitter. Up and up he goes, the spirals steeper and smaller, the twittering louder and louder, until the performer is only a speck in the sky. Then, without warning, he tumbles like a crippled plane, giving voice in a soft liquid warble that a March bluebird might envy. At a few feet from the ground he levels off and returns to his peenting ground, usually to the exact spot where the performance began, and there resumes his peenting.



It is soon too dark to see the bird on the ground, but you can see his fight against the sky for an hour, which is the usual duration of the show. On moonlight nights, however, it may continue, at intervals, as long as the moon continues to shine.



At daybreak the whole show is repeated. In early April the final curtain falls at 5:15 am; the time advances two minutes a day until June, when the performance closes for the year at 3:15. Why the disparity in sliding scale? Alas, I fear that even romance tires, for it takes only a fifth as much light to stop the sky dance at dawn as suffices to start it at sunset.



It is fortunate, perhaps, that no matter how intently one studies the hundred little dramas of the woods and meadows, one can never learn all of the salient facts about any one of them. What I do not yet know about the sky dance is: where is the lady, and just what part, if any, does she play? I often see two woodcocks on a peenting ground, and the two sometimes fly together, but they never peent together. Is the second bird the hen or rival male?



Another unknown: is the twitter vocal, or is it mechanical? My friend, Bill Fenney, once clapped a net over a peenting bird and removed is outer primary wing feathers; thereafter it peented and warbled, but twittered no more. But one such experiment is hardly conclusive.



Another unknown: up to what stage of nesting does the male continue the sky dance? My daughter once saw a bird peenting within twenty yards of a nest containing hatched eggshells, but was this his lady's nest? Or is this secretive fellow possibly bigamous without our ever having found it out? These, and many other questions, remain mysteries of the deepening dusk.



The drama of the sky dance is enacted nightly on hundreds of farms, the owners of which sigh for entertainment, but harbor the illusion that it is to be sought in theaters. They life on the land, but not by the land.



The woodcock is a living refutation of the theory that the utility of a game bird is to serve as a target, or to pose gracefully on a slice of toast. No one would rather hunt woodcock in October than I, but since learning of the sky dance I find myself calling one or two bird enough. I must be sure that come April, there be no dearth of dancers in the sunset sky.



My friend Reid and I are riding back to the arboretum tomorrow night because his dance is rather addicting. We are going to try and hide in the bushes next to where he peens so we can be very close to him.

Did I mention yet that for my vertebrate biology class our first assignment is to memorize 50 bird calls and about 12 frog calls and that we go to the arboretum at dawn on saturdays to go bird watching? It's pretty much the coolist thing in the world. Now when I walk around campus or through the woods I have a completely different experience because I pay so much more attention to the sounds that are present. It still baffles my mind that sometimes I can identify them. I love biology!

