Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Terremoto!
Just a quick update before I forget. I felt an earthquake last night! It was minor, similar to what you'd feel if you stood on a plane tarmac or next to a train. I was sitting in the computer lab and felt a rumble and a shake and at first thought it was a big boat or something, then realized there's no way I'd feel that. I went outside and there were a bunch of people congregating around the intern cabin and Gustavo came out and told everyone what it was. Apparently they're not that uncommon, since Baja is essentially on a fault line.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
One of the bad things about San Carlos (besides the lack of internet that means I can't update when I want to!) is it's making me into a weather wuss. I don't think it's been any colder than 60, but every time it dips below maybe 65 we're all complaining about how cold it is. I guess it doesn't help that I only have two sweatshirts and one pair of close-toed shoes that aren't awful to wear in the sand (bad call there). And these buildings aren't exactly built to keep in heat, so there's a constant breeze.
I got up early this morning to do yoga that Brady leads. I don't think I've said much about Brady yet, but she's the Student Affairs Manager and is in charge of us students in general-our happiness, our safety, our schedules, etc. I don't know if its part of her job or not, but she's essentially in charge of community relations. She's been here for three years and knows a lot of the people in town and tries to get them involved in what we're doing. She's essentially like a camp counselor with some admin powers. Anyway, this was one of the only times I've done yoga and I remembered that I do in fact like it a lot. I felt really loose and calmly energized (versus bouncing off the walls energized) afterwards.
We had a bunch of classes, including Coastal Ecology with Eduardo. I really like Eduardo, he's probably in his late 30s and Mexican but he did his PhD in New Zealand so his English is awesome. We did spend a lot of time going over currents and weather patterns, which was less than exciting. We also had Principles of Resource Management with Vero (short for Veronica), who's a petite Mexican woman with a strong accent. In class we've been talking about the agencies that govern fisheries and how fisheries work. Lunch was sandwiches with really awesome bread and assorted toppings. Brady, the student affairs manager, said that the cooks never believe her when she tells them that we're happy with just sandwiches.
We also got an intro to the directed research topics. The three professors (plus Gustavo, center director) have a total of 7 research projects for 2-3 students to work on and specialize a bit. Vero's are mostly concerned with fishery management for different crustaceans (blue crab, lobster and something else), AJ has socioeconomic projects like how changing ___ will affect the people of San Carlos and vice versa, and Eduardo has the sea turtle and whale projects. I'm not really sure which I want to do. I already have a fair amount of traditional ecology field work so I kind of want to do something different with Vero or AJ. But on the other hand, Eduardo's stuff is so cool, and he seems like he'd be great to work with! And I do truly like ecology a lot. But then again, we'll all work on all the projects at some point so it's not like I wouldn't see any whales. I would also feel a little guilty doing the whales or sea turtles because I know there's a bunch of people who really really want to work with them and who came here just to do that. I could get into the less charismatic species and projects, like mangroves or the rock lobster. Gustavo said they try to get everyone in at least their 2nd choice, so I may just write down my top three and say "I don't have an order" and leave it to chance a bit.
For Spanish class they broke us into two levels, and whichever level isn't in class gets to have free time. Today all the Spanish I girls went to Brady's friend who's a seamstress to get clothing tailor-made. The rest of us will be going in a few weeks, I'm soo excited for that! The only clothing I've ever had made just for me were Halloween costumes when I was little. I think I want to get yoga pants and a dress, but I can't decide what I want the dress to be like yet.
In Spanish 2 we had a debate on the influence of mass communication, with my group saying it was bad. Unfortunately it's kind of hard to argue with "without books and journals we wouldn't have modern medicine." It started to get a little heated but when we left everyone was laughing and saying things like "I don't actually believe it's ok to destroy cultures." It's hard trying to come up with arguments for something that you may not believe, and furthermore arguments that you can actually figure out how to say. For example, Martin didn't think there's even a word for "Westernization" in Spanish.
