Post-trip wrapup

I've had three good meetings with Sam since I got back from Ukenzagapia. He has said some very complimentary things about me which has made me happy. I've had a couple of meetings with Leo, who is happy with my progress and told me I need to work on that review paper from ages ago. I had a 5 minute (I'm not exaggerating) meeting with Herb before he took off for Neotropical Field Site. I'll catch up more with him later in the summer, but it's one more example of how Sam is my functional advisor.

Last week I turned in all of my receipts for reimbursement, except one but it's complicated. I'm getting back about $4500. More than half of that goes to my parents, who were kind enough to lend money because I couldn't get advances on the grants. The rest of it reimburses my set-aside-for-taxes account. I was waaay over budget this time on salaries. I'm not sure how much of our personal money we spent this time, certainly more than I wanted to. It seems like I need about $5000-7000 for each 2-3 month trip to Ukenzagapia. That sure does seem like a lot. I don't know yet how I'm funding my next trip.

I submitted a report to the governmental agencies concerned. I was writing that in the evenings after my all-day Wilderness First Responder classes. That was exhausting and it's a relief to have it done. Now I need to focus on my renewal application.

I feel so much better after this field season compared to my first one. I was kind of a wreck when I got back last year, at least as far as how I felt about my research. I'm still not thrilled with the data I collected in that first field season, but at least now I've got other data too. Time to start analyzing!