Ending Up and Celebrating!

You folks are almost there! All students should be finishing their Senior Research Projects and working on their SRP Power Point presentations. I'm available to help you with your Power Points, and you must give the presentation to your BASIS Adviosr and me at least once.

There's a lot more happening that seniors are "starring" in! Gavin's movie about his SRP will be shown at the Loft on May 12. The SRP Presntations are May 18 and May 19. Graduation is May 20. And there's a Senior Party at Ms. McGarvey's house on May 21!

If you have any questions, contact me: grising@basistucson.org or 326-3444.

We're really proud of you! See you soon!

Graduation

Hello Everyone!

I need any pictures of seniors that you have for Senior Graduation.  

Just send them to me or find me at school.

Thanks,

Matt

Finishing up

So May 30 was my last day helping out in the lab. Actually the whole week had been a little funky. Monday we worked up the reactions we had started the Thursday before. On Tuesday things started to go become nonstandard. Tuesday no one could work because the hoods were shut down. This basically means that any dangerous reaction that needed to be worked on could not be worked on. Then Wednesday we were informed that the safety inspector was going to be coming around. So everyone rushed around trying to clean everything, and make sure that the lab was as pretty as possible. Thursday was my last day. I couldn't really start any reactions because I would not be there to work them up. So, that day I mainly copied all the results I had. I found out that I had over 60 pages worth of data. Almost all of them verified that I made certain compounds. I actually have more data, but some was not printed or saved if they could tell right away my experiment failed. So it was interesting.
I will really miss the lab. Fortunately, I will be working there for a month during the summer. So I will get to see everyone again. I really do love working in the labs. I truly do. There is always something interesting going on, and when there isn't someone else is working on something interesting so you can go ask them what they are doing. Everyone there was so helpful and I just really am grateful to everyone in my lab.

Last Day

As I am frantically soaking in the hours of my last day here at the park, I've thought a lot about what exactly I've gotten out of the internship, making mental lists longer than Santa's.

It's weird to think that after the going-away dinner for Estee, Erin and I, I will probably never see any of these people again. Estee is getting married and then heading off to New Mexico to do some tortoises research.. Erin is getting a new position at another national park up in Oregon. And I.. I am finally realizing that I only have 4 more months to work in Tucson and enjoy the wicked, scorching summer before heading off to Vermont..

So to finally put some thoughts to paper(or screen, I suppose), I've compiled a list of some of the things I've gained through this experience..

1.) A wealth of information regarding the plants, animals, and general ecology of the Sonoran Desert.

2.) Experience writing professional articles, and a better knowledge of how to write different types of articles.

3.) An appreciation for black coffee first thing in the morning...around lunch time.. and later in the afternoon.

4.) A better understanding of the structure of the park service, the various positions held, and its legalities and inner workings

5.) An increased awareness of the necessity of the Park in regards to conserving the environment..and the effects of humans on the environment.

6.) Practice interpreting our resources for visitors, and establishing emotional and cognitive connections between visitors and the Park.

7.) Lessons on interpretive writing, interpretive talks, and the history of the Park Service.

8.) A venue for one of my articles!

9.) Experience (finally!) driving =)

10.) A plethora of new close friends and interesting acquaintances.

11.) A newfound interest in working with kids.. and an acquired comprehension about the best ways to maintain children's attentions.

12.) An abundance of new mentors and roll models who have been-there-done-that with some of the complications of life.. and college.. who are willing to stay in touch with me to help give me advice about classes to take and how to manage the adjustment from high school to college.

The process gets to be more fun

I am officially editing! After converting and renaming my footage I started putting together my cut but not edited together footage (that is, without transitions or video filters) into a rough cut. It has proved extremely rewarding and has helped pull the convoluted mess of ideas out of my head and applied them to the project. I am still rather shaky at using the editing software but i get better and better the more time I spend working on it. That's all for now

Too much data?

The question is if you can actually have too much data.  The answer is no.  I thought that I was going to have ample data, and today I realized I had just enough, no more than I needed, no less. Thankfully, my presentation is coming along and so far I have collected all of my data and now am comparing the different teaching styles for retention of the information.

Anyways, I'm back at BASIS, as a Teacher's assistant in 2 Alg II classes, 2 Calc I classes, and a Calc II class.  It's fun.  And I'm also getting ready for AP Physics C which should also be a whole lot of fun.  So, even though I am really busy comparing data and studying for my final AP test, I'm having a great time!

~Matt

Gratitude..

Yesterday I did a Desert Wonders school pre-visit at Hollanger Elemtary..and it was quite a treat. They were by far, the rowdiest, loudest, most inattentive group of kids I have had to work with yet. Throughout my talk, all the kids were continually talking despite my desperate, polite pleas for silence. Not only did the teacher not do anything to assist me, but the rest of the staff was incredibly rude. On top of all that, when I got there the wicked woman at the front desk told me the wrong room to go to.. I eventually found the right room, and it turns out that I didn't have to go to any room at all- they were all waiting for me in the library.
And on the way home I got stuck behind a tractor on AZ-86 =/

Then..today, the same group of kids came out to the park to do the Desert Wonders program. Dreadfully, I drug myself outside to greet them and make sure they were all ready to hike. Within ten minutes, though, I realized that it was all worth it. After many of the kids came up to me excited, telling me that this was the first time they had ever been here, and that they wouldn't have even been able to come if we hadn't organized the field trip for them, I realized why I love doing what I'm doings so much.........

And in a quite sappy and sentimental way, I cannot beleive it is my last week here..

I'm a-thinkin' and wonderin', walking down the road

I apologize for not posting on here as often as I should. I've been very busy and it just slips my mind. No excuse though.

I removed my equipment from Mt. Lemmon because I will be too busy to work on Mt. Lemmon anymore. I haven't talked to my off campus advisor yet; we're all pretty occupied with work and such. Next week, though, I hope to speak with him in person for the first time in a while to get help with my paper, return equipment, etc.

Good News!

So my advisor just pulled me aside..and then on second thought brought me back into the room with a ton of other staff and announced that the teachers from the school I visited the other day just called and said that I was fantastic, wonderful with working with kids, and did an absolutely amazing job when I went. She also said that they all agreed that the kids loved me, they learned a lot, and if the Park could find any way to keep me, they absolutely need to!

=D

Data, data and more data

I've been working on creating a database recently that includes all of the control rats the lab has done in the past so that they can be referenced for current and future studies. It was fairly interesting going through the data because, through the numbers and various parameters, you could really see how dramatically heart function was reduced due to a heart attack. I finished the database last week and was able to present my work at the weekly lab meeting.

Today, I started working with another set of data. This set took the form of pictures rather than just numbers, though. When the hearts are analyzed for infarct size (which is measured by analyzing the size of the scar on the heart), they are cut into three sections. I was organizing the pictures of these treated hearts into folders based on the severity of their heart attack. So I got to look at pictures of healthy and injured hearts. The difference is scarily drastic!

Codecs are a headache

My second week back has been exciting to say the least but in a very different way than my trip. My first priority when I got back was to get an editing program for my laptop... to you know edit my final project. I did a lot of research before and during my trip and had already decided on a program. One of the main reasons that I had chosen that program was that it had AVCHD compatibility. On a quick and confusing side note my footage is recorded digitally to a hard drive using the h.264 compression codec (a codec is the language in which data is compressed/decompressed) now I was under the impression that h.264 was the same thing as AVCHD which meant that I could just drag and drop my footage into the editor. I was wrong. AVCHD is a different codec than h.264 and is only used by Sony and Panasonic camcorders. I have a samsung camcorder so when I went to import the footage I got an error message.

So after a week of research I have solved my problem. What I have to do is open the footage with a conversion program that plays back and captures the footage in real time. This means that two seconds of footage takes two seconds to convert and two hours of footage takes two hours to convert. There is one benefit to this process though and that is organization. As I recapture the footage from a file named HDV_000304 I can cut it up into as many different files as I want and rename those "flower in sunset 1" then put that file into the "sunsets in Villa Arcadia" folder. This will save me loads of time when putting my footage into a timeline (I hope).

