Hisashiburi

Hisashiburi means "long time, no see" in Japanese. Yes, it's been a while.

Since I last wrote, I have successfully completed the fieldwork you heard of last. I was lucky enough for no major disasters to strike, so thus far I have 80% of of the data I have for my PhD. I also have all my limbs, a distinct lack of weird tropical diseases, and only a few more grey hairs than when I started. All and all, I think I'm doing well.

Things on the home front have been quiet. Tom and I have both been pretty busy with our jobs. We consider it a successful week when we are adequately fed, the cat is still alive, and we don't find anything growing in the back of the fridge. We consider it an excellent week when at least 1 full weekend day is spent outside doing something fun, and/or if on Sunday night we both have clean underpants in which we may take the looming workweek by storm.

Okay, I exaggerate a little, it isn't that bad. But we are pretty busy, so apologies to anyone out there who feels a little unloved of late.

More specifically, I am whizzing through drafts of various documents, cranking through analyses, demonstrating a couple of classes, and being a Scientist in Schools volunteer. It seems kind of underwhelming when I put my bustling life in one sentence like that, but it feels more intense than it looks. I'm hoping to submit one document for publication soon (I keep saying that, but one day I swear it will be true!). Another document is a grant proposal that will hopefully knock off some socks. Demonstrating is exhausting, but fun. And volunteering is probably a write-up for another day.

Looking into the future, the rest of September is basically writing and demonstrating. I'm going on a cool field trip as a demonstrator to a very beautiful part of the world. Win! October will be a month of finishing things, then preparing for our school's postgrad forum. The postgrad forum, you may remember, is where students tell each other (and the whole school, really) what they've been up to and why it matters. October will also be where I take care of organising logistics for fieldwork commencing in November. November will be field work, and then it will be December! Sheesh.

And since blogs without pictures are no fun, here are some pictures of cool things from my last round of fieldwork. Enjoy!

A little ex-herbivore on one of my study plants in Conway National Park, near Airlie Beach QLD.

A fungus! I have no idea which one. Also from Conway NP.

A tired-looking moth commiserating with me after a long day at Conway NP.

Part of the 45-minute leather-bound commute to/from my site at Conway NP. This looks a lot like one of those desktop images that come built-in with Windows, doesn't it?

A fuzzy, neat plant on the beach at Dugong Beach, on Whitsunday Island, QLD.

View from my tent on Whitsunday Island. Not pictured: the dolphins playing and the sea turtles pretending to be crocodiles just for kicks.

Started

Here I go on a techy specky update from my smartphone, so you will have to excuse the typos that will arise and be fixed and some later date.
Since I wrote last life has been busy. Mostly uni stuff, but with a few good bike rides, surfs, climbs and hikes thrown in for good measure.
I am currently waiting for a bus to come so I can wait at an airport for a plane that will finally take me back to Sydney. In addition to seeing my husband for the first time in two + weeks, I have been promised a large and fortifying meal. After two weeks of a diet consisting mainly of peanutbutter, porridge, and oranges, I am very excited.
This round of fieldwork was pretty intense, with a pair of sites near Cairns and a pair near Airlie Beach. It was my first time doing fieldwork in rainforest, and also exciting because of Queensland's reputation as home to numerous deadly dangerous things. Fortunately I was only attacked by gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, although a sea turtle did scare the crap out of me as it exhaled cheekily near my boat. I think I might have been a bit antsy about another, less vegetarian,  type of reptile.
The work itself went pretty smoothly, at least compared to my nightmares of logistical meltdowns barring my path towards data collection. There were small hurdles here and there,  but nothing a bit of tape, swearing, or sweat couldn't fix. I must also mention the incredible kindness of strangers and friends of friends in directing, helping, and encouraging me. Travelling can be pretty good for restoring warm fuzzies about humanity.
So now I wait to get back, when I can enter my data, process my samples,  begin another batch of bookings for the final round of Queensland works. The semester is also gearing up, with demonstration work popping up and conference and forum deadlines looming in the horizon. Woohoo! It's going to be crazy.

Change of plans

Well! It looks like sanity will prevail and I will NOT be heading to the US to sample. I am part sad and part relieved by this news, mostly because of the amount of hassle that has been lifted from my shoulders.