I got up early this morning to do yoga that Brady leads. I don't think I've said much about Brady yet, but she's the Student Affairs Manager and is in charge of us students in general-our happiness, our safety, our schedules, etc. I don't know if its part of her job or not, but she's essentially in charge of community relations. She's been here for three years and knows a lot of the people in town and tries to get them involved in what we're doing. She's essentially like a camp counselor with some admin powers. Anyway, this was one of the only times I've done yoga and I remembered that I do in fact like it a lot. I felt really loose and calmly energized (versus bouncing off the walls energized) afterwards.
We had a bunch of classes, including Coastal Ecology with Eduardo. I really like Eduardo, he's probably in his late 30s and Mexican but he did his PhD in New Zealand so his English is awesome. We did spend a lot of time going over currents and weather patterns, which was less than exciting. We also had Principles of Resource Management with Vero (short for Veronica), who's a petite Mexican woman with a strong accent. In class we've been talking about the agencies that govern fisheries and how fisheries work. Lunch was sandwiches with really awesome bread and assorted toppings. Brady, the student affairs manager, said that the cooks never believe her when she tells them that we're happy with just sandwiches.
We also got an intro to the directed research topics. The three professors (plus Gustavo, center director) have a total of 7 research projects for 2-3 students to work on and specialize a bit. Vero's are mostly concerned with fishery management for different crustaceans (blue crab, lobster and something else), AJ has socioeconomic projects like how changing ___ will affect the people of San Carlos and vice versa, and Eduardo has the sea turtle and whale projects. I'm not really sure which I want to do. I already have a fair amount of traditional ecology field work so I kind of want to do something different with Vero or AJ. But on the other hand, Eduardo's stuff is so cool, and he seems like he'd be great to work with! And I do truly like ecology a lot. But then again, we'll all work on all the projects at some point so it's not like I wouldn't see any whales. I would also feel a little guilty doing the whales or sea turtles because I know there's a bunch of people who really really want to work with them and who came here just to do that. I could get into the less charismatic species and projects, like mangroves or the rock lobster. Gustavo said they try to get everyone in at least their 2nd choice, so I may just write down my top three and say "I don't have an order" and leave it to chance a bit.
For Spanish class they broke us into two levels, and whichever level isn't in class gets to have free time. Today all the Spanish I girls went to Brady's friend who's a seamstress to get clothing tailor-made. The rest of us will be going in a few weeks, I'm soo excited for that! The only clothing I've ever had made just for me were Halloween costumes when I was little. I think I want to get yoga pants and a dress, but I can't decide what I want the dress to be like yet.
In Spanish 2 we had a debate on the influence of mass communication, with my group saying it was bad. Unfortunately it's kind of hard to argue with "without books and journals we wouldn't have modern medicine." It started to get a little heated but when we left everyone was laughing and saying things like "I don't actually believe it's ok to destroy cultures." It's hard trying to come up with arguments for something that you may not believe, and furthermore arguments that you can actually figure out how to say. For example, Martin didn't think there's even a word for "Westernization" in Spanish.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Today was our first day off, so everyone slept in another couple of hours. Got up around 10 and got breakfast, which is fend for yourself on Sundays. A bunch of people went to a beach (since ours is polluted) but I stayed back to finish up some reading and a paper on environmental ethics. Jenna (one of my roommates), Dave, Lindsey and I went into town for lunch. I ended up getting bistec ranchero, which is kind of shredded beef with peppers and onions mixed in. Pretty much everything is served with beans and tortillas and usually rice. I still haven´t figured out the best way to eat things, I still do a kind of wrap. Lindsey got this thing that we couldn´t figure out what it was until we got back to the center and asked Jose, the kid from Mexico city. Apparently she ate pig fat lol. After lunch we walked around San Carlos a bit and stopped in the grocery store for assorted snack foods. I hadn´t really been around San Carlos during the day except for our tour. It´s nice to be able to see the uneven sidewalks and stray dogs in the light lol. When we got back the people from the beach were back and I finished up (for real this time) my readings. I had gotten confused and didn´t realize we had readings for the field exercise yesterday, so I had a backlog to finish. Since it was Sunday a group of students had to cook dinner, which was bbq chicken, pasta and stir fry veggies. We tried to find somewhere that streamed the Super Bowl, but failed.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Today was definitely the coolest day so far. Since it's Saturday we got to sleep in for another hour before breakfast. There were a lot of pastries and muffins, as well as the usual fruit and chocolate (hot chocolate Mexican style, with cinnamon and some other spices). After that we had RAP and assorted meetings, which were essentially the students getting together and going over any announcements or requests (ie can we organize dirty dishes better and can we please do something about that poor dog that's hanging around). The staff was having a meeting at the same time, and at the end Brady (Student Affairs Manager) and Gustavo (Center Director) listened to our points and brought up any they had for us.