Just Like Heaven

First thing monday morning, I got drafted to do two school pre-visits at Desert Wind's Elementary, due to an unexpected short-staff situation. Overall it went pretty well, although I accidentally switched the words "omnivore" and "herbivore" during my first talk...needless to say this added a certain level of confusion within the preoccupied minds of 3rd and 4th graders. Other than that, it went relatively smoothly, and somewhere along the way I earned the honory identity of, "Hey, Ranger Lady.."
Throughout my time here, it has never ceased to amaze me how far kids will go out of their way to tell stories in the midst of a lecture. Even with the preface before the program that there won't be enough time for everyone to tell personal stories, they never fail to try to sneak them in. I ask a question, and am impressed by the number of hands raised. Just my luck, I always call on the kid who takes the opportunity to start telling a story instead of answering my question.
Oh kids.. gotta love them.

Tomorrow morning I'm heading off to Marana High School's day care to tend to a slew of 3-5 year olds; with a slideshow, a box full of animal skulls and furs, some coloring books and picture books, I am ready to entertain for 70 minutes.

I hope all is well!

Things Going In Boxes!

Tonight is my final night in Tunisia. I was supposed to get a visit from a professor that I had talked to last week. She had promised to bring me some useful information, which I was looking forward to. Alas, she was either too busy or simply forgot to pay me a visit since I haven't heard from her since. Ah, oh well.
Yesterday I said a somber goodbye to my Arabic teacher, Ahlem. I will miss her, especially since she evidently doesn't have an email address.
I feel upset that I am not coming back with any physical books (other than a copy of "The Stranger" in French that I purchased) but I feel much more knowledgeable about the situation in Tunisia and I think that having not come here would never have led me to the realizations and insights that I gained. In the last few days, in particular, I've learned some upsetting facts about employment and school in Tunisia. Supposedly, unemployment rates are upwards of %50 in almost every line of work, which is very, very upsetting. Tunisian students go through fourteen years of highschool, all of which is focused around memorization and repetition. Few essays are ever written and anything like creative writing is unheard of. To imagine going through that kind of system to be faced with such daunting odds at finding a job is very startling.
I'm packing up an heading back to the States, where I'll be doing some more research to bulk up the solid foundation of my paper. My efforts stateside will be met with more success, I am sure of it.

It just figures

So I finally made it into the UMC OR last week and it was great. This week, today in fact, I had intended on observing my first lung surgery with Dr. Smith at the UMC. Well that didn't happen because I've come down with the flu. How irritating is that? To make matters worse, I won't be able to go in tomorrow either for the same reason. Next week my OR time will be cut short again because I am off to visit Williams College. Its all good though. I am going to request an extra week or two of OR time in May to make up for lost time. I'll let you guys know when I finally get to see some brains up close.

On another note, my powerpoint presentation is complete, my article is 95 % complete, and my patient analysis is...getting there. I am going to have to spend some time in clinic to complete those.

Hope you all are doing well!

who fell on their knees in hopeless cathedrals

Wesolych Swiat Wielkanocnych! Happy Easter, or... Happy Springtime, or Happy Lots o'Candy Day, or Happy Almost Graduation!

I'm in pretty high spirits today. Since I've been in Minnesota (well, Wisconsin right now), I've accomplished a lot on my paper. Almost done! Now for the presentation...which currently has only a title slide.

All the times I was on Mount Lemmon I did not see a single squirrel, and there are five currently outside my window here. I even saw an Abert's squirrel in its warm weather gray coat. My family thinks they are huge pests, but I find them quite adorable. There is a family (pack? group? herd?) of about 5 deer that come around the feeder every night and many, many Canadian geese and robins. I love watching the wildlife up here.

My grandmother is also a wildlife enthusiast and has a wealth of information that I'm taking advantage of. She has field guides galore and an Audobon encyclopedia of North American wildlife.

College decision is more or less made. There's some things to sort through first.

I had a sad moment last night when I realized how far away everyone seemed, how the recent past doesn't feel so recent...but graduation is so close and I couldn't be more excited.

I just realized that Kurt Cobain and Allen Ginsberg both died on April 5th, three years apart. What a sad day for talent. A lot of birthdays in April, though!

Best wishes (I bet you're all watching the Mass at the Vatican like I am!),

Katharine

I finished the rough draft yesterday!!! Now all I have left to do is to get it to Joe Marshall (my adviser) to edit, and then I'll be all set to start redrawing and hopefully inking a chunk of the story. I've still got a lot of work ahead of me. Now is when things start to get technical and confusing. I've already had to start asking my dad about stuff like lettering and how to use ellipses templates.

Oh! And..

I highly recommend investing in the book, Pride, Prejudice, and Zombies. It's an absolutely pricesless twist on Jane Austen........................

My final weeks..

As I am preparing for my final weeks at Saguaro National Park, I am working nonstop on the article that they want for the front page of their newspaper. I decided to go back through the interpretive writing class that they bought for me and use all of the step-by-step activities as models for progressing with my article. Needless to say..prewriting was one of the activities. I spent a good two hours making this web...only to have the final product solely accentuate the fact that there is a lot that I'll have to cut back on to fit the 500 word limit.

Among the article writing and front-desk managing, I have several more education outreach programs to wrap up my term here. On the 15th, I am supposed to attend the Marana High School Day Care and do an animal trunk program with a group of about 20 3-5 year olds. Then on the morning of the 16th, a group of 100 3rd graders are coming out to the park for a Desert Wonders Program. They're going to be split into 5 groups to do 5 different stations. The station that I'm in charge of will be an activity down in the basement. Then later in the afternoon, I am supposed to go with Estee to the YMCA to do an outreach program with some kids there.

I hope everyone else's projects are going smoothly!

Let the editing begin!

Now that im back it is time to start editing. but before i start anything technical i will need a storyboard for my movie. this is proving to be the most difficult step in the process so far because while i was on my trip i could just record everything, upload it and record more. so its all about reviewing footage and trying to decide what sequence of pictures correspond to the ideas that i want to convey. My books are proving their worth... yet again and i am receiving great advice from former basis teacher, Jonathan VanBallenberghe.

New tests!

So, the crystals we have been trying to grow are finally done. Okay, well they might not be done (we stuck them in the freezer with water so they froze.) But, we looked at them under the microscope and they glow orange. It is really cool. Unfortunately there is a lot of junk around them. I really hope they work because then we can get a crystal structure. Also, tomorrow we will be running tests to see if the materials I have made are actually good catalysts. It will be so interesting to see. I am really excited because now I can add another procedure to my presentation!

The Hours Toiled Away With Books..

I've spent the majority of the day doing research for my NPS article..the subject being the ethnobotanic aspects of the Hohokam and Tohono O'oadham peoples. And so far, so good! My biggest concern is in regards to how much that I have to talk about..and having to confine it into five hundred words or less.
A lot of what I've read about so far has either been stuff I already knew from having worked with the Park for so long, or surprisingly interesting facts.

A little idea of what I'm working with....

1.) The Jojoba- The Tohono O'adham use a past of the nut as an antioxidant salve on burns. It was also taken back to Spain and the Vatican as a cure for baldness (although the success of this venture is unknown). It's also known as the "Save the Whale" plant because the Jojoba "beans" contain more than 40% oil (a liquid wax), which serves as a high quality lubricant equivalent sperm whale oil. The Seri tribe of Sonora Mexico, on the other hand, did not regard it as an essential food option, and solely ate it during emergencies.

2.) The Prickly Pear- the buds of this plant were also regarded by the Tohono O'oadham as a source of nutrition. After rolling hte buds on the ground/ hard surface to remove any spines and glochids, they would pitroast them for a day and then either eat them immediately or dry/pickle them for later consumption. These buds are a significant source for protein, calcium, and fiber. These were primarily eaten after dry season before the Saguaro fruits ripen. The pads of the Prickly Pear, Nopales were also eaten (the younger ones have less oxalic acid and are more tender). The smaller pads, Nopalitos, are cut into small bites and are similar to okra; they are also good for thickening broths. Prickly pear pads have been proven to help control blood-sugar levels and to reduce blood cholesterol. The juice of prickly pears was also used by the natives to strengthen adobe mortar.
The Cochineal, a scale insect that feeds on prickly pears, was also ground up to form a crimson dye. When imported back to Europe, it was so expensive that only loyalty could afford it. The Cochineal industry thrived until the late 1800s when cheaper aniline dyes became more available. This dye is still used in red candies, beverages, and lipstick; it is one of the only red dyes approved by the FDA.

