Not much has changed since my last update. I am still working in Virginia, supplementing my small intern’s stipend by babysitting, and spending my evenings on the front porch of Leach House. This month pivoted around our one week GIS course that we taught for wildlife managers. I was in charge of organization and spent every moment of the course making sure people were happy and answering questions from 8am to 9pm. Despite a few bumps (we had a computer crash and trouble with moving data over the network), all of the evaluations were positive. I also did well with the one lecture I presented about digital data acquisition. Three months ago I knew absolutely nothing about the types of satellite imagery that is available for ecological monitoring and now I was able to give a talk about it. I enjoy the tangible benchmarks of knowledge that I have gained working in the lab. My entire lab notebook is filled with trials and errors and steps and directions about how to perform tasks that I didn’t even know existed three months ago.
I think I am still recovering from the June 14-18 course, but my mood was cheered once again by the possibility of work in Thailand. This still seems like a long-shot possibility, but enough of an option that I have promised myself to pick up practicing Thai again. And, I have visions of future projects involving radio-tracking elephants or Dhole (wild dogs). If things would work out perfectly, they would go something like this: I would head over to Thailand from August to October to work as Peter’s eyes and ears (kind of monitoring the ongoing projects in Khao Yai National Park and making sure the data collection was being done appropriately). This would give me a great opportunity to meet his collaborators at Wild Aid and get a feel for the study area and community. I could begin to think about project options for graduate school. Upon return to the states in the fall (I would already have my schools narrowed down); I would apply to a doctoral program and look forward to future collaboration with the Smithsonian. Hopefully, Peter (my boss) will be able to give me a definite yes or no about sending me to Thailand by the end of the month. He also said I am welcome to stay as long as I like working in the GIS lab, meaning they are happy with my work here and meaning I don’t have to struggle to find another internship for fall.
I have finally gotten around to serious searching of graduate school programs in conservation. Today I found myself most interested in faculty at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and at University of Florida, Gainesville. The goal this week is to start emailing people I might be interested in working under. I have the added benefit of Peter’s permission to say I am affiliated with the Smithsonian and National Zoo. So, things are looking up and a plan is formulating. But, as always with this conservation biology field, the plan is flexible and open. I’m really just as confused as always :)
GIS me
Somehow I’ve become the GIS “expert” in the lab. Well, not exactly the expert, but the intern who has been here the longest, the one everyone turns to with questions. I don’t think I sat at my desk today longer than thirty minutes. Every small thing David (the previous most experienced intern) had under control I am now running around trying to manage.
I am organizing our upcoming GIS course (we will be teaching for a week in June). In addition to sending out advertisements for the course, answering email and phone queries, and general record keeping of deposits, my main work duties still center on dry forest scenarios. My boss is trying to combine various data sets (rainfall, land cover, fires, elevation) to find the best predictor of dry forests in SE Asia. Currently we are ordering ASTER satellite data to compare actual land cover random points to points of our scenarios to judge their accuracy. On a more exciting note, there is potential for me to get involved in a Clouded Leopard study that the Smithsonian is involved in in Thailand. The focus in the past year or so has been on captive populations, improving living conditions, nutrition, and breeding, but there are plans to extend to in situ populations and construct a GIS habitat analysis. Also, there is talk about looking for a student to go down in the fall and supervise data collection in Khao Yai National Park. (I’m excited without trying to get too excited so I won’t fall hard with disappointment if this thing doesn’t work out). Yet, there is huge potential.
I’ve also taken to babysitting on the weekends for a two year old! Yes, it involves changing diapers. Yes, this was my first experience changing diapers. Niko is a smart kid, you can’t trick him. During my first job both of his parents were at home. They simply wanted to work in their offices uninterrupted. Of course Niko knew they were behind the closed doors and had a screaming fit until I could divert his interest. I enjoying reading books with him as long as he doesn’t insist on the German ones. He speaks a bit of English, German, and Spanish. Lucky.
I am organizing our upcoming GIS course (we will be teaching for a week in June). In addition to sending out advertisements for the course, answering email and phone queries, and general record keeping of deposits, my main work duties still center on dry forest scenarios. My boss is trying to combine various data sets (rainfall, land cover, fires, elevation) to find the best predictor of dry forests in SE Asia. Currently we are ordering ASTER satellite data to compare actual land cover random points to points of our scenarios to judge their accuracy. On a more exciting note, there is potential for me to get involved in a Clouded Leopard study that the Smithsonian is involved in in Thailand. The focus in the past year or so has been on captive populations, improving living conditions, nutrition, and breeding, but there are plans to extend to in situ populations and construct a GIS habitat analysis. Also, there is talk about looking for a student to go down in the fall and supervise data collection in Khao Yai National Park. (I’m excited without trying to get too excited so I won’t fall hard with disappointment if this thing doesn’t work out). Yet, there is huge potential.
I’ve also taken to babysitting on the weekends for a two year old! Yes, it involves changing diapers. Yes, this was my first experience changing diapers. Niko is a smart kid, you can’t trick him. During my first job both of his parents were at home. They simply wanted to work in their offices uninterrupted. Of course Niko knew they were behind the closed doors and had a screaming fit until I could divert his interest. I enjoying reading books with him as long as he doesn’t insist on the German ones. He speaks a bit of English, German, and Spanish. Lucky.
Low Man on the Totem Pole
Interns washing dishes! April 12th through the 23rd I became well acquainted with my “low man on the totem pole” status. We helped out with two weeks of GIS courses and I was in charge of everything from washing dishes to answering questions while people worked through the course lab manual to flagging transects in pouring rain. Moving data, setting software settings, organizing shortcuts, adding print drivers, seemingly easy tasks to prepare the computers for the participants, took much more time than expected. One day I spent all day going from computer to computer installing software. At the end of the day we had only two fully ready computers (when we needed twelve), which meant working well into the weekend.
