I am telling you my life revolves around unknowing uncaring unfeeling shrimp.
This is ridiculousness. Let me just share my sleep schedule from the last couple of days. On the 18th I woke up at about 11:00am and waited around all day for my shrimp to be done. They finished at 11:00pm. I was in the lab until 3:30. Then I took a shower. By that time it was 4:15 in the morning. Since breakfast was at 6:00 and I didn’t want to go to bed for two hours I decided I would just stay up. On eof the benefits of pulling and all-nighter was getting to see the sun rise. It was absolutely gorgeous. As I walked to breakfast, I stopped along the big suspension bridge that crosses the river. The fog handing over the river and enveloping the trees was breathtaking. Ok. I know that sounds like a line out of a tourist book, but it really was incredible. As I was standing there, I saw some movement in a nearby tree. It was a group of Toucans stopping to rest. I could see them pretty well from where I was one the bridge. I would have liked to have had binoculars, but it was impressive nonetheless. There must have been about 4 or 5 of them just sitting there. The whole scene was pretty moving.
Anywho, after that I headed off to breakfast until 6:30 when I returned to the cabin and slept until 12:30. I got up for lunch and was up until about 11:00 pm. I then decided to get some shut eye before I had to go check my shrimp at 3:00am. Easier said than done. I just couldn’t seem to fall asleep. Then once I did, I only stayed asleep for about an hour before waking up with a terrible throat ache. Luckily I had some fanta by my bed. After drinking about ½ the bottle I was ready to go back to bed until 2am when my alarm woke me up. Now, the alarm was supposed to be set for a little before 3:00 but it was set for a little before 2. I have no idea how that happened. My iPod (aka my alarm clock) was still set for Cleveland time, so it is two hours ahead. I can usually handle the subtraction, but I guess I wasn’t “firing on all cylinders” when I set it at 11. Anyway, it was only after I had walked through the jungle that I realized that it was 2am and I still had an hour left before my shrimp were ready. I decided to get some more shut-eye, so I curled up on two roll-ey chairs and tried to go to sleep. Funny side story, on the way there, I scared something in the woods next to the path. When it scurried away I was so frightened by the noise I started sprinting to the building. The noise was too loud to be a snake, too fast to be a peckerie (the disgusting smelly pig-like creatures that wander everywhere here), too big to be an iguana. Whatever it was though, I was quite rattled up, which made falling back asleep much more difficult.
When I woke up at 3 I counted shrimp until about 4:30 when I put the new batch of extracts into the dryer. Because I had the hotplate, I thought that it should only take about an hour for the samples to dry. So I went back to sleep on the chairs until 5:30. Then when I got up to check on the samples they still weren’t completely dry. I went back to sleep for 20 minutes and when I woke up they were ready. I put the shrimp in the wells and went off to breakfast at about 6:30. Then I came back to the room and simply haven’t been able to fall asleep. Strange, to say the least. Hopefully I’ll be able to go to bed at a descent hour tonight so that I can wake up bright and early at 6:00 tomorrow and catch come breakfast before counting the shrimp.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Day Twently Eight - July 18th 2010
Last night I woke up at about 2am because I thought I felt something on my chest. I grabbed it and I found it was an ant that had gotten under my shirt and was biting me. I was very angry. I squished it and put the body on top of my computer so I could take a picture of it in the morning. Then I realized that the carcass would attract other bugs, so I chucked its body across the room. It took me 30 minutes to fall back asleep because I kept imagining that there were more bugs on me. It was quite creepy to think that there were bugs that got under the covers under my clothes and crawled all over me while I slept. The only reason that I found that the ant was on me was because it bit me. It would have stayed on me all night and I wouldn’t have noticed. This morning when I woke up I thought that maybe I just dreamed the whole thing. But then I found one of its legs on top of my computer where I originally put the body. 12 hours later I still have a mark where it bit me. Quite creepy indeed.
Day Twenty Seven - July 17th 2010
Nothing much happened… I got stood up by the guy who was supposed to into the field with me. Other than that, nothing much. Rice and beans for dinner and lunch. Yum Yum.
Day Twenty Six - July 16th 2010
I got up early (at around 6:00) and went to count my shrimp. I did that and then I'm not sure what happened. The days are just all starting to blur together and I can’t really differentiate from day to day. I'm getting about ready to go home. Its time.
Anyway on my way back from lunch a lady from reception pulled me aside and said that there had been some complaints from the people below and next to us. They said that the three of us in our room came in late at night and slammed doors. Apparently we also walk up the stairs loudly. I apologized if it was me and said I would relay the message to my roommates.
Ok. So the cabin has walls made of paper thin plaster and the top of each wall is just screens. Of course you can hear everything that happens. As far as walking up the stairs go, they are made of wood and are completely hollow. Of course you can head people walking up them! It’s not like we are intentionally clomping up them, but they do make some noise… They also said that we lock the bathroom door too loudly. The bolt a piece of metal that one must slide through a metal hole on the door frame. There is going to be some noise – its metal on metal… It gets sucks and you have to wiggle it to get out. Plus, the people next door (who complained) have a 1 year old child who will scream for a ½ an hour during the middle of the night. And they are yelling at us for closing the doors…? I mean I'm sorry that my tests end at 2 in the morning, but what do you want me to do? Sleep at the lab?
Anyway, I was trying to be quieter and I would hold all of the doors so that they didn’t slam, etc. So I got back late from the lab and I was walking up the steps as quietly as possible trying not to step on any of the beetles that were crawling all over them and a bat flew into my face. Yes a bat. In the stairwell. Into my face. So I screamed. It’s a natural reflex when something flies into your face. And then I fell down the stairs. Talk about being light-footed… it was really bad.
Anyway on my way back from lunch a lady from reception pulled me aside and said that there had been some complaints from the people below and next to us. They said that the three of us in our room came in late at night and slammed doors. Apparently we also walk up the stairs loudly. I apologized if it was me and said I would relay the message to my roommates.
Ok. So the cabin has walls made of paper thin plaster and the top of each wall is just screens. Of course you can hear everything that happens. As far as walking up the stairs go, they are made of wood and are completely hollow. Of course you can head people walking up them! It’s not like we are intentionally clomping up them, but they do make some noise… They also said that we lock the bathroom door too loudly. The bolt a piece of metal that one must slide through a metal hole on the door frame. There is going to be some noise – its metal on metal… It gets sucks and you have to wiggle it to get out. Plus, the people next door (who complained) have a 1 year old child who will scream for a ½ an hour during the middle of the night. And they are yelling at us for closing the doors…? I mean I'm sorry that my tests end at 2 in the morning, but what do you want me to do? Sleep at the lab?
