Week 3 SNOW!!!!!!!!

Snow!!!
This week was pretty good. It mostly dealt with the NSF site visit. On Monday we watch the various speakers practiced their speeches. I have to admit that I had no idea what they were talking about but I tried to pay attention. On Tuesday, we went to the primate center to have lunch with some of their summer interns on that side of the campus. At least no one Thursday was the actual site visit. I have to say that these people asked some serious questions, but I guess that it was necessary to know exactly what a program that you fund is doing.

I final started getting the chemicals that I need to work on my lab. I tested my first trial method on Friday. I tried to create a standard curve low enough to measure the acetaminophen concentration in the seawater. Unfortunately, I did not obtain any reasonable data that would allow me to make a graph. But I will repeat it on Monday and hope that I get better results that I will present on Wednesday. For our Brown Bag discussion on Friday, we were given a question: How does our research affect the way of life of the Native Americans? I believe that my research does affect the Native Americans that are primarily water people. Though I know that the acetaminophen concentration in the water may not be relevant enough to pay attention to; it could affect the bacteria which the phytoplankton uses, and as we all know, phytoplankton is the basis to almost every food web.

This was the best ending to my week so far. I saw snow!!!!!! For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to see snow and I finally did. On Sunday, we were guided on a 7 mile hike up to Ramona Falls were I was so happy to see snow. The hike was a lot of fun, minus all the dust. After the hike, we drove to Mount Hood to have dinner, where I played in the snow some more. Though after the trip I couldn’t feel my toes, the snow was well worth it!