I miss winter...

I'm a strange person.  I grew up in the desert of Southern California and when I graduated from undergrad, I wanted nothing more than to get the hell out of mono-seasoned Cali and go somewhere that had winter. The colder the better!

Not having winter this year has been incredibly frustrating and depressing to me. Let me count my sorrows:

1. I went running today in capris, with no gloves or ear warmers
2. In the Botanical Gardens yesterday, I saw snow drops in full bloom
3. Today on campus, I saw a robin. Granted, a miserable robin. But still a robin.

Stupid La Nina, messing up my winter...

Diatom mounting fail

When you let diatoms dry on a cover slips, its supposed to look like this.  See how it looks even? Like there's sand perfectly dusted on the cover slip?

Not like this, drying all fucked up and unevenly. Grr...I blame lab tech who told me to wipe them off with ethanol first.

Counting Diatoms

Well, it's that time for me again, counting many, many diatoms.  Have you never done this before? It's truly an...experience.  I definitely have a love/hate relationship with it.  On the one hand, diatoms are beautiful and each one is unique so they are all very distinct. On the other hand, they're little, some are not as distinct as you'd like, and if you have altered stream conditions then your diatoms might be deformed.

But if you're new to even the concept of counting, here's where you start.  This is a field of diatoms at 400X

 

This is a moderately sparse slide, from one of my reference sites. For counting you need to zoom in to 1000X to see all of the fine structure that helps to identify species. As you can see, there are some whole ones (or at least they look whole, they might be missing their other valve) some broken ones, and plenty of grains of sand.  When counting diatoms, it's best to make yourself a list of rules and stick to it.  Here's my list of counting rules

1. Count 300 frustules across at least 10 different frames. If 300 is reached before 10 frames, continue counting. If 300 is reached in the middle of the last frame, finish counting the frame
2. Only count those diatoms visible in the diagnostic view (valve and/or girdle). For example, taxa like Rhoicosphenia or Diatoma are identifiable in both valve and girdle.  Where as taxa like Navicula (valve) or Aulecosiera (girdle) are generally only identifiable in one view.
3. Keep a list of rules about difficult taxa. Currently one of my rules deals with Achnanthes subatomoides and A. bioretii. I'm calling it subatomoides if it's less than 13um long and bioretii if it's larger.
4. Take a picture if it's the first time you've seen a taxa.
5. Start counting at a random point on the slide, and move frames regularly (L to R or R to L) from there.
6. At least 50% of the a given valve must be present to be counted
7. At least 50% of the frustule must be in the field to be counted.

So far, those are my major rules. If I'm doing it wrong, hopefully someone will tell me. 80 slides to go!

Manhattan is Nice, Outer Bouroughs are Rude

Just have to take a moment from reading articles to kvetch.  A recent article in some travel magazine named NYC the Rudest City in America. I know I've only lived here a few years, but I feel the need to weigh in.

Most tourists visit Manhattan.  This means you are visiting the spots that EVERYONE goes; Rockafeller Center, Times Sq, Muesums, Central Park, etc.  These places are crowded with other tourists.  These tourists will not move aside for someone passing through, are not considerate of coughing or other bodily functions, throw their trash on the ground, and are generally oblivious to their surroundings.  Regular Manhattan-ites will walk at a reasonable pace, throw their shit away, and are generally helpful in making sure everyone can do their daily thing.  It's my opinion that these travel mag people were probably mistaking tourists for locals.

Now, in the Outer Bouroughs, it's another story.  As a resident of the Bronx, it's probably the most pronounced here.  No one comes to visit the Bronx, not if you don't have to. If you've ever tried to run for a bus only to be blocked by an obese family of 8 walking at a snail's pace across the entire sidewalk, then locals are rude. If you're trying to obey the traffic laws (stop signs, whether or not you're in a lane, cross walks, etc) and you've been beligerently honked at, then locals are rude.  If you've had a pedestrian amble into the middle of the street into on-coming traffic, locals are rude.  If you've been LAUGHED AT FOR EXERCISING, locals are fucking rude.  The Bronx would be a great place to live, if all these assholes would just leave.  The Bronx locals are my number one reason for wanting to move to Manhattan. 