Anyway, I was trying to be quieter and I would hold all of the doors so that they didn’t slam, etc. So I got back late from the lab and I was walking up the steps as quietly as possible trying not to step on any of the beetles that were crawling all over them and a bat flew into my face. Yes a bat. In the stairwell. Into my face. So I screamed. It’s a natural reflex when something flies into your face. And then I fell down the stairs. Talk about being light-footed… it was really bad.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Day Twenty Five - July 15th 2010
At 6:00 it was still raining, but I decided that I really needed to get the shrimp into the wells so I put on rainboots and splashed my way through puddles to get to the lab. Sure enough the samples were dry. In the shrimp went and shortly later, off I went to breakfast. After breakfast, I wasn’t quite tired enough to go back to sleep. So I took a shower and did some more paper work. (there is a awful lot of recording and rerecording that goes on. It’s quite silly if you ask me). Anyway, I’ve just been doing that (and, of course a bit of relaxing as well :) all day. It’s been quite nice. Although I'm sure that I will sleep well tonight, after sleeping for three 2 hour intervals. On the upside though, I'm feeling much better and my throat doesn’t hurt nearly as much. Exciting stuff.
Day Twenty Four - July 14th 2010
Day14
Hmmmm. What happened yesterday? Well, I woke up feeling quite sick. My throat hurt terribly, almost as if it were dry. Which is quite impossible, as the humidity here is, o well, I would say about 135%. Anyway I was miserable all day long and couldn’t really swallow. Luckily my tests were in the nighttime so I was able to stay in bed all day and do work from there. I actually got a lot done. I input my data into the program, recorded my results, made a powerpoint, went through e-mail, and napped quite frequently. Like I said, good day. (Other than the whole being-so-sick-I-didn’t-want-to-move bit).
My tests were done at 3:45 and 4:00. I counted my shrimp, got my totals, cleaned the wells, and got the new extract in by 6:30. I was quite impressed with myself. Anyway, 6 hours from 6 put my samples as being dry by 12:00 at night. It was quite unfortunate. So I had to wait up until then. When I trekked out the lab at 12 though the samples STILL weren’t dry. That made me very angry. So I decided to come back in two hours. So I waited up until 2:00am. And I went to check again. Still not dry. My alarm went off at 4:00am but I could hear it pouring rain outside my window and thought to myself “there is no way in hell I'm getting out of bed to get totally soaked”. So I stayed in bed until 6:00.
Hmmmm. What happened yesterday? Well, I woke up feeling quite sick. My throat hurt terribly, almost as if it were dry. Which is quite impossible, as the humidity here is, o well, I would say about 135%. Anyway I was miserable all day long and couldn’t really swallow. Luckily my tests were in the nighttime so I was able to stay in bed all day and do work from there. I actually got a lot done. I input my data into the program, recorded my results, made a powerpoint, went through e-mail, and napped quite frequently. Like I said, good day. (Other than the whole being-so-sick-I-didn’t-want-to-move bit).
My tests were done at 3:45 and 4:00. I counted my shrimp, got my totals, cleaned the wells, and got the new extract in by 6:30. I was quite impressed with myself. Anyway, 6 hours from 6 put my samples as being dry by 12:00 at night. It was quite unfortunate. So I had to wait up until then. When I trekked out the lab at 12 though the samples STILL weren’t dry. That made me very angry. So I decided to come back in two hours. So I waited up until 2:00am. And I went to check again. Still not dry. My alarm went off at 4:00am but I could hear it pouring rain outside my window and thought to myself “there is no way in hell I'm getting out of bed to get totally soaked”. So I stayed in bed until 6:00.
Day Twenty Three Part B
Day 13
After dinner, two other REU (research experience for under-grads) and I went to the swamp. We didn’t really plan it, but, well, it’s a long story.
So we were all walking back from dinner because we agreed that none of us liked walking back from dinner in the dark. When we got to the suspension bridge, I stopped for a moment and looked up at the stars. I grabbed their arms and told them to just look up. With all the light pollution by my house, I rarely see so many stars. It wasn’t even a super clear night, but to me it was incredible. So we spent about 20 minutes on the bridge laughing and looking for constellations. When none of us could find the big or little dipper we resorted to making up our own constellations. I saw a cat. I named it kitty. Dennis (one of the other people there) thought it should be called tiger while Jimena was on my side and liked kitty. Anyway after standing on the bridge for almost a half an hour, the topic of bioluminescent bacteria came up. (yes, I know. well what else are three self-classified nerds going to talk about?) Anywho, there had been some students claiming they had seen some in the woods nearby. (The bioluminescence can only be seen in the complete dark, with all flashlights turned off. How they “stumbled” upon some I'm not so sure of… I know the last thing that I would want is my flashlight turned off where bursting into the cafeteria saying you found a venomous snake doesn’t turn heads.) We decided that we wanted to go to the swamp and look for some. There is a marshey-esque body of water close to the river station. I agreed to come on the condition that they would walk me back to the lab afterwards. (There was no way I was doing that river station walk by myself again if I could avoid it.) So off we headed into the “bosque” to the “cantaranas”. We didn’t get very far. They suggested that I put on some closed toed shoes (I was wearing my flip-flops and that is a “no-no” when traversing the “bosque”. So I stopped in the cabin and changed into my Toms (Toms, for those of you who don’t know, are canvas shoes that are made by a company who donates one pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair they sell. One for one.) Anywho, they aren’t really mud-wear. Then we stopped at the Lab so the others could get their boots. I decided that I would run back to the cabin because, although my Toms have been “well loved” I didn’t want them covered in mud. Anyway I ran really fast because I thought that I was holding them up, but when I got back to the lab Jimena still wasn’t’ ready. It was nice not to be the last one back. Jimena is from here in Costa Rica and all of the Ticos (the Costa Ricans) are on “Tico-Time”. It makes me look like an early bird. I love it.
Anyway then we really headed off to the “cantaranas”. The word cantaranas in Spanish means swamp, but its origins are actually quite cute. It took me a while to make the connection, but now that I have I know that I won’t forget this word. Canta comes from the verb cantar which means to sing. Ranas is the Spanish word for frogs. Put those two together and you get the place where frogs sing. I thought it was quite lovely really. Anyway, neither my nor Jimena’s flashlight was really strong compared to the one that Dennis had, so we made him shine his beam was in front of us and then we got the stuff close by our feet. Originally it was Jimena then Dennis then me. But I kept getting freaked out by being at the back and so I made Dennis switch spots with me. After about 10 or 15 minutes of walking we arrived at the boardwalk that goes through the swamp. But it was filled with tourists. Which, inevitably meant that all of the cool frogs were long-gone. So we passed them up and kept walking. We stopped a couple of times looking for the bioluminescent bacteria but they were nowhere to be found. Right before we turned around to head home we turned off our flashlights one more time (by this time we already had the rule in place that once the flashlights were turned off no one was allowed to move lest I get confused and think them a snake). So we were all standing really still and suddenly Jimena screams LOOK LOOK LOOK scaring the rest of us quite badly. Anyway she had found some. We isolated where it was coming from and picked up a stick that was covered in it. It was SO cool. I had done transformations with it before in bio class, so I knew it existed, but to see it out in the forest on a decomposing log was just too cool. I wonder how the indigenous people explained that! Imagine seeing something glowing in the dark! How amazing.
