And so it ends. A salty, grassy, sulfur-y summer slowly winds to a close. I’ll miss OIMB quite dearly, there’s really nothing quite like it. The rustic campus, the immense natural beauty, the amazing people who I’ve come to know in my time here, and the host of memories I’ve made will always hold a special place in my heart. Not bad for a first visit up to the PNW. Now for the recap: this week was way busier than I imagined. Remember last week when I said my poster was finally done? Lie. Complete and utter lie. After quite a lot of feedback on the revised draft of my poster, on Monday I began work on my revised-revised draft. All of Monday pretty much went that way, I’d make some changes to the poster, go over them with Ali, spot some more changes to be made, rinse and repeat. After about 4 or 5 rounds of editing, the poster was finally done – for real this time, and it felt like a huge weight was finally off my shoulders. While the process was grueling, I’m extremely proud of my final draft and wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s taught me that sometimes what you think is the best way to present data may not be the best way for a different audience, and it really helps to take multiple perspectives into account when creating any sort of presentation. The rest of the week was still busy, but a lot less mentally taxing. I spent most of Tuesday helping out Ali and Adam with their monthly water quality monitoring surveys, a.k.a. another excuse to get on the boat and enjoy the beautiful views in the estuary. With barely any wind and no clouds in the sky, the shining sun made it all the more picturesque. I helped Ali collect water samples using a fun contraption called a Van Dorn bottle at both low and high tide at 4 sites along the estuary, meaning we got to boat the whole way down. On Wednesday and Thursday I went through a couple flowering shoot bags Lara had left over to look for seeds. Though rotting bags of plant matter can get quite smelly, you get used to the smell soon enough, and with music playing the task is quite relaxing and mindless. Today, Friday, was the final poster session. It feels surreal to be done, but so gratifying. Being able to talk with people in depth about the work I did this summer and share my findings with students, faculty, and even families was extremely fun. It helped me reflect on what I actually did, and how far I’ve come from the beginning of the summer. It also helped that everyone was super curious and receptive, and in some cases almost as enthusiastic about my findings as I was! It’s left me with a great sense of excitement for what I’ve done, and everything else to come. As for the non-work side of things, it's been bittersweet, but we really made the most of our last week together. On Saturday we went on a beautiful hike through the South Slough reserve and enjoyed some breathtaking views. Sunday and Monday we watched a few more movies, and on Tuesday we finally played our long awaited Kahoot - a guessing game of who said which memorable quotes from our time as a cohort at OIMB. Many laughs were had and fond memories brought back up. On Wednesday we decided to buy some supplies from Grocery Outlet and set up a charcuterie board at Bastendorff Beach. Anyone who knows me knows I love a good charcuterie board, and this one was no different. We followed it up with some fun games and – you guessed it – another movie. Yesterday we didn’t do much (except watch more movies) and this morning a few of us went on one final trip to downtown Coos Bay. Now we’re getting geared up for a potluck at Richard’s house. It's gonna be nice to have everyone together one last time before we disperse across the country tomorrow. The goodbyes will be hard. All in all this experience has been amazing, and quite frankly life changing. I’ve learnt so many things, not only about how science works, but also about myself, and my learnings here will definitely shape my career going forward. For any potential interns or applicants reading this, I can’t overstate how amazing this program has been. If you have any questions feel free to shoot me an email at [email protected], and I’ll be happy to help. Well, that’s all folks. It’s a wrap.
