Fiesta Latina

Last weekend was super fun! We played volleyball on Friday and almost won our first game (shucks!) and then went to a Latino dance party in Gamboa!

Gamboa, Panama. Picture from the STRI webpage, linked above. 

It was a lot of fun. There were DOZENS of really amazing scientists everywhere, dancing to Latino music, drinking Abuelo, Balboa, and Panama, and talking in a variety of languages about where they're from, what they study, and why their work is so important and so extremely awesome. At one point in the night, a PhD student I'm friends with exclaimed something along the lines of, "Do you even realize how many amazing people are here right now?! Like, really, do you? Because I don't think you do!" He then proceeded to point out various people he considered amazing, like a famous photographer from National Geographic and a handful of other accomplished scientists. His comment really made me appreciate that I am here, sharing these experiences with professionals in my field, whom I aspire to be like one day. And here they are, dancing salsa right in front of me! 

When we finally were all latino-ed out, my roommate Cassie and I walked through Gamboa with her friend to his house to sleep. We ended up getting to bed around five, had to take a 40-min bus back to the city at 10am, and then after spending hours getting lost and frustrated in the mall where the bus drops us off, we made it back to our apartment very tired. All I remember after that is sleeping for 5 or 6 hours, waking up at midnight, eating a meal, and then working on my research project for three and a half hours. It was a weird day. We had wanted to go back to Gamboa to hike to the canopy tower,

but we weren't really feeling like getting up at 6 am the next day to take the bus out there. When we do go, though, I will take lots of pictures!

Other than that, this week I am taking a free course in R offered by two experts who are scientists at STRI. It's a really useful class and I am really lucky to get to interact with such knowledgeable people. All these experiences are making me even more excited for my PhD work! Which still hasn't even remotely started yet...! But it will, soon...ish! 

This weekend we are going to try to go to an island on the Caribbean side of Panama called Isla Grande, and I will tell all about it! Until then, hasta luego!

Minimos y Maximos

If I had to make a graph of the amount of fun I've had in my last week here in Panama vs. the amount of frustration vs. time, starting with Sunday, February 10 and ending with Saturday, February 16, it would look something like this:

Fig 1. Amount of fun vs. amount of frustration vs. 

time in Panama this week, Feb 10--Feb 16, 2013 (P<0.0001).

Let me explain. I think it was Monday when the advisor with whom I applied to do a PhD at OSU emailed me saying I'm his first choice and he really wanted me to join and might I hurry and tell him soon if I was going to accept his offer? Which sounds great, but I would much rather have heard that from UC Santa Cruz. Hearing that totally killed me and made my life a nightmare as I tried to sort out which school I really wanted to go to. Then in the next few days I heard from the Santa Cruz advisors that they requested I be accepted, but were sill awaiting approval from the grad department. So I spent the first half of my week thinking nonstop about this decision that would change the course of my life (Fig 2).

      VS.  

Fig 2. A graphic of my graduate decision.

In the meantime, my friends and I did some cool stuff like exploring this abandoned army bunker above our lab. We climbed a long staircase in inky darkness and made it to the top without falling in any of the random holes which seemed strangely to me like trap doors. Wielding tiny flashlights and our cell phones to combat the darkness, we poked around and gave ourselves a tour of rooms decorated only with dead or half-alive flora and the spray-painted wisdom of past trespassers. It was exciting and a little spooky! Then we climbed a water tower and played black jack, betting pennies. 

Then Wednesday happened, where I tripped while running by a construction site. Three seconds later a few workers ran over and dragged me up by my arms, which was not exceedingly helpful. My foot hurt pretty bad, but I could still walk so I finished my run and went home. The next day at work I changed into sandals at one point and realized about half of my foot was purple and very swollen. Oh, and I have about 10 bruises or cuts elsewhere on my body. 

Thursday night, after icing my foot, I had a heart-to-heart with my roommate. She is in her first year of a PhD studying floral diversity response to paleoenvironmental change (Fig 3). I figured she would have a lot of good things to say about deciding on a grad program. I talked through  my hard decision and by the end it was pretty clear to me what I needed to do. I have always wanted to live in Santa Cruz, so that's where I need to be. I feel so much better now that I have decided! I'm still waiting for the official acceptance though.

Fig 3. The first image when a search on "floral response to 

paleoenvironmental change" is entered in the Google search engine.

Don't assume this has anything to do with my roommate's research.  

On Friday we went into the field again (woohoo!) and I spoke a lot of Spanish. Instead of giving up meat on Fridays during Lent, since I do that all the time anyway, I gave up English. I feel like I improved so much just in one day! I never want to speak English again. Later we had a volleyball tournament at which I spoke a lot of English, only because this one English scientist friend I have wanted to discuss the relationship of science and religion and I didn't feel well enough equipped to do that in Spanish. I didn't even feel well enough equipped to do so in English. Later about 10 friends and I cooked and played Pictionary in La Jaula over beers and rum! It was very fun. 

