January to July 2022

Mushrooms that fruited from the trees in my research, likely in the genus Inocybe

After a long break, I’m back for any curious readers! I’ve been so busy, doing anything extra like writing a blog post is difficult at best and usually impossible. But I’m currently on a long bus ride, so here we go.

Winter and spring quarters this year, I finished up my lower division major requirements. Lower division classes are usually more general and meant to provide background on subjects, while upper division classes focus on a specific subject and examine it at length. My last classes lower division classes included two quarters of environmental chemistry, statistics, and ecology. Spring quarter, I also took a biometry (statistical analysis of biological data) class in which I learned how to use R and R studio – a long-standing goal of mine. I thought I would dislike coding immensely, but I have actually really enjoyed it: I see it as a puzzle that helps you build tools through which you can understand the stories a dataset is telling you. Working in R is very high frustration and high reward – difficult problems that I can’t solve are incredibly frustrating, but once I solve the problem the sense of accomplishment I feel is unmatched.

In addition to my science classes, I took a sitar class in winter quarter and a clarinet choir class in spring quarter. Learning sitar was so interesting, and my music background and ear training allowed me to progress rapidly. Most instruments are painful in some way and require the musician to build callouses and stamina, but sitar especially so: the strings are thin and cut into your fingers until the skin has hardened, and the misrab (a small wire pick you wear on your right hand to pluck the strings) digs into your fingers where the skin becomes fingernail. At the end of our 10-week class, we gave a successful concert.

In addition to my classes, my research has considerably picked up the pace. During winter and spring quarters, I put in 10-12 hours of work per week. I am still paid off the grant I was awarded last December, meaning I don’t need to work another job in addition. I also hired a data collection assistant – we received 27 applicants to our job ad, interviewed 5, and chose 1. This was a new process to me, and it still feels strange to be recognized as the “boss” of someone at the same point in their academic career as I am. However, having someone help me collect and input seemingly endless data has made this project significantly more manageable.

Since the summer has started, I have been working more than full-time on the project, often putting in 9-10 hour days. In June I collected the last dataset on the physiology of my plants in the greenhouse, which involved clamping a leaf in a complicated machine to determine how much photosynthesis each plant was doing, as well as taking other measurements like stem length and soil moisture. These measurements allow me to build a picture of how the seedlings are reacting to extended drought stress and different kinds of symbiotic fungi on the roots. At the end of July, we will harvest all the plants to weigh them and sequence the DNA from the roots to determine which species of mushrooms are on which plant.

Slideshow of some research pictures. The first couple are from the lab, and the last couple are root tips with fungi on them under the microscope.

This past week, I presented a poster at my first academic conference, the North American Congress for Conservation Biology (NACCB), which is happening in Reno, Nevada this year. I went with Annika, which made navigating the conference easier and not as lonely. I loved hearing about the different kinds of research people are doing, and it gave me a lot of hope. In the news cycle we often focus on doom and gloom messaging, especially about environmental issues. This conference allowed me to meet people who are working hard on solving all kinds of problems, and sometimes succeeding in amazing ways. In August, I am heading to Montreal, Canada for the Ecological Society of America (ESA) conference with a group of people from my lab. This next conference will be much more hard science and less policy focused than NACCB, and I’m glad I have the opportunity to participate in the whole spectrum of ecological conferences.

On my way to Davis via train with my poster wrapped up in a beach cloth, presenting the poster during the poster session, and Annika and I at the end of the conference.

Views from our hotel room in Reno, and hiking at the beginning and end of the conference.

I am still living at Manley co-op, and I still love it. Towards the end of the year, we had an unfortunate amount of differing personal preferences between the people living in the house. Combined with strong personalities, this led to people taking sides in disputes that had been growing all year with little chance to dissipate since we all live with each other and see each other almost every day. As usually happens in these kinds of situations, I managed to play a bit of both sides, or at least remain civil with everyone, even if I did share more preferences with one side than the other. At times, I acted as a mediator when a difficult conversation between two members was necessary.

My roommate that I lived with all last year moved out, and Summer, a housemate and close friend, moved in. She and I both have loft beds, which means that we had space to get a comfy chair and a beanbag chair in our room, as well as keep an extra mattress on the wall for guests. Our room is a nice, quiet space to work, read comfortably, or hang out with a group of people. Summer is everything I could wish for in a roommate. We are good friends, have similar sleep schedules, have similar standards of what level of messy/dirty is acceptable, and strive to keep the window open as much as possible. Spending time with her feels as close to being alone as I can get with another person in the room – both of us simply coexisting pleasantly in silence, ready to talk or listen if the other wants to talk.

Some Manley pictures.

A funny story: one night, an opossum wandered in through our open doors. One of my housemates caught it and put it back outside, but it was quite an adventure.

Some highlights from the first half of 2022 in chronological order:

For Brian’s 60th birthday, we rented an AirBnB in Morro Bay for a weekend. The whole family was there, and Shannon and Everett from Flagstaff and one of Brian’s friends from college joined us as well. We went hiking, played board games and had great conversations.

