beijing north train station

ode to a field notebook

This one is not the first, and it certainly will not be the last, but it is the latest in a long line of reliable field assistants.  Like that preppy family that seems to always have a Golden Retriever named Molly, I buy a new one of these babies every time the old one runs out of pages. 

It has served, in no particular order, as:

-data sheet

-pillow

-plate

-hammer

-rain hat

-battering ram

-plant press

-seat

-bug squisher

-visor

-tripod

-t.p.

-kindling

-and I'm sure several more uses that are slipping my mind at the moment.

I have used them to record everything from fire weather to GPS coordinates to plant lists to sampling locations and everything in between. 

The pages are waterproof, and they have grid lines.  Oh, I'm a sucker for the grid; far superior to regular lined pages.  

They come in spiral bound and flip top styles as well, but give me the traditional bound every time.  I like to be able to stack them together on my bookshelf; tangible evidence of fieldwork accomplished.

It is not too much hyperbole to say that if I did not love biology so much already, I would become a biologist just to get to use this notebook.  

The End.

living arrangements

Life here at the Naiman Desertification Research Station is pretty slow. I'm not really complaining-- after 6 months of total insanity, an enforced slower pace is probably good for me. However, sometimes I need a little more stimulation than hanging out with myself and my laptop in my little room every night.

Since I am a 'foreign guest', I am housed in the newest building (see dormitory). It has rooms for senior staff and professors on the first floor, rooms for Chinese guests on the third floor, and rooms for foreign guests on the second floor. I assume these divisions are mostly due to the style of toilet, but I haven't seen inside any other rooms to check out any other differences. I happen to be the only guest at the moment, so I have this floor all to myself. I am also the only woman in the building, as the staff, professors and researchers (kind of like post-docs) are all men.

The Chinese graduate students (male and female) are housed in a building across the courtyard.
For the most part this is fine with me. I mean, I 'm not going to complain that I have my own bathroom and I don't have to hike out to the outhouse building all night. And it is not as if all the other grad students are over there having a party every night. Most of them spend their evenings in their rooms on their laptops too. But they have their doors open, and people are coming and going and chatting and whatever... there is camaraderie.

It is not so much that I am lonely, it's that I am bored with myself and my simple little evening routine of blog posting and yoga podcasting and chinese lesson listening....

I leave for a conference in Beijing in 2 days and I am so ready for a break. I booked my train ticket a day early so I can have a day in the city (still by myself, but at least there will be things to do!). Then in the eve I'll meet up with some other American grad students for some good old-fashioned happy hour. Hallelujiah.

So much STUFF:

Packing the night before I left was, in hindsight, not the best idea. I brought waaaaay too many clothes. I mean, obscenely too many. What was I THINKING? I can't even tell you the bad choices I made regarding footwear.

However, I did make a few wise choices. The smartest things I packed were:
coffee
plastic baggies of various sizes
Sharpies

I was feeling crazy for bringing them, but all were infinitely more wise than the 4 pairs of shoes I left back in Beijing in a fellow grad student's closet.

In fact, I should have brought more coffee. The coffee was definitely my best packing decision.

oh, the FOOD.
The thing about being at a field station is that I have to eat what they prepare, and I can't really skip a meal, or people get worried. However, this is not a prob b/c the food here is excellent, and I am going to come back to the US all roly-poly from my three gigantic meals every day. So many different veggies at every meal! (all cooked with meat in them, of course). Americans don't know what they are doing with vegetables.
This does not stop the station director from asking me quite regularly if I wouldn't really, honestly, rather be eating hot dogs. I try to explain that even in America I eat more Chinese food than hot dogs, but he's lived in the US, and knows that American-style Chinese food is pretty much the same thing as hot dogs, when compared to real Chinese food.

the LANGUAGE

maybe you didn't get the memo, so let me fill you in on a little-known secret: Mandarin is HARD. Even when I think I know how to say something, I invariably get the tones wrong. And even when I'm pretty sure I have said things correctly, everyone still busts out laughing everytime I speak, and repeats what I say like an echo.
Me: "Han hao chi."
Everyone around me: chuckle, chuckle 'han hao chi!' chuckle chuckle.
All in good fun, though. Right?

setting PRIORITIES
Speaking of trying to learn the language, I might have to put all of that on the back burner a bit and focus on the real task at hand (research) and the impending Task of Doom which is my oral exams, which I have to take when I get back, and for which I should be spending all of my free time studying, except that when you don't even know how to ask the nice man with the keys for the key to the lab, and it is locked, and you need to work on said research, well... sometimes I go in circles regarding the priorities.

crazy-making
I have mentioned in the past how spending long hours in the desert turns my brain into a budget, poorly curated diner jukebox. Today's hit? Red Red Robin.
Yeah, that one. The bob-bob-bobbin'-along one.

accoutrement

breakthrough

trying to get started on data collection

It has been a week of ups & downs.  On the up side, I had a chance to take a day trip to another province to check out a research station there.  But I have been running into lots of snags on my way to getting my research really moving along.  I hit my lowest point a few days ago, when the communication issues, research planning stress and linger health-related issues all collided into a wet, soggy pile of kleenex.  I think part of the problem was/is also that, while everyone here has been more than kind, I have no release vale here -- no way to get away from it for a few hours and blow off some steam.  I need a happy hour!  But I've been receiving great support from afar from friends and family, which has helped immensely.  

i love the straight up old-school labs around here

Today I found some different equipment that will help me to do what I need to do in a more timely fashion, and had a chance to talk through my experimental design with one of the grad students here who had some really great feedback and tips, based on some of his previous research.  I'm feeling recharged and ready to get (re)started. 

I've also been tracking another blogger, as she documents her international research, and she is pretty much writing the exact words & emotions floating around in my brain, but in a much more coherent way, so maybe you should just go ahead and read her blog instead.

sample location H-S1-5

chinese Teletubbies

i know, right?

These clouds are intense.

signage

In Inner Mongolia 90% of the signs are in Chinese AND Mongolian characters.
This means that I can't read the signs twice over, but I love it anyway.

trip to town