Overall, my frustrations with grad school decision-making and my injury were big downers, but since I figured out the former and did a lot of other really great things, I think I came out on top this week. Oh, and we just made super excellent vegan chili and cornbread together while practicing Spanish and discussing alternative eating (Fig 4). It was a great night!

Fig 4. The second image result with one enters 

"super excellent vegan chili" in the Google search engine.

Crepas

Hola! Today (Sunday, when I wrote this) was great because it was the first time I used my bike to get to work! It totally worked. Then, once I got there, I could finally use the internet since ours at home has not been working, which is actually making me homesick because I feel really isolated without it.

     If I haven´t mentioned this already, the trip to work is really beautiful and wonderful. From the islands where the lab is located, there is an excellent view of the Bridge of the Americas and sunrise or sunset, depending on when you´re there. The causeway that leads to the islands from Panama City is at least half a kilometer long, it´s always safe to be on it, and there is always a salty breeze. My favorite part is the dozens of small boats all queued up to pass through the canal. I have yet to figure out exactly what it is, but there´s something very peaceful about small white boats. Maybe it´s that they seem very quiet and contemplative, just bobbing there, patiently waiting for something. Though I know that they are owned and controlled by people, I find it hard to imagine that when I look out at them. It ruins their peaceful façade to acknowledge they are tools for humanity. I prefer to view their silent calmness as a choice.
     Another striking aspect of these boats is that when you look from above, as when we are travelling to or from our field site over the bridge, you see that they have arranged themselves in a grid. I´m not sure how they do it, but it´s really fun to look at.

Above, you can see the boats anchored by that long dock that looks like it's sticking out of the cloud. There is a yacht club on the other side of the dock, and a nice park right next to it where we play soccer twice a week. Previously, I had written that the boats were waiting to go through the canal, but I asked people about that and it turns out that's not what they are doing. The Bridge of the Americas is in the upper left of the picture and the Naos STRI lab is beyond the picture towards the lower right, which you can see in the picture below.

At the end of the causeway, Naos Island is right above the word "in" in this sentence.

     Later today, five of us got together and made our own Crepes & Waffles-inspired dinner crepes! I made an asparagus curry in coconut milk and Allan and Marcela cooked some chicken with broccoli cheddar soup. It was all really delicious, or at least, I can say from experience that the vegan dish was delicious, and everyone else seemed to like the chicken crepes.

The crepe dinner! We are all posing for the camera.

     I'm really glad there are such nice people here to hang out with! We keep doing really fun things together, including of course lots of good research. On Wednesday Allan and I will go to two field sites to count egg masses and then collect a bunch of limpets (a nonspecific type of intertidal snail). Yesterday we collected some moon snails and are keeping them in the lab for observation, and I also can't wait to go check on them tomorrow, too! If we are lucky, they will make some egg masses for us.

Chau!

Futbol, fiesta, parque, campo, bicicleta

I've had a fun and busy couple of weeks! It involved a lot of outdoor activities, which means it was quite excellent.

The highlights are as follows: Last Wednesday I played futbol (soccer) with coworkers and some taxistas (taxi drivers) and their friends in the park by the lab. It was SUPER fun! I was not even the worst player on the field, which meant I got quite a bit of ball time.

On Friday, as usual, we played in the STRI volleyball tournament. Our team is composed of people who work at the Naos lab (my lab, the one on Naos Island, at the western mouth of the canal--we are all marine researchers), and we are pretty decent! But apparently not decent enough to win :-/ .

On Saturday Allan, Camilo, Arron and I went to the Parque Nacional Metropolitano where Camilo had to do put some monitoring equipment high up on a crane to take measurements of the canopy.

The crane Camilo climbed up.

A cool, spiky tree!

View from the top. That hill in the distance is where we live!

Later we went to the mall to eat lunch at Crepes & Waffles. They have amazing food, and nearly all of it is served in a crepe! I had one with mushrooms. 

An example savory crepe from Google images.

On Sunday I went to BCI (see previous post) and the next most notable thing I did was go into the intertidal as usual (we go every Mon, Wed, and Fri) on Wednesday to count moon snail egg masses. It was so exciting because there were eggs and snails everywhere! We had to try hard to avoid stepping on them. It was cool out for a change, and we even got a little refreshing rain, and we really enjoyed exploring and had a lot of fun. 

An example of a moon snail from Google images. 

Does it remind you of the moon? Does the moon remind you of the snail?

I don't know, but that green thing in the upper right reminds me of a sour apple ring.

An example of a moon snail egg mass (what we are counting) from Google images.

Then, today, I went into the deep crevices of the city to a distant Goodwill store to buy a used bike. It took an hour by bus to get there, but it was worth it for the mobility I now have. It cost $70, was not rusty, and most of the brakes work! A nice construction worker who was also looking at bikes helped me fill the tires with air at the gas station next door, and then tried to instruct me about how to get home. I told him I took the bus there, and wanted to take it back, so he helped showed me the bus stop.