I actually love my building, my super is awesome. Some of my neighbors are nice.  We have great grocery stores and restaurants nearby.  We could use a movie theatre or bowling ally or something, but they are a short bus ride away.  I don't even mind the people who turn the summer sidewalks into a ginormous backyard BBQ (we don't have yards here, I get it). But the people who sit on  my car and let their wallet chains scratch my paint, the assholes who throw their trash on the ground and let their dogs crap everywhere, and everyone else who doesn't care about the quality of life in the neighborhood and walks around with a general attitude of "fuck you", they can all GTFO.  The Bronx would be a great place if everyone would stop acting like a cranky 5 year old.  One of the reasons (though certainly not the only) that Manhattan is so awesome is that people have pride of living there!

Bottom line: Travel article is dumb.  Besides, everyone is nice when you actually talk to them and rude when they think no one is watching. 

Semester Reboot

Ah, the beginning of a new semester, it's almost like New Year's Eve all over again!  "This semester I'm going to stay on top of the syllabus" "I'm going to get ahead on the reading" "I will go to office hours at least once"....smells like potential, smells like empty promises.

But not for this intrepid grad student!  I have a jam-packed semester.  Let me show you..

• TA for Microbiology: I've never TAed this class before, and I nearly failed it when I took it as an undergrad.  But I'm a much better student now than I was, and I have my best friend to TA with me and she's done it before, so I'm not worried. But it is 2 days on campus.
• GIS2: This is a 4 hour weekly course in GIS project development.  It will force me to develop the GIS side of my dissertation, and if I finish with that, I can help my Advisor with his GIS stuff (yay brownie points!)
• 160 algae/diatom slides to count: If you know me and were around last year when I had 70 slides to count, then you know what you are in for.  If you've never been on the counting journey with me, make sure you've got plenty of cheese and crackers because there's going to be a lot of whine! Also, this has to be done by April 1..Wheeee!
• I need to publish another paper!  I need to do this for myself if nothing else.  I feel like I need to prove that I can force myself to sit down and write something publishable without anyone forcing me to.  This is a skill I will need to have as a faculty member, so I may as well get it imprinted now.
• Other Misc. Tasks: Designing SFS playing cards, additional data analysis, running the BGSA, coordinating intradepartment service projects, and all the other personal shit I told myself I'd do this year.

Being busy really does make me a more efficient person.  I like having to plan out every single second of my day, it ensures that I have no room to fall off track.  Really, this is for the best.

So here we go Spring 2012!  Let's make it happen!

Sexy and I know it

I'm still not feeling well...doing data entry from home today.  But in my morning internet browsing, I found this. It made me feel a bit better so I thought I'd share with y'all.

Data is a Cruel Mistress

This week, I've dedicated my time to entering data into spreadsheets.  I've been running a lot of samples and the results are in several different programs on several different computers, stashed in log sheets, and also randomly entered in my lab notebook. It's gotten to the point where I don't know what I've done and what I haven't done.  Time to take account!

I've just spent the last 2 hours going from computer to computer and collecting all the data files that have to do with Phosphorus (PO4, TDP, and Algal P).  There are a lot of them....and I finally got them all entered into the master spreadsheet!!! Yay me!  Then I notice that the values in the TDP (total dissolved phosph) are SMALLER than just the PO4!! Shouldn't Total be larger than just one compound? And crap! All these blanks have values larger than actual samples?! WTF? And it's like that for all the P samples....FML.

I am totally discouraged from doing any more data entry.

So now my problem is this: I don't know if I'm going to be able to re-run these...When we collect stream water, we collect 4 8mL tubes; PO4/NH4/NO3 (preserved with H2SO4), TDN/TDP (preserved with H2SO4), DOC (preserved with HCl), and Metals (preserved with HCl).  I've used up all of the TDN/TDP tube, and the HCl tubes are no good for nutrient analysis.  This leaves me with whatever is left in the first tube, that still needs to have NH4 and NO3 run.  The machine is currently set up to run PO4, so I could re-run everything and get it out of the way...but then I might not have enough left to do the other runs that I need done.  So I should switch the machine over to the others...and then switch back? Oy, so much work! Haven't I done enough!?

On top of this frustrating realization, I don't feel well.  I think I'm fighting a bladder infection.  This usually happens to me in the winter when I'm too cold to drink much water.  So I'm also torn between fighting through more data entry and leaving to go pick up a bottle of cranberry juice and lay down with my book.  It actually hurts to sit up, so I think reclining with a book would be the way to go.

Ugh....happy 20-fucking-12

It's good to be back!

