I am having fun, I hope that everyone else is. I’ve had quite a nice day so far. On the way out with the videotaping team, we saw about four other teams already doing their work, watching birds, measuring trees, or at least, we saw their bicycles parked next to the road. This afternoon, I’ve had interesting discussions with several other groups about how to make consistent decisions, how to quantify things which are very difficult to quantify, and on and on. I find it quite exciting.
Another good thing about this course, that has been especially good for me, personally, is that it has managed to drag me away from my computer. Despite having been here for two years now, I have not actually explored the local environment around the garden much at all. Instead, I have been struggling with the next-gen sequence data for months now and a great deal of my work, either reviewing or writing manuscripts, is done on computers, so I have had very little excuse to go out into the woods.
This course has given me the excuse and I have realized something. I like to sweat. I like to be out there, getting scratched by thorny plants, scrambling up slopes, etc. It feels good. I have had fewer aches and pains in the past few weeks than I have had when I spend a month, nicely air-conditioned and sedentary, in front of my computer.
I hope to not fall completely back into that rut once the course is over. While I think we are all doomed a bit to stare at these little glowing rectangles in wonder at the marvelous things they can do, there is still a very marvelous world out there, to go get dirty in and come home with a tangible feeling of accomplishment – “I measured that” or “I got those samples” — it’s a very rewarding feeling.