And, I really was sent in a downpour of a thunderstorm to walk a poorly marked transect and re-flag it to make it visible for the course participants to walk during lab. I returned two hours later a cold, soggy, soaked mess. Usually there are plentiful deer droppings along the transect. This week there were not enough piles for a statistical analysis due to the rain. It was decided that I would walk the whole thing again and place raisins to supplement!
18 April 2004
Sandwiched in between time working in the lab, David and I drove to D.C. to plant trees along the Anacostia River in honor of Earth Day. I am still (in May) waiting for the blisters on my hands to heal. The actual digging to plant was hard work in the upwards of 88 F degree weather, but it felt good to do some manual labor. We get much too soft sitting in front of computer screens all day.
20 April 2004
I officially extended my working time in the GIS lab. Mel gave me an extension until mid-September. This is a good place for me right now to balance learning and relaxation. However, I am just starting to get used to the other interns being temporary. It has been a month, I’ve gotten to be friends with the others living in Leach House, and now they are going. Laura, Mandy, and Dillon have already gone. Tamar is leaving in a week. Ecology Dan is leaving in week. We have room for eleven people in the house, but by mid-May we will be down to two.
22 April 2004
When I stopped home for lunch today I was surprised to see a plastic white hospital bracelet around Heather’s wrist as she lay sunbathing on the front porch. Thinking she must have cut herself or gotten a bump at work, I walked up to talk and as she turned the right side of her face toward me I gasped. Apparently as they were wrestling a captured deer to the ground to tag her ear the person holding the back legs slipped. Heather was kneeling gripping the front legs, with her head within easy kicking distance. She got pummeled directly in the eye, leaving a bloodied hoof mark. Luckily no eye damage, only two stitches on her eyelid and a nasty shiner.
23 April 2004
After work David and I borrowed a shop-vac and started Spring cleaning. We wiped each slat of the vinyl siding on the front of the house by hand until dark. The boy actually got down on his hands and knees with a butter knife to pry out dirt caked between the porch boards so he could fully vacuum. Then, he made us dinner – lemon spiced tuna and ravioli with garlic bread for movie night.
26 April 2004
We spent the day hitting a few Smithsonian spots in D.C. Took the metro in to the Natural History Museum and concentrated on browsing the reptile, insect, and skeletal exhibits. IMAX movie at noon: Jane Goodall and the Gombe chimps. Interesting, but nothing new. The rest of the rain-soaked afternoon was spent trucking around the National Zoo. Highlight for me was low crowds, the pandas, and the mole rats. We watched and laughed at the rats for a good half-hour as they piggy-back each other within a tube system (a tight squeeze) and then shimmed their back legs to push the bottom one away.
And, I really was sent in a downpour of a thunderstorm to walk a poorly marked transect and re-flag it to make it visible for the course participants to walk during lab. I returned two hours later a cold, soggy, soaked mess. Usually there are plentiful deer droppings along the transect. This week there were not enough piles for a statistical analysis due to the rain. It was decided that I would walk the whole thing again and place raisins to supplement!
18 April 2004
Sandwiched in between time working in the lab, David and I drove to D.C. to plant trees along the Anacostia River in honor of Earth Day. I am still (in May) waiting for the blisters on my hands to heal. The actual digging to plant was hard work in the upwards of 88 F degree weather, but it felt good to do some manual labor. We get much too soft sitting in front of computer screens all day.
20 April 2004
I officially extended my working time in the GIS lab. Mel gave me an extension until mid-September. This is a good place for me right now to balance learning and relaxation. However, I am just starting to get used to the other interns being temporary. It has been a month, I’ve gotten to be friends with the others living in Leach House, and now they are going. Laura, Mandy, and Dillon have already gone. Tamar is leaving in a week. Ecology Dan is leaving in week. We have room for eleven people in the house, but by mid-May we will be down to two.
22 April 2004
When I stopped home for lunch today I was surprised to see a plastic white hospital bracelet around Heather’s wrist as she lay sunbathing on the front porch. Thinking she must have cut herself or gotten a bump at work, I walked up to talk and as she turned the right side of her face toward me I gasped. Apparently as they were wrestling a captured deer to the ground to tag her ear the person holding the back legs slipped. Heather was kneeling gripping the front legs, with her head within easy kicking distance. She got pummeled directly in the eye, leaving a bloodied hoof mark. Luckily no eye damage, only two stitches on her eyelid and a nasty shiner.
23 April 2004
After work David and I borrowed a shop-vac and started Spring cleaning. We wiped each slat of the vinyl siding on the front of the house by hand until dark. The boy actually got down on his hands and knees with a butter knife to pry out dirt caked between the porch boards so he could fully vacuum. Then, he made us dinner – lemon spiced tuna and ravioli with garlic bread for movie night.
26 April 2004
We spent the day hitting a few Smithsonian spots in D.C. Took the metro in to the Natural History Museum and concentrated on browsing the reptile, insect, and skeletal exhibits. IMAX movie at noon: Jane Goodall and the Gombe chimps. Interesting, but nothing new. The rest of the rain-soaked afternoon was spent trucking around the National Zoo. Highlight for me was low crowds, the pandas, and the mole rats. We watched and laughed at the rats for a good half-hour as they piggy-back each other within a tube system (a tight squeeze) and then shimmed their back legs to push the bottom one away.