I have also wrapped up ALL my NSW sampling, a BIG tick-mark and big relief. Hooray! In the last batch of sampling down in Narooma, my ever-loving and ever-patient husband came along with me as a scribe and cheerleader. I was bolstered by his faith in my capabilities as a scientist, and impressed by the legibility of his notes on my datasheets. Excellent work, good sir. We managed to get stranded on the island for a few days by swell generated by a cyclone up in Queensland. When the swell hit the Narooma Bar, it made it impossible for any boats to come out to the island and pick us up (Google image "Narooma Bar crossing", and prepare to be impressed!). Lucky for us, I actually listened to the advice of the good people at Parks and brought along several days of extra rations. Also lucky for us, Tom had the foresight to bring along our snorkels and fins, which made for some excellent castaway days on the leeward side of the island. Snorkelling with seals is unforgettable! I would like to ask my marine biologist friends one question: why do seals hang upside-down, motionless in the water? Occasionally they will spin around and draw rings of bubbles around themselves, but mostly they just stare at the sea floor with their back flippers bobbing out of the water. Why?

Since the US is out of the picture, I am in the throes of another logistical wrestling match, this time in working out my Queensland and South Australia sites. The good news is that QLD has a plethora of islands, most of which are stunning (do a quick Google image search of, oh, I don't know, Whitsunday Island). The bad news is I don't have permits yet, but hopefully that situation will be remedied directly. I spoke to the kind folks up in Queensland's equivalent of Parks and Wildlife (they just restructured, so I'm not sure even they know what their job titles and departments are just yet), and it seems like human decency and understanding might work some more miracles for me once again. Hooray! I may grumble to myself about how long these things take, but when it comes to the folks who actually do the work it seems they are all pretty incredible people. Government agency inefficiency, however, is a topic that I won't get sucked into, except to say that somehow normal rules of existence cease to function in that mystical land of Government Office.

Besides uni, things are great. Busy, but great. We have some cool adventures in the pipeline, but fieldwork sampling schedules make these adventures somewhat tentative, so I won't divulge them now. Besides, what's an adventure without the element of surprise?

My biggest achievement since I wrote last is the fact that I have invested (very little, as they were 50% off) in a pair of clip-in shoes for my bike! I can now power up hills with the ease and grace of a congested hippopotamus, which is a vast improvement: previously, I would always feel more than a little surprised that I had made it to the top of the hill at all.

Until next time...

Fieldwork

Hello!
I haven't died, at least not entirely. Parts of me have died, including my healthy sleep pattern and my willpower to limit my caffeine and Tim Tam intake, but these are small sacrifices really.

Since I have written last, the craziness of my PhD has kicked up a notch. I am currently teetering on the edge of becoming scatterbrained enough to leave the house with two different shoes on (it only happened once, and I caught myself at the door). Most days I still remember to eat, brush my teeth and shower, so I'm still doing very well.

I have started down the road of fieldwork, an exercise in patience, persistence, and stringent self-control in the arena of not scratching mozzie bites. Fieldwork is a rite of passage for scientists, where 2 + 2 begins to equal 7, except when it's raining, when 2 + 2 equals a smudge and a sinking feeling that perhaps waterproof paper really would have been a great idea. Fieldwork also presents an opportunity for animals to whip out their invisibility cloaks and/or refuse to behave normally. In my case, fieldwork grants plants the gift of ambulation, and curses mosquitoes and sandflies within my vicinity with unquenchable thirst and liberal use of itch-inducing spittle. I should count myself lucky, however, as none of my sites have caught on fire, all of my rental cars have performed beautifully, AND no boats have left without me. Furthermore, I still have all my limbs, I have not caught any incurable diseases, and I can still put a sentence together most days of the week. Indeed, I am very fortunate, and I knock on every piece of wood and wood-like substance, my head included, when recounting this treasure trove of good fortune.

This fieldwork effort started shortly before Christmas holiday. It helps to understand that during Christmas holidays, academics work slavishly at home, free at last from the distractions of the term and that pesky necessity of interacting with other humans. I was granted my research permits from the NSW government and cheerfully thought that I could sort everything out at my leisure once the holiday period ended, around the end of January. I was looking forward to finishing my literature review, really digging down deep into the mysteries of statistics, and possibly even catching up on some reading. What a Christmas break! I was going to be on top of things! Sadly, I was mistaken.