Then we went out on our first field exercise. We loaded up the pangas with all our snorkeling gear and packed lunches and field equipment and had maybe a 15-20 min boat ride out to the bay where we were doing a scallop abundance sampling. We had squares made out of PVC that we had to throw behind us, then snorkel to see if there were any scallops within the quadrant. If there were, we had to collect any. Unfortunately no one saw scallops, although one of my group members Jose almost put his hand on a stingray. Then we got back in the boats and had another boat ride to collect octopi! Vero (Principles of Resource Management) has a study of octopus using artificial shelter (beer cans). So we had to go out and collect the cans and their stakes from three different sea floor types-rhodoliths, sand, and rocky. To do this you had to dive down (nothing over like 4 ft), plug the end of the can, grab the stake and bring the whole thing to the surface and put the can in a Ziploc full of water. The first and last locations we had to snorkel and had difficulty finding all of the cans. In one place I saw a big blue crab, a bunch of scallops and a really weird looking fish. But for the sand, the water was only about 2 feet deep so we just waded and found almost all of them. All of this took 4-5 hours, and we ate lunch on the boat. My snorkeling gear all worked fine-it was my first time, and with all new gear. It was a little harder to get to the bottom with my wetsuit on, but it was too cold to go without. I also stupidly forgot a towel, so I borrowed someone else's once we got in the boat.
Once we got back we had to process everything in the lab, which involved cutting open the cans and recording all the animals that were in the bag. Most of them had a ton of snails and I got to show off my amphipod prowess. My group had a couple of fish and crabs, but no octopi. I think there were maybe a total of 10 octopi caught, some with eggs in the can. We had to kill one of them because it was a new species and we had to keep a sample for identification in the future. Vero got really upset and was having problems because the octopus kept trying to crawl out of the jar of alcohol. I ended up grabbing it and doing it myself. A lot of people were kind of shaken up by it and couldn't watch, but I guess from putting so many frogs down I'm used to having to do the sad part. I also believe that "if you kill something, you have to watch it die," kind of as a token of respect to it, or so you don't forget what you're asking of it. We didn't have to put any others down, and they were very cool. One of the other kids got pictures and will be putting them up on the server. It was really weird to hold one, their suckers were definitely strong, but they didn't hurt. They could move in so many different ways and it was like having 8 legs gave them a different dimension of movement, or at least had many more ways of moving.
Tonight we're going into town to the restaurant Poncho (one of the pangueros)'s sister owns. Some of us are having dinner there, but since they're only doing shellfish tonight some people ate at the center and are only doing drinks once we're there. It's a good thing we're getting a ride though because I'm exhausted from snorkeling all day.
