I have been inside all day, in front of this computer, typing. My shoulder still hurts from a slight climbing injury the other day, but the pain lessens daily. I took some Excedrin a few hours ago to try and relieve the swelling, but the caffeine tensed me up and made it worse instead. I think sleep is possibly the best option. Unfortunately, it is also the most time consuming. Time is not something of which I have a lot to spare these days. Too bad I can't trade moldy clothes for more time!
The tropical sun shone this morning, cooking Rebecca and I out of our tin-roofed shack around nine in the morning. We slid away from the ant-infested, oversized oven we call home and headed here to the lab for a day of intense work and air-conditioning. I have been helping Genevieve design a book on beach seeds and the hours just flow by, one after another. We make progress but the end is still a long way away. Today she was going to try and return home to Hacienda Barú, her home on the Pacific coast. Now it looks more like Monday will be the soonest she can leave.
Rebecca and I have scaled back our project again. Climbing trees is a lot like learning to speak a foreign language. It seems so attainable and straightforward, and then reality rears its grinning, toothy head, waggles its toungue sarcastically, and I am forced to recognize that the learning process really takes a lot more time than I would like. We have only climbed four of our originally-planned nine trees, and there can be no more. Additionally, I have been focusing on this book with Genevieve a great deal as well, to the exclusion of labwork for my epiphyte project. However, my absence from the lab is not the most pressing problem. It is beginning to appear that we are not going to have the sorts of data we need to do the sorts of statistics Jack desires. We have been working very hard to accomplish something good with this project, and we feel satisfied with our effort, but our results are not exactly turning out to be what we had in mind. I have mentioned this all to Jack. We shall see what he says.
The forest hums and buzzes with the sounds of insects and frogs, as always. The flood waters receded and natural rhythms are running at a relatively normal level again. We have had sunny mornings for several days now, which means heavy rains are sure to arrive soon. Yesterday Fitch and Hillary, my housemates along with Rebecca, hosted the first party of the quarter. The a la mode bash was served complete with an almost bottomless bowl of excellent guacamole and a homemade game of pin the scent gland on the peccary. I pinned my scent gland on the wall of the house about two feet from the peccary, thus achieving the title of farthest off the mark, but sadly, no prize. The winners each received a special Space Star action figure. Some ingenious Tico decided to rip off the Star Wars franchise by selling Luke Skywalker, Princess Lea, Chewbacca, etc. under the name "Space Star" instead. The figures were a huge hit at the party, where excessive laughter occured over Princess Lea's wall-eyed stare and convincingly masculine physique. Price Lea would be a more suitable title for this interstellar heroine. Luke looked more like a Mayan warrior in Jedi clothing than a young anglo from space, but I'm sure the targeted audience appreciates the similarity.
The pressure is on here. The end of the quarter is a scant three weeks away. Jack arrives in about fifteen days. We are all in crunch mode, and most of us feel a little ill-prepared for the gauntlet run to come. Rebecca and I are better off than many, but certainly not in an ideal situation. This wet, dripping jungle makes me dark and moody, and I really want to get out of this place for a couple of days. Maybe soon I will. In the meantime, the seed book's gravity draws me in like a black hole. Back to editing...
The tropical sun shone this morning, cooking Rebecca and I out of our tin-roofed shack around nine in the morning. We slid away from the ant-infested, oversized oven we call home and headed here to the lab for a day of intense work and air-conditioning. I have been helping Genevieve design a book on beach seeds and the hours just flow by, one after another. We make progress but the end is still a long way away. Today she was going to try and return home to Hacienda Barú, her home on the Pacific coast. Now it looks more like Monday will be the soonest she can leave.
Rebecca and I have scaled back our project again. Climbing trees is a lot like learning to speak a foreign language. It seems so attainable and straightforward, and then reality rears its grinning, toothy head, waggles its toungue sarcastically, and I am forced to recognize that the learning process really takes a lot more time than I would like. We have only climbed four of our originally-planned nine trees, and there can be no more. Additionally, I have been focusing on this book with Genevieve a great deal as well, to the exclusion of labwork for my epiphyte project. However, my absence from the lab is not the most pressing problem. It is beginning to appear that we are not going to have the sorts of data we need to do the sorts of statistics Jack desires. We have been working very hard to accomplish something good with this project, and we feel satisfied with our effort, but our results are not exactly turning out to be what we had in mind. I have mentioned this all to Jack. We shall see what he says.
The forest hums and buzzes with the sounds of insects and frogs, as always. The flood waters receded and natural rhythms are running at a relatively normal level again. We have had sunny mornings for several days now, which means heavy rains are sure to arrive soon. Yesterday Fitch and Hillary, my housemates along with Rebecca, hosted the first party of the quarter. The a la mode bash was served complete with an almost bottomless bowl of excellent guacamole and a homemade game of pin the scent gland on the peccary. I pinned my scent gland on the wall of the house about two feet from the peccary, thus achieving the title of farthest off the mark, but sadly, no prize. The winners each received a special Space Star action figure. Some ingenious Tico decided to rip off the Star Wars franchise by selling Luke Skywalker, Princess Lea, Chewbacca, etc. under the name "Space Star" instead. The figures were a huge hit at the party, where excessive laughter occured over Princess Lea's wall-eyed stare and convincingly masculine physique. Price Lea would be a more suitable title for this interstellar heroine. Luke looked more like a Mayan warrior in Jedi clothing than a young anglo from space, but I'm sure the targeted audience appreciates the similarity.
The pressure is on here. The end of the quarter is a scant three weeks away. Jack arrives in about fifteen days. We are all in crunch mode, and most of us feel a little ill-prepared for the gauntlet run to come. Rebecca and I are better off than many, but certainly not in an ideal situation. This wet, dripping jungle makes me dark and moody, and I really want to get out of this place for a couple of days. Maybe soon I will. In the meantime, the seed book's gravity draws me in like a black hole. Back to editing...
posted by cody @ 7:08 PM
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