Anyway on our way back we stopped at the cantaranas again. Unfortunately the tourists were still there but we made our way to an empty part of the bridge and looked for frogs. Now, saying we “looked” for frogs is completely misleading. There were so many there was really no looking involved. They were everywhere! We saw some really cool frogs though. The tourists were actually helpful. Jimena can speak French as well as Spanish and English and so she cozied up to the French tour guide and got him to show us two snakes. These were just babies and not poisonous, but it was still really neat. Then on our way out we saw an alligator. Well, no, it was technically a caiman. Dennis who lived in Florida was very quick to correct me of this grave mistake. It was not an alligator. It was a caiman. In fact I was informed that caiman are more closely related to crocodiles if you’re going to get picky. Apparently we were going to get picky. It was probably only about 5 feet long, but it was still quite cool. Then we walked back to the lab and I headed off to my cabina. It was quite a fun night.
After dinner, two other REU (research experience for under-grads) and I went to the swamp. We didn’t really plan it, but, well, it’s a long story.
So we were all walking back from dinner because we agreed that none of us liked walking back from dinner in the dark. When we got to the suspension bridge, I stopped for a moment and looked up at the stars. I grabbed their arms and told them to just look up. With all the light pollution by my house, I rarely see so many stars. It wasn’t even a super clear night, but to me it was incredible. So we spent about 20 minutes on the bridge laughing and looking for constellations. When none of us could find the big or little dipper we resorted to making up our own constellations. I saw a cat. I named it kitty. Dennis (one of the other people there) thought it should be called tiger while Jimena was on my side and liked kitty. Anyway after standing on the bridge for almost a half an hour, the topic of bioluminescent bacteria came up. (yes, I know. well what else are three self-classified nerds going to talk about?) Anywho, there had been some students claiming they had seen some in the woods nearby. (The bioluminescence can only be seen in the complete dark, with all flashlights turned off. How they “stumbled” upon some I'm not so sure of… I know the last thing that I would want is my flashlight turned off where bursting into the cafeteria saying you found a venomous snake doesn’t turn heads.) We decided that we wanted to go to the swamp and look for some. There is a marshey-esque body of water close to the river station. I agreed to come on the condition that they would walk me back to the lab afterwards. (There was no way I was doing that river station walk by myself again if I could avoid it.) So off we headed into the “bosque” to the “cantaranas”. We didn’t get very far. They suggested that I put on some closed toed shoes (I was wearing my flip-flops and that is a “no-no” when traversing the “bosque”. So I stopped in the cabin and changed into my Toms (Toms, for those of you who don’t know, are canvas shoes that are made by a company who donates one pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair they sell. One for one.) Anywho, they aren’t really mud-wear. Then we stopped at the Lab so the others could get their boots. I decided that I would run back to the cabin because, although my Toms have been “well loved” I didn’t want them covered in mud. Anyway I ran really fast because I thought that I was holding them up, but when I got back to the lab Jimena still wasn’t’ ready. It was nice not to be the last one back. Jimena is from here in Costa Rica and all of the Ticos (the Costa Ricans) are on “Tico-Time”. It makes me look like an early bird. I love it.
Anyway then we really headed off to the “cantaranas”. The word cantaranas in Spanish means swamp, but its origins are actually quite cute. It took me a while to make the connection, but now that I have I know that I won’t forget this word. Canta comes from the verb cantar which means to sing. Ranas is the Spanish word for frogs. Put those two together and you get the place where frogs sing. I thought it was quite lovely really. Anyway, neither my nor Jimena’s flashlight was really strong compared to the one that Dennis had, so we made him shine his beam was in front of us and then we got the stuff close by our feet. Originally it was Jimena then Dennis then me. But I kept getting freaked out by being at the back and so I made Dennis switch spots with me. After about 10 or 15 minutes of walking we arrived at the boardwalk that goes through the swamp. But it was filled with tourists. Which, inevitably meant that all of the cool frogs were long-gone. So we passed them up and kept walking. We stopped a couple of times looking for the bioluminescent bacteria but they were nowhere to be found. Right before we turned around to head home we turned off our flashlights one more time (by this time we already had the rule in place that once the flashlights were turned off no one was allowed to move lest I get confused and think them a snake). So we were all standing really still and suddenly Jimena screams LOOK LOOK LOOK scaring the rest of us quite badly. Anyway she had found some. We isolated where it was coming from and picked up a stick that was covered in it. It was SO cool. I had done transformations with it before in bio class, so I knew it existed, but to see it out in the forest on a decomposing log was just too cool. I wonder how the indigenous people explained that! Imagine seeing something glowing in the dark! How amazing.
Anyway on our way back we stopped at the cantaranas again. Unfortunately the tourists were still there but we made our way to an empty part of the bridge and looked for frogs. Now, saying we “looked” for frogs is completely misleading. There were so many there was really no looking involved. They were everywhere! We saw some really cool frogs though. The tourists were actually helpful. Jimena can speak French as well as Spanish and English and so she cozied up to the French tour guide and got him to show us two snakes. These were just babies and not poisonous, but it was still really neat. Then on our way out we saw an alligator. Well, no, it was technically a caiman. Dennis who lived in Florida was very quick to correct me of this grave mistake. It was not an alligator. It was a caiman. In fact I was informed that caiman are more closely related to crocodiles if you’re going to get picky. Apparently we were going to get picky. It was probably only about 5 feet long, but it was still quite cool. Then we walked back to the lab and I headed off to my cabina. It was quite a fun night.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Day Twenty Three - June 13th 2010
So last night someone stole my hotplate! It was QUITE frustrating. So my samples were taking forever to dry. I thought they should evaporate in 5 hours right? so I left the lab at 1am and came back at 6 to check up on them. They were only like ½ way dry. I was pissed. So, then I ate breakfast and went back to bed. I returned at about 11. (I was thinking that I slept for waaay too long and that my samples were for sure dry and I was wasting time and I was off schedule by like 5 hours (they were supposed to start at 6am). So I get to the lab and some @*$%&#@$*(%*$& had opened up the hood. What I had been doing to create a fan was to put the lid like 7/8th of the way down and so because the hood sucks up air there was this 5 inch wind tunnel where I would put my samples. But when those inconsiderate unknowing jerks opened up the hood there was no wind tunnel and hence not much evaporation going on. So I’d lost another 5 hours. I put the hood back down and found the hotplate (it now has a nasty little note threatening anyone who moves it with a painful death – ok no not really. The note just says that the hotplate is “crucial” to my experiment and to leave a note if you borrow it, but still). It’s 1:15 here and the freaking plates are STILL not dry. So I’ve lost about 7 hours so far from my original schedule. Grrrr….