3.) The Saguaro- saguaro fruit is an extremely significant fruit to the Tohono O'oadham. Women would use poles made from Saguaro ribs to knock off Saguaro fruit- the pulp would then be boiled down into syrup. Some of the syrup could then be used to make wine for the rain-making ceremony. The seeds of the fruit were dried and can then be eaten or ground into flour to make gruel. Saguaro fruits were an essential aspect of Tohono O'oadham nutrition, as they were composed of 10% protein, 70% carbohydrate, and the seeds were 30% fat. The Tohono O'oadham still participate in an annual Saguaro Harvesting ceremony.

4.) The Mesquite Tree- Tohono O'adham and Hohokam peoples ate te seeds, but also ground them up into flour to use in broths, stews, and breads. The inner bark was used as material for basketry, coarse fabrics, and medicine. Gum from the stem is still used to manufacture candies, as mucilage for mending pottery, and as black dye.

5.) The Ocotillo- used for fencing, house walls, and ramada roofs. The flowers were soaked in cold water to make tea.

6.) The Creosote Bush- this is not only the most drought-tolerant perrenial plant in North America, but it is also one of the most amazingly useful plants, commonly known as the "drugstore of the desert.Not only did the Tohono O'oadham and Hohokam use the lac produced by the Tachardiella larrae (a small scale insect that lives in the bush) as a multipurpose glue/sealant, but the Creosote had a plethora of medicinal applications as well. Thus, it became the single most widely used medicinal herb of the Sonoran Desert. It could be used as an anti-fungal, anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, or as a topical rub for rheumatism and arthritis. The Indians would heat leaf-bearing branches and tye them sore body parts in order to ease discomfort. Crushed leaves and lac were used to treat respiratory colds, sore throats and even tuberculosis. When steamed, it was used as a decongestant. The "Chaparral Tea" made from the leaves treated a variety of ailments due to its antioxidant properties. Creosote was also consumed orally to ease gastrointentinal upsets, and was applied to cuts, abrasions and skin disorders; it was often used as an antiseptic and astringent. Creosote was also used for oral health as well, commonly being applied to ease toothaches. Among many other uses, creosote could even treat fevers and dandruff, and was often utilized as a deoderant.

Finally!

I finally saw some new stuff today. Dr. Bose did a complex Mitral Valve repair at TMC today. It was super neat to see...even though the surgery lasted six hours straight. Oi that's a long time to stand in one place. Needless to say my neck, lower back, and feet are killing me right now. I also finally turned 18 last thursday so I will be getting in on some UMC OR action starting wednesday. Lung and Neurosrugery here I come!

Molly

Almost on Highway 61

Started taking a closer look at my samples--a tad disappointing. Only a couple of samples have any obvious hair of unknown origin. I will email my off campus advisor for help.

I've gotten sick, again. Most likely an infection contracted from an angry feline encounter at work (literally cat scratch fever). I leave for Minnesota on Wednesday for four days. Since we're just going to be visiting family I will have plenty of time to work. My mother and I are going to visit Macalester, and hopefully Carleton but that possibility is very slim.

Hope you're all happy and healthy!

Katharine

Bibliotheque Blitzkrieg.

As I enter the final stretch of my stay in Tunisia, I am trying, with the aid of my family, to exhaust every possible source of information available to me. My trip to the Bayt Al Hikma was disastrous. My aunt took me to the Bayt Al Hikma (which, comically, means "House of Wisdom" in Arabic) at the suggestion of my uncle's sister. We entered the library, which fit in perfectly near the carthiginian ruins on the beach and i noticed a tombstone near the entry sitting on a plot of grass. I read the inscription and found that the grave belonged to a Tunisian writer and philosopher named Ibn Khaldun. I was pleasantly surprised, since I had been told to look up Khaldun's writing about the movement of political power, so I took the fact that this man was buried under the Bayt Al Hikma, foolishly, as a good omen.
My aunt and I entered the building and were directed to an office within the building stuffed with a few glass-paned cabinets whose shelves were lined with books. We were greeted by a librarian, a short man, who my Aunt addressed and asked for books written by Ibn Khaldun. The man hurried off to search for them. As he was leaving the room, a woman approached us and asked my Aunt if she could help us. My aunt asked her if there were any books about "tribes," to which the woman replied, "No. No, no, no, no."
I was disappointed that the woman dismissed our inquiry so quickly, but immediately after she shot us down the man returned. He held in his hand a single book. It was not written by Ibn Khaldun, but about him, which was relatively useless to me. My aunt asked if that was the only thing they had. Evidently, it was. I should have felt disappointed or upset, but the whole ordeal was just too absurd. The encounter took no longer than a minute and a half and it ended in such an anti-climax. For god's sake, the writer I was looking for was literally buried beneath the library, yet they supposedly had nothing written by him at all. The four of us stood in silence, my aunt and I on one side of the door of the office facing the two librarians on the other, waiting for something to happen. As it became more and more evident that we would have no luck, my aunt uttered simply, "Well, I guess that's it," and we left.
Today I went to the market with my uncle to get some food for a party my family is throwing tonight. Afterwards, we stopped by the Mediatheque Charles De Gaul to see if I would have better luck there than I did at Bayt al Hikma. Unfortunately, it was closed, which means that I will have to check it later this week. I will also be going to a second "Bibliotheque National" near the Sooks, a vast trading network located in the ancient streets of Tunis, as well as to "La Marsa" Library. Hopefully I'll find something useful.
- Duncan

Inner-workings of Grad students

So during my time at the U of A I not only get to work in the lab, I also get to sit in on different types of meetings. So one meeting that happens every week is a group meeting; basically, everyone from the lab gets together and talks about what they have done. Another meeting I attend is the CRC meetings. These meetings last just as long as a group meeting, but they consist of many more people (several labs attend these). These meetings are very interesting. Recently, two graduate students have been trying to publish a paper, but first the professors critique the papers. It is really fascinating watching everyone just sit around digest and suggest better ways to word a certain passage to make it more clear.
The most interesting meeting I have seen yet was yesterday. Apparently, there is a huge competition every year that every grad student participates in. The competition gives the winner money to continue their research. So, yesterday, the finalists were presenting their research. I could actually understand almost everything they were talking about! So there were four different finalists who all researched very different topics. The topics that I saw were semi-conductor research, astrochemistry through spectroscopy (this woman found four new compounds in space), research about a certain drug to help pain, cancer detection research. All of these topics were so interesting. It was fun to see all these people get together and even if they weren't from the same field of science ask the finalists intelligent questions. The astrochemistry student won!

Us or Them

Good news! My advisor just hit me upt o write an article for the front page of the park's newspaper. After talking with him for a while, we decided that I should write about how the Hohokam people used the resources of the desert, and how their cultural impact can still be seen on many of our trails. I'll be sure to write more on here as I further delve myself into research and the oh-so-fun drafting process!

On a slightly different note, I finished yet another course today on the organization of the NPS, and all the different laws and legalities that come into play. By the time I finish here, I'll have more certificates than I have room for!

2 chapters left!

It may not have been the greatest idea trying to make a comic out of an entire novel. I'm only just now on Chapter 11 (out of 12). I'll be able to finish my rough draft of the whole novel, but I'm only going to refine (and pencil and maybe ink) only a small portion.
I've been spending a lot of time on www.posemaniacs.com (thank you for showing me that site, Sara) trying to get human body proportions down and learn more about anatomy and such. I think I've finally got the lady-hips right.

Wish me luck!
Siobhan

PS Here are some pictures of my progress:

As Smitten As That

I have officially completed both the Interpretive Writing program that was purchased for me, as well as a History of the NPS course. As the days trickle on, I consistently feel like I am learning and absorbing so much through each opportunity.
Erin, Estee and I are all going to be finishing our terms here on the same date, so they are planning a special dinner for us at the Mosaic Cafe on the evening of April 26th.
Other than that, I do not have much fresh news to pass on.. I hope everybody else's internships are going splendidly!

Molly

got into Penn. Yahoo!

English correction...

hasn´t yet been

Sorry Ms. Toews! The more spanish I use the more english i forget!