Then we went out on our first field exercise. We loaded up the pangas with all our snorkeling gear and packed lunches and field equipment and had maybe a 15-20 min boat ride out to the bay where we were doing a scallop abundance sampling. We had squares made out of PVC that we had to throw behind us, then snorkel to see if there were any scallops within the quadrant. If there were, we had to collect any. Unfortunately no one saw scallops, although one of my group members Jose almost put his hand on a stingray. Then we got back in the boats and had another boat ride to collect octopi! Vero (Principles of Resource Management) has a study of octopus using artificial shelter (beer cans). So we had to go out and collect the cans and their stakes from three different sea floor types-rhodoliths, sand, and rocky. To do this you had to dive down (nothing over like 4 ft), plug the end of the can, grab the stake and bring the whole thing to the surface and put the can in a Ziploc full of water. The first and last locations we had to snorkel and had difficulty finding all of the cans. In one place I saw a big blue crab, a bunch of scallops and a really weird looking fish. But for the sand, the water was only about 2 feet deep so we just waded and found almost all of them. All of this took 4-5 hours, and we ate lunch on the boat. My snorkeling gear all worked fine-it was my first time, and with all new gear. It was a little harder to get to the bottom with my wetsuit on, but it was too cold to go without. I also stupidly forgot a towel, so I borrowed someone else's once we got in the boat.
Once we got back we had to process everything in the lab, which involved cutting open the cans and recording all the animals that were in the bag. Most of them had a ton of snails and I got to show off my amphipod prowess. My group had a couple of fish and crabs, but no octopi. I think there were maybe a total of 10 octopi caught, some with eggs in the can. We had to kill one of them because it was a new species and we had to keep a sample for identification in the future. Vero got really upset and was having problems because the octopus kept trying to crawl out of the jar of alcohol. I ended up grabbing it and doing it myself. A lot of people were kind of shaken up by it and couldn't watch, but I guess from putting so many frogs down I'm used to having to do the sad part. I also believe that "if you kill something, you have to watch it die," kind of as a token of respect to it, or so you don't forget what you're asking of it. We didn't have to put any others down, and they were very cool. One of the other kids got pictures and will be putting them up on the server. It was really weird to hold one, their suckers were definitely strong, but they didn't hurt. They could move in so many different ways and it was like having 8 legs gave them a different dimension of movement, or at least had many more ways of moving.
Tonight we're going into town to the restaurant Poncho (one of the pangueros)'s sister owns. Some of us are having dinner there, but since they're only doing shellfish tonight some people ate at the center and are only doing drinks once we're there. It's a good thing we're getting a ride though because I'm exhausted from snorkeling all day.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Just a quick post during break. Yesterday we had our first Sustainable Development class with AJ, then drove into Ciudad Constitucion to get pictures taken for our student visas. We had some really awesome ice cream there too, I had coconut that tasted just like fresh coconut, and chocolate which was the awesome kind of Mexican chocolate that has some kind of cinammon or something mixed in. Came back, had dinner and then a weekly social, which was game night. We ended up playing Pictionary for probably two hours.
I woke up early today so I finally managed to upload all my pictures. I had to do one at a time and it took about 40 minutes to upload 20 pictures, and I only managed to do that because everyone was either asleep or running lol.
Today I had to lead RAP (Reflections Announcements Physicality). I read two Rachel Carson quotes and then did this game called Birdies and Perches, which is kind of like human musical chairs-one person's the birdie and the other the perch and when the music stops the birdie has to be off the ground. Last pair standing wins.
We had our first classes in Resource Management (with Vero) and Coastal Ecology (with Eduardo). Funnily enough, Eduardo was going over his research background and two of his main projects were on amphipods and frogs...that sounded familiar.
Anyway, album is here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037169&id=1480320118&l=8310a6c09b it should work for everyone, whether or not they have facebook.
I woke up early today so I finally managed to upload all my pictures. I had to do one at a time and it took about 40 minutes to upload 20 pictures, and I only managed to do that because everyone was either asleep or running lol.
Today I had to lead RAP (Reflections Announcements Physicality). I read two Rachel Carson quotes and then did this game called Birdies and Perches, which is kind of like human musical chairs-one person's the birdie and the other the perch and when the music stops the birdie has to be off the ground. Last pair standing wins.
We had our first classes in Resource Management (with Vero) and Coastal Ecology (with Eduardo). Funnily enough, Eduardo was going over his research background and two of his main projects were on amphipods and frogs...that sounded familiar.