So after I did that I went to lunch and had a lovely conversation with some people about diving and cliff jumping. Then I was talking to a girl about her experiment. She’s working with these flowers that give off heat to attract beetles. Its pretty cool. Then, right as we were about to leave it started raining. Like really really hard. It was pretty much the epitome of a TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. This is why its called the rainforest.... I was completely soaked. luckily I was doing laundry so I snagged some almost dry clothes from the dryer. Now instead of being dripping wet (literally), I'm just slightly damp. Win.
So after I did that I went to lunch and had a lovely conversation with some people about diving and cliff jumping. Then I was talking to a girl about her experiment. She’s working with these flowers that give off heat to attract beetles. Its pretty cool. Then, right as we were about to leave it started raining. Like really really hard. It was pretty much the epitome of a TORRENTIAL DOWNPOUR. This is why its called the rainforest.... I was completely soaked. luckily I was doing laundry so I snagged some almost dry clothes from the dryer. Now instead of being dripping wet (literally), I'm just slightly damp. Win.
Day Nineteen - Day Twenty-two July 9th - 12th 2010
Full sentences aren’t going to happen. Sorry. It’s one in the morning and I'm waaay too tired. So here are some notes about the past couple of days.
Day 19
Yeah... I have NO idea what happened on this day.
O, right. soccer. a bunch of people from la selva, mostly ticos (ticos = costa ricans) went and rented out the turf field in town. Ok so when they said turf field i was like what? those are crazy expensive! how does a little town like puerto viejo had the money for a turf field? well its like a bowling alley or batting cage. The company puts int he money upfront for a small (when i say small i mean very small like 25 yards by 10 yards) turf field and then groups get together and rent it out. Like bowling alleys there are teams of middle aged men who are looking for a way to bond with coworkers (la selva has their own team AND their own jerseys). anyway because there were so many researchers that came along we just split into two teams and played each other. it was quite chill and you could just jump in and sub for anybody when you wanted to. towards the end it got a little more serious when some of the really good people showed up, but still, everything operates under a very different feel here. Everything is all good with no worries. its very nice.
Day 20
Got up 6 hours late. No big deal.
I was going to start my experiments early in the morning, but the volume on my iPod was turned all the way down so I wouldn’t wake up my roommates when I set the alarm. Unfortunately it also failed to wake me up. Oh well. Nothing died, I just lost 6 hours. What are you going to do?
During lunch there was the game between germany and Uruguay. I left halfway through because I knew germany would win. Uruguay put up a good fight though. I hate the germans.
Then on the way to dinner we saw a bunch of people all huddled around a tree looking at something. We figured we’d be interested in whatever they were interested in and so we wandered over to take a look. There was a huge snake in the tree! It was a bird-eating snake apparently. It had a yellow belly and a grey back and was quite cool.
Dinner was terrible. Well, that isn’t fair to say. It wasn’t any different from any other day, but that made it awful. Every day rice and beans and more rice and more beans and then some rice and maybe some starch of some other kind (potatoes or bread) with beans and then some more rice. ARG! I was so sick ok
So I realized that I really haven’t talked much about the pigs. They are everywhere! Its ridiculous. There are at least 30 of them that just roam around eating everything. They are disgusting. I don’t like them. Sometimes when its dark, they wander across the path and you almost trip over them. Not good
Day 21
Realized I got bitten a ridiculous amount yesterday while looking at the snake.
About 20 bites on one leg
Not as bad as the girl w/ 60 on one forearm. She climbs trees.
World cup!!!! SPAIN WON!!!!!! That was good. Although overtime pissed me off because I needed to get back to the lab, and I had to wait and watch the game for another 30 min. ok I didn’t have to but I wanted to.
Then it was raining. A lot. Really hard. Like a lot a lot. Like torrential downpour just got redefined.
Girl w/ ipod got stuck in storm and so as she ran she took off her shirt and wrapped the iPod in that. Then she picked up some banana leaves and wrapped it in those too. She was able to save it. But a guy w/ science equipment wasn’t as lucky. (well he wasn’t as resourceful either). His mp3 player got soaked.
Walked to dinner with a botanist who lives below me. We had a really interested discussion about the merit of ethnobotanical research. Quite cool.
Dinner was delicious! I wrote this down right after I got back from dinner (I usually take notes and then elaborate later, but now I don’t remember what it was. Apparently it was good.)
Day 22
Boring day. The days are starting to run together. My alarm was set for 7:00 but then I was like no way jose and rolled over and went back to sleep. I got up about 11:00 and then ate lunch and went to the lab. The day was spent in the lab doing college stuff and other prep work and such for the experiments.
O, then there was a HUGE spider in the bathroom at about 12:00am. That was scary.
Nothing terribly exciting.
Day 19
Yeah... I have NO idea what happened on this day.
O, right. soccer. a bunch of people from la selva, mostly ticos (ticos = costa ricans) went and rented out the turf field in town. Ok so when they said turf field i was like what? those are crazy expensive! how does a little town like puerto viejo had the money for a turf field? well its like a bowling alley or batting cage. The company puts int he money upfront for a small (when i say small i mean very small like 25 yards by 10 yards) turf field and then groups get together and rent it out. Like bowling alleys there are teams of middle aged men who are looking for a way to bond with coworkers (la selva has their own team AND their own jerseys). anyway because there were so many researchers that came along we just split into two teams and played each other. it was quite chill and you could just jump in and sub for anybody when you wanted to. towards the end it got a little more serious when some of the really good people showed up, but still, everything operates under a very different feel here. Everything is all good with no worries. its very nice.
Day 20
Got up 6 hours late. No big deal.
I was going to start my experiments early in the morning, but the volume on my iPod was turned all the way down so I wouldn’t wake up my roommates when I set the alarm. Unfortunately it also failed to wake me up. Oh well. Nothing died, I just lost 6 hours. What are you going to do?
During lunch there was the game between germany and Uruguay. I left halfway through because I knew germany would win. Uruguay put up a good fight though. I hate the germans.