It's hard to believe I haven't been in the lab for almost two weeks, but I'm back! It actually feels good.  I've said before that being a busy-body at work makes me happy.  Happier than if I were just sitting at home. I don't think I'm meant to be a house-wife.  I enjoy having a career, even if that career is being a grad student which no one in my family seems to understand what that means.
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We went home to Appalachia for the holidays, and I got to spend a lot of time with my niece and nephew. Now that they're older (3rd grade), I can communicate with them better.  I remember 3rd grade being a good year; it was the year I learned about photosynthesis and became fascinated with it. My sis-in-law had asked me to help them with a science fair project, and I'd heard that they wanted to do something with what I do. After spending many days thinking about how to get them interested in streams, I finally realized that I had the perfect tool to reach them! The 5E lesson plan!

The 5E plan is a peer reviewed method for teaching science to elementary aged kids.  The first E is Engage, and that's what I focused on this trip.  It may sound a bit self-centered, but I tried to get them interested in what it is I do.  As we were driving to some relative's house, I noticed that we were riding along the creek that eventually goes by the kids' house.  It had rained the night before and the creek was high and turbid.  So I started asking questions about what they thought was going on with the creek.  It was like pulling teeth.  My niece is like me, not afraid to just shout out answers even if they're wrong. My nephew on the other hand is extremely quiet, and even when we got her to let him answer, there was no response.  After a couple of minutes of long silence between answers, I tried a different angle.

"Do you know what it is I do?" I asked

"You're a teacher at college." was the response

NO. Since moving to NYC, I actually do very little teaching.  And last year, I even specifically asked my in-laws to tell the kids, should they ask, that I am a scientist. I thought it was important for them to know that they had a direct line to a real-life scientist (as opposed to a teacher, which they might put on the same level as the ones they see every day).  I did not want to make this distinction, scientist vs. teacher, because I don't respect teachers or anything like that.  But a scientist has a DIFFERENT connotation from teacher.  It conjures up a different mental image, and that was what I wanted them to realize.

This trip home has led me to some conclusions, be they right or wrong. 1) I don't think kids are really expected to learn anything in elementary school, beyond basic reading/writing and math skills.  Sure other topics and lessons will be thrown at them in the hopes that something sticks, but if it does it's just gravy; a bonus, not expected. 2) What science education is going on at the elementary level (at least in this corner of Appalachia) focuses on getting students to memorize a sequence of "key terms" in a particular order.  For example, my niece said she learned the water cycle and so we asked her to tell it to us.  She started reciting, "Evaporation, Condensation, Precipitation" as if that was all there is to it.  When we tried to get her to define those words, it was done in the context of a memorized story that I recognized from a Project Wild! lesson.  Branching out from the memorized scenario was hard going.

I really shouldn't be surprised.  I used to teach future elementary school teachers how to teach biology at an elementary level.  They exhibited the same difficulties.  They wanted a list of the key terms and the order to memorize them in. In exams, I would try to use different scenarios from what was taught in class, always with disastrous results and complaints (both from the students and higher ups).  I shouldn't be surprised that this is what their students are able to retain, it's all they get.

But I had higher hopes for my niece and nephew....after all, they have a dedicated science teacher!  Even in elementary school, these kids rotate throughout the day to different periods; Home Room, Reading & Writing, Art, Math, History, and Science.  There's a whole period for science!!! If the school is going to have a dedicated science teacher, then I expect that person to be a bit better at teaching science than a teacher that has to be able to teach everything.  Is that wrong?

Do I expect too much of this school? Or my niece and nephew? Or my family? Am I a bitch?

Muahaha!

Algae strikes again!

Foam Covers Blackpool, UK

Strange foam has been covering this sea-side town. Residents thought it might be polluted sea water, but scientists say it's decomposing algae.  Leave it to those single-celled organisms to remind humanity that we are under their thumb.

Oh yeah, Happy New Year!!

_____

It's now 10:30pm, and PBS is showing re-runs of NOVA (Secrets Beneath the Ice, 2010). They mentioned algae, so I had to share. 

After pulling up cores from the continent, under all the ice, they began looking for different types of diatoms in the sediments.  Some species thrive in extreme cold, and others thrive in warmer temperatures.  As scientists attempt to piece together the climate history of Antarctica, algae (diatoms) play a major role.

:-) Yay Algae!