August and September kind of crawled by, but October and November have gone by so quickly!
This month, I did some field work in the Wetlands Ecosystem Ecology Lab at my university. I arrive on campus at 6:00AM (yes, you read that correctly) and we (the graduate student hosting the project, Chris, and a few other workers like myself) commute to Tres Rios, about a 20 minutes drive west of campus. There, we study the wetland ecosystem in various ways. Basically, when I went out, we measured plant growth. The fun part was wearing the waders and walking through the water and socializing with my lab partners, they make getting up at such an unholy hour a lot easier.
About halfway through the month, I got a bike and have ridden it everywhere since (I’ve taken the light rail literally one roundtrip since I got it). It’s been great!
I went home for Thanksgiving and even though I’m not a fan of the holiday, it was good to see my (extended) family and friends. It was also fun to be able to go to the Gaslight Theater, a tradition we’ve had ever since I can remember.
However, my holiday weekend wasn’t much of a break as I had work. We had a musical called Beautiful, praising Carole King’s legacy, and I liked it a lot! Unfortunately, on Sunday, we had an incident that has never happened in the theater (at least in the last 25 years): a patron fell off the tier into the orchestra level. This article illustrates it better than I could, but the bottom line is that nobody suffered any life-threatening injuries. I was working at the time it happened, but I was in the balcony level, where we also had an incident of a woman fainting. Needless to say, it was an anxiety-ridden shift, but my boss handled it gracefully and thanked us profusely for our work.
I have finished registering for my courses for my final semester: animal behavior, vertebrate zoology, two different research projects (my current hummingbird lab and ecotourism project), ethics in conservation, population and community ecology and urban ecological ecosystems. I’m looking forward to a semester of no general classes, finally.
Club activity has been minimal this month: the School of Life Science Ambassadors had a few promotional and farewell events and a planning meeting to plan our next semester activities. The Society for Conservation Biology has been especially quiet, but I got to speak to the president (who happens to also be a personal friend) about taking up an officer position and it seems like a strong possibility. As the new public outreach officer, I hope to make more fun events for conservation students and recruit more members.
What I’m listening to: Infinity Land by Biffy Clyro, Take to the Skies by Enter Shikari, All Our Gods Have Abandoned Us by Architects, That’s the Spirit by Bring Me the Horizon, Sempiternal by Bring Me the Horizon, Are You Satisfied? by Slaves, Live at Alexandra Palace by Enter Shikari
What I’m watching: The Inbetweeners, The Inbetweeners 2, Black Mirror (seasons 1-3)
What I’m reading: The Ethics of What We Eat by Peter Singer and Jim Mason
Sounds like you are very busy. I love reading your posts. I am excited to hear that you will be coming to California. I look forward to seeing you as well as meeting Dan!! All my love!