Then on the way to dinner we saw a bunch of people all huddled around a tree looking at something. We figured we’d be interested in whatever they were interested in and so we wandered over to take a look. There was a huge snake in the tree! It was a bird-eating snake apparently. It had a yellow belly and a grey back and was quite cool.
Dinner was terrible. Well, that isn’t fair to say. It wasn’t any different from any other day, but that made it awful. Every day rice and beans and more rice and more beans and then some rice and maybe some starch of some other kind (potatoes or bread) with beans and then some more rice. ARG! I was so sick ok
So I realized that I really haven’t talked much about the pigs. They are everywhere! Its ridiculous. There are at least 30 of them that just roam around eating everything. They are disgusting. I don’t like them. Sometimes when its dark, they wander across the path and you almost trip over them. Not good
Day 21
Realized I got bitten a ridiculous amount yesterday while looking at the snake.
About 20 bites on one leg
Not as bad as the girl w/ 60 on one forearm. She climbs trees.
World cup!!!! SPAIN WON!!!!!! That was good. Although overtime pissed me off because I needed to get back to the lab, and I had to wait and watch the game for another 30 min. ok I didn’t have to but I wanted to.
Then it was raining. A lot. Really hard. Like a lot a lot. Like torrential downpour just got redefined.
Girl w/ ipod got stuck in storm and so as she ran she took off her shirt and wrapped the iPod in that. Then she picked up some banana leaves and wrapped it in those too. She was able to save it. But a guy w/ science equipment wasn’t as lucky. (well he wasn’t as resourceful either). His mp3 player got soaked.
Walked to dinner with a botanist who lives below me. We had a really interested discussion about the merit of ethnobotanical research. Quite cool.
Dinner was delicious! I wrote this down right after I got back from dinner (I usually take notes and then elaborate later, but now I don’t remember what it was. Apparently it was good.)
Day 22
Boring day. The days are starting to run together. My alarm was set for 7:00 but then I was like no way jose and rolled over and went back to sleep. I got up about 11:00 and then ate lunch and went to the lab. The day was spent in the lab doing college stuff and other prep work and such for the experiments.
O, then there was a HUGE spider in the bathroom at about 12:00am. That was scary.
Nothing terribly exciting.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Day Eighteen - July 8th 2010
I was determined to get up early today no matter what time I went to bed. Then this morning came around and I was like 7:00? Nawwwww so I rolled over and went back to bed. I actually got up about 930 and got to the lab at 10. It turns out it was good that I didn’t get up early because the stuff in the wells is STILL not dry. After 10 hours in the hood I'm getting a bit concerned. This means that this whole process is going to take a LOT longer than I expected. I hope I'm going to be able to finish them all in time!
Then after I got all the experiments done I input the data from the past experiments. So far, so good. I’m not totally sure yet, but it looks like the random plants definitely have a lower lc50 than the medicinal plants which is what its all about!
Then I goofed off the rest of the right and turned in early for once. It was a good day.
Then after I got all the experiments done I input the data from the past experiments. So far, so good. I’m not totally sure yet, but it looks like the random plants definitely have a lower lc50 than the medicinal plants which is what its all about!
Then I goofed off the rest of the right and turned in early for once. It was a good day.
Day Seventeen - July 7th 2010
I got my salt! I finally figured out that the shrimp need aquarium salt. The fish guy game me some, but it wasn’t going to be enough to sustain me for more than a week. I was going to have a guy from Rhode Island get it for me and then ship it here, but someone found it in San Jose! Win. So I have it now, and I know I won’t run out.
Fish guy also left. That was too bad because now I don’t have anyone to whom to ask my questions! (I'm trying really hard to not end sentences with prepositions, but that just sounds awkward. Help anyone?)
Then at lunch there was the Espana vs Germany game. WOW! How fantastic. I was rooting for Spain and they thankfully won. But, unfortunately I don’t think that both teams really played that well. Spain had like 17 attempts on goal and they just kept missing. It was terrible. And Germany wasn’t really playing that well either. It was kind of disappointing. But Spain FINALLY got a goal in the second half and won 1-0. Sunday is the final game Spain vs. Netherlands. I'm pretty excited. It should be really good.
I also thought I was going to get to sleep early. Yeah right. Basically I was being delusional, again. Getting to bed before 10? Not going to happen. So I finished counting shrimp at a little before 10 and was super duper excited because I just had to clean out the wells. But cleaning out the little wells was terrrrible. Because now I’m evaporating the ethanol and water from the wells, this crusty stuff gets caked onto the bottom of the wells. And it’s really difficult to get out. So I spent a good 3 hours cleaning wells. That was fun. I got to bed at about 1:00am.
Fish guy also left. That was too bad because now I don’t have anyone to whom to ask my questions! (I'm trying really hard to not end sentences with prepositions, but that just sounds awkward. Help anyone?)
Then at lunch there was the Espana vs Germany game. WOW! How fantastic. I was rooting for Spain and they thankfully won. But, unfortunately I don’t think that both teams really played that well. Spain had like 17 attempts on goal and they just kept missing. It was terrible. And Germany wasn’t really playing that well either. It was kind of disappointing. But Spain FINALLY got a goal in the second half and won 1-0. Sunday is the final game Spain vs. Netherlands. I'm pretty excited. It should be really good.
I also thought I was going to get to sleep early. Yeah right. Basically I was being delusional, again. Getting to bed before 10? Not going to happen. So I finished counting shrimp at a little before 10 and was super duper excited because I just had to clean out the wells. But cleaning out the little wells was terrrrible. Because now I’m evaporating the ethanol and water from the wells, this crusty stuff gets caked onto the bottom of the wells. And it’s really difficult to get out. So I spent a good 3 hours cleaning wells. That was fun. I got to bed at about 1:00am.
Day Sixteen - July 6th 2010
So, the days are starting to run together, so I don’t really remembered what happened…
Oh, today at lunch there was the game between the Netherlands and Uruguay. It was a really good game. First the Netherlands got a goal, then Uruguay matched them. Then Netherlands got two goals in a row so it was 1-3. Then in the last minute Uruguay got another goal and that brought it up to 3-2. But then that was it, and Netherlands won. I was rooting for the Netherlands (I'm not sure why) so I'm happy.