My supervisor and I realised that perhaps it would a good idea to go into the field before things started drying up and catching on fire, and certainly before winter came and the cool quelled insect appetites. I won't say cold out of respect for my North American readers. This translated into moving quickly to get organised and make it happen. For various reasons, including the Australian tradition of having a big piss-up at a campground on the Australia Day long weekend and the subsequent lack of places to stay near my sites, my field season was slated to begin only a few short weeks from when I got my permits. In that time, I moved with speed and determination: got all the transport, accommodation, food, camping gear, scientific instruments, and so on organised, and was off!

So what did I do? I tagged a bunch of leaves, worked out how much of them had been eaten, then caught bugs, took some leaf samples, and worked out how tough the leaves were. There are some other details in there which I would be happy to explain to those who care, but in essence that is what I was doing. I did this on two occasions for each pair of sites, so that I was essentially out of town every other week since the end of January.

My first pair of sites was Myall Lakes National Park and Broughton Island. These sites are about 2.5 hours north of Sydney by car. It was at Broughton Island that I had my first encounter with the wedge-tailed shearwater, a bird that flies about fishing on the ocean all day, then returns to its burrow after sunset. Before bunking down for the night, the birds wander clumsily about on land, calling out to each other with a cry that sounds like onlookers at a fireworks display. I was told that this call is a shearwater's announcement of its desire to groom and be groomed, which makes it both more cute and more hilarious. I also had the heart-stopping experience of a shearwater flying into my tent in the vicinity of my head as I slept. Apparently these birds fly at night without the benefit of good night vision. I was rapidly coming to understand why these animals can only exist on islands where not many other creatures are around to compete with them or eat them.

On the mainland, my site was in a locale with massive sand dunes, another first for me. I have been to dunes around Kitty Hawk, NC, but never ones where it occurred to me to take a compass bearing before I got in the thick of them lest I fail to return before the wind wiped out my tracks. I felt like an adventurer heading out with my pack full of science equipment across the dunes, shielding my face with my arm against occasional gusts of hot, sand-laden wind. I felt a little less intrepid as the dingoes howled around the campsite with me the only occupant. Being dingo-aware, I had all my edibles and rubbish locked up safely in the car, but not having been around dingoes before I still felt a bit nervous. Better dingoes than bears, I guess.

My second pair of sites was located near Narooma, a good 5 hour drive south of Sydney. The island was Montague Island, a patch of granite poking up from the sea as a lesser version of nearby Mt Dromedary. Being further south, the weather is a bit iffier and more dramatic, which set the stage for a tremendous sunset. Seals and seabirds were the stars of Montague, although I arrived after breeding season had finished so I only got an inkling of what it might be like in full swing. Apparently the smell and the noise of the birds is quite overpowering. I met the loveliest people on Montague, the park ranger and his family, as well as a fellow researcher. Accommodation was a step up from the primitive camping I had henceforth enjoyed: I was lucky enough to stay in the historic lightkeeper's cottages on the island. It's hard to describe the stark beauty and heavy feeling isolation on Montague, especially on a gloomy, grey, windswept day.

The mainland site was near Brou Lake, and the campsite was incredible. It was like being in an enchanted forest because of the twisted shapes of the gum trees (Corymbia maculata syn. Eucalyptus maculata) and their smooth, dappled grey, white, and purple trunks. This was especially true during sunrise or sunset, when the golden afternoon light made the trees look like they were glowing from within. There were kangaroos and wallabies hopping through the bushes, and songbirds tweeting in the softer hours of the day. It was kind of idyllic... until I also saw a massive goanna and a snakeskin that was as thick as my arm. Next time I go there I am wearing gaiters in addition to my boots and pants.

Both of my pairs of sites were gorgeous, and when I got tired or cranky it was easy to sit down, have a snack, look around, and realise that it wasn't so bad after all. I have learned an important life lesson from my capers: the paramount importance of snacks in maintaining good mental health.

And what did I learn? Besides a healthy appreciation for tap water, electricity, shampoo and fresh vegetables, I got a pile of data! Hooray! Data are the heart and soul of science, the fuel on which the machine of academic exploration runs. Unfortunately, raw data can't tell me much, and I've been too busy to engage the power of statistical tests, which would be able to paint with 95% confidence a picture of what my data mean.

I have a few ample tasks in front of me before I can declare my fieldwork chapter closed, including organising one more Australian round of fieldwork in either Queensland or South Australia. What's even MORE exciting is the prospect of expanding my project to the US of A. This will test my mettle against a logistical perfect storm: international and domestic flights, presenting at a conference, collecting sound data, obtaining import/export permits, processing samples that can't come home, securing chemicals and labspace... the list goes ever on! All the while, I will also need to keep myself fed, presentable, sane, and relatively rested. I may need a cape and some spandex after I pull this off.