A couple weeks later, I went backpacking with some of my housemates in Big Sur, which is a beautiful area. Living away from home has made me realize how special it is to find people who like to backpack, know how to do it, and have all the gear necessary to do so – the combination of all three is somewhat of a rarity. Growing up, backpacking was a given; if there was a long weekend, of COURSE we went backpacking – what else could you do? Leaving home has made me realize how special it was.

Slideshow of Big Sur camping.

Just before spring break, I got an undercut, which is when the hair at the bottom of your head is shaved but the rest is left long. I have been working on growing out and taking proper care of my hair for well over two years now, and it is well below shoulder length, thick, and curly. Not having hair at the base of my neck minimizes the cloud of insulation on my head, preventing me from overheating in the summer. I have several male housemates with electric razors to shave their beards, which I request them to use to keep my undercut short and tidy every two weeks. The best part is that when my hair is down, you can’t even tell that a quarter of my head is shaved – its like a surprise hairstyle that I can show only when I want to.

Over spring break, I went camping in Big Sur again with a different set of housemates, and then we met up with my family! It was fun to have everybody together, although my housemates decided to tell my family all the crazy things that go on in our house as I sat at the end of the table and repeated “I was NOT part of that!!”

We threw several fun parties, and several parties that got very out of hand. This was a big point of contention in the house: the people who enjoyed the huge parties were not the ones making sure people were OK or spending hours cleaning up the next day. For our last party, Manley Prom, we threw a very small party, which was really enjoyable for everyone who had been overwhelmed by previous parties. Tovia came down for the weekend for that party, which I really enjoyed, and she did too! I’m glad we go to college only 2.5 hours away from each other and can visit occasionally.

Manley Prom

One night, we decided to do a bonfire on the beach as a house. On our way back along the bluffs, I was walking with a friend when we saw something white scuttle across the beam of my headlight. It was a hamster! Someone had obviously “set him free” – if we had not found him, he would have been a snack for a raccoon, skunk, or owl before morning. The hamster did not know how to escape into the bushes, and we were able to catch him relatively easily. I zipped him up in my jacket pocket and brought him home. Now, his name is Pistachio, and he lives in a cardboard box in my room. He doesn’t let anybody hold him, but I still enjoy the company of a small animal.

This year would have marked the 44th Peaks Hike. However, two days before I was supposed to leave, the San Francisco Peaks caught on fire, and half of the city was placed on pre-evacuation orders. On the day I was supposed to take the bus down, I had to make the difficult decision not to go. I look forward to this trip – being in the mountains, seeing my friends, visiting Shannon and Grace – every year more than any other yearly event. I won’t be able to go next year, seeing as I will be on the other side of the world. It appears I have not mentioned it, but I will be studying abroad at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand from February to June 2023! I will primarily be taking courses related to my minor in American Indian and Indigenous Studies. In New Zealand, better known as Aotearoa, the Maori hold a very prominent position in society. Although I have not chosen my classes, I will be taking classes like “Science, Maori and Indigenous Knowledge” and Toku Reo, which is the Maori language. The professor who leads my lab did most of the field work for her PhD in New Zealand and worked closely with a professor at the University of Canterbury. I am hoping to work in his lab there too, doing similar work as I am now in a completely different place.

Instead of going to Flagstaff, Summer and I decided to drive up to Davis and spend a few days visiting my family and her hometown, which is about an hour and a half away from Davis. It was great to be back for a bit and to spend some time with friends.

1st picture: Davis friends. 2nd picture: Summer in a bookstore near her hometown. 3rd picture: Summer with a ginormous tent her family gave her.

The weekend after, my Santa Barbara capoeira group had their big event where they brought in several Mestres from around California and Brazil. We had workshops Wednesday night, Thursday night, Friday night, and all day Sunday. On Saturday we marched in the Santa Barbara Solstice Parade and did capoeira on the street. Sunday culminated in the belt ceremony; this capoeira group gives out belts to mark what level you are at in capoeira. I am, quite honestly, not a fan of this and have resisted getting a belt until this point. I think the belts are senseless because everyone can see how well you play capoeira from seeing how you move, and sometimes people have the same belt color but realistically have very different skill levels. At one of the workshops, a Mestre hurt one of the participants during a demonstration because he assumed, based on her belt color, that she would know how to escape a certain kick; if he had evaluated based on how she moved instead, he would have quickly seen that she was not sure what he wanted from her. I figured, however, since I am here and doing capoeira regularly, I may as well conform to their system and be seen as an in-group member while I am here. Skipping belts is not an option, so despite years of prior capoeira experience, I now hold the lowest belt ranking. I have no problem holding that ranking, but I dislike the system in general.

After the conference in August, I will be in Germany from August 20 till September 13 to visit family and friends. Once back in Santa Barbara, I will be taking classes in the fall (Environmental Impact Analysis, Ecological Modeling, and Fundamentals of Music) and then preparing to head off to New Zealand in January!