Fulbright Future?

Here is the email I’ve been meaning to record for some days now. I literally posted it on my fridge to remind me that I am doing good work. I need something for a lift.

Subject: Fulbright Scholarship
From: Undisclosed for web posting
Date: Tues, 10 Oct. 2006 10:31:02
To: My advisor and Program head

“I have been serving on the Interview Committee for the University Fulbright Committee for the past 8-10 years and I just want to report that I read one of the most impressive proposals I have ever read this past week. It is a proposal from Kate Jenks and her interest in studying dholes in Thailand. The proposal was very well written and certainly impressed the committee—we have no control over the funding but do get to send the proposals along to the next step….In addition to congratulating Kate and Todd for the excellent proposal I want to encourage you and your colleagues to investigate the Fulbright…”

However, Update as of 18 March 07: REJECTED

Play It And They Will Come

Up at 6am to go to Nong Pak Chi and test my new battery with the playback equipment. Problem? Connection from battery to player socket is broken. I couldn’t test it last night because I was waiting for the battery to charge. So, I stressed, then figured out my computer speakers work with the battery. I made the attempt, but they aren’t loud enough. I fiddled with the game caller speaker. I cut off the original 12V battery and rigged two alligator clips that work with my new battery. Done all with a roll of black tape and my leatherman multi-tool.

So the speakers are fixed. Play it and they will come—that was my “great” idea that dholes might be attracted to other dhole vocalizations or sounds of prey in distress. The literature on hyenas and kit foxes, etc. makes it seem so simple – cause and effect – play it and they will come, curious to check out the invader. Of course, as a field biologist, I never expect anything to be simple and I certainly don’t expect results on the first try (or even my equipment to function on the first try for that matter). Still, it seemed like such a good idea, a novel approach to try with dholes. As much as I willed it though, that swaying clump of dark grass didn’t turn into a wild dog. I usually wait about an hour during each playback attempt, all that time willing movement that will materialize into a dog shape every time I pick up the binoculars for a scan. Nothing.

On another note, I was attacked by a huge angry fang-bearing pig-tail macaque today. He charged just inches from me and chased ME away. I was busy typing and concentrating and looked up briefly from my computer screen to see the big guy on our table – 10 feet away helping himself to our rice bowl. Usually we just make a move or shout and they flee. I stood up and yelled “hey” – and he was NOT afraid. He took it as a threat, spiked his eyebrows in my direction and lunged toward me! I backed slowly away to try to reach the slingshot and moved out of his view and he came charging through a different door and chased me around the chairs! He hesitated just long enough to stop shy of biting me. After the third charge I had to close myself into an adjacent room and wait him out – after he tried to get at me through a window!

Live and Learn and More Rain

I was hoping the last week in Bangkok would serve as a break and change of pace so I could snap myself out of it and get back to concentrating in the park. Wrong. Arrived to a mess. The student interns who also stay in our park house were gone and our kitchen was dusty, covered in cobwebs and mice droppings. Smelled horribly of rat urine. Then my bedroom. I had closed the shades so people couldn’t see my electronic equipment. A big mistake. I had mold growing—literally: white fuzzy spore-like mold on my bags and clothes and leather wallet. Mold growing on the stains on the sheets even. So disgusting. Oh, and our bathroom pipe also burst in our absence, so water was freely flowing…

Then, the next day I hitch-hiked to PakChong to buy a piece for the bathroom pipe fix it job. Returned in the back of a pickup (normal, except for the downpour of rain). Soaked to the skin. Oh, and before I boarded the bus my sandal broke and I had to throw them away and go barefoot. So, I get back and this is when you need a hot steamy shower and warm fuzzy towels. I have a cold bucket of dirty water and moldy sodden towels. I dumped my food bags in the kitchen, took off my useless water spattered glasses, ran into a spider web, saw the spider on my shoulder – a huge spider the size of my palm – and freaked. Then cried. I am out of patience.