Where the Quetzal Roam

Today my aunt and I braved a 2 and a half hour each way hike to the Rio Zacate waterfall. For me... this was a huge triumph. The swim in the waterfall at the top was just as rewarding as the view of half of La Ceiba and the surrounding pinapple plantations. But I am not writing this post to tell you about just another view, that would ellicit innumerable blogs posts every day. For our hike we had an amazing native Hodureño named Hérman guide us. As it turns out, he technically built the trail we used back in 1995! This included him carrying the timbers to be used for the massive bridges )which exist even in the last leg of the uphill trail) on his shoulders! He was also living in one of the main cities of La Ceiba when hurricane Mitch hit about 4 years back. I hadn´t previously heard much about hurricane Mitch before this trip but it is becoming an integral story to my work here. Massive amounts of cattle, horses, forrests, and people were killed leaving a rather deep scare on all of Honduras that can be easily seen today.
Hérman and his family survived in an underground shed when the storm hit and lived there without food or good water for four days until it was safe for them to come out. Each sequential story I hear about the hurricanes impact on a family or city is just as únbelievable as the previous one.
Aside from this story I also learned about the cloud forests surrounding the Pico Bonito Lodge. They are taller then you can imagine. I was questioning Herman about them and discovered that roughly the top half of the mountain rises with a 94% incline! An ineffable concept. He also explained that the steepness of this upthrust moutnain range is probably the only reason the native Quetzal population has been yet decimated by poachers.


I´ll tell you more as I learn it!

Back in Denver

I am sitting in the Denver airport waiting for my connection to tucson. I feel a little bit like a zombie after 14 hours of air travel (there is another four that were lost in time zone changes). I had a semi ok time getting through immigration despite having my bags checked, although security was a breeze in the D.C. airport compared to my un and re packing experience before leaving tucson.

My last week in argentina was great. I was introduced to a film director friend of my 2nd cousin's who just happened to be shooting a commercial for tide (for U.S. distribution) in BA. I took a taxi over to his house at 6:15 in the morning (way to early for my tired bones which had just returned from Villa Arcadia the day before. We spent 13 hours in the back of a walmart in a grocery store set. It was a little surreal because there I was standing in what appeared to be an English language store inside of a walmart in argentina. I spent a majority of my time with the director's son who digitizes the live feed footage and creates rough cut commercials with timecode. Watching him and talking about his work were yet another in valuable asset because I myself will be editing all this month. I returned the next day but could not manage to continue the abuse and took friday off.

Well its time to eat a mediocre lunch of old coffee and a muffin before my last flight. See you soon!!!

Gavin

Copan to El Corinto

Sorry about my obvious lack of posts since I´ve arrived in Honduras! Tonight in Pico Bonito is the first night I have had access to the internet in a format that actually lets me view and use the Basis blog.
I have too many stories to tell and only a few minutes to do it in considering its 4o lempiras per minute on these computers! A total ripoff equivalent to about $2 a minute!! santo mio.
The begining of my stay in the Copan Ruins was fantastic. We visited about four different seperate sites of mayan ruins including my favorite, a very underappreciated simple site called Los Sapos )the toads) that Mayan women would trek to in order to pray to the Mayan god of fertility, which is a frog. I was told this after I had been sitting on the frog fertility idol for about 20 minutes. We also visited the village of the mayan kings 18 Rabbits and Water Jaguar.
Once we moved into the center of Copan on the 3rd day was the first time I really realized how many problems this country has. There are more starving dogs and horses wandering the streets than people and the child to adult ratio is roughly 9 to 1, no joke. The poorer the families, the more children there are and most of them are under the age of 8. Although this was a terrible reality check, we also made a lot of progress in Copan. Mr. Mattews sister Jennifer was very gracious to us and we enjoyed having dinner her and staying to talk at their restaurant, Twisted Tanya´s, for hours past closing time. P.S. Mr. M, Jen wants me to tell you she just got a new baby jack russell terrier also. It is very cute, and loco. On our last day in Copan, we visted a place called El Parque de Aves, or Macaw Mountain for gringos. It is a refuge for large tropical parrots, hawks, and owls, that local people have either given up as pets or found injured. I loved it. After the bird park we took a Tuk Tuk, small motorized cars with no doors, no ability to reverse, and very little room, to the Welchez Coffee Finca outside of town. We toured the finca and helped pick coffee berries with the workers.

Our next destination, Tela Mar, was quite a different experience. While its beaches are beautiful white sand beaches covered in palm trees they are also literally covered in trash of every kind. I have yet to see and actual labeled garbage can. Unfortunatley, aside from not being very eco'friendly, Tela mar isn´t very tourist friendly either. The city needs a lot of development and venturing into twon turned out to be very dangerous. However, Meg and I kept stubbornly doing just that and on our last night we paid the price for our belligerence and were mugged coming home on a well lit bridge that had armed poilice on either end, but not in the middle. Despite this I still had an overall eye'opening experience in Tela as we got to go by boat to the Jeanetter Kawas national park here where we snorkeled, swam, hiked, and visited a small Garifuna village. In the village I got to see literally every step of my lunch being prepared, including them telling me to pick my favoroite chicken, then kill it. I´m starting to feel very wild myself as I get more immersed in spanish and go longer and longer without showering. It is an enevitable way of life here.

Tonight I´m writing from within the borders of the Pico Bonito National Park, one of the only Quetzal and manatee habitats here. On a side note, there is a little baby blue hummingbird living in our cabin that follows to breakfast and back. I reallt think hummingbirds are going to be the next dogs. Tomorrow Meg and I will get up at 5am to hike along the Rio Corinto to the Rio Zacate waterfall. Later in the afternoon, we will hopefully take a canoe tour throught the Cuero y Salado Wildlife refuge looking for crocodiles and manatees at dusk. To say the least, I am in heaven here but I still can not wait to come back home and start really putting this trip into motion for Travel Muse.

I miss you all! And you too Devin! Hope the rest of the senior projects are going well.

c is for college

Veronica got into Barnard, Molly got into Williams, Michaela got into Grinnell, and -- as you may have read -- Katherine got into Reed. Congrats, everyone!

Yay!

So things have gotten much better this week. I'm still stretched very thin, but it's manageable. I went to Mt. Lemmon again today and now have a significant amount of samples to begin analyzing. It will be interesting to see what kind of hairs are on that tape. I also have a good amount of pretty pictures to use in my presentation.

In other news, I was rejected from Scripps...but accepted into Reed!

I'll keep everyone posted,

Katharine

Bump in the road

A few weeks ago, my lab advisor called me and asked me not to go into the lab. Apparently an issue had come up between the lab and the VA research office. I was officially a volunteer at the VA, which had, previously, been an acceptable status for working in the lab. Not so anymore, though. To try to gain readmittance to the lab, I have applied for without compensation status (WOC) at the VA. Hopefully the paperwork will be processed quickly, but thus far it doesn't look like it will be.

So, since my advisor called me through the present, I am not allowed into the lab. I have been spending my time working on getting the WOC paperwork filled and reading journal articles relavent to my research.

On that subject, I just read a particularly interesting article. A lab is working on creating engineered heart tissue (EHT). They were able to successfully do so and tested it in rats. The EHT, when place on an infarcted rat heart (heart after a heart attack), improved heart function significantly as compared to the infarcted hearts that were not treated. This study shows serious promise for clinical applications.

-Catherine

The RNs at TMC are rude!

So this week has been filled with CABGs, which are coronary artery bipass grafts. Wednesday I was observing a triple bipass at TMC. The surgeons have been nothing but nice and patient with me in the past. Its always the RNs that get their panty-hoes in a bunch about something. During my time at TMC on wednesday, I got yelled at twice by the RNs. Once for touching a sterile table when I wasn't all suited up. :) yeah I totally get why I got yelled at for that one. Then I got yelled at once more for not knowing my way around the maze of an OR. Dealing with hospital administration and staff has really been the most difficult part of my internship. The blood and guts simply don't bother me. It does, however, cause me serious stress to have to wonder around the halls of all these different hospitals, trying to find where I am supposed to be and when, without any form direction. I always end up asking at least 4 different people where I can find this person, or how I can get into the OR to see that person. I suppose it is good practice though. Despite all the hurtles, each time I set off into the OR I actually make it in.

