Bad and then good

Bad:
On my second day here, my phone fell out of my pocket on the road when I was getting on B's motorbike. We went back about 20 minutes later to look for it, but by that time it was long gone. I really liked that little Nokia :-(

Good:
I actually had an extra phone with me that I intended to give as a gift (for no one in particular). I also have another sim card that I use for internet, so now I am having to take my phone apart every time I get online until I can get to one of the telecom stores to get them to replace my sim. I will be able to get the same number back which is good, it's just a matter of getting to town to do it.

Also, my American friend sent a new Nokia (I hate the spare motorola!), brownies, and cheese with her daughter who came to Nyota on a field trip with her school!

Bad:
I've been getting ticks, which has never happened before. They are teeny tiny, like the size of this period. I also pulled a fat one off that had clearly escaped notice for a day or two (or more?).

Good:
I still had some permethrin from when I brought it in 2009, so I treated my field clothes. I think that will solve the problem.

Bad:
In less than a week I had poison tree rash on my hand and wrist. Even worse, I actually forgot- of all things- to bring more Ivy Block! I have some left from last time, but not 3 months worth.

Good:
American friend's sister-in-law is coming in a few weeks, and she told me to have some Ivy Block sent to her house and she'll bring it! So I'll have more in about a month. I'm also going to try something called Oral Ivy. I'm pretty skeptical but it was only $8...

Bad:
The electricity hasn't been very good. We've been out of power about 1/3 of the time I've been here so far, including a 48-hour and 24-hour outage. Those are the worst.

Good:
Is there an upside to not having electricity? I guess it could be worse, and I just try to do the things that don't require electricity like laundry and equipment prep and be extra-conservative with my laptop battery use. Oh! I guess I did get to try out the solar shower that I brought, which works wonderfully. It also reminds me how fortunate we are to have electricity. I try not to take it for granted.

Bad:
The internet is even slower than I remember it.

Good:
I do have internet, and it's so slow that I can easily go a whole month on less than 500 MB, which is only $2. Awesome.

Bad:
My favorite field pants are wearing out (new holes with every thorn I encounter), and I don't love my second pair.

Good:
There are lots of really cheap used clothes here (thanks to all of the developed countries sending them here and undermining the development of a local clothing industry), so I think with enough searching in town I should be able to find some suitable replacements.

Hey, I'm getting pretty good at this!

Every time I come back to Ukenzagapia it gets easier and easier! It's wonderful! My American friend and my taxi driver friend Violet help me in the city, and this time I only stayed a few days. T and B traveled with me back to Nyota with my things, and Cam was there to help us when we got off the bus. I arrived here on a Sunday night, and we started work Monday morning. I de-parasitized Mommy Dog (inside and out), I moved into the same room as last time, and this time I even have a desk. There's something incredibly comforting about returning to a familiar place.

Field work is off to a great start. Project setup has gone faster than I anticipated, and there have been some great synergies with other folks in the area. I still have some insecurities about being a scientist, but I'm feeling so much better about my ability to do field work compared to when I started in 2009. I haven't even come close to freaking out about my research on this trip. Of course, my project isn't going exactly as I'd planned, but it's nothing insurmountable.

I'm starting to get so comfortable here that the thought of starting over in a new field site when I finish my Ph.D. is not appealing at all, though maybe not so daunting if I do it in the U.S. The end (of field work) is almost in sight now- hopefully just one more trip later this year! Wow. I've come a long way in the past 2 years.

My relationship with books

For many academic books that I have recently acquired, my relationship goes something like this:

1. Check book out from the university library. Renew one or more times.

2. Purchase book for myself when I find a good deal.

3. Bring book to Ukenzagapia.

4. Leave it there because I don't want to carry it back and forth.

5. Check it out from the library again so I can read it when I'm not in Ukenzagapia.

6. Return library books before I leave for Ukenzagapia.

7. Read books again in Ukenzagapia.

8. Repeat steps 5-7 as necessary.

Back to the field

Well, I'm almost back to Ukenzagapia. I didn't cry this time when Jon and I said goodbye at the airport. My bags were right at the weight limit- one was even a pound over but they let it go anyways. I have another 10 pounds of stuff that will come with another traveler who is arriving next week. Jon is bringing that box to our friend who will bring it to the traveler who will give it to Violet the taxi driver who will then put it on a bus to send it to me.
I'm carrying a ridiculous amount of cash on me this time. Violet is picking me up at the airport and bringing me straight to my friend's house with my 120 pounds of luggage. I'll unload some of the cash in the city, but I'll have to change most of it into local currency, and then the stack will be too big to fit in my money belt. Gotta come up with a different plan for how to bring it all from the city to Nyota. I'm staying in the same place as last time, and Cam is still there so I won't be lonely.
Have I said on the blog that I think this may be my best trip yet? I'm super excited about the project I'm going to be working on. I think it's going to be the best part of my dissertation, thanks in part to Theo who set up data simulations to run power analyses that allowed us to hone in on a reasonable sample size. Also, my permits are all set so I hardly need to spend time in the city!
I'll be gone 3 months this time. I was only home for 9 weeks. My cell phone battery didn't even die! Hopefully the infrastructure (especially the electricity) will hold up to make the next 3 months as productive as I dream they might be. Fingers crossed.

Co-advisor, co-author, and/or committee member?

I need some of my readers to weigh in on this: In terms of the academic recognition system, how much weight is given to being an official, on-the-record co-advisor as opposed to just being on the committee and/or co-authoring publications with a student?
I thought the publications were more important than the title, but I think I might be wrong about this. Perspectives?

