Happy Day

I feel very happy at the moment. I gave my presentation today and I think it went fine. I was really really nervous beforehand. My thesis defense was definitely a bigger deal, but this was stressful because my audience was so knowledgeable. I have me a handful of scientists whom I cite in my thesis, so they obviously know this stuff very well. It just makes me nervous to talk about my research in front of people who are experts in the field. I told Ian this and he said, "But you're an expert too!" Haha. I half-expect to find out that I've been going about this all wrong, misinterpreting their papers, and my results are crap. Well, maybe I am a novice expert. If I use a lot of big words, then people won't know what I'm talking about and won't ask questions. :) Just kidding, I need a thesaurus to use big words.

I had to put my presentation on a USB drive and transfer it to the appropriate laptop this morning. I watched the woman do it and then she opened the file to confirm it was okay. Well, when it was my turn to talk, they didn't have the powerpoint!! Luckily my USB drive was still with me and they downloaded it fairly quickly, but it was a bad start. I tried not to think about it. Like I said, I think the talk was fine. The jitters never really went away but someone I talked to afterward said I was very calm while giving it. I think I come across as calm often. It's a neat trick.

After the talk, I was very very tired. There were a few questions that I think I handled fine (that word keeps coming up). Some people said they really liked it. One such person is someone I cited in my thesis, and he also said he's read part of my thesis - he found it online somehow! Wow ... people are reading my thesis?! That is pretty cool, except he goes to U. Florida. But, he was nice and not a Gator fan, so it was okay.

The rest of the day was nice. The morning plenary talks were about "Visions and models for sustainable development in the Amazon region." I enjoyed them. Two of the speakers are scientists but are currently more involved in sustainable development now. It's very encouraging me to see scientists who are able to also apply their passion to helping people and the environment in a more direct way than just doing research.

Two other great things about today: 1. I found out that the hotel next to mine has a fitness room and pool. It is 10 reals (about $5) to use it, so I got up at 5:45 this morning and ran 9.4 km on a treadmill. :) It felt so good to get some exercise after almost a week without any and lots of food! It was a perfect way to start the day and I'm going to try to keep it up. 2. I just watched heroes! I had to buy it on itunes and it took all night to download, but was so good. Maybe it is also nice to have a little bit of American culture, plus just sitting and watching a tv show is a nice break from all of the working and socializing. Anyway, I love that show.

So, now Ian, Lixin and I are going out to dinner. Thanks for stopping by. :)

Weekend in the Amazon

What a great weekend. :) I am posting pictures on http://chrisandanna.shutterfly.com. I am very happy. Yesterday, Julio picked up Lixin, Ian and I at noon. We went to a supermarket first and bought a ton of food for the equivalent of $75. Then we headed north into the rainforest. After about 50 km on a road that goes all the way to Venezuela, we turned west onto a choppy dirt road. Ian took the wheel at this point, just in time for a little bit of rain. The water makes the dirt very slippery so it's like driving on ice. There was one very steep hill that we initially didn't make it up because the truck lost traction. It was a little nerve-wracking reversing down a slippery, steep slope but the second try was a charm!

Our first stop was the C14 tower. It is at kilometer 14 on the dirt road. The hike to the tower was short and being in the forest for the first time was amazing! The tower is the oldest in Amazonia, I believe. It was put up in the early 80's. Also it is wide enough to have stairs to walk up (4m x 4m). The main tower goes to 45 meters, but Julio built an additional tower on top that goes another 10 or 15 m. That tower was a little more rickety but the view at the top was great!

At first glance from above, the forest looks like ... a forest. But two things are very striking. First, for 360 degrees all you can see is forest. No roads, houses, power lines, rivers, or lakes. That is incredible, especially considering what you can see from a 60m tower is a very small portion of the entire forest. Second, if you focus your eyes in one direction, you can probably count about 15 different kinds of trees right in front of you. That to me is kind of a subtly amazing thing about the forest because you might not realize it right away. Also you can see and hear lots of birds and occasionally monkeys. We had lunch on top of the tower, it was an ideal spot for a picnic. :)