Molly

Bayt Al Hikma

Last weekend I took a little trip to the South of Tunisia with my Aunt and cousins. We made the usual tourist rounds. We visited various desert oases and took a trip in a four by four across the vast, sandy dunes. I got to see a couple of places where "Star Wars" was filmed, which was like a trip to Mecca by my family in the United State's standards. I even got to try some "typical" Tunisian dishes, including a lamb liver and testicle stew. The cities in the south were interesting, each had its own style of architecture and distinct atmospheric flavor. The one thing that I found to be consistent, however, were the vendors on the street trying to sell anything and everything to just about anybody with ears.
On one occasion, as I was walking down the streets of Tozeur, the largest city in the south of Tunisia, I was approached by a vendor who was standing outside of his shop. As I passed, he stood in my way, pointed into his shop and began trying to speak with me in Arabic. I just said, "No, no..." and tried to brush past him. He shuffled back into my path, "American?" he asked. I knew better than to admit I was American. I've had previous encounters with vendors and my biggest mistake while speaking with them was admitting that I was American. I had eventually learned not to carry money with me unless I was looking to buy something, since I had been sharked into buying things I didn't need before, but once a vendor had heard that I was American, they would become dead set on selling me something. I'd had men demand that I search my wallet for money to show that I had none, or refusing to believe that I didn't have a credit card. Admitting my nationality would condemn me to at least fifteen minutes of harassment. So, this time I decided to try something a little different in hopes that it would cut my encounter short. Instead of admitting that I was American, I said, "No, Espanol." I expected that the guy would give up, that he would step out of my way, bested by the language barrier I had put up between us. I did not suspect, however, that this fellow spoke Spanish. He replied, "Oh senor, tengo una pregunta, de donde es?" I couldn't believe it. I had found the one street vendor in Tunisia that spoke spanish and my oh so cunning plan had blown up in my face. "Madrid," I lied through my teeth. The man smiled and said, "Come with me," in spanish. I felt bad for doing it, but I just turned my back on the man and replied, "No, ya tengo que irme," and left, despite his continued pleas. Needless to say, the whole trip to the south was loads of fun.
All this week has been full of Arabic. Now that I have begun learning conjugations (there are a monstrous 13 different conjugations per tense!) my tutor has been giving me lots of work to try and get through all of the tenses in the next few weeks. I'm sitting on a solid thesis for my paper and feel very good about it right now. I've been looking through the internet and have started filling out a few pages. I've also been told about a library called Bayt Al Hikma (house of wisdom) that I might have a bit of luck at. I am going there tomorrow morning with my Aunt. I plan to go to the library and spend the day in Carthage since it is supposed to be an incredible place to visit.
- Duncan

VERONICA

U Chicago and Bryn Mawr! Whoee!

and katharine

got into Carleton.

another!

Siobhan also got into Sarah Lawrence!

Intriguing?

One of the reactions I was doing was reacting PDT-cat + a BocSPPh2 Ligand, and we did yield results. Unfortunately, when we tried to cleave the product to shorten the ligand, our compound disintegrated. We probably let it sit for too long. So, we decided to repeat the earlier reaction, but this time, when we ran the tests, our data was similar but not the same. So to hopefully fix our problem, we are trying to recrystalize the compound. To recrystalize you dissolve the compound in something and then transfer it to a smaller vessel, then on top of this small layer of compound add something that the compound doesn't dissolve in (normally something like methanol.) As these two compounds mix, a crystal forms!

Important Mid-SRP Reminders

We are about halfway through the Senior Research Project, so I want to give you a few reminders.

1) Students must spend 30 total hours every week on research and on-site internship. Officially, you are still in school and you are getting school credit. Not doing research and not going to your internship is missing school, so your SRP grade will suffer if you are not putting in the required 30 hours per week.

2) At least twice each week, students must explain to their BASIS Advisor what they are doing, specifically, in regards to their internship and research. This contact can be email, blog, or verbal.

3) Every SRP student will do a PowerPoint presentation in May (in addition to their project of a research paper, documentary, writing portfolio, graphic novel, business plan, etc.). We are searching for a nice venue for the presentations, which will take place at night (probably Mon, May 18, and Tues, May 19). I'll give more information as it becomes available to me. Feel free to invite parents, grandparents, etc., etc.

4) The presentation will be a PowerPoint presentation of approximately 15 minutes (plus 5 minutes of answering questions). I will work with every SRP student on their presentation. In May, each SRP student will have mandatory meeting with me about your presentation. In addition, please feel free to contact to set up a time for me to help you before then; you can start getting my help on your presentation as soon as tomorrow, if you'd like. You should also get help on your presentation from your BASIS Advisor.

Please contact me if you have any questions or problems.

Sara

got into Sarah Lawrence!

Stirring dull roots with spring rain

My apologies for the sluggish updating. Within these past two weeks several unfortunate events have happened--the nature of these events I'd rather not discuss--that have rendered a trip to Mt. Lemmon impossible. Now things have turned around a tad and a Mt. Lemmon trip will be happening this Saturday.

Not much else to say, in all honesty. If I were to write down every reflection and revelation, this post would be completely incomprehensible. The only thing that's important to know is that, even though I was momentarily distracted, I am getting back on track and being productive.

Hard to believe it's been almost two months since school ended. I hope Eliot is not correct about April being the cruellest month. I am somewhat dreading it.

My apologies again. I will post again when I have more thoughts of actual substance to share and I have gotten some work done.

In light of everything recently, to close this post with "I wish you all well" or anything to that affect seems horribly ironic and sad. As a substitute, I'll steal a Dylan quote...

"Good luck. I hope you make it."

"Crazy Legs"

I am back in buenos aires after a crazy busy week in VIlla Arcadia. On my second day in VA I met with Julia Colombo who works for the municipality of coronel suarez and presented her with my grandfather's article. We ended up talking for about an hour and a half about the importance of family history and why this story is so important to my grandfather. Then out of nowhere a radio reporter showed up to interview me (once again in spanish). In the next few days I walked more than at any other point in my life. I would spend all morning filming, go back to the hotel drink mate, have a nap and charge the camcorder batteries and go out and film until dark. To hear more about my revelations and the beauty of Villa Arcadia and Sierra de la Ventana you will have to go see my documentary.

Also during my trip I got to be good friends with Javier and I joined him and his friends Chapi and Gaston on a two day backpacking trip up to the tres picos mountain range. I had no idea what I was getting into. I was a near vertical trek (the summit of tres picos is the highest point in the province of Buenos Aires at 3789 ft. above sea level as compared to where we started in Sierra de la Ventana at 820 ft.). We stayed the night in a cave and I had an all together amazing time (despite my legs still feeling like a couple of led weights).

Last night I hopped on a buss back to buenos aries and found my way to the train station and back to my Aunt and Uncle's apartment in record time. I can't express how liberating it was to be traveling alone to a foreign place and making friend while all the time speaking another language. A truly amazing experience.


Here are some photos of my trek to tres picos and of the swiss chalet that my great uncle built nearly a hundred years ago.

Too many numbers?

Now I've always said that one can't have enough numbers in one's life, but with all these quizzes that I'm grading and all of the scores I have, I am beginning to question that philosophy. I have been sitting in on the classes and I am nearing the date of the final quiz at Immaculate Heart which is nice because there isn't too much more grading to be done. Anyways, I'm having a lot of fun there and working with the students is great because sometimes it helps to have more than one person explain something. The look on someone's face when they finally understand a problem is just awesome.

I know that I promised pictures in my previous post but I will either put them in my next post or I will include them in my presentation for all to see.

"a temperate 29 degrees in boston today"

That is actually what our pilot said over the intercome as my plane came into North Boston. Astounding. My stay in Boston has started off with very cold weather juxtaposed by the warmth of family I've never really gotten to spend that much time with. My aunt, owner of Travel Muse, was extremely eager to show my pretty much all of Boston on a walking tour today... it was interesting. It is a beautiful city, beautiful and cold, and unforgiving, and intense, and big. Notice my polysyndeton. This city can be defined in many ways. However, the cold was almost a mental roadblock for me to get over. As we touched down I was already outfitted in my 'breezy tucson night' savvy fleece jacket and a t-shirt. I was shivering in the plane. So I put another coat on with a thermal winter lining. When my aunt say me standing outside terminal B she opened the door to the volkswagon and said "You'll be dead by nightfall." And began to laugh.