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Wow, week 8 is over already. As I write this on Friday, the 18th of August, it’s 8 days till I’m on a plane to Detroit. I’m simultaneously excited to go back and sad to leave. I miss my friends and campus, but there's nothing quite like the feeling of walking out of your office in the afternoon and being greeted by towering 100 foot conifers. Well, one more week right? This past week though was quite hectic. Monday was my last day of data collection, a quick final batch of calorimetry – 3 consecutive successes, not to brag – and a final look at the germination experiment, and that was that. It’s quite surreal to know that I’m pretty much done with my project. I still remember the Shreyaan that got here two months ago, having never even seen a blade of Zostera marina, let alone having set foot on an eelgrass bed, living in blissful obliviousness to the horrors of calorimetry. Look at me now, I’ve learned so much, and most importantly I've learned how much more there is to learn. I spent the next two days working on getting said data onto my poster and ready for the critique session on Wednesday. Armed with feedback from Richard and my peers, and after lengthy discussions with Ali, my poster is now finally done. I didn’t realize how stressful poster making can be, you need to get everything on there but also not too much, you need all your figures but then also space to explain them, picking and choosing words to say what you need to say in the most succinct way possible, it's pretty grueling, but I couldn’t be happier with my final product. This week wasn’t all sitting in front of my laptop though, as on Monday and Tuesday morning I accompanied Ali to conduct oyster surveys at Haynes Inlet. It was great to be able to get out into the field one last time, a final ride with the waders, and to get to see other parts of the bay. It’s fascinating to see how the native oysters live, where they live, and how they interact with the commercial oysters that they now share a home with. Oysters are something I hear about fairly frequently, but never really think about much. Seeing how they live and grow was really cool, it really goes to show how dependent we are on natural systems and processes. Apart from work, we’ve spent almost every evening watching various movies in the boathouse. So far we’ve watched Spirited Away, Ponyo, Booksmart, Knives Out, and both Spider-Verse movies. I was never much of a movie person, but I can't help but feel like I’ve been missing out. It’s a nice excuse to hang out as a group and spend some time not thinking about our posters, bonding over our collective stress. We also got Indian food on Tuesday to celebrate Indian independence day, but there wasn't time for much else. That's about it for this week though, one last week to go, see y’all on the flip side. I quite like watching the fog roll into the bay. Standing on the jetty, watching the tips of the waves glimmer as they catch the sunlight, the bright sand on the other end of the bay reflecting the sun. The fog is visible on the horizon, but it’s far away – that was the first few weeks. Gradually the sand gets dimmer and the channel markers are obscured from view, the warmth of the sun is still on my skin – weeks 3 to 6. The fog continues to roll in now, my hair and flannel starting to dampen with the moisture. As I walk back to my dorm I can see the fog weave its way through the spruce trees, a familiar feeling to them I’m sure, and when I’m finally back I see the dewdrops forming on the window panes, a still unfamiliar, yet comforting feeling to me. I know this is quite cliché, but time really has flown by. All the events that had seemed so far away in the beginning, the invertebrate ball, the CMLC presentation, Poster critiques, all either now in the past or rapidly approaching. I’m really not sure how to feel. On the one hand is the familiar feeling of the end of the semester- crunch time, the final stretch. On the other hand is the unfamiliar feeling of uncertainty. At the end of the semester I always know I’ll be back at school in a few months, but will I ever return to OIMB? Or even Oregon for that matter? I sure do hope so, but the uncertainty makes my time here feel more precious. As you can probably tell by my sentimental ramblings, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect recently. This week was calorimetry week, and with Ali gone from Tuesday to Friday for a conference, I took it on alone (mostly). Monday was the only day I had help, but for some reason the calorimetry gods didn't seem to be in our favor. Despite running 11 times, accounting also for misfires (when the machine malfunctions but the sample is still re-usable), we had one singular successful run. It was quite frustrating to say the least. The rest of the week however went surprisingly smooth, with music blaring through my airpods the repetitive steps of the process turned to somewhat of a rhythm, eventually becoming intuitive. I had only one failure the whole rest of the week, even registering 5 consecutive successes on Thursday, all before lunch! This resulted in me being done a day and a half before schedule, giving me some time to mess around with the data and explore relationships. It was nice to slow down the pace a bit, especially after a hectic last field week. This week also saw Madison, Randi and Tara all leave, as Madison and Randi head on a research cruise for the next two weeks and Tara heads to Brazil for a conference, bringing our group down to 7. We made sure to celebrate though, as we joined the OIMB students for an impromptu party in the dining hall on