building blocks, first week

*all names and places have been changed to protect the identity of the residents*
Building blocks is a grant program set up by the cisty of Kalamazoo and a class I am taking this quarter teaches organizing skills through facilitation of this program. What follows is an account of some of my experiences the first week:
After experiencing my group’s interactions with our supervisor at the training session, I realized I was going to have to speak up a lot more. Sarah and Sam both have really strong personalities and I felt like they really dominated our introductory conversation with Tom. At first I think I felt a little excluded because Sarah and Sam already knew each other quite well and tended to have very personal conversations to which I didn’t feel I could contribute much. On Sunday night, the night before our first actual meeting with Tom, I decided to make a conscious effort to make an equal contribution to our conversation. I planned out how I would respond to different scenarios and felt pretty confident, but the next day as I sat in Rocket Cafe trying to take a more active role in the conversation I remembered that planning is much easier than executing. Sarah and Sam were both sitting on the same side of the table so I changed where I was sitting so Tom didn’t have to look in a different direction to make eye contact with me and then I just started talking, even if occasionally I was interjecting something Sam or Sarah was saying. Although it was very awkward for me at first to have to work so hard to remain a part of the dialogue, by the end of our conversation, I felt like I was making an equal contribution with very little effort. I think that changing my seat at the table really helped.
Most of the dialogue at our meeting focused around the flier we would hand out in our neighborhood. I think we all thought the meeting would be pretty short because we were just going to construct a one-page flier. However, we ended up sitting at Rocket Cafe for a couple of hours and getting to know each other more between composing the flier. After much discussion about specific wording and formatting, we came up with a flier that I think we were all excited about. It allowed people to quickly discern the purpose of building blocks and the steps they would need to take to participate without overly emphasizing the monetary aspect. We learned a lot more about Tom at our meeting as well. He has been a supervisor several times for building blocks and participated in the program several years ago. Right now he is unemployed so he feels like he can spend a lot of time as the supervisor, but he is very concerned that we will agree to complete projects that cannot be completed during the work weekends and that he will ultimately end up finishing them himself after the work weekends. I think that because of his experience Tom will be a wonderful asset for us as challenges present themselves. However, Tom also is very clear about what he wont do. He really does not want to work on any eaves troughs nor does he want to support any projects in the back yards of houses. I think that his experience has caused him to be slightly less receptive to innovative ways of attacking problems.
During our meeting at Rocket Cafe, we came up with two days to go door-knocking in our neighborhood during the next week since we had to get our flier approved on Thursday at the neighborhood association meeting. Only one of the times would be before second week. However, after class on Monday night, we all agreed that we should add another session before our next class. We tentatively agreed that we would wait until after our third attempt at door-knocking together to go out to Bellaire St. individually. I was relieved that we were planning more than two door-knocking attempts because it seemed like we were waiting a long time to start the process and that we could easily fall behind schedule. I was also a little worried about Tom’s willingness to accompany us door-knocking. I wasn’t sure how much he planned on participating in our door-knocking and I didn’t think I would be comfortable with him talking to residents when we first met them because I understood that as my responsibility as a student. Sarah, Sam, and I decided that we would talk to Tom about guidelines when we me to start door-knocking.
On Thursday, we had a joint meeting with the neighborhood association and the other groups working in the Hoover neighborhood. The meeting was really helpful in clarifying some of the confusing aspects of the policies of Hoover’s neighborhood association. We learned an interesting lesson on classifying people, too: two Hoover residents at the neighborhood got in a pretty heated discussion about the ‘kinds of people’ that live in Hoover. In suggesting that we also identify ourselves as Kalamazoo College students, one resident generalized all Hoover residents as ‘poor and proud’ and thus not likely to accept handouts from wealthy donors in the city. She used herself as an example, saying that she initially participated in building blocks because she thought it would help her student organizers earn class credit. However, another person at the meeting corrected her, saying that many residents of Hoover are well-educated and not very poor and choose to live there because the like the homes and the proximity to downtown. It was interesting to listen to their conversation because they didn’t seem to want to acknowledge that both people could coexist in Hoover.
That afternoon, it was a really nice day outside and I was feeling guilty about not having seen Bellaire St. yet so I rode my bike to Hoover and made a couple of loops up and down the two blocks that encompass our site. Although it was a warm sunny day, it was also a weekday and one of the things that struck me the most was the number of people who were outside. The only residents I saw were African American and there were a lot of kids playing in the street. Tom told us on Monday that most of the houses were one-story bungalows so I wasn’t expecting as many two-story homes. A stream flows perpendicular to one end of the court, there was one empty lot near the stream and many of the homes close to the stream were for sale. The top story of one of the homes on that block had burned in a fire and no one appeared to live there. The site was a lot more beautiful than I had expected it to be; the homes possessed a friendly character, I think because they were all close to the street, and the atmosphere on the street seemed more friendly than the atmosphere on Reed, the street I rode in on. I left the neighborhood really excited about door-knocking on Saturday.
Saturday afternoon we met Tom in the Hardings parking lot a block away from our site. We were all really embarrassed about arriving late, but Tom was very understanding; apparently he was late, too but had the good fortune to arrive a few minutes before us. To our surprise, before we could talk about the guidelines we wanted to set for door-knocking, Tom made it clear that he was just there to walk down the street and that he would not be talking to the residents. As we were walking to one end or Bellaire St. to start knocking on doors, we were stopped by Greg and Grant in between their two houses. They asked us what we were up to so we decided to talk to them first. I was caught off guard a little so I sort of fumbled my way through an explanation of building blocks but they were both kind enough to listen to me. Between jokes about the huge additions they wanted to add to their already massive houses, they told us they were very interested in the program. Their homes seemed to be the center of much of the activity in the neighborhood and their were several kids playing basketball in front of their homes. It turned out that Greg doesn’t actually live on Bellaire St. but that his two kids, Lashonda and a young boy, do. Grant lives with his mom in the house next door and they seemed to be pretty good friends. They also seemed to be pretty knowledgeable about their neighbors on Bellaire St. and were telling us about the people who lived around them. One of the first things I noticed was their view toward Hispanics. As we were knocking on another door, someone yelled to Sarah and me, “Some Mexicans live there, I don’t think they’re home”. I guess it wasn’t the comment itself but rather the way they emphasized Mexicans that made me take a second look at the block. Everyone who was outside was African American, even though Hoover has a reputation of having a large Hispanic population. As we continued knocking on doors, we met several Hispanic households, some with children, but they all stayed safely inside their houses. Javier and Jose came outside to talk with us but refused to leave their porch as we talked about possible landscaping projects. I noticed the same trend with the few Caucasian families we met. Julie, an elderly Caucasian woman, invited us inside her home to talk before she even knew who we were. Between the squeaks of her rabbit, the squawking of her bird and the soft spinning of her hamster’s wheel; she lamented that her grandchildren used to play outside all the time but that a long time ago the kids moved away and new people moved in and now she doesn’t really go outside anymore. She has two grandchildren who live with her as well and who are close in age to many of the kids we saw playing in the street but when her great-grandson did venture outside on his bike, he didn’t seem to want to interact with any of the kids who were already playing. From our conversation with Margaret, it seems like there may have been a large change in the racial composition of the neighborhood in the last 30 years or so from predominantly Caucasian to predominantly Hispanic and African American.
Sunday afternoon, Sarah, Sam and I headed back to Bellaire St., this time without Tom. There were people we needed to meet for the first time and others we needed to give more information to. As we began to walk down the street, Andrew ran up to us to say hello. We only managed to knock on one door before we were again drawn to Grant and Greg’s homes. This time, we met May Greg, Greg’s mom and the owner of the home where Greg’s kids live. She was very excited about the prospect of getting help to improve her yard as well as getting to know the few neighbors she has not already met. Every car that drove past Bellaire St. while we chatted with May somehow contained passengers who were related to her. She has met almost everyone on the block, although she doesn’t know many of their names. May seems like a very valuable resource because she is so well connected in the neighborhood. She was able to tell us the daily schedules of most of our neighbors and offered to give them fliers and talk about the program when she saw them. Despite the length of time we spent with May, we were unable to divulge any broader issues that she was worried about with her neighborhood because of how distracted she was with visitors. We are going to talk with her more on Tuesday and hopefully we will be able to have a more personal conversation with her. We knocked on the door of the next house on our list an again no one answered. We were about to give up when Sarah noticed some people working in the backyard. After we explained who we were to a teenage boy we met an amazing woman, Janet. It turned out that Janet actually lives on Bank St. and is planning on participating in building blocks in that site. Through our conversation, we discovered that she has epilepsy and MS, and possibly some other serious illnesses. Her husband is currently unemployed because he injured his hands and although they get workers compensation, they have $175 each month to live on after they pay for the rent on their house. They also have 8 children. Because her top priority is caring for her children, Janet has not been able to afford her medication for the past three days and is in a lot of pain. Despite this, she is spending the afternoon with her kids working in her neighbor’s yard. She mentioned her illnesses and the fact that she has no refrigerator, microwave or oven and only two functional burners on her stove casually; as side notes. What she was really worried about was finishing her work on her neighbor’s yard before she was in too much pain to continue. Inspired by Aditi’s visit yesterday, she had started cleaning her yard; an effort that quickly expanded into other yards as well. I was really amazed at how intent Janet was on maintaining her social capital with her neighbors in the face of the extreme financial challenges she is facing.