Such is the Washburne sense of humor. Luckily, Meg had brought me one of her extra winter jackets. Unluckily, it barely fit over my other two because they were so bulky and it was a neon pink and purple parka that looked like a giant marshmellow. Let me tell you something, people in Boston, they all wear black. I attracted the attention of everyone and a half as I drudged slowly behind my aunt with my arms unable to go completely down to my sides in a multi-colored blimp suit. I did get to see John Kerry's apartment in the swanky part of town along with the waterfront and the historic district.
We then proceeded to do a car tour of Harvard, M.IT., and University of Boston while we thawed. I saw some native Harvardians and I didn't think they looked anything too extrordinary, we could definitely take them. I've seen a lot of great architecture and cobbled streets in this city so far which is really making up for the cold!

My aunt is just starting to pack for Honduras tonight...we just executed and Eddie Bauer fashion show to help her figure out what was truely going to get packed and what will stay behind. We will depart for Honduras tomorrow around 6:00 pm, 3pm Tucson time and will be in Honduras around 8pm Tucson time (I think). Can't wait to update you guys on what it is like down there!
Especially the climate details including phrases such as "sunny and 80 degrees" or "certainly bathing suit weather."


Good luck to everyone else!!
-Emily

More news

Sara got into Mt. Holyoke, as well. Congratulations!

Lovecats

And there were definitely paragraphs involved with that article, but for some reason this stupid blog refuses to recognize that.... I've already tried to go back and fix it five times.

First Article!

Saguaro National Park houses a plethora of different flora and fauna unique to the Sonoran Desert; both districts of the Park aim to both preserve this wildlife and its culture; and to provide visitors with a special understanding of those who lived here before us, as well as the significance of the desert. In early 1993, the Rincon Mountain District (East District) was established as the Saguaro National Monument, as an attempt to protect Saguaros and other young cacti from popular cattle grazing. In 1961, Kennedy added 15,360 acres of what is now the Tucson Mountain District to the Monument to further protection from cattle grazing as well as from mining. Eventually, in 1994, President Bill Clinton added 21,000 more acres to the Tucson Mountain District, and declared both districts as the 52nd National Park.
But why, almost fifteen years later, is it still important for us to dedicate massive portions of our tax dollars to this organization? Why is it essential to spend extra money on facilities that enable visitors to actually come and visit the Park, while they could just as easily learn everything about it through technology and other available resources? Why not just dedicate our tax dollars to the preservation aspect, and then use the surplus for something else?
Yes, individuals could easily learn about the biological concepts of the Sonoran Desert and the history of the Hohokam and Tohono O’adham peoples through documentaries, books, the internet, and so forth. But most visitors do not come to the park simply to sit in on our naturalist programs or to learn the cultural history of the area. They come to experience, and interpret the Sonoran Desert. True, not every visitor will care about the same saguaro or the same animal. And true, not every visitor will walk away with the same take-home message about why Saguaro National Park is a significant entity. But it is infallible that every single visitor will depart with their own, personal, unique interpretation of various outlets of the park.
Perhaps, one of the saguaros will resemble something noteworthy to Visitor Sue, while that same saguaro means something entirely dissimilar to Visitor Bob—or maybe it will mean nothing at all to Visitor Joe. Perhaps Sue will think that the serene beauty of the Sonoran Desert enables her to understand life on an entirely different scale than she is used to, while Bob will see it as a conduit to escape the materialism and day-to-day drear of his full-time job. Yet, that is not for any of those of us who work here, or anyone else for that matter, to decide. That is the exquisite asset of this park: it means something entirely different to each individual who visits. Every single person who chooses, by their own volition, to pack up their bags and travel from their home to here, comes for a similar, uniting reason. Each visitor wants to experience the park, and know Saguaro National Park for more than its Ironwood Trees or Native American history. To the visitors, the park is more than a historical mining site or home to the unique saguaro cactus. It is an arena through which they will fully be able to capture another, distinct aspect of life as what it means to them and their day-to-day lives.

Lewis & Clark

is where Emily was accepted. Yay!

Time Flies...

Hey all!

I'm still packing, but I'll be leaving tomorrow at 6:05am!! Its been a long wait, but I'm sure it will be worth it. As recent as last week the Tourism Council of Honduras agreed to sponsor and support our trip. The Mesoamerican Ecotourism Alliance has also expressed an interest in helping us while we are in  the country. I got to send them my "dream list" of activities to do and sights to see and they said they will try to help us do/see as many of them as possible!

We'll be flying into San Pedro Sula and then going directly to Copan from there, where Mr. Mathews sister runs a business and will meet with us for dinner one night to discuss tourism in Honduras.

The trip is coming together really well and I'm psyched to get into the country finally!

xo emily

AND

Siobhan got into Smith and Mt. Holyoke. CLASS OF 2009 ROCKS!

and

Michaela got into Smith. Molly has good news but it cannot yet be revealed.

Continuation of the Benzenedithiol reaction

So this reaction is really bugging my adviser. After our last success, we decided to scale up the reaction. When we did this, we did not get enough results (we got like a less than ten percent yield). So, we rewashed the water layer with a different organic solvent (DCM). This time, it worked. In the meantime, every time I tried to shake the reaction it exploded. So I had to stir it. Thankfully we got the results, so we decided to distill it to make it pure. Well we distilled for a good six hours and all we collected was solvent. The rest turned brown. Unfortunately we should have produced a white solid. So we are taking it apart next week to see what is wrong.

college news

Michaela got into Renssalear Polytechnic University, with a 20,000$ merit scholarship.
Congrats!

Hello Class of 2009....

I need pictures of you guys to show during graduation..if you have any please e-mail them to me or drop off a tape...er I mean cd....dvd thingy..

Thanks,
Patty
pnardolillo@basistucson.org

On Track

I went to the national library by myself this week and it was awful. You are only allowed to "request" five books per day. I had already scoped out which books I was going to check out, so I filled out the forms and waited as the librarians retrieved my books for me. Three of my five book requests were "rejected," which surprised me, but I still had two books that looked promising, one about French rulers in Tunisia before independence, and another about the rise of the Neo-Destour party in Tunisia. I opened the latter to find that it was heavily censored. Pages, entire chapters, were missing from the book, all about religious and racial troubles in Tunisia. Still, I noted some passages of interest. I then took a look at the book about French rulers, which was entirely toothless. It talked about tax policy and the backgrounds of the rulers, but spoke practically nothing about the ruler's connection with the Tunisian populace, which was a real shame. I went up to make copies of the books and was told that I wasn't allowed to copy the first book, and they took it from me. I filled out a few forms to make the copy and handed it to the photocopy station attendant, who was seated at a desk lazily doing nothing much. I smiled, was instructed to go downstairs to pay for my copies, which I did with a little trouble, and returned with my receipt. At this point I expected the attendant, a small hooded woman, to take the book into the copying room and copy it, but instead she simply sat and smiled. I went into the lobby and waited, checking up on the copying station every ten minutes or so. After about an hour, I went up to the desk again. The small old lady had been replaced with a rather tall man in a green sweater. I asked him when my copies would be ready, and he replied, "No. You give the copies yesterday, the attendant come in the morning." I assumed he meant that the copies would be ready tomorrow, but I knew I wouldn't be able to manage making another trip, and the information I had really wasn't crucial to my research, so I decided to just leave them at the library. A very dissappointing day.
I have been unable to get in contact with Abdelwahab Meddeb, so I had to schedule another interview. My aunt recommended a friend of hers who was very familiar with Bourguiba, the ex-president of Tunisia, and an important figure in my research. So, we set up an interview with him for today. My aunt and I met him on the corner of a street near nothing in particular, as far as I could tell. We picked him up and began driving to his office. I had prepared a sheet of questions for the interview, with the headline "Bourguiba as a ruler." He looked at the paper, misread the title and asked, "Bourguiba as a liar?" I was worried that he had been offended by this simple misreading and quickly corrected him. "No," I said, "Bourguiba as a ruler." He laughed and said, "He was a liar! All politicians have to be liars." I smiled, relieved. I talked to the guy for a bit about my project. I mentioned the name of Franz Fanon, to which he replied, to my surprise, "Fanon? I knew Fanon." I was stunned, he continued, "I used to work with him in a hospital for two years." I couldn't believe my luck. Not only had this fellow known about Fanon, he actually knew him! We also spoke briefly about Meddeb, before coming to a stop at his office. We spoke a bit and he brought up some great points about the Tunisian-Algerian situation. We talked about history and the theories I'm looking into and I feel that the guy knows what he is talking about. He explained to me that the crux of the issue is tribalism, and that tribes had been the prime mechanism for political movement on the barbary coast for hundreds of years. I feel that this is the direction my research is going to take. When I told him about the Bibliotheque National, he simpl said, "That is a foolish library," and told me that my greatest resource would be the internet. It has been a wonderful day considering the past week of crappy library luck.

college news?