Anyway, album is here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037169&id=1480320118&l=8310a6c09b it should work for everyone, whether or not they have facebook.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Today after breakfast we started out with a goals/expectations meeting where we did the typical "3 goals for the semester," then Brady had a question and answer session about what to expect. Realistic expectations were things like "seeing whales", unrealistic would be "touching whales" since they're hard to get close to. It really just became a general q/a session. Then we had a short break to get ready for our swimming test. Since the water around the point is really polluted we're not allowed to swim there, so we had to go for maybe a 15-20 minute boat ride to a different beach surrounded by mangroves. The boats are simple speedboats, the ride was bumpy and something short of pleasant. They anchored the boats maybe 100m away from each other and you had to swim back and forth, three times if you wore a wetsuit, twice if not. Swimming in the ocean in a wetsuit was harder than I expected, I felt fairly ridiculous that it took me so long. Once you had done your laps you had to tread water for 1:30 minutes. Then we got back in the boats and headed back.
Once we got back we had some time for a break, during which a bunch of people took quick showers and rinsed out their wetsuits. Then we had lunch, which was some kind of a mixed veggie/shellfish (chocolate clams-not actually chocolate!) and rice, plus crabs. After that we had a site cleanup-everyone has a different chore every week that they have to do. This week mine's kitchen trash/recycling, where I have to make sure both are emptied and the recycling is sorted correctly. That was pretty quick, so I went to help Will sweep the patio and museum. It rained so much yesterday that the museum was pretty much flooded so he spent most of the time squeeging water out while Laura, Elia, Vero and I swept sand off the patio.
After site cleanup we went on a walking tour of town with Brady. We saw a bunch of the shops and Brady pointed out the ones with really friendly shop owners, as well as the ones who speak English. We stopped to go in a few stores like the grocery store, a gift shop and a convenience store. I took a bunch of pictures...and my camera deleted them, as well as all the pictures I took of the site. So once we got back I wandered around some more, taking the same pictures I'd taken yesterday and this morning. After that I played (or something like it) soccer with Elia, Jose and Antonio (an intern) on the sand lot they made earlier today.
When we got back we realized that our cabin's power was out. Gustavo (the center director) and Carlos (the repairman) fixed it by flipping our breaker. It went out again and we think it was the light that's outside our door, so we're leaving that off for awhile. We got our first reading assignments from AJ, a small chapter in a book and some online reading, so everyone's doing that right now.
I'm trying to upload photos right now, but it's taking forever. Our internet is fairly mercurial and is totally dependent on how many people are trying to use the server at once.
Once we got back we had some time for a break, during which a bunch of people took quick showers and rinsed out their wetsuits. Then we had lunch, which was some kind of a mixed veggie/shellfish (chocolate clams-not actually chocolate!) and rice, plus crabs. After that we had a site cleanup-everyone has a different chore every week that they have to do. This week mine's kitchen trash/recycling, where I have to make sure both are emptied and the recycling is sorted correctly. That was pretty quick, so I went to help Will sweep the patio and museum. It rained so much yesterday that the museum was pretty much flooded so he spent most of the time squeeging water out while Laura, Elia, Vero and I swept sand off the patio.
After site cleanup we went on a walking tour of town with Brady. We saw a bunch of the shops and Brady pointed out the ones with really friendly shop owners, as well as the ones who speak English. We stopped to go in a few stores like the grocery store, a gift shop and a convenience store. I took a bunch of pictures...and my camera deleted them, as well as all the pictures I took of the site. So once we got back I wandered around some more, taking the same pictures I'd taken yesterday and this morning. After that I played (or something like it) soccer with Elia, Jose and Antonio (an intern) on the sand lot they made earlier today.
When we got back we realized that our cabin's power was out. Gustavo (the center director) and Carlos (the repairman) fixed it by flipping our breaker. It went out again and we think it was the light that's outside our door, so we're leaving that off for awhile. We got our first reading assignments from AJ, a small chapter in a book and some online reading, so everyone's doing that right now.
