Week Two

"NSF site visit!!!" are the words sure to strike fear into the hearts of many scientists who rely on their funding as well as striking the urge to play Kiwi Poker into the hearts of a few others here at CMOP. It was actually very interesting to see and I think it's good to know that even when you're a superstar scientist with your own lab and a fancy white coat, you still have to answer to somebody. That sucks. When will I ever be able to answer to nobody? I asked my mom this question the other day. She told me to go to my room. :(

So this week I did basically the same thing I've been doing - washing bottles, creating mixtures, analyzing mixtures with the fluorometer to determine their ammonium concentrations, and reading more background material. I've started analyzing real samples now, taken during a cruise that went out in May. It's interesting to see how the ammonium concentrations differ depending on what depth the sample came from.

I also really enjoyed the outing on Thursday to visit the OHSU main campus. I thought it was a very impressive campus and seemed like the kind of environment I would like in a grad school. Unfortunately, I'm not really interested in human health, so I don't think OHSU is the place for me. The forum was also very interesting; I'm usually not into the policy side of environmental issues, but I think it's actually very helpful to know how the science that we and others are doing will be put into actual use. I think in my future career, I might like to be part of a similar organization. Also, they had very nice hors d'oeuvres (<-- ridiculous spelling!), but, since we're such good kids, we all remembered, they were not to be our dinner! CMOP ragamuffins, we be.

Lastly, today's seminar during lunch was really inspiring. I am so amazed sometimes at the initiative I see others taking and I was very impressed by our speaker's story. I think her cause is a very great one; it's nice that we have these seminars so we get a chance to hear about some of these big projects.

A picture? Hmm...this entry does need some spicing up. Let's see...

Related? You bet your buttons it is! "Sometimes experiments don't go exactly how you'd expect."