In the end though, I'm enjoying this, learning a lot, and pushing my boundaries. It's tough and a little bit hectic, but fun, and I've already been to some pretty magical places and met some really good people. With all of this reported, don't be alarmed if I fail to update for another three or six months!

Some of the insect life on Broughton Island.

One of my study species.

The view from my study site.

What sunrise looked like from my tent.

Science!

Bird skull on the beach.

The Looking Glass, Broughton Island.

Home sweet home at Myall Lakes Naitonal Park, NSW.

Hello, friend!

Hello, friend!

Not too shabby...

The view from my tent door.

An herbivore caught green-mandibled.

My commute.

One very torn goanna- me, or the bigger guy?

Home away from home at Brou Lake campground, Eurobodalla National Park, NSW

Snake tracks on the beach.

Sunset on the trees.

My site.

My commute- heavy jellyfish traffic.

The local wind speed indicator.

Look closely and you'll see one gigantic snakeskin.

Lichen on Montague.

Plant life on Montague.

Seal yoga off of Montague.

koalas in Christmas hats

Thanks for always looking out for me :)

Another year-gone-by sort of post.

First up, thanks for being my friends and family. You're all awesome and I love that I can count on you to be there for me through anything. I love that even though I'm not super stellar at keeping in touch, the friends I do re-connect with share their lives in such a way that I feel like no time or distance has really passed between us. I love that my friends and family can do anything, talk about anything with me- whether it's a baking bonanza, a jog (or slog) around the park, a Disney marathon, a serious discussion about what kind of poo I just trod in, or how to make my computer cooperate. So thanks, to all of you. I hope I"m the kind of person you like to be around, and I strive to be there for you, too.

Secondly, this year was great, in no small part to those above. I got to see a new country- New Zealand, a place I can't wait to go back and see more of. I explored my home state, taking in the history and sights that were both old and familiar but new and different, thanks to the lens of living in a faraway coutnry. I went to California, a new part of my home country (to me), which was beautiful and big and super-diverse. I visited new parts of Australia, climbing in Victoria and finding pretty places in the bush around Sydney. In exploring these places, I found parts of myself, and quite a few of these spots were a bit rough around the edges. These are places I can polish, experiences I'd like to try again with a bit more mindfulness.

Me in my element- sitting by a creek, poking stuff.

Thirdly, I learned a lot this year. Not just facts and figures, but skills, too. I got over my fear of making fermented things, and I encourage everyone to give making yogurt a crack (so tasty! So easy!). I baked, I got my nerd on, I even knitted my cat a scarf. He hates it, but that's okay. I am getting better with stats and bugs and plants. I can get a point across, and I can explain something to someone in at least 10 different ways. I dig what I do on a daily basis, if only because what I do requires that I dabble in anything that pops up.


There's a lot happening in my life (and everyone's life, really), a lot of bustling and busy-ness. Sometimes it's easy to get caught up in that crazy current. Still, however, I have a good feeling for what I want, where I stand, and what matters to me. To me, that's reassuring.

I'm super excited for the new year. I'm facing some hard work, some long days, some grueling weeks, and a LOT of stress. But I'll get through it, I'll learn a lot, and next year I'll wonder where the time went. I'm looking forward to my fieldwork, and excited about the prospect of publishing. I'm excited for all the climbing, the surfing, the running and swimming and biking I'm going to do this year. I wonder what kind of breads and cookies I'll concoct, what new fruits and vegetables I will try (this year it was Jerusalem artichokes), what new places I will see.

And that is all, at least for 2013 :)

Not to rant, but...

I never intended this blog to be a place to rant, but I'm in need of some therapeutic venting.

Sometimes we can all feel a little fragile. For me, as a woman, I notice these things are often due to things that are mostly outside of my control. It could be hormonal, the effect of missing the boost of my body preparing for the possibility of new life. It could be that little bit of sexism I get every day, be it men taking up more than their fair share of a seat on the train or the way the world pummels me with how I'm supposed to look, act, feel, and think. It could even be feeling the injustice of how good some people have it, while others in so many places are being actively being destroyed by cultures of war, consumption, injustice, inequity, or even just plain violence. So yes, sometimes it gets a bit too much, and all it takes is one more asshat with one more snide comment or judgmental sneer to push me into a pool of anger, sadness, and/or anxiety (I guess depending on what kind comment it is).