Geek alert, move to next paragraph if you're not interested! I've learned some good things over the weekend. I'll just name a few. 1. We went through a couple of different types of forest. In the lowlands the ground is very sandy and there are mostly palms. They are enormous though ... maybe 15 meters tall with humongous fronds. Higher up there is more clay and hence larger, taller trees (some as tall as the first tier of the C14 tower). 2. It is very still inside the canopy. Julio kept pointing this out because its importance in carbon fluxes. Even if there are large exchanges of carbon between the trees, ground, water, and air, that doesn't mean that the fluxes will translate directly to changes in carbon in the free atmosphere. Above the canopy, there is a nice breeze that is very refreshing ... and it enables exchanges between the canopy air space and free atmosphere. 3. The Rio Negro is not black. It's clear ... which is black. I don't know, I was confused. But it is that color because of all of the nutrients that are leached out of the groundcover on the way to the streams/river. It is very acidic and bugs don't like it. There were not many mosquitoes because we were near tributaries of the Rio Negro and it was really nice. OK, end the geek out session.

After climbing the tower he headed to the LBA base camp. I was feeling a little tired and thinking how nice some coffee would be. We first stopped at another LBA base camp and there were two guys there ... who offered us coffee! Yay! :) Then it was on to our base camp. It consists of a two-story building. The bottom is open and has a kitchen and tables. The top has screen windows and all the beds. There were a couple of bathrooms/showers, an equipment room with a pool table, and a cabana with a TV. It was weird to see a TV out in the middle of nowhere. We didn't watch it. Once it got dark, we had our own entertainment.

We cooked a surprisingly good meal considering we were in the middle of the forest. Tortellinis with sauteed green and red peppers, onions, green olives, a broccoli-type vegetable and a spinach-type vegetable, and chicken. Yum! The night sounds were pretty neat. Crickets, birds, and these crazy monkeys. Julio said they are not very big, just a few feet tall but they are very very loud! The males basically roar and fight for the females' attention. Julio said the ones we heard were probably 4 or 5 km away but they were so loud. It was pretty neat and a little creepy too. He said it is really hard to sleep when they are closer but I think it might have been worth it to hear more of them. I woke up a couple of times in the night and heard them again. Very cool.

After dinner we were very full and decided to go on a hike. At first it was neat to be in the dark of the forest (we had two headlamps but mine was nearly dead). After a bit, I saw two green eyes glowing from the side of the trail! I wasn't too concerned until I pointed them out to Julio and he said it was a snake, and it started moving toward the trail! We kept going, and then I started noticing, out of the corners of my eyes, glowing green eyes everywhere! Maybe they were not all snakes, but it freaked me out. Julio made fun of me, Ian sounded annoyed, and Lixin freaked out too. It was interesting to say the least. Lixin was nervous too and too reassure her, Ian asked her something like, "How many times do you get to do something like this?" She said, "Never!" And he said, "So this is a first." And she said, "Yes, that is very nice, if we survive!" My sentiments exactly. Well, we made it and it was a neat experience. After that, it was time for bed. I will write about today's journey later, we are going to dinner soon!

this is a movie of the monkeys roaring at night. It is kind of faint and sounds like the wind howling, but those are monkeys!

Thoughts from L.A.

You know you're a blog freak when ... you have more than one blog. Yes, I just started a new blog. This one you are reading now is my personal blog, but I decided to start one that is related to environmental stewardship and helping people, I guess you could say. I won't say much about it but here is the website: http://outwardthought.blogspot.com. That is a temporary site, I might change the url at some point.

I am in Los Angeles right now for a conference with CMMAP. It has been really nice, especially since it is in the 70's (vs. about 10 in Colorado). I am ready for summer! Well, the biggest thing about the conference is that I gave a talk along with Rachel and Tak (a PhD student). It was called, "What the heck are low cloud feedbacks?" and went pretty well. I was very nervous about it.

Well this posting sucks because I think I am going to go to sleep. I am really tired, it just hit me. It is after midnight and I have been up since before 7:00 - second day in a row of that. But you can read my first post on the other blog if you are needing something to read! Tomorrow is the last day of the conference. Then I get to go back home to Chris, which is good because he leaves next week for a 2-week trip to Nigeria.

Goodnight, thanks for reading! :)