So I thought I was going to get to sleep early. I was quite excited about it. All I have to do I thought was to count two trays. That should only take about 2 hours. Right? wrong. The plant extract was so cloudy and dark and murky that I couldn’t see the shrimp in the wells. Not only was it dark, but there was stuff that dissolved in the ethanol that wouldn’t dissolve in the water that made little clumpy things that often pretended to be shrimp. So I had to take the contents of each well out, put it in a petri dish, check the well to make sure there were no shrimp there, check the pipette I used to make sure none were stuck there, then count the petri dish. Because the petri dish was so large and I didn’t have gridding or anything and I didn’t want to double count any shrimp, after counting them, I would take them out of the well. So first I looked for any dead ones. That was how I got my first number. Then I would count the live ones. This was actually easier because you could do it without the microscope (because they were swimming around they were easier to distinguish from the goop). Then I checked once more under the microscope to make sure that I didn’t miss anyone. Then I had to rinse everything out and start over. There were nine wells I had to do this for. I was not a happy camper. I didn’t get to bed until about 1230/1.
There was also this HUGE bug that came flying at me when I was at the microscope. It is the only bug that I’ve been truly frightened of. I actually screamed and half ran half tripped away. Luckily there was another girl in lab who calmed me down. It landed on the ceiling light and we weren’t tall enough to get it, so I had to live with it knowing that it could attack me at any moment. I did get a picture though and the next day we found its carcass in the microscope room. It has these ginormous pinchers that are really really large and one of the other researchers said that it does frequently bit people. So I wasn’t too far off with the running and the screaming.
Oh, today at lunch there was the game between the Netherlands and Uruguay. It was a really good game. First the Netherlands got a goal, then Uruguay matched them. Then Netherlands got two goals in a row so it was 1-3. Then in the last minute Uruguay got another goal and that brought it up to 3-2. But then that was it, and Netherlands won. I was rooting for the Netherlands (I'm not sure why) so I'm happy.
So I thought I was going to get to sleep early. I was quite excited about it. All I have to do I thought was to count two trays. That should only take about 2 hours. Right? wrong. The plant extract was so cloudy and dark and murky that I couldn’t see the shrimp in the wells. Not only was it dark, but there was stuff that dissolved in the ethanol that wouldn’t dissolve in the water that made little clumpy things that often pretended to be shrimp. So I had to take the contents of each well out, put it in a petri dish, check the well to make sure there were no shrimp there, check the pipette I used to make sure none were stuck there, then count the petri dish. Because the petri dish was so large and I didn’t have gridding or anything and I didn’t want to double count any shrimp, after counting them, I would take them out of the well. So first I looked for any dead ones. That was how I got my first number. Then I would count the live ones. This was actually easier because you could do it without the microscope (because they were swimming around they were easier to distinguish from the goop). Then I checked once more under the microscope to make sure that I didn’t miss anyone. Then I had to rinse everything out and start over. There were nine wells I had to do this for. I was not a happy camper. I didn’t get to bed until about 1230/1.
There was also this HUGE bug that came flying at me when I was at the microscope. It is the only bug that I’ve been truly frightened of. I actually screamed and half ran half tripped away. Luckily there was another girl in lab who calmed me down. It landed on the ceiling light and we weren’t tall enough to get it, so I had to live with it knowing that it could attack me at any moment. I did get a picture though and the next day we found its carcass in the microscope room. It has these ginormous pinchers that are really really large and one of the other researchers said that it does frequently bit people. So I wasn’t too far off with the running and the screaming.
Monday, July 5, 2010
Day Fifteen - July 5th 2010 Part B
I thought that this very exciting news deserved its own post.
Tonight, for the first time in recent history, La Selva did not serve any form of rice or beans (ok, we had green beans, but they don't count).
It quite exciting.
I'm off now to a lecture on plants. Should be interesting!
Tonight, for the first time in recent history, La Selva did not serve any form of rice or beans (ok, we had green beans, but they don't count).
It quite exciting.
I'm off now to a lecture on plants. Should be interesting!
Day Fifteen - July 5th 2010
Today I got up late after being in the lab until 11 last night. I did some organizational stuff in the lab, completed my progress report, and also set up some new experiments.
Then I went off to lunch. Today was rice and fish. What a wonderful, surprising change from the normal rice and beans. While at lunch I dropped my knife on the ground. Within 3 minutes there were hundreds and hundreds of ants swarming over the knife. It was ridiculous!
Then on the way back I stopped and talked to this guy who I making a movie for something or another. He had talked to the fish guy a while back and I vaguely remember him saying something about him working with high school students. Well word apparently got around that I was a high school student and now he wants to interview me or some such nonsense. So we’ll see how that goes, but I hopefully won’t have to deal with it for another week or so.
Things at the lab bench have been going well; I’ve finally started working on my actual plants. But my basic chemistry skills are seriously lacking. I need to go back to chemistry! No, seriously though, I am really starting to see how important basic chemistry is to any career in science. For example, unit conversions and dilution problem seem totally pointless but if you don’t know how to convert ppm to ppt you’re in trouble. “If you are given a 70% ethanol solution and you need to make a 50% solution with a final volume of 10ml, how many ml of ethanol should you use?” That actually happened to me. Swear to god. My life is one very large chemistry problem.
There has also been this huge miscommunication between my mentor in Indiana and me. It is really frustrating as we are both totally failing to articulate what we are saying. The result is a lot of chaos. So kids, pay attention in English too!
Hmmm let’s see what other subjects I can pull for. Mental math anyone? Super duper important. Want to know if your numbers seem reasonable? Well you’ll have to multiply 2 digit numbers in your head. Want to know how many more ml of ethanol you will need if each container has 7ml of ethanol and you need to make 60-46 more containers? Quickly now, someone is watching you waiting for the answer.
History meah... not so much here in the science world. But foreign language, oh my. Quite useful. You need to tell the taxi driver that your friends in the cab in front of you have the directions so you need to follow that car. Or you need to say... buy a candy bar (just the necessities). Knowing Spanish is oh so helpful.
Well teachers there was my pull for your subjects, hope you liked it. Seriously though, it is really cool to come here and see subjects that you may have thought have no relevancy become absolutely crucial in everyday life. Quite cool indeed.
Then I went off to lunch. Today was rice and fish. What a wonderful, surprising change from the normal rice and beans. While at lunch I dropped my knife on the ground. Within 3 minutes there were hundreds and hundreds of ants swarming over the knife. It was ridiculous!
Then on the way back I stopped and talked to this guy who I making a movie for something or another. He had talked to the fish guy a while back and I vaguely remember him saying something about him working with high school students. Well word apparently got around that I was a high school student and now he wants to interview me or some such nonsense. So we’ll see how that goes, but I hopefully won’t have to deal with it for another week or so.