So here's my story. Yesterday I went to the doctor because I've been feeling a bit unwell. I wanted to make sure that something wasn't wrong, like seriously wrong, that would cause me to feel how I did. In short, my head-achey, stomach-churning, heart-racing feelings were probably due to anxiety, but anxiety over what? Yes, I stress about my school work, but I also enjoy it. I feel incredibly lucky to glean the satisfaction that I do from my occupation. Yes, I have a cat and housework and things piling up all the time that need to get done, but so what? Don't eat off my floor, but who eats off of the floor anyway? And yes, I've put on about 3 kg extra that I don't want- but I can also do clapping push-ups, a couple of pull-ups, and pistol squats, and I can run 5k without too much concentration. As they say, muscle weighs more than fat. My ticker ticks, I'm fit as a fiddle, and I have the core strength of the Hulk. So something, I thought, must be going on, hence a trip to the GP.

The GP, Dr A, without taking my pulse, without even asking me how I feel, instantly tells me that I need more exercise, and also to drop some weight. Thanks, asshole. So an anxious woman walks into your office, concerned about her health, and you tell her something that she hears from every television, every pop-star, every advertisement, every magazine. Dr A consulted his knowledge (opinion?) of what healthy females look like, super-imposed that image over me as I sat nervously in his office, and made the call without quantitatively measuring one single aspect of my health. I think Dr A deserves a poo-coloured medal for contributing to my unhappiness, for being that jerk who pushed me over the edge. And what infuriates me is that I let him.

For some context, my BMI puts me at the lighter end of "overweight". Bear in mind, this same scale puts people who look skeletal on the lower end of the "healthy" range, and labels some Olympic athletes confidently in the middle of the "obese" category. The drawbacks of the BMI scale are well and truly known by most people who actually care about the public's health and well-being, yet many doctors rely on this number to draw conclusions about a patient's health. And in my case, without even checking my pulse, my blood pressure, my body temperature, or investigating how much I sleep, what I eat, and whether I've had any sort of traumatic incidents happen recently (or ever).  Dr A didn't even ask me if I was pregnant, or menstruating, or on any medication.

Now, when I left the doctor's office, I will confess that I burst into tears. I confess this not to fish for sympathy from anyone, nor to reach out for help, but instead to illustrate my point- we all feel a bit fragile sometimes. If I knew how often other people couldn't take it anymore and just let go (whether through crying, punching pillows, being snitty with a shopkeeper, or whatever), I think I'd feel more normal. I'm done pretending I'm strong all the time, and I'm done pretending that everybody, in fact anybody, has their life any more together than I do. We're all struggling on one level or another.

Anyway, I held it together long enough to buy some milk, and then sobbed quietly to myself as I trudged up the hill to my apartment, hating my messed up mood, hating my supposedly unfit, overweight self, hating the fact that I still had no answer as to why I felt so shitty. I proceeded to internalise all the shittiness of what had just happened to me, blaming it on myself. I almost felt deserving of such an asinine diagnosis because I couldn't deal with my problems myself. I discussed the shittiness with my husband, who, being a bit more rational than I was at the time, reminded me that I am healthy and strong, and that Dr A deserves to lose my business. I had a chat with another good friend who confirmed that Dr A was a fool, and that she knew a doctor who approached health as something a bit more holistic- and gave me that doctor's number. And after that, I felt better. Maybe not 100%, but enough to get me started on making my own choices on what to listen to, who to believe, and what to do to bring balance back to my mind.

And then I did what I always do when I need to center myself, I went for a run. It wasn't a punishing run, and it most definitely wasn't spurred by the advice of my doctor. I jogged leisurely around the park a couple of times, watching old men play with their granddaughters, watching young men practice footy, watching grandmas do tai-chi, watching women chasing kids chasing puppies. And I did feel better, not because I was burning calories, but because I was connecting to my own strength, my own resilience, and my own power. Endorphins, yep, for sure they made me feel better- but so did realising that I don't need to listen to all the shittiness. And guess what? I feel better, I feel stronger, I feel more closely connected to the ground that I stand on and the people I stand with.