I'm trying to upload photos right now, but it's taking forever. Our internet is fairly mercurial and is totally dependent on how many people are trying to use the server at once.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Arrival
So first of all, I made it fine! We had to get up at 2:30 am to be at Philly airport at 4 for my flight at 6. Dad went to park the car and I almost missed saying goodbye to him-I was just getting waved to security when he made it. I managed to sleep (or at least doze) through my first flight to Dallas. I missed the first mini shuttle to my terminal because I thought I was getting on the wrong train. The people on it must have been pretty amused when I got on, looked around, got off, and then stood right in front of them while they left. My Dallas to Guadalajara was fairly simple, it was on a smaller jet and I ended up getting the very first seat-extra leg room! Going through Guadalajara airport was an experience though. They funneled us straight through Immigration, where I got my visa but since I had a connecting flight my luggage was checked to La Paz, so I got to go through a faster line where they just checked my carry on luggage. All this took me about 20 minutes to figure out, all when I only had 1 hr 40 min to get set for my connection. I managed to communicate in Spanish, since most of the airport workers I talked to didn't know a lot of English. I ended up walking outside to get to my next terminal, the weather was fantastic. I met up with three other SFS girls at the Guadalajara gate. Got onto another jet (which we had to walk across tarmac to get to) that took us to Culiacan and then La Paz. Somehow my luggage (and Lindsey's, the girl I was carrying things for) didn't get lost. And somehow I think I managed to skip customs in the mixup between Guadalajara and La Paz-each assumed I'd be checked at the other, but I just walked right past the customs officers at La Paz. Then we had a four hour drive to the field station, a good portion of which I slept through.
The center is essentially on the beach, and all the buildings are white with thatched roofs (pictures to come once it stops raining). Our cabin fits four people and has a lofted bed with room underneath it with a desk and shelves. We have 17 students and I think the center can hold 30, so I don't think any of the cabins are full. I managed to get unpacked last night in about an hour which was a little anticlimactic considering how long it took to pack everything.
Today we got up and had breakfast-there were tortillas, beans and scrambled eggs, which most of us combined, as well as cereal and fruit. Then we had a guest lecture by J Nichols, who basically started the whole sea turtle conservation movement. He was advised not to work with sea turtles because they were too far gone, and he wouldn't get enough data for a PhD thesis. He was the first person to track sea turtle movement and found that they travel 7,000 miles across the Pacific in one year. He also got us thinking on how much trash and plastics we put into the ocean. After his talk we had a tour of the center, a rules and policies meeting and a risk management meeting. At this point we've probably played at least 5 name games, and I think I've got everyone down. We were supposed to do a tour of San Carlos today but since it's raining a lot of places will be closed and a walking tour would be miserable anyway.
The center is essentially on the beach, and all the buildings are white with thatched roofs (pictures to come once it stops raining). Our cabin fits four people and has a lofted bed with room underneath it with a desk and shelves. We have 17 students and I think the center can hold 30, so I don't think any of the cabins are full. I managed to get unpacked last night in about an hour which was a little anticlimactic considering how long it took to pack everything.
Today we got up and had breakfast-there were tortillas, beans and scrambled eggs, which most of us combined, as well as cereal and fruit. Then we had a guest lecture by J Nichols, who basically started the whole sea turtle conservation movement. He was advised not to work with sea turtles because they were too far gone, and he wouldn't get enough data for a PhD thesis. He was the first person to track sea turtle movement and found that they travel 7,000 miles across the Pacific in one year. He also got us thinking on how much trash and plastics we put into the ocean. After his talk we had a tour of the center, a rules and policies meeting and a risk management meeting. At this point we've probably played at least 5 name games, and I think I've got everyone down. We were supposed to do a tour of San Carlos today but since it's raining a lot of places will be closed and a walking tour would be miserable anyway.
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