Things at the lab bench have been going well; I’ve finally started working on my actual plants. But my basic chemistry skills are seriously lacking. I need to go back to chemistry! No, seriously though, I am really starting to see how important basic chemistry is to any career in science. For example, unit conversions and dilution problem seem totally pointless but if you don’t know how to convert ppm to ppt you’re in trouble. “If you are given a 70% ethanol solution and you need to make a 50% solution with a final volume of 10ml, how many ml of ethanol should you use?” That actually happened to me. Swear to god. My life is one very large chemistry problem.
There has also been this huge miscommunication between my mentor in Indiana and me. It is really frustrating as we are both totally failing to articulate what we are saying. The result is a lot of chaos. So kids, pay attention in English too!
Hmmm let’s see what other subjects I can pull for. Mental math anyone? Super duper important. Want to know if your numbers seem reasonable? Well you’ll have to multiply 2 digit numbers in your head. Want to know how many more ml of ethanol you will need if each container has 7ml of ethanol and you need to make 60-46 more containers? Quickly now, someone is watching you waiting for the answer.
History meah... not so much here in the science world. But foreign language, oh my. Quite useful. You need to tell the taxi driver that your friends in the cab in front of you have the directions so you need to follow that car. Or you need to say... buy a candy bar (just the necessities). Knowing Spanish is oh so helpful.
Well teachers there was my pull for your subjects, hope you liked it. Seriously though, it is really cool to come here and see subjects that you may have thought have no relevancy become absolutely crucial in everyday life. Quite cool indeed.
Day Fourteen - July 4th 2010
I got up early for the first time in a while and actually ate breakfast. I know, weird! Then it was off to the lab where I stayed until lunch. Then back to the lab for a while. Then at about 3:30 I finished up my work and went out to play Frisbee. Now, for those of you who don’t know, Frisbee and I don’t really get along that well with each other. But I was feeling particularly forgiving and so I gave it another chance to redeem itself. I must say it really stepped up to the challenge and I quite enjoyed myself. It was good to run around and get some exercise. Although I must say that it was ridiculously hot out and the humidity was suffocating. After about an hour I’d had enough and so I went back to the cabin, showered, and then went back to the lab for a little bit.
Dinner was nice. Beans and rice again. Although there was also some chicken to spice things up a little bit. Then it was off to the lab where I stayed until about 11:00 getting brine shrimp in wells and setting up trays.
So funny story that I forgot to post when it happened. I don’t remember now for sure when it was but I believe that it was the first night that I stayed until 2:00am. Anyway, I had just finished chopping up my plants and went out the refrigerator. I keep the leftovers and seal them up in a Ziploc bag which I then put in the refrigerator to keep them fresh. The fridge is outside in a little cage-like structure attached to the side of the building. I really hate going out there at night by myself, because even with a flashlights there are lots of dark corners where frogs can jump out at you when you’re least expecting it. But I braved the darkness and ran out to put the stuff in the fridge. My theory is that the less the amount of time spent outside in the dark the better. So, naturally, I was running. I know this increases my chances of stepping on some creature, but I get out of the dark faster. I run as fast as I can and get back to the door and throw it open. Scratch that. I tried to throw it open. But there was no throwing going on. The door was locked. “Oh no... this is bad… very very bad…” I thought to myself. I was completely stuck. There were no lights outside and I didn’t have my flashlight (the light from the lab illuminates the refrigerator room) and I didn’t have closed-toed shoes and I didn’t know that part of the building very well at all and so I didn’t know the paths and I knew that there was a guard who patrols the place 24/7 but I didn’t know where he was and it was 2 in the morning and I just wanted to get back to the river station and go to bed and I was a little bit frightened. The light from the lab illuminated about a 6 foot radius from the door, and then there was complete darkness. Utter, complete, and pure darkness. The problem with the darkness here is that it’s not just the boogie monsters that are out to get you. There are real, deadly, creatures that can kill you. I’ve been warned only about a bazillion times that I should never ever go anywhere without a flashlight. Ever. So I stood there for about 5 minutes trying to figure out what to do. Well, I could scream for the guard, but I don’t know where he was and I might just end up screaming forever and ever, I could brave the darkness and try to feel my way around the path, or well the truth was I was running out of options. Then I saw a little path that went around the back of the building. It seemed relatively illuminated and I hoped that it would lead me to another door that was unlocked. At least it would lead me to the main entrance to the lab which was better lit. So I took this tiny little path around the building. I just kind of booked it and hoped there were no snakes out to get me. Luckily the door on the other side of the building was unlocked and I was able to get back into the lab, get my stuff and go home. It was quite the adventure.
Dinner was nice. Beans and rice again. Although there was also some chicken to spice things up a little bit. Then it was off to the lab where I stayed until about 11:00 getting brine shrimp in wells and setting up trays.
So funny story that I forgot to post when it happened. I don’t remember now for sure when it was but I believe that it was the first night that I stayed until 2:00am. Anyway, I had just finished chopping up my plants and went out the refrigerator. I keep the leftovers and seal them up in a Ziploc bag which I then put in the refrigerator to keep them fresh. The fridge is outside in a little cage-like structure attached to the side of the building. I really hate going out there at night by myself, because even with a flashlights there are lots of dark corners where frogs can jump out at you when you’re least expecting it. But I braved the darkness and ran out to put the stuff in the fridge. My theory is that the less the amount of time spent outside in the dark the better. So, naturally, I was running. I know this increases my chances of stepping on some creature, but I get out of the dark faster. I run as fast as I can and get back to the door and throw it open. Scratch that. I tried to throw it open. But there was no throwing going on. The door was locked. “Oh no... this is bad… very very bad…” I thought to myself. I was completely stuck. There were no lights outside and I didn’t have my flashlight (the light from the lab illuminates the refrigerator room) and I didn’t have closed-toed shoes and I didn’t know that part of the building very well at all and so I didn’t know the paths and I knew that there was a guard who patrols the place 24/7 but I didn’t know where he was and it was 2 in the morning and I just wanted to get back to the river station and go to bed and I was a little bit frightened. The light from the lab illuminated about a 6 foot radius from the door, and then there was complete darkness. Utter, complete, and pure darkness. The problem with the darkness here is that it’s not just the boogie monsters that are out to get you. There are real, deadly, creatures that can kill you. I’ve been warned only about a bazillion times that I should never ever go anywhere without a flashlight. Ever. So I stood there for about 5 minutes trying to figure out what to do. Well, I could scream for the guard, but I don’t know where he was and I might just end up screaming forever and ever, I could brave the darkness and try to feel my way around the path, or well the truth was I was running out of options. Then I saw a little path that went around the back of the building. It seemed relatively illuminated and I hoped that it would lead me to another door that was unlocked. At least it would lead me to the main entrance to the lab which was better lit. So I took this tiny little path around the building. I just kind of booked it and hoped there were no snakes out to get me. Luckily the door on the other side of the building was unlocked and I was able to get back into the lab, get my stuff and go home. It was quite the adventure.