So, the bottom line is that it's time to stop taking crap from people, particularly people who have no right or ability to make any sort of call about lifestyles, health, and well-beings other than their own. It was shocking to me that a doctor could fall into that category- I've always been under the impression that doctors tend to know what they're talking about. We're all smart enough to know when someone is talking bullshit, but for some reason, (I at least) still assume that even if somebody is spouting bullshit they are worth listening to if they have a degree/suit/office/whatever to validate their nonsensical advice/diatribe. What's up with that? Enough is enough. Sorry Dr A, I refuse to become an miserable waif in support of your quest to maintain your schedule- don't worry though, you won't be seeing me again.

USA Holiday

Tom and I have returned to Sydney from our trip to the US!

It was a busy trip, but we loved (almost) every minute of it. We visited my family on the East Coast for about 2 weeks, then headed west for a week to California to explore a little bit (and break up the massive flight back to Sydney!).

Highlights included, in chronological order:

- Seeing family and Herdland, where they, the chickens, the dogs, and the cows will shortly be calling home! It's a pretty spunky place, with the original house being a log cabin and subsequent rooms added on in a Miranda Westfield-esque manner. It's really easy to get turned around in that house! The land is gently rolling, the barn is massive, and the roofless silo overlooks it all. Possibly my favourite part is the indestructible chicken coop, which looks more like a prison or bomb shelter than anything else. It'll be a bit of work, but my folks seemed pretty excited about it. The place has rich soils and an even richer history (Presidential overnights? Treasure in a well? Murder on the stoop?!), so it will be neat to hear more of what they discover in the coming months.

- Visiting family in my native Baltimore, we enjoyed tasty food, ridiculous portions of ice cream in Little Italy, playtime with my second cousin (2.5 y.o.), and a tour of the Inner Harbour. Tom got himself a new Orioles t-shirt, which, alas, was not pre-shrunk. He now rocks a muscle shirt, and I love it. I enjoyed seeing massive crabs in the harbour, and little itty-bitty fuzzy ducklings hanging out on the rocks. I hope the two shall never meet.

- Surfing, fishing, and long sunset strolls on the Outer Banks in North Carolina with my family. A week of gentle, lake-like conditions with patchy rain briefly marring an otherwise perfect week of weather. The humidity of the southern US enveloped us like the maw of a giant canine, but thankfully at the beach a bit of a breeze and a dip in the Atlantic fixed us right up. I managed to do a little work while I was there, but the 3-second rides on my surfboard got in the way for hours at a time. The best part? All of the above. The worst? The last 20 miles to the beach that took us 3 hours to drive due to the ridiculous traffic. I wish I was making that up.

Tom and I realised how little we get away to the beach, even though we live only 20 minutes from Cronulla. We have promised ourselves not to be so lame from now on. If anybody has a surfboard that needs a good home, we're willing and able.

- Playing tourist in Virginia! Tom and I ventured to White Oak Canyon, a 10ish mile hike up and down a ravine alongside one of the prettiest creeks I ever did see. The trail tops out at the Skyline Drive, a pretty famous road that winds its way atop a portion of the ridges within Virginia's share of the Appalachian Mountains. We saw a rattlesnake (my very first!), a baby bear (where mama was, we didn't stick around to find out), a chipmunk, and a bright green caterpillar. I also had a close encounter of the fishy kind: while wading in the stream to counteract the aforementioned heat and humidity, I noticed little fish nibbling at my feet, toes, knees and hands with reckless inattention to their own safety. Perhaps I was covered in parasites, or I tasted salty and delicious, or I had a lot of dead skin, or maybe all three, but those fish would practically let me hold them in my hand as long as they could nibble on my goose-bumped and pruny skin. It was weird, and ticklish, but kind of enjoyable. As with most things that are hard to describe as either good or bad, I will simply say that I would do it again.

- We also checked out Harper's Ferry, a pretty important place in the American Civil War history. Basically, the town sits at the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers, which when combined with the rail line running through it, makes it a pretty strategic place for transport and military ventures. It changed hands between North and South several times during the war, and has many stories to tell about all the facets of pre- and post-Civil War life in Virginia. Oh, and the scenery around Harper's Ferry is simply stunning. Thomas Jefferson (America's 3rd president, writer of the Declaration of Independence, and founder of the University of Virginia) said something along the lines of, 'It's so impressive it's worth coming across the Atlantic to see it'. Although the Pacific is a bit wider, Tom and I were impressed too.

