Week 8:
Baruch Institute for Marine & Coastal Sciences

July 7, 2013

Time flies. I’ve now finished my 8th week here, which means there are only two weeks left before I leave this place. On the one hand, I’d say I’m happy, as I get to go home for the first time in a year. I’m excited to see my parents and friends. At the same time, I feel melancholy about leaving the friends I’ve made here. While it’s a sad thought, I probably won’t ever come back here, so our goodbyes may be permanent.

Last week was filled with a lot fun events. On Monday, I went to the marshes with Tracy and Susan to collect water samples. Unfortunately, I was stung by some sort of bug right under my left eye and I got an allergic reaction which made the skin under my left eye red and puffy. I rested on Tuesday after taking allergy pills and Advil given to me by Tracy and Karen. The swelling went away late Tuesday evening, but left a humongous bruise instead. To make matters worse, we had the lab’s annual cookout. As you may imagine, there were quite a few people there and I, with my bruised eye, had to talk to many of them. Most of people who participated in the cookout brought homemade food, so we got a whole lot of very yummy dishes. I cooked a huge container of egg noodles with veggies in hot Szechuan sauce and I was really happy that half of it was gone at the end. We had burgers and hot dogs, macaroni & cheese, different kinds of salads, deviled eggs, and chips. For dessert, we had various cakes, cookies, breads, cupcakes, and fruit pie. All the food was super yummy and, of course, my favorite part of the afternoon was to try all the desserts. Despite the fact that I was so tempted to try out every single kind, I didn’t, but only because I was 115% full before I got to the last two cakes. I regret my decision not to eat them, because I have been told that they were marvelous.

After the big lunch, Dr. Dennis presented a slide show of beautiful photos of the North Inlet-Winyah Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve and the animals with brief introductions. I’ve seen some of the animals here like alligators, turtles, fiddler crabs and pelicans, but there are so many more creatures who live there. The beauty and biodiversity of that place is astounding. Another big event was the 4th of July. It was actually the first 4th of July I’ve ever spent in the US.

Paul, the Senior Research Resource Specialist, and his wife invited me to watch the parade on Pawley’s Island for celebration of the national day. We went to the beach first and took a very nice walk with bare feet under the nice breeze and then stood on the sidewalk next to the parade’s path. Paul’s friend Mark handed us some fans with the American flag to wave at the parade. At around 10:30, the parade of all sorts of decorated theme cars with funny slogans came with costumed people, throwing candies and greeting everyone with “Happy 4th of July!” as they passed. I was very glad to be able to celebrate this event – quite a fun experience!

The next day, I went out with Erik’s other two technicians, Angie and Michelle, who worked on a project located in ponds and swashes, which was quite different from the marshes I’ve been working at. We parked the truck at the bank of a pond, unloaded the small boat, and paddled towards the center of the pond where the YSI equipment was. We took readings of temperature, conductivity, salinity and dissolved oxygen with one piece of equipment, and the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) with another piece of equipment. Afterwards, we went to an amusement park -The Family Kingdom on Myrtle Beach. Of course, we weren’t there for roller-coasters. We were there for SCIENCE. So what we did was we put on our waders, stepped out into the muddy, silty swashes, moved to the site after a great struggle, and dug out a piece of YSI equipment. As Angie had deployed this piece of equipment a month ago, it was buried under a lot of sand and mud. As such, it took us 30 minutes to dig it out. Although the process was tough, the working atmosphere was lovely because we all laughed at the silly way we moved in the mud while tourists stared at us.

After we finished this task, we took off our waders and downloaded the data from one monitor and changed its battery. The battery was so heavy that I couldn’t lift it up no matter how hard I tried. Angie and Michelle took turns carrying it and eventually made to the site. We sat on the ground and had a good chat while waiting for data to be downloaded. On the way back, we stopped by a frozen yogurt place and got some ice-cream. It felt so nice having some icy stuff after sweating in the waders and working under the sun. I got violently car-sick on the way back, due to the terrible traffic during the 4th of July week. Thankfully, Angie and Michelle shared funny and scary field experiences to distract me, so I didn’t throw up in the car. Aside from the car-sick part, working in the swashes with Angie and Michelle was another great experience.

My wish for next week remains the same as last week’s wish. I hope that the sun will shine through the clouds and chase away the rain!