Home Again

I made it home! I’m very, very jetlagged but I want to post one more time. In my very first post, I listed three goals. How did I do on each of them?

1. Post to the blog at least five days per week. I did it! Yay!

2. Finish at least 80% of the changes that I need to make to the paper that I’m writing. This one is a little harder to measure, but I think I did it. I’ve made most of the big changes and gave my adviser a revised copy. When I get it back from him, I’ll have a better sense of how I did.

3. Work well with all of you at DLMS! This one is up to you to tell me. Did you learn from the blog? Did you enjoy it? Did you see how awesome it is to be a scientist?

And here I am, controlling the winch! I’ll see you all back in school. But before I finish this post, I need to say thank you to the people who made this blog possible:

Thanks to the captain and crew of the R/V Melville for running a great ship and letting me photograph everything.

Thanks to the chief scientist for an awesome cruise and for being so supportive of this blog.

Thanks to everyone on both watches for helping out.

Thanks to Drew, the chief, Kyla, Zach, Suzanne, Alette, Pach, and everyone else who specifically helped with the blog.

Thanks to my mother for reading the blog every day and sending me comments.

Thanks to your teachers, Ms. Blomberg, Ms. Brooks, and Ms. Caldwell for working with me on this project and to your principal for supporting them.

Thanks to Rob Quatrone and Sara Scovronick at CERC for making this happen.

Thanks to Bob Newton and Nancy Degnan for running the LEEFS program that brought me to DLMS.

And last but not least, thanks so much to all of you, who made this a really fun and special cruise for me. You guys rock and I can’t wait to see everyone in school again!

Thrills & Chills & Rainbows

Last semester, Ms. Caldwell invited me to participate in her advisory. I really liked it, so I thought I’d use what I learned there and tell you about my own thrills & chills for this cruise.

The biggest thrill of all is that the chief scientist wants to write a paper about the solitons with me and my friend Zach. He’s been really happy with my work on the LADCPs and on the solitons, and told me so. Being a graduate student can be very hard because everyone expects your best work all the time. Sometimes you do your best work and it that still isn’t good enough. But this time my work is being noticed and appreciated, so I’m very proud of myself.

The biggest chill is missing home. I have friends out here, but I miss my friends at home and my family. I email with my mother every day, but it’s not the same as talking to her.

When you’re at sea, you sometimes forget about the outside world completely and only the ship seems real. Keeping this blog has made this cruise different than other ones because I feel connected to all of you.

Here are a few more thrills
- The solitons! Solitons are awesome.
- Seeing sunsets! I love sunsets.
- Having time to read books. I read a lot at sea.
- Getting to fix things. I’m good at fixing things, and even though I get frustrated when they break, fixing them makes me feel satisfied.

And some more chills, too
- Never having a day off. We work 12 hours a day, seven days a week. I’d like at least an evening off, but that doesn’t happen here
- Not being able to decide what to eat. The food has been great out here, but I’m not always in the mood for what the cooks are making.

Here’s a photo of one more thrill:

And now a science question: what makes rainbows?

Hi everyone, and welcome to the blog! This is like the first day of school for me: I want to make a good impression, set some goals, and get settled into a new routine.

Overview
This blog is a way for all of us to communicate while I’m at sea. I’ll be showing you what it means to be a scientist at sea and working with your teachers so that you can be part of our science team. That means you’ll be analyzing data, making hypothesis, explaining results, and maybe even designing some experiments.

My goals while at sea
1. Post to the blog at least five days per week. I know that some posts will be longer than others, and some posts will be better than others, but I want to be posting nearly every day. Some days will probably have more than one post so that I can write different things for each grade, so I’m setting this goal around days that I post, not the number of posts.

2. Finish at least 80% of the changes that I need to make to the paper that I’m writing. I recently completed a goal that I set earlier this year, which was to have a research paper of mine accepted to a scientific journal. I worked very hard towards that goal and now I’m feeling happy and proud of myself for achieving it. But I need to make some changes before the paper can published, so that’s my new goal.

3. Work well with all of you at DLMS! Just like you, I have planner where I write down all of the work I have to do. I like being very organized and knowing what is expected of me. For me, working on this project is taking a risk because nobody can tell me how it will turn out or what the finished product will look like. Since this is something new, I’ll probably make some mistakes along the way. It will be your job to tell me when that happens and help me fix any problems. At the same time, it will be my job to listen to what you have to say.

Right now, I’m still at home, packing. I leave for the airport in a few hours and then I’ll fly to Manila. My next post probably won’t be until Wednesday, when I get to the ship. Until then, please tell me in the comments: what would you like to see in this blog?

This is a picture of the route I'll take from New York (United States to Seoul (Korea), to Manila (the Philippines). Look how close we go to the north pole! Is this the shortest route the plane can fly?