June 22, 2009

GOOD-NESS I have a lot to report. My apologies, I thought I had written more recently than I actually did. Shame on me. I am not even sure where to begin. The last few months have truly blended together. So the last time you heard from me, I was returning from Madagascar. Slightly exhausted, and rather thrilled to have a wardrobe again. As you may know, we left Madagascar just before political unrest really got started. My plant samples that we collected did not get out in time, and I have only just received the hundreds of little dried pieces of green that cost us $20,000. I am very, very happy to have these in my possession, and am grateful to my Malagasy colleagues who went to great lengths to get them to me.

So, moving right along with my year- In February, Matt and I visited Toronto, our future home. We decided that if we were able to enjoy the city in February, we would be able to enjoy it any time of year. The trip went way better than either of us could have expected. Matt’s department is warm and welcoming, and the professor I was looking to work with was very receptive to my ideas. What’s more, Matt’s department was able to scrounge money to fund me for a post doc for a year, which will make it possible for both of us to go to Canada in the fall. I cannot believe how well this worked out. It’s almost like a scientific fairy tale. As you all probably know, finding a job right now is pretty tough, and that’s especially so in the academic world. I cannot believe my stroke of good luck, and I can assure you several wonderful people received some very grateful thank you notes.

We returned from Canada in good spirits. I had a month to get my act together before defending my thesis proposal (and hopefully advancing to candidacy), and thanks to several strokes of hard work and luck, I now had hundreds of new mouse lemur fur samples to process. My brother and his girlfriend, Rose, were able to come out to visit Santa Cruz at the beginning of March, and then it was time to qualify. I must say, this sure has been a full year. For those of you who are not in academia, let me briefly regale you with the intimacies of defending one’s dissertation in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at UC Santa Cruz: One stands in front of four professors (in my case three professors, and one professor on a conference call) and spends three hours presenting and defending his or her dissertation plans. This is a nerve wracking experience, and is actually quite a different experience than that comprehensive exam that I took in the fall. During the comprehensive exam, I was expected to know something about everything, during my qualification exam, I was expected to know everything about something – isotope ecology of lemurs and plants, past, present, and possibly future. Yikes! I passed my qualifying exam with what I hope were flying colors. If anything, my committee was itching to get out of the room and away from my extremely detailed and long powerpoint presentation. The disappointment is, of course, that there is still so much to do, but every day I chip away at the rock that is my dissertation. At least after qualifying, I now have a game plan, and I have my committee behind me. The final step of the qualifying process is giving a public talk to the department. It was actually really rewarding to give a talk to my peers, especially now that I have put so much thought into my projects.

After finishing my exam, I felt a bit of a relief. My excellent childhood friend, Megan, made it out to Santa Cruz the weekend after I finished and I really enjoyed sharing some of our updated Santa Cruz life with her. Megan took off and my work recommensed.

As far as academics go, the last four months have been a whirlwind tour of sample analyses which would not have been possible without the aid of a small army of marvelous helpers, and trips to Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where I have been graphitizing my subfossil lemurs for carbon dating. The trips to Livermore were definitely rewarding experiences, and it was really valuable for me to work first-hand in a new lab environment. The graphitization process is a bit complicated and I can proudly say I prepped all of my own samples. I’m also happy that I am finished with this part of my research. If you are curious about what’s entailed, feel free to ask me more about it. I am now in the process of finishing the second chapter of my dissertation. That leaves just one more to go…

We’ve had some really nice weather throughout the spring and summer and have spent many hours playing bocci ball at our beautiful Ocean View Park at the end of our street. One weekend my Turks and Caicos friend, Kristine, was able to come up from Santa Barbara and join us. I was thrilled to see her as we haven’t seen each other since we parted ways in O’hare in December 2005.

News beyond work and bocci is immense. We’ve spent several weekends up in San Francisco for events like Beerfest, Bay to Breakers, and pub-crawls (all of which were rather epic experiences). We’ve also been spending some time at Santa Cruz’ Boardwalk, which is a 100-year-old amusement park on the beach. The boardwalk has some great rides (and good people watching) but also puts on free outdoor concerts on Friday evenings. Tomorrow night will be Starship, and next week Eddie Money. Fun times.

Bigger events: Matt and I got engaged on Memorial Day. He then finished grad school in June and his parents came out and treated us to a much-needed vacation. I’m a bit jealous, but he’s still working hard on his research, and my day is approaching. I plan to defend on December 2nd. Yikes!

So what next? Well, we’re moving to Toronto in a month. Yes, it’s time to leave Santa Cruz. Both Matt and I have postdoctoral fellowships lined up and we have spent the past two weeks trying to find a place to live. This is a big step for us. Just moving out of our current residence is a big step for us (Matt has lived here for nearly 5 years and we have amassed a host of intriguing belongings ranging from scientific texts to a foosball table to rocks to 50 gallon fish tanks and trees. Sadly not all of these things can move with us to Canada, and we have been taking time every day to set aside things that come from things that stay. We’ll be having a plant party to encourage our green-thumbed friends to take home some of our much-loved forest that we’ve created in our house, and we’ll be meeting with our friend Sarah, to show her how to care for multiple fish tanks full of frogs, 20”-long dragon gobies and little clear fish that can only be seen from up close in the right light. This is a sad process for us and rather exhausting, but we’ve all agreed that it makes more sense to leave creatures and plants here in Santa Cruz than to try to move them anywhere else. So, that’s that. Just four weeks left in coastal California, and then it will be time for us to make our way eastward. If you think you might like to come visit in Toronto, please do. It looks like we have a fantastic place to live. It’s not the most spatious of abodes, but it’s right next to the university and it has a stellar view.

By the way, I saw some blond raccoons during one of my stints up in Livermore. The neighbor of my host fed raccoons at night, and one of the families was entirely blond! Weird.

So, that’s that. Goodbye Santa Cruz, hello Canada.