Seniors! Please let me know of any college acceptances (or rejections, although I'm sure that list will be short).

Recent news:
Katharine got into Macalester.
Andrew got accepted to the Acting program at the U of A.
Michaela got into Case Western with a big scholarship.

Congrats!

Villa Arcadia!!!!

Yesterday I drove with my cousin and aunt to Villa Arcadia. It was an exciting trip as the flat plains of la pampa gave way to mountains streams and green (very green) fields. There are wild flowers everywhere and the air has a sweet smell. I have never been anywhere quite like this and I can now understand why my great grandfather immediately fell in love with it.

I will be staying here for a week at a bed and breakfast in one of the old mansions built just after the founding of Villa Arcadia in 1908. The family that owns it are good friends of our family and I feel right at home (although I do enjoy the freedom and challenge of being on my own in a new place). Today I went to the tourism office and talked with Javier (in spanish!) about my project and we are planing a trip up to the mountains over the weekend. Also tomorrow I will be meeting with a historian (who is staying at the same bed and breakfast as I am) to talk about the rayces family history. Everyone here is laid-back and I have already had a few conversations with the locals I have meet in shops and restaurants about my family and my project. Everyone is excited!

Backwards

Needless to say, I am very excited for my upcoming birthday in two weeks because it means I will get to spend some good quality time in the Operating Room and UMC. As most of you know, these past two weeks have been very slow; however, I did come across something pretty amazing...and startling when I visited the transplant conference the other morning. At the conference, Jack Copland and a variety of other doctors were discussing a gentleman whose heart was on the right side of his body. Now I hope that most of you know that most peoples hearts are on the left side of their bodies because there are some pretty significant advantages to that. For one, your main arteries that run to the brain aren't crossed...and for another, well it just makes for sense.

This is what a normal heart should look like:

Well, not only was this guys heart on the wrong side of his body, it was also inverted...as in his left ventricle was where his right ventricle should have been and vice versa. All I can say is that its super bizarre, especially since this person hasn't had too many out of the ordinary heart problems up until now.

In any case, I will keep you all posted on more neat and gross and bizarre things I come across in the next few weeks. Let me know if you have any questions about how the heart works or anything else along those lines.

Peace!

Library Attempt 2

My "library trip" yesterday was a disaster! I took a cab to get there and figured that, since there's only one "National Library" people would pretty much know where it is. Well, I ask the taxi driver if he knows where it is, he hesitated, but said that he knew where it was. I chat with him in the cab, practicing my French and he tells me how to say "It's a hot day" in Arabic. Eventually, we come to a stop and he tells me that the library is close, I just have to walk down a nearby road for a bit and it would be right in front of me. I thank him, pay him and start walking down the road he indicated. I walked for about thirty minutes without finding the library before asking somebody else, a guy standing near an overpass that I was walking along. I asked him, "Ou est le Bibliotheque National?" and he told me that the library was along the road I was walking, I just had to continue. I figured that this made sense and I continued along the road. I kept walking and I noticed that the part of the city I was entering was much, much more industrialized than the rest of Tunis. There were cement factories and chemical plants everywhere. The library wasn't anywhere around me, that much was pretty obvious. As I walked through the dense industrial landscape, many pan handlers approached me, asking for money. I had brought more than enough for the cab ride home, so I could afford helping them out a bit. I gave money to one child, who ran off, only to see him at a house down the street giving the money I gave him to a very elderly woman sitting on the sidewalk. It made me very sad. I kept walking, passed through blocks-long street markets which offered plastic toys and shoes at the cost of hundreds of Millims (about 10 cents), went through the autoindustry district, and stopped at a sign that said "Leaving City Limits." I assumed that this meant that I was about to leave Tunis and enter some other city, so I gave up and flagged another Taxi to take me home after exploring the city fruitlessly for four hours. I told him to take me to "L'aouina" and he said, "L'aouina?! Qu'est que tu fais ici?" or "What are you doing here?" evidently, I had somehow walked out of Tunis and into a smaller city called "Ben Arous." So, no library for me. I talked to my Aunt this morning and she told me that it would be best if she took me on Monday (since the library is closed on Sunday). It was a pretty frustrating day, but my Arabic lesson's are on hold for a bit because my teacher had a death in her family, which is very sad and that I will have more time for research and writing.

Crystals!

.So yesterday, we re-ran one of my reactions that had gotten good results. But, this time our results were different. Instead of getting a few crystals and a greenish oil, we got a jar full of crystals, and the only green was a greenish tint to a few of the crystals. It was so cool. This means that if the results are the same, we can continue more quickly with adding this BOC ligand to PDT-cat! Recrystallization takes awhile, because you have to leave it in the fridge for a very long time, but because our crystals were already there to start out with, everyone is pleased.

Quiz? What Quiz?

I am completing quizzing students at BASIS and am starting to administer quizzes to students at Immaculate Heart this week. It's interesting how much the students react to quizzes about information they have just learned, believe me there was a lot of complaining going on in some of these classes. Most students did very well on the initial quiz, even though they just learned the information a few days prior to the quiz. In three weeks I will be giving the students the final quiz, and it should be interesting to see how the students retain the information after not seeing that specific type of problem for a few weeks.

Monday afternoon was great as a new topic surfaced which is going to be beneficial to my research. Apparently there was a lesson covered in both curricula on adding/subtracting Rational Expressions that I overlooked previously, so now my Algebra I research is going to be much more complete. Luckily, all of the teachers at both schools were willing to work with my last minute change of topic in those classes. Now, hopefully I should have enough data to make an informed analysis of the Saxon math curricula and the "traditional" block-style teaching method used in most math classrooms.

Another interesting thing about working with teachers are the intellectual conversations held in the realm of the unknown, the teacher's lounge. Along with many discussions about my research and what I hope to find, other topics such as "what it takes to be a teacher" and "what do state guidelines really do to the school system" are quite interesting. Through these discussions I've seen that it does take preparation to be a teacher and that people can not just come in off of the street and teach, well teach effectively. Also, it is interesting how government officials are making new requirements for certain courses that may not necessarily correspond with the actual material covered in that course. Anyways, the point of this is that the teacher's lounge is an interesting place where I have gotten a lot of advice from other teachers about my research.

By the way, in my next post I should have some pictures of the school and the awesome teacher's lounge (including the amazing view from the teacher's lounge).

Third person is a charm

So, this week we had success. The 1,2 benzenedithiol was finally a success. After two different graduate students tried it, I finally succeeded. So third person is the charm! It was really exciting to discover through NMR that we succeeded. I attribute our success to the fact that we distilled the TMEDA this time. So, today we started the reaction over again this time on a larger scale (instead of a one mL scale, we used a ten mL scale). Unfortunately, I am worried that it won't work because half way through the setup, our argon would no longer flow correctly. We would fiddle with the line and then it would work, but two minutes later it would stop flowing again. So, we had to resort to putting a balloon on the top and hoping that no air got into the system. So on Monday I will know more and hopefully it will have worked. This is a picture of the 1,2 benzendithiol and we are going to use this chemical on the left to make benz-cat, the picture on the right.