While at Harper's Ferry, we stopped in the Appalachian Trail (AT) Conference headquarters, which is the "psychological half-way point" of the 2,000+ mile long AT. What a feat for human feet! Maybe someday...

- We explored the house and gardens of Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. Irrespective of how much you know or care about American history, going to a place like Monticello is a fantastic thing to do, and here's why. The way the house and grounds have been preserved and restored gives you a really good idea what life was like for landholders back in 1790 or so. It's incredible how much work needed to get done, and it becomes totally obvious why slavery was something required to make and run large houses and the hundreds of acres of land required to support them. No electricity, no refrigeration, no easy access to global trade, no planes, trains nor automobiles! Manpower, indeed. And without going too deeply into war and economics and slavery and the foundations of core American attitudes and beliefs, I think going to Monticello and having a good long think about all the difficulties of TJ's life and times helps one appreciate the complexities of our modern world- except multiplied by every other culture's own tangled pasts, raised to the power of industrial might and environmental degradation. I wonder if the Founding Fathers would step out of a time machine and spin on their heels?

On a lighter note, at Monticello Tom saw what a peanut plant looks like for the first time in his life, and I saw what a cotton plant looks like for the first time in mine. And we both finally saw a sesame plant- did you know that one plant makes about 20-30 pods, and within each pod is only about 6 seeds? Can you imagine how many sesame plants you need to make a sesame seed bun? Or a few milliliters of oil? My mind was blown, and I hope yours is too.

- California! We drove up highway 1 from San Francisco, stopping at Muir Woods, Point Reyes, Bodega Bay, Humboldt Redwood National Park, and Benbow Inn before returning our rental car to San Francisco and dragging our sunburnt selves up and down the steep, foggy hills of that lovely town. I wish we'd had a month to take in the whole of Northern California, or at least week to camp among those glorious redwoods. Briefly, the redwoods blew my mind- I was most impressed by the way they clone themselves under stress, including when they fall over. I also didn't know that they literally intertwine their roots with each other, making their otherwise shallow and weak root systems able to hold their massive heads high. Awesome. The further north we got, the more impressive the redwoods became. I loved the quiet murk of the redwoods, the shades of red and gold and black that the sunlight made as it filtered through the biomass. I loved the sound of the wind in the canopy so very far overhead, the dearth of other tree species, and the ubiquitous clover-like ground cover of redwood sorrell and fern. It was like stepping back to a simpler time, and eerily soothing.

We stayed in a B&B in Olema, and based ourselves there for a big walk through Point Reyes. It seemed like we walked through a different vegetation type and landscape every 10 minutes or so, from heath scrub to towering conifers, boggy creek bed to lichen-festooned snag, sea-cliff to grassland. We went from watching sea anemones and kelp swaying in tide-pools to camphor-scented laurel thickets, eucalypt stands to poppy fields all in 15 miles, with stunning, rocky coastal scenery to boot. Not a bad walk! Upon returning to the town, we had some tasty, locally produced Californian wine and cheeses to revive us and see us through to dinner- but I will  adamantly declare that Dungeness crabs have no hope of competing with Chesapeake blue crabs in the tastiness department!

Further north we stayed in the historic Benbow Inn, a big hotel built in the 1920's and maintaining the feel of that era to this very day. It was another trip back in time, complete with flapper-inspired tunes piping into the lounge room as we played a hearty game of Scrabble (I got my first ever 8 letter word!). It was thorough and tasteful without being cheesy or musty. I would recommend it, and even do it again.

And then there was San Francisco. Part gritty and awful, part soaringly gorgeous and steeped in cash. I wouldn't want to live there, but I sure did enjoy drinking in the views it had to offer. We walked, and walked, and walked some more, until we caught a trolley down the unbelievably steep California Street, and then we walked back to the hostel and caught our ride to the airport. While walking, we took in China Town, Coit's Tower, Japan Town, Fisherman's Wharf, the Golden Gate Bridge, Golden Gate Park (complete with bison, who knew?), Russian and Nob Hills, and the strung-out, beaten-down derelicts around Union Square through to Tenderloin. My favourite part? Definitely the sea lions at Pier 39.

And that about sums up our trip- now it's back to the grindstone, which I'm actually super excited about. I'm demonstrating a course this semester and have an incredible amount of work to do before November, but I'm still super excited and happy to be where I am. I feel so lucky to be doing what I like to do. But on that note, I really have some work to do, so I will check in later.