Nobody here but us grad students

I saw at least one postdoc too.
I am glad that we have a holiday honoring the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., even if I am working today.

Committees... sheesh

We are required to have annual committee meetings, which I think is a good idea to keep the committee up to date on progress and changes. In December I sent out an email to schedule a meeting for January, and finally got responses from the slow folks in early January. I scheduled the meeting, and then it turned out that 2 of my 5 committee members (one of which is Herb, my advisor and committee chair) couldn't make it on that date. Herb said go ahead anyways, so I met with him and Melody separately.
This morning I woke up and had an email from Leo saying, "I hope you don't mind if I miss your committee meeting this morning. I have a lot of deadlines and need the time to work on them, and I think I already gave you all of the useful feedback I can." I wrote him back asking if he could come if we went to him at the museum, and he said ok to that but then I had to talk to Sam and Chip about it. In the end, we couldn't go to the museum because Chip didn't get to school until 1 minute before my meeting was scheduled to start, and Sam had to leave promptly after an hour.
My meeting (with only 2 of my 5 committee members) went well. It was really mostly just a meeting with Chip, since Sam and I have talked numerous times about everything that I presented (and he's sick and spent part of the meeting with his feet on a chair and his eyes closed- body language clearly indicating "I don't need to pay attention to this"). Chip had some great insights and useful suggestions so it was a useful meeting (and Chip is notoriously overcommitted and hard to pin down). Even though the meeting was fine, I am frustrated with Leo. I don't think he wants to be on my committee anymore. As I've written before, my projects have gotten further and further from his area of expertise. Last year he said, "If you're going to have committee meetings without me, maybe I shouldn't be on your committee." I like Leo and he's my main tie to the museum right now but it seems like he's not getting much out of the relationship and maybe I'm not either. I don't know who to put on the committee instead. I need to talk to Herb about all of this and decide what to do.

Less than 2 weeks!

With grant money on the way, I've just put more than $3500 on my research credit card. I'm leaving in less than 2 weeks! It turns out that now is a really good time for "free 2-day shipping" with a "free trial of Amazon Prime"...

Funded!

I just found out that I got a sizeable (for me) grant! I've been cautiously optimistic about my odds on this one, but was also comfortable with my backup plan (which would delay the completion of my field work my approximately 1 year but mean a shorter trip to the field this spring). I've been waiting on this to make plans for returning to Ukenzagapia, but now this means all systems are go and I leave ASAP. Eek! It's both exciting and waaay intimidating, as this means I'll be gone for about 3 months and have so much to do in the field while I'm there. Not to mention what I have to do before I leave!
Oh boy oh boy oh boy!

Google Voice for when you're in the field

I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier, but Jon suggested that I set up a Google Voice number linked to my cell phone. Then Google Voice can transcribe my voicemails and send them to my email address (same for text messages). This is perfect for when I'm in Ukenzagapia for weeks on end and leave my U.S. cell phone at home. As long as I have email access, I can receive voicemail transcriptions and text messages. Way cool. I love technology!

Kids do and publish science

A class of 8-10 year old students in the UK designed an experiment to understand bumblebee vision. The paper was published in Biology Letters, and you can read an article about it, the paper itself, and more commentary on it for free.

The main scientist involved in the project, Beau Lotto from the University College London, has a webpage like I've never seen. This group is really, seriously sharing science in creative and novel ways (check out their Street Science and Flight of the bumblebee cubes). Kudos to them! What an inspiration!

The "Blackawton bees" project really sets a new bar for teaching science by doing science, and I expect we'll see more articles published by elementary and secondary school students in the near future. What do you think?

Puppy pic

Because you asked!

Anyone want to guess what she is? The shelter said "lab cross" but what is up with those ears? Usually they are practically overlapping on top of her head they are so high set. I think they might stand up, but who knows? She's 15 weeks now.

Numbers

We had a party on Saturday and then left on Monday to see family. Here are some numbers from the past few days.

Guests at our party: 17
People bleeding at our party: 3
Time party ended: 3:30 am
Guests who spent the night: 4
Beatles songs listened to on the way to see Jon's family: 213 (that's 9.6 hours- listened to chronologically by recording date)
Pounds of dog food brought along for puppy: 0 (oops- this is why we got a dog before having kids)

Tranformations!

For years now I have thought that there should be an easy way to capitalize or de-capitalize selected text. I always imagined it would be a key on the keyboard, but I just discovered that it exists in the magic world of right-click!
If I'm composing or editing text and I right-click, one of the options is "transformations" then the options are "Make upper case", "Make lower case" or "Capitalize". This is SO useful for editing the title of journal articles so that each letter isn't capitalized (this is often the case when I download the citation, but most bibliography styles require lower case).
For how long have I been tediously changing one letter or word at a time? Is this a Mac-only thing, or can my non-Macophile readers do this too?

We finally did it!

After years of talking about it and putting it off because the timing wasn't right or we didn't have enough money or whatever, we finally got a dog. We adopted a 3 month old puppy from a shelter. She's adorable!
Since I'm capable of doing most of my work at home (though I almost always prefer to work in my office at school), I've been mostly home with the puppy. My work is now often interrupted by stopping the puppy from peeing inside and keeping the puppy from doing other inappropriate things.
After more than 3.5 years of being car-free, it seems time for us to get a car since we can't take the dog on public transit. Then Jon will be able to bring the puppy to work with him, which will be important when I go back to Ukenzagapia.