Teaching and Researching. What else.
A professor who I TA for asked me to proctor an exam for him at 8AM during finals week. It is well outside the stipulations of my duties, but he offered to buy me (and the other TA) a nice lunch when he came in later that day.
I'm sure its just a matter of convenience for him, but I can't help but feel a little flattered. I already grade papers, do test preparation and do some lessons. Final exam for 60+ students is a big deal.
I can't say that I enjoy teaching for the right reasons. It is all very self serving. Students get something out of working with me by proxy, really. When I'm presented with a question, my challenge is to explain it clearly and without bias. It's practice. I enjoy the challenge of having to prove that I can not only do DNA extraction and PCR, but explain it so it can be repeated. I'm sure that's the entire point of graduate teaching experience. However, I doubt anyone outside science would be sympathetic to something so selfish.
I had an amazing weekend.
I made some serious progress in my fieldwork this weekend. I gathered about a dozen ants from various colonies (they are RARE this early in the year). I still need to key them out. I'm assuming I only have Tetramorium c. and Camponotus penns.
The big chunk of work was surveying the forest types where spring ephemerals occur. I've found solid correlations verified by the literature. The plants where exactly where my intuition guided me. In Ecology, I've learned, the first phase of research really requires you to see if what other scientists have said is true about your study sites. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it is not. It's a great boon when it is (but no less interesting if the opposite happens). Trillium erectum, Erythronium americanum and Claytonia virginiana occur in abundance along streams in mesic mixed deciduous forests in the Berkshire foothills. Additionally, I found a very high density of ephermals blooming in a floodplain that has been overcrowded with Rhamnus frangula, creating a microchasm of an understory. It's odd, but not outside the realm of explination--the only thing that has changed is a monoculture of non-native shrubs.
I observed Notopthalamus v. mating in a wet meadow stream. It's only been warm enough for amphibians for a few days. They don't waste any time. I've read about it in a herpetology text but have never seen it. The male salamander scissor-kicks a female and wraps his rear legs around her waist. There are bouts of struggling after that. It's quite violent for a cute little animal. Eventually the female calms down. The male then moves his tail around and wiggles the tip of it by the females head. I guess the lady red spotted newts like that because she then took the spermatophores dropped by the male into her cloaca. They part and probably never talk again. Oh well.
I closely observed a Winter Wren around a triplet of downed beeches. A new sight, but I've heard it before. It moves its tail back and fourth like an upside down metrenome. Hemlock seedlings were blocking my view for some of the time, but he sung a beautiful song. It was complex and fast. I was whistling a human speed tune to myself for a while. To my chagrin I easily forgot it.
Youtube link of a Winter Wren.
That's all. I just had one of those days.
I'm sure its just a matter of convenience for him, but I can't help but feel a little flattered. I already grade papers, do test preparation and do some lessons. Final exam for 60+ students is a big deal.
I can't say that I enjoy teaching for the right reasons. It is all very self serving. Students get something out of working with me by proxy, really. When I'm presented with a question, my challenge is to explain it clearly and without bias. It's practice. I enjoy the challenge of having to prove that I can not only do DNA extraction and PCR, but explain it so it can be repeated. I'm sure that's the entire point of graduate teaching experience. However, I doubt anyone outside science would be sympathetic to something so selfish.
I had an amazing weekend.
I made some serious progress in my fieldwork this weekend. I gathered about a dozen ants from various colonies (they are RARE this early in the year). I still need to key them out. I'm assuming I only have Tetramorium c. and Camponotus penns.
The big chunk of work was surveying the forest types where spring ephemerals occur. I've found solid correlations verified by the literature. The plants where exactly where my intuition guided me. In Ecology, I've learned, the first phase of research really requires you to see if what other scientists have said is true about your study sites. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it is not. It's a great boon when it is (but no less interesting if the opposite happens). Trillium erectum, Erythronium americanum and Claytonia virginiana occur in abundance along streams in mesic mixed deciduous forests in the Berkshire foothills. Additionally, I found a very high density of ephermals blooming in a floodplain that has been overcrowded with Rhamnus frangula, creating a microchasm of an understory. It's odd, but not outside the realm of explination--the only thing that has changed is a monoculture of non-native shrubs.
I observed Notopthalamus v. mating in a wet meadow stream. It's only been warm enough for amphibians for a few days. They don't waste any time. I've read about it in a herpetology text but have never seen it. The male salamander scissor-kicks a female and wraps his rear legs around her waist. There are bouts of struggling after that. It's quite violent for a cute little animal. Eventually the female calms down. The male then moves his tail around and wiggles the tip of it by the females head. I guess the lady red spotted newts like that because she then took the spermatophores dropped by the male into her cloaca. They part and probably never talk again. Oh well.
I closely observed a Winter Wren around a triplet of downed beeches. A new sight, but I've heard it before. It moves its tail back and fourth like an upside down metrenome. Hemlock seedlings were blocking my view for some of the time, but he sung a beautiful song. It was complex and fast. I was whistling a human speed tune to myself for a while. To my chagrin I easily forgot it.
Youtube link of a Winter Wren.
That's all. I just had one of those days.