best news ever!

School tends to be really lonely when no one else is around. Only one of my friends has returned to school yet and she is an RA and so it chained to the staff room from 9am to 9pm. The shortage of human life is unfortunately forcing me to work on the grant application I should turn in tomorrow. Grr. My flight back was pretty uneventful, with the exception that there were exactly three people on the second leg so we got to fly in a private plane. It was pretty awesome.
After a good morning sleeping in, a 4 mile run, a long trip grocery shopping on my best friend's bike (it is way better than mine so sometimes she lets me borrow it. Plus it has a rack on the back so I can carry more stuff), a couple hours making bread for dinner, and a futile attempt to buy textbooks I was finally brave enough to check my mailbox. I knew that my grades for the quarter would be there, and that meant knowing what I got in organic chemistry. I was hoping for an A- but that was a pretty high hope. I was pretty sure I would get a B+, but a B was still a strong possibility. There is a long and painful history in my family surrounding organic chemistry. My mom was planning on becoming a veterinarian until she did not get an A in organic chemistry and her adviser told her she would not be admitted to veterinary school with anything less than a 4.0 in the sciences. She majored in psychology to be able to graduate on time and now is a professor in the communication department of a college. I survived the first semester of organic quite painlessly with an A but the second semester was the most frustrating class I have ever taken. The main problem stemmed from the fact that I really liked the class and all the material we were covering (which left me no excuse to complain about it). It was just super difficult. Regardless of how well I thought I knew the material I would not perform well on exams. I guess it was a good experience because I have never had to deal with that before where I literally can't do any better. Anyway, top that off with taking an extra class as well as weekly piano lessons and working 40 hours each week (not including commuting time) and I had a pretty stressful quarter. All kinds of justifications were streaming through my head as I opened the letter from the school. I just kind of stared at it for a while in disbelief. There was no B anywhere to be found. Across from "Organic Chemistry II" read A. Not even an A-! I still don't really believe it.

