My mind is still whirling with finals and goodbyes, and my bag still hasn't made it, but my body at least is here. Warm winds, sand between my toes, phytoplankton, peeling paint, curious shorebirds with jet black heads, the Gulf of Mexico, hot kitchens and chicken sandwiches... It's all a lot to process. My research mentor, Ed Buskey, gave me a tour of his lab today--it was full of all of these bubbling vials and mysterious cultures. I nodded and smiled a lot while he talked about red-tide coastal dynamics and predator-prey interactions, but I was so tired that I'm afraid I didn't absorb too much. No one here knows that I declared a major in Religion.
"OK, Science Caitlin," I'm saying to the part of myself that enjoys the measurement of oxygen levels and finds perverse pleasure performing statistical analysis, "wake up and and get ready to wield your pipet with enthusiasm!"
Because, although a significant side of me laughs at the bitter irony of compressing this roaring forever of a sea into "data," there is a Science Caitlin. She thinks that biolgical analysis just might compound the mystery.
...this REU thing certainly will be an interesting experiment.
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