The Marine Station
I am now living in Oregon for a brief 31 days. I am the TA for a BYU professor who is guiding a small study abroad (that isn’t abroad) here. The subject matter is Marine Biology of which I know nothing. However, I have worked with Dr Rader for a full year now and will soon be his grad student, so who else would he bring? I am working with Ecology in particular which I TAed last semester, so I can do something. We are staying in the Oregon Institute of Marine Biology which is a campus owned and run by the University of Oregon (I think that is the duck one).
Our group consists of 10 BYU students, myself, another TA (who I have known for two years now), and Dr Rader for a total of 13. We made a bit of a splash at church on Sunday. We get to be here for one fast month. We have two classes, Marine Ecology and General Ecology. I don’t actually have to go to class although I will (have) teach a few sessions. We are also conducting a research project on decomposing leaves in the intertidal zone.
I have a few personal goals for the trip. I wanted to watch the sunset every day. The first three days it rained. I took pictures anyway. Today I missed it being thoroughly engaged in research. But that’s only 1 day out of seven. Pretty good. My other goal is to finish up my honors thesis. It will be much harder. I have been very very busy. Even on Saturday I had to drive a visiting scientist to Eugene for a flight. 6 hour trip. Still, it is wonderful to see Oregon. My final goal is to fall in love with the sea. I hope to do this by personal knowledge of life forms, significant experiences with it, and appropriate reading material.
It’s nice to eat in a cafeteria again. This is a lot like Jerusalem, except much harder for outsiders to appreciate and much more casual. Well, Breakfast is at 7.
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