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Day Thirteen- July 3rd 2010
Today I went to the lab in the morning for about an hour and did some secretarial work cleaning up my lab notebook and washing dishes, etc. Then, at about 11 I thought I’d check up on the Argentina vs. Germany game. To my surprise it was already over, and the Argentineans had LOST! :O They got completely creamed 4-0. It was terrible. Next, it was off to lunch (beans and rice… yum yum) where I watched a little bit of the Spain vs. Paraguay game. Great game, but I don’t think that the Spaniards were playing up to their full potential. The Paraguay players weren’t doing wonderfully, but their “clump” defense strategy worked well on the Spaniards usual passing scheme. I think that the pressure was starting to get to the Spaniards; each player thought that if they didn’t make the goal, no one else would. Consequently each player hung onto the ball for a little bit longer than they should have, and that gave the Paraguay players an opportunity to steal the ball. After lunch, I decided that I had too much work to do to be able to watch the rest of the game. So I unfortunately didn’t see the amazing goal, but I heard all about it from Univision.com where I reloaded the page every other minute to see how the game was going.
The brine shrimp had hatched when I got back from lunch so I started the long process of setting up the new experiments. These are just control experiments to test the solution that I am putting the plants in (to make sure that that isn’t what is killing them). Then I’m also doing a positive control test. Basically, I have to verify in every experiment that I don’t have super-shrimp on my hands. This is done by finding a chemical that will kill 50% of the shrimp slowly, as a toxic plant would. I am using K2Cr2O7 aka potassium dichromate an extremely poisonous chemical (muahahaha). Anyway I have to set up control-control experiments to test what the highest % of alcohol that the shrimp can live in is and what concentration of K2Cr2O7 I’ll need. So that took basically all afternoon.
Then at about 4:30 I got ready to go to a 4th/3rd of July party with all of the researchers. It was nice, but a tad awkward. C’est la vie.
The brine shrimp had hatched when I got back from lunch so I started the long process of setting up the new experiments. These are just control experiments to test the solution that I am putting the plants in (to make sure that that isn’t what is killing them). Then I’m also doing a positive control test. Basically, I have to verify in every experiment that I don’t have super-shrimp on my hands. This is done by finding a chemical that will kill 50% of the shrimp slowly, as a toxic plant would. I am using K2Cr2O7 aka potassium dichromate an extremely poisonous chemical (muahahaha). Anyway I have to set up control-control experiments to test what the highest % of alcohol that the shrimp can live in is and what concentration of K2Cr2O7 I’ll need. So that took basically all afternoon.
Then at about 4:30 I got ready to go to a 4th/3rd of July party with all of the researchers. It was nice, but a tad awkward. C’est la vie.
Friday, July 2, 2010
Pictures! 5
This is me in my field gear in front of a HUGE monkey ladder vine that we found in the woods.
Day Eleven - July 1st 2010
I got up at around 9:30 after going to bed a 10:00 and I STILL felt tired. I hope I'm not getting sick. Anywho, I met Jose at 10. We got all of our stuff together and went to Jaime’s house. Jaime is the brother of Joel (one of our guides the first time we came to Costa Rica as tourists) and cultivates medicinal plants. It was incredible. I was expecting a garden of sorts with rows and labels. Boy, was I wrong. The plants were just growing in the ground everywhere. To an untrained eye it would have looked like an overgrown pasture, but between Jaime and Joel they were able to identify almost every plant. It was incredible! Anywho we collected 14 plants. I think that might be our record. In total we have 46 out of the 60 that I need.
After walking around in the heat with pants and boots on we came back the lab and tried to straighten out the huge mess that I had made from the labels… I am labeling each of the plants with their number from my list and then with an “m” or an “r” depending on if they are medicinal or random. So that was all fine and dandy until I decided I would erase the plants from the list that I wasn’t going to be able to collect. Such a mistake. By doing this, I moved every plant up one number. Plus, some plants appeared on both lists, and oy vey what a disaster. But we figured it all and then went and ate lunch. (beans and rice again, surprise surprise).
Then I went to the cabin and worked on my lab notebook, took a nap, and updated my plant list until it was time for dinner. After dinner I worked until about 2am in the lab putting the plants that we collected that day in solution. It was quite a productive day.
O, and my brine shrimp finally survived!!!!!!!! I believe that it was the salt. They really need aquarium salt, not just plain NaCl. So I have some aquarium salt from the fish guy, and hopefully next time that they go into San Jose they can find me some…
After walking around in the heat with pants and boots on we came back the lab and tried to straighten out the huge mess that I had made from the labels… I am labeling each of the plants with their number from my list and then with an “m” or an “r” depending on if they are medicinal or random. So that was all fine and dandy until I decided I would erase the plants from the list that I wasn’t going to be able to collect. Such a mistake. By doing this, I moved every plant up one number. Plus, some plants appeared on both lists, and oy vey what a disaster. But we figured it all and then went and ate lunch. (beans and rice again, surprise surprise).
Then I went to the cabin and worked on my lab notebook, took a nap, and updated my plant list until it was time for dinner. After dinner I worked until about 2am in the lab putting the plants that we collected that day in solution. It was quite a productive day.
O, and my brine shrimp finally survived!!!!!!!! I believe that it was the salt. They really need aquarium salt, not just plain NaCl. So I have some aquarium salt from the fish guy, and hopefully next time that they go into San Jose they can find me some…
Day Ten - June 30th 2010
I got up at around 10 after being up until 2 the night before. I trudged into Jose’s office exhausted and he took one look at me and asked if I wanted a cup of coffee. I was like um… yeah! So we had coffee some strange bright yellow corn dough rings, and planed out the day.
We decided we were both exhausted and that we’d meet up after lunch to go out to the field. We walked all over the residential part of la selva and then went to the arboretum where we looked around some more. It wasn’t terribly successful, only 5 plants, but 5 is better than none!
After that I went back to the lab until dinner and checked up on my brine shrimp. About ½ of the experiments had produced viable eggs. I put the three experiments that had eggs into wells to see if they lasted for 24 hours. Then I started in on my extractions, and finished up at about 10:00.
We decided we were both exhausted and that we’d meet up after lunch to go out to the field. We walked all over the residential part of la selva and then went to the arboretum where we looked around some more. It wasn’t terribly successful, only 5 plants, but 5 is better than none!
After that I went back to the lab until dinner and checked up on my brine shrimp. About ½ of the experiments had produced viable eggs. I put the three experiments that had eggs into wells to see if they lasted for 24 hours. Then I started in on my extractions, and finished up at about 10:00.
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