All Work and All Play...

It's impossible to feel dull here because even at it's most boring, there are colorful birds you'd never see at home flying above your head or the threat of snakes waiting to spit venom in your eyes, blind you, and kill you (see: spitting cobra).  (Sorry for all this snake talk, it's just a legitimate fear I have.  The other day, they found a puff adder by the dining hall.  Okay, funny story, I hadn't looked at the Wikipedia pages for these snakes until just now to include them in my blog, and actually, I'm less scared.  It looks like death is not 100%, as people have led me to believe.  Instead it's just very likely if you don't get the appropriate treatment and I'm pretty sure Princeton isn't about to have me die.  But then my friend just told me we have the Black Mamba here.  That's right, the BLACK MAMBA, where, if you don't get antivenom rapidly, YOU WILL DIE.  100%.  Snakes.  Why'd it have to be snakes...).  Okay, enough about snakes.  The reason it's been so long since my last blog post is because I've been working my bum off.  Seriously.  This past week we spent two full days collecting and piloting data on projects we created ourselves.  It was cool to see a project from start to finish - idea conception, troubleshooting, data collection, write-up - but it was so mentally draining.  The project my group came up with was about acacia ant defense.  We wanted to see if the different ant species would respond faster or slower to a stimulus applied to the swollen thorns they live in.  We also wanted to see if they would respond faster when they have more larvae in the swollen thorn.  What this entailed was working out in the acacia covered soil all day banging swollen thorns, timing responses, breaking open the thorns, and counting the number of larvae.  RIDICULOUSLY TIRING.  We did 90 trees over the course of 8 hours.  Then we had to analyze our data and right scientific papers incorporating literature reviews.  All of this in 4 days.  I've seriously never worked this hard in my life.  The thing is, I complain, but I know this is going to be super valuable for my thesis work.  Also, just working hard feels good once you're done with it.  I've done some much statistics and learned how to use this great statistical program (JMP Pro 10) that I'll be familiar with when I'm analyzing thesis data.  Okay, enough talking about the benefits, more complaining.  On top of the independent project papers, we were also revising the papers from our other project about acacia ant mutualism.  Additionally, about every four days, we have another discussion for which we had to read 6 papers.  Tomorrow I'm leading a discussion about antelope mating strategies.  One of my papers was 40 pages long.  More annoying than the fact that I had to read it and formulate discussion questions about it is the fact that no one else is going to read my article because it's so long.  So I'm going to have to drag people through a discussion of an article they haven't read...  Tomorrow we're also going to Ol Pejeta to do another project (but in this one we don't leave the cars!).  There will also be no internet so this is the last post for a while (Friday).

Team Banging Domatia (Swollen Thorns)

I titled this blog post All Work and All Play because although we're working all the time (today was Sunday, what Dustin, our professor, calls our day off but everyone was working hard to finish papers and read articles) we have fun while working.  Dustin is hilarious.  At first I thought he'd be kind of boring, but he's very good at witting sparing.  In addition, he tolerates our complaining, which is nice.  In the independent projects, my group had a romping good time!  There were lots of laughs.  In the end, we were all given nicknames.  Mine's Bix because I eat Weetabix all the time now to stay regular.  My roommate Devika's is Flash.  Caroline's is Squat (she squatted behind a tree to pee while we were in the field).  Rob's is Mazunga Warrior (Mazunga means "white warrior" in Swahili and while we were collecting data, Rob kept hoping lions would surround us so he could protect us from the lions with his calipers).  The group is really tight.  We're considering recording our exploits in a Real World-esque fashion with confessionals, but so far, we'd have to make up all the drama because none really exists.  The most controversial topic is probably the vegetarian and non-vegetarian factions that have formed, but that's super mild.  Speaking of mild, I've always been a fan of bland foods and can't really tolerate spice, but all the food here as sort of a kick to it and I think I'm building up my spice tolerance.  I'm very happy about this!  Tonight I had a dance off with Seokmin (pronounced Sock-man) and LOST.  WHAT?!  I was totally robbed.  He wasn't even ON BEAT.  Then Devika challenged him and also lost and I was like WHAT?!  The winner gets a wooden carving when we go into Nanyuki tomorrow, so I totally could've had a wooden carving.  Oh well... (Funny story about Seokmin, he does a great Hannibal Lecture from The Silence of the Lambs impression.  I told him I have the screenplay for TSotL on my computer, so hopefully we'll do a dramatic reading...)  

TENT 14, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

Luxury tenting Teddy Roosevelt style.

Speaking of Devika, MY ROOMMATE IS AWESOME.  We have a tent chant:  "TENT 14, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!"  We were recently talking about how no one else would probably want to room with us because we both are very particular about bugs.  We have specific tent protocols to minimize bug entry, including the placement of a sock in the zipper to close all gaps.  I had known Devika a little before now because we had back-to-back shows on WPRB, but I've gotten to know her, and all the other cool kids on this trip, so much more because talking is our major means of entertainment.  I think it's nice that we've had a lot of bonding time, I just want to stay in a ROOM WITH WALLS. After our trip to Ol Pejeta, we'll be returning to MRC and staying in the Princeton dorms (WITH WALLS! And a bathroom adjacent so I don't die going to the bathroom or peeing outside my tent!).  I mean, Princeton paid big bucks to make them, right?  So at the very least Princeton (and Columbia) students should stay in them!  (The TA on this course has personally told Devika and I that we should NOT do real field work because the tents at camps are super nice.  To that, I respond, sounds good to me.  I probably won't go to grad school because I can't really see this being my thing.  Also, I've totally slept in tents for long periods of time and dig it because the tents are so small you know what's in that tent with you.  The same isn't true of these jumbo luxury tents.  There could be a snake under my bed and I wouldn't even know.  I'd know if there was a snake in my one person Sierra Designs tent...).  I'm going to include a picture of our tent in this post.  Check it out.  In other news, I'm reading The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald to get ready for The Great Gatsby by Baz Luhrmann (release date May 10th).  So far it's really entertaining.  Where did this guy go to school, I mean Fitzgerald is so awesome, he must've gone to a University where other super awesome people go to school to this day (hint: it doesn't rhyme with jail or kori bustard...)!  Funny story, in the story The Great Gatsby, there's a character named Klipspringer, and here in Kenya, we have a small antelope called the Klispringer!

Email me stories from your life!  I feel like all I do is ramble on...

E

P.S.  Philosophical post still yet to come!

P.P.S.  Remember how I mentioned paper discussions.  Well, the other day we had one about hyena mating and it was pretty intense.  Here's a real excerpt from the paper (East et al. 2003) that I am re-titling Fifty Shades of Spotted Hyena:

"Figure 1 (THERE WAS A FIGURE!). During copulation males require the complete cooperation of females because of the unusual anatomy of female hyena genitalia, including an enlarged clitoris and the lack of a vulva. Urinary and genital tracts join to form a canal that passes through the clitoris with an opening at the tip of the clitoris directed downwards and towards the head. The male inserts his penis into the clitoris in a vertical fashion while perilously holding on to the back of the female."