The Grabbing Hands Grab All They Can

Due entirely to my extreme wit, cunning nature, and exceptionally hypnotizing good looks, I was able to finish handing out all of the surveys within two hours, instead of the anticipated four. At exactly eight-thirty this morning, I filled up my mug with coffee and headed outside with a large pile of surveys. And, exactly two hours later, I was out, so now I am spending my extra time enjoying the cacophony of Joy Division and polishing up one of my articles- which I may post on here after seeing what Ms. Harings has to say about it.

The past couple days, I feel like I have learned so much about the exact place that I have spent the entirety of my life in- every plant has a name now, every rock has a purpose.

A little history:
Why is Saguaro National Park West's visitor center called "Red Hills Visitors Center"? Well..
The hills east of the visitor's center consist of purely red sedimentary rocks, called Recreation Redbeds, which are primarily volcanic ash, dust, mud and sand. During the Jurassic Period, they were deposited via streams and swamps, and were eventually lifted and exposed through volcanism.

I hope everybody else's projects are going well... I'm off to finish my article now!

As Kitten As A Cat

My apologies for the recent lack of communication- my internship has kept me quite busy! Between different programs and projects, I've hardly had the time to log on! So to update you..

Last week I had the opportunity to go to the Tohono O'adham Cultural Center up in Sells, Arizona-- it was spectacular! Not only did we get to go through the museum, but a native also gave a talk on the history and traditions of his people. Only downfall? Another speaker who promised to give us "a bit" of a lowdown on border issues around that area...and about two and a half hours later, I'm pretty sure he had told us every intricate detail that was stored in his brain..and then some.

This week has been consumed with a lot of driving around to different schools and...doing tortoise tracking groups! Today I spent all morning out in one of the washes with SNP's SCA, Erin, and we did a lot of identifying and tagging of different flora- especially since all the wildflowers are starting to bloom! Tomorrow is going to be pretty dry because I have to spend four straight hours of my shift surveying visitors...a task only the government would be so particular about. =) Then, on thursday, I am supposed to drive the government van to Robles Elementary and do a program regarding Saguaros with about 70 kindergardeners! And then.. Saturday, I'm going down to El Rio with one of the current seasonal rangers, Estie, and we are going to do another education outreach program from 9 to 2-- feel free to stop by! It's right near the School of the Deaf and Blind.

So by and large, I've been having a ton of fun..and I feel quite spiffy driving a government van!

Halfway

As I reach the halfway point of my trip to Argentina I can proudly say that I am going to Villa Arcadia! My bus leaves tomorrow night for La Prida, where I will stay with my aunt for the weekend. Then she will drive me to Sierra de la Ventana (about a two hour drive). I will be staying by myself (finally) for a week in huge old house that has been turned into a hotel. I found the hotel online and when my aunt called to doubble check my reservations she discovered that the owners of the house (now hotel) are old family friends. In addition the owner of the hotel knows everyone in the Coronel Suarez historical society and will make setting up appointmets way easyer.

Now for some deep thinking.... My documentary that I am planing on filming is (as most everyone knows by now.. I hope) about an article that my grandfather wrote about why he believes that his father is the sole founder of Villa Arcadia. My goal in visiting (and filming) Villa Arcadia is not to present them with this document or to "fight" for my grandfather's cause, but rather to understand why it is so important to my grandfather to make his point known. I find myself wondering, "what if my grandfather never wrote this document and he was right." This begs the question as what is history and what does it mean to different people and the biggest question of all is history truth. I hope to adress these questions by visiting the places that my grandfather talks about in his article and understand for myself what makes this area so important to the family. In filming and capturing the various aspects of the town I hope I can share that same passion with the viewers of y documentary while discussing the my insights on the menaing of history (and especially family history) that I have had and will have durring my trip.

This weeks suprise extras are pictures of belgrano (thats the neighbrohood I am living in) and the famous BA hipodromo (horse racetrack)

A day in Clinic

So recently, things have been pretty slow. Things will pick up as soon as i turn 18 and am allowed in the UMC operating room. Until then, I just have to sit tight and live with boring days of patient analysis and such. I did, however, spend a day in clinic and that was...well it was pretty funny in some ways. Granted, people recovering from life threating heart issues isn't funny in itself (its very serious actually), but some of the things these people do is just a little ironic. For example, there was a fellow preparing for his surgery by drinking giant energy drinks. That doesn't even make sense! Energy drinks are bad for you all the time! Especially before surgery!!!!! Anyways, hopefully i will have more interesting posts for you soon.

Peace and Love,
Molly

It's Not Library Time Yet

I was planning on going to the library this weekend (now that the photocopiers there are working again, they were broken and you aren't allowed to check out books) but I got rather ill on Saturday and so spent Saturday and Sunday morning out of commission. I wanted to go to the library today instead but as it turns out, it is a national holiday so nothing is open right now. So, I'll next be heading out to do more research on Wednesday. This is unfortunate, but I've got sufficient information to write my thesis and a good amount of support for my research paper, although there are still a few little problems that I'm unsure about regarding my interview. My travel journal is coming along swimmingly and it's a lot of fun to write. I celebrated my 18th birthday on Sunday (they celebrate everyone's birthday here on the weekend nearest one's actual birthday, since there are usually no celebrations during the weekday.) I got a really cool watch from my uncle and in two weeks my aunt and I are going to go visit the south of Tunisia for three days, in which we will be riding camels, visiting desert and mountain oasises (oases?) and the saharan gate, which sounds like it will be a blast. I realized that I may have been overly generous regarding the liberality of Tunisia. Recently it has become more and more apparent, but it caught me by surprise how different the country is from the United States. Still, I guess the lack of the liberality here might be beneficial, despite its costs, to the country and society as a whole. And, in comparison to its neighbors, Tunisia has definitely made strides in progressive thought, which is something to take into consideration.

I now fully understand why field work usually goes on for years. There is too much incongruity and too many variables for ecological studies to be conducted in a short span. One needs a lot of time to tie up all those loose ends. That being said, my project is going well, as in that I am enjoying it. Is it going successfully? Well, that's to be determined.

No evidence of bears at my sites this time, but I did see several bushtits (a bird, people, it's a type of bird) primping their elaborate nests. I also found Coues White-tailed Deer tracks near one of my sites. The tracks were in a creek and lightly washed away, so I couldn't determine exactly how many were around.

A less pleasant discovery was that another of my apparatuses went missing. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but I am pretty certain of its fate, considering how a beer bottle was in its place. Certainly peeving. I have taken to cleaning up my areas a bit as well. Nothing saddens me more than litter in such a pristine place.

I will again amend my project by finding a new location.

I hope you're all doing well,

Katharine

some sketches

Doing research for this project is way fun. I have three books that just reference for fashion, furniture, mechanics and architecture of the early 1900s. I even got a book on Soviet propaganda posters that is great for manly-man poses and group shots of people working together. Reading comics analytically is really interesting, too. There are so many techniques that I never really realized were there when I was just reading them for fun.

I also have some pictures of a few pages that I've sketched (these are in no way even close to the final version). My scanner is not cooperating with my computer, so I took these with a camera. Sorry for the quality. If you need me to, I'll totally post close-ups so you can see things better.

Failure

So, with my reactions working (at least somewhat a couple milligrams is good news here) I have not had much bad news, but this week I did. My first couple of reactions were pretty much guaranteed to work, this latest reaction has caused many of the grad students to fail. Two different grad students worked on this reaction at least one month and every single time they were met with failure. To further my research I must make benz-cat, but to make benz-cat we need to use this reaction that has never worked. So, what I am making is called 1,2 benzenedithiol. It is a three day reaction (and we ordered new chemicals for it so that everything would be fresh). This week we were able to run NMR on our oil and we discovered that we made something that most certainly is not 1,2 benzendithiol but something that has way too many hydrogens.
Because of this failure, I distilled the only non-fresh chemical (TMEDA) on Wednesday. This proccess would have worked better but someone kept turning our reaction off so it took longer. Next week on Monday I will be working up the 1,2 benzendithiol that I started reacting on Wednesday.
This week, the machines we normally use (such as the NMR) were completely having problems. The normal NMR I use is booked until Saturday, so we decided to use the 250 megahertz NMR, but it was being filled with helium. So we had to wait until it was done being filled. We came back and the shims were completely horrible. They wouldn't even lock onto our compound so we had to go get the tech guys. They had to play with it for forty minutes. It was kinda funny.