I love HMSC!

I drove out to the coast today to see my mentor Pete from my internship last summer. Tim, the veterinarian who I will be working with this summer was on vacation, as was my good friend Dennis, but somewhere between the pine tree shadows through the coastal range and the sun reflecting off the ocean's waves I realized how much I miss being out there. They are currently rennovating the hospital and quarantine rooms and putting in space for me to research (!) I am pretty excited, and they are painting the bottom half of the walls blue, my favorite color, which should make up for the fact that I will be spending my summer once again under fluorescent lighting. I spent a couple of hours talking with Pete. He is the funniest person I think I will ever meet, and constantly makes fun of me. I am very sad, though, because he is probably moving to Jamaica to work with an emerging dolphin program in a month and I will never see him again. Well, I should get back to writing my grant so hopefully I can get paid to work there again in a few months

a quest for wildflowers

So, mom mentioned to me briefly on the phone during final exams week that there was an unprecedented wildflower bloom in Death Valley this year and it would be peaking during Spring Break and that it might be fun to take a road trip down there. I think she was joking. I took it pretty seriously. She also thought that Death Valley was in Northern Califonia. It is actually between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, approximately 1100 miles south of McMinnville. When she picked me up from an incredibly long train ride across the country she foolishly asked me what to do. "Go to see the wildflowers", I replied. Never mind that I had just sat on a train for 55 hours, road trips are always fun. The next morning, at 6:00am (a compromise between my idea of early -- 4:00 and hers -- 6:00) we were off. Here are the results:
We've explored Northern Oregon, but after passing Eugene we were both in foreign territory. it was either too dark or too rainy to see much but by the time we entered California, we realized why we don't want them overtaking Oregon. First, they have some serious problems naming town. The first town we encountered was affectionately called Weed (and boasted a clever sign, "Weed like to welcome you" that warrented a picture but the rain had other ideas). Besides Weed, the upper half of California is rather uncreative at naming roads. For several hours we passed exits like the one below:

Soon, however, we reached towns with far more interesting names. Mainly Los Baños, Liberal Avenue in Corning, and Boron (my favorite):


We ended up spending the night a few hours outside of the national park because we had already driven 17 hours and were both pretty tired. The next morning, right before we entered the park we decided to fill up with gas. It was the most expensive gas ever purchased in the US:

The first pass we went over, Jubilee Pass, we saw a couple of flowers and I was amazed so we stopped and started taking pictures. Cars kept driving past us -- it wasn't unitl about an hour later that we realized why. There were far more flowers a few minutes down the road:


Here are some of the flowers we saw: (for a more complete look, check out mom's blog for an upcoming photo album)

A lonely desert gold sunflower, an unnowkn flower, and a desert chicory


Gravel ghost and mom's amazing photo of pebble pincushion

My personal favorite plant that we saw was a parasitic plant called toothed dodder. It inserts suckers into the tissue of its host plant and lives entirely off of it. Here is has engulfed a young Creosote bush:


Alas, there is more to Death Valley than flowers. We took some hikes and a wade in a very salty lake:

Mom keeping a lookout for enemy approaches from nearby Edwards air force base


Salt encrusted rocks at the unusual lake on the valley floor


Death valley from the golden canyon


Me, wading in some very salty water

After listening to a talk by a botonist/ranger where we painlessly learned how to actually identify all the flowers we had been photographing (thanks to his excellent sense of humor), we decided to head back home. Mom was a little tense at times:

but we made it back okay. Road trips rock!