Sunday, and of course, the Invertebrate ball on Thursday. To say I was impressed by everyone's costumes would be an understatement, and to say mine was good would be… an overstatement, but hey, I tried. I dressed up as an Eelgrass Sea Hare (Phyllaplysia taylori), a critter I’ve become well acquainted with through our fieldwork, and come to appreciate. Though I didn’t win any awards, I had a great time, and I loved looking at everyone else's creative costume ideas. That’s about it for this week though, crunch time is truly upon us. Oh boy, what a week this was. The last good spring tide, and consequently my last week of field work, it did not disappoint. On the first 3 days I woke up at 4:30, 5:00 and 5:30 am respectively to catch the low tide as we headed first to Clam Island, then to Valino Island and finally to Collver Point. Here I helped conduct eelgrass density surveys and prepare seed bank core samples for processing in the lab. As cold, muddy and stinky some of the sites can be (due to sulfides in the sediment - shoutout to Amber who’s studying them), I really do enjoy being out there. Living in the midwest, this is not something I get to experience often, and having it be my last week out there made me cherish it even more. You can learn as much valuable information as you’d like in a classroom, but there is definitely something to be said about getting out into these systems yourself and not just learning the ecology, but living it. Being able to notice the differences in wind, biota, smells and sights at the different sites makes them more than a cell in a spreadsheet and helps me hypothesize and understand why differences exist between them and what that means for their ecological health. On Thursday we switched things up a little bit, and instead of taking the boat, Ali, Zahra, Lara, Amber and I kayaked over to our next site, Barview. This was my first time at Barview and it was quite fascinating to see such a healthy and thriving ecosystem right across from the heavily used marina. After completing our work at the site however, our day wasn’t over as we then kayaked a further ~5 miles down the slough to Hinch Bridge. It was a beautiful day to be out, as the water was calm, the winds were mild and the sky was a perfect patchwork of cloudy and blue. Naturally this warranted taking many pictures, I mean it’s not every day you kayak the length of the slough. The funny thing about being in a kayak though is that you’re directly above the water, and the funny thing about phones – they love slipping out of your hand. Lara, sadly, fell victim to this harrowing phenomenon, and while most of the slough is 5-10 feet deep or even less, Lara’s phone fell in the singular point where the depth dips below 20 feet. The excitement wasn’t over yet though, as after passing hidden marsh where we surveyed the banks for eelgrass, we stopped near Danger Point for lunch. After getting stuck in the mud as soon as I left my kayak, digging my feet out with my hands, and promptly getting stuck again, I finally managed to get up the bank and join the crew for lunch. It was a nice and relaxing break, as we sat there snacking, blissfully unaware that two of our kayaks had dislodged themselves from the bank and started their own journey down the slough. After a quick kayak recovery operation, we finally reached the end of our journey at Winchester point. This was hands down one of the most fun experiences I’ve had here so far, and it really helped me appreciate the beauty of this unique estuarine system that has been both my home and my teacher for these past weeks. Friday was my final field day, and we returned to the muddy banks of danger point to conduct elevation surveys. Needless to say, I once again fell victim to the mud. This has become something of a running theme. Lucky for me I love getting my hands dirty. Outside of work, we had an amazing trip to Eugene this past weekend where we stayed at our fellow REU Madison’s house and explored the city of Eugene. It was quite a fun experience, with some good food and beautiful scenery. Eugene reminded me a lot of Ann Arbor, and as much as I love Charleston it was fun being in a city and getting to see more of Oregon. After a fun Friday evening, we went to the Saturday Market in the downtown. There was everything from berries, coffee, wooden crafts and blown glass, and once again reminded me quite a lot of our very own farmers market in Ann Arbor. On Sunday we were back in Charleston, and with little to do, we decided to go crabbing. I’ve never been crabbing before, and though we didn't catch much that we could keep, it was exciting lifting up the crab pot to find it teeming with dungeness and red rocks. I didn’t get up to much the rest of the week, as the field work had made it so I was showered and in bed a lot earlier than usual. On Friday, though, Ali graciously invited Zahra, Lara, Amber and I to her home for dinner. It was a lot of fun, as we learned archery, got to play with Oliver, her new puppy, and talk about many non-eelgrass related things. It was a nice way to end the field week, and a lovely farewell to Zahra, Lara and Amber. |
AuthorHey guys! My name is Shreyaan Seth and I'm a rising junior majoring in Ecology & Evolutionary Biology (EEB) and Econ at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. I was originally born in Davenport, Iowa, but have spent most of my childhood growing up in Gurgaon, India. This summer I'll be working with Ali Helms from the SSNERR on eelgrass seed functional diversity with implications for restoration of the seagrass here in Coos Bay! ArchivesCategories |
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