      "Adónde vas?" he asked. Where are you going?

      "Cerca de Balboa, en Ancon" I said. Close to Balboa, in Ancon.

      "Quieres ir por el MetroBus? No puede tomar la bicicleta" Do you want to take the Metro bus? You can't take your bike on it. 

      Oh, dear, I thought. I had no clue where I was. I was relying on the bus to take me back, because I wouldn't have to make any transfers or anything. I would just head straight back to the main station. "Puedo preguntar al concuctor?" Can I ask the driver?

      Sure, the construction worker replied, with more than a hint of doubt in his voice. We stood waiting together for a while, and I wasn't sure if he was also waiting for the bus. Then he said something incomprehensible and extended his hand for a handshake. I shook it, and he left me.

      When the next MetroBus pulled up to the stop, I asked the driver about the bike. "Sí!" he said with a smile. That was easy!, I thought. Getting the bike on the bus, however, was not so easy. As I pushed through the rotating bars at the front of the bus (you know, like the ones they use at large venues to count people that enter an area) and the handle bars got stuck. Thankfully someone outside helped me lift it over the top and we got the bike in. 

      I took the bus for the next twenty minutes until I spotted a grocery store. I needed food badly, so I got off the bus, locked my bike and got a few groceries. I quickly ate one of the bananas with some Nutella, then went to another bus stop to get home. A bus soon pulled up.

     "Puedo tomar la bicicleta?" I asked. Can I bring the bike on?

     No, sorry, the driver replied with a shrug, then shut the doors. I tried the next bus.

     "Puedo tomar la bicicleta?" 

     Another negative response. Hm. 

     Since it was still the middle of the day, and I had already told my boss that I might need to take the whole day off, I decided it was a good time to get to know the city. I would ride my bike home. I had only a very general idea where I was and I had a floppy bag of groceries to deal with, but it just seemed like a good idea. I strapped the groceries to my backpack with my helmet, which I didn't want to wear anyway due to the heat, and off I went, onto the crusty, rubble-strewn city sidewalks on my (purple!) new used bike. 

     After about 15 minutes, I asked one person for directions, and was told that the road I was currently on would lead me to where I wanted to go. That seemed right since all the Metro buses were going that way, too. So I just kept going straight for about a half hour and voila! I eventually hit familiar territory. I was pretty thirsty, so I stopped to try some jugo de caña, which is juice from sugar cane. I don't really understand what it is, but the set up looked something like this. It was strange and green, but tasted nice! 

      I made it back to my apartment easily after that, all in once piece, not robbed, and with all my gear and groceries. I was sweaty, but that was fine with me! I'm already really used to that at this point. Most importantly, I now have a bike, so I can go to and from work, and other places, for that matter, at my leisure. Yay!

Isla Barro Colorado

    Today I went to Barro Colorado Island.

 It is an island in the man-made Gatun Lake in the Panama Canal and is STRI's primary site to study tropical lowland forests. It has a TON of diversity. There is a large, long-term ecological survey taking place were every tree larger than 1 cm in diameter in a 50 hectare plot was tagged and measured and is being monitored for many years. I went with my friend Mallory and her roommate Marjorie who works on the island studying tree fungus. With our pants tucked into our socks for protection against the biting bugs like chiggers, we trekked through the dense flora on trails made of cinder blocks and saw plants with spikes, spines, ants, vines, and REALLY big trunks. We also saw quite a few howler monkeys!

Definitely watch this video put out by the Smithsonian: 

Barro Colorado Island: BCI - Official Video 

 - Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Here are some of my favorite pictures!

We arrived as the sun was rising over the canal.

This is the boat you have to take to get to BCI. There was 

only one in the morning to get there and one in the afternoon

 to come back, so if we missed it, we would have been stuck!

Here is the view of the labs as the boat arrives at the dock.

This plant is really cool!

Some cool fungus!

Tarzan!

A striking picture of a tree.

Mallory and me climbing the tree!

I followed a butterfly around until it stayed still enough for a picture!

Howler monkeys. This one has a baby with it.

The view of the lake as we stand nested in the lab campus.

It was really fun and I plan to go back because STRI gives free rides to their interns every Thursday. You need to sign up about a week in advance, and buffet-style lunch is provided for about $4. It was really good, too--rice, beans, fried fish, steamed vegetables, plátanos al tencación, which are heavily fried pieces of plantain; lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and cake for dessert. Since the communication is very limited on the island, we couldn't go out on the trails without someone who worked there, which was a little disappointing because we wanted to explore. But overall it was very fun and well worth waking up at 5 am on a Sunday! I hope to see much, much more of Panama before I die, and I don't mean just on my current internship!