Spelunking!

Posted on July 11, 2012 by awallace

Okay, so there is a whole giant list of awesome experiences I had in Arizona.  Even though we were there to work, we did have some opportunities to explore and have fun too.  You’d think that, in the middle of nowhere, there wouldn’t be much to do, but that was never a problem.  We didn’t have a huge abundance of free time, but I kid you not, there were more fun things to do at a research station in the wilderness than on a typical Saturday in “civilization” (or perhaps the fun was just more up my alley).

The great news for us UPS students who were at SWRS for the first time is that most of the staff are very knowledgeable about the area.  Additionally, the station is so small that, after only a week or two, everyone knows everyone and is friendly with everyone.

That’s how we (Tony, Jay, and myself) ended up going spelunking one evening our second week of being there.  Elaine, one of the kitchen assistants, just happened to find this cave on day while out exploring, within walking distance from the station.  There are some really cool caves in the Chiricahuas, even though this is the only one we visited.  I unfortunately don’t know much about them, but I heard one is great because of its archaeological remains and cave paintings, found somewhere in the cliffs surrounding the station.

The cliffs where the cave paintings are supposedly located, taken from the back of a moving jeep.

The other, better-known cave is Crystal Cave, which was very close to our mini cave.  True to it’s name, it supposedly has some pretty awesome crystals in it, but it remains locked part of the year to protect the bats roosting in there.

The entrance to Crystal Cave. The openings allow the bats to fly in and out.

The UPSers, along with Elaine and some fellow herpetologists from the station, set off around dusk, headlamps in tow.  It was about a 15-20 minute hike to the top of a large hill, with narrow trails and many a poky plant.  The tagline we developed after awhile was “Arizona: where everything is poky” (seriously, it’s true).  We then arrived at this little hole in the ground:

The entrance!

For anyone with clausterphobia, this may look terrifying.  I think my picture also makes it look a fair amount smaller than it actually was, which was at least 2-3 meters in diameter.  It was maybe 10 feet to the bottom as well, so it really wasn’t that crazy of a feat.

Inside, however, it opened up to a large cavern, with plenty of nooks and crannies for exploring.  I wish I knew more about geology so I could talk about all the different kinds of rocks in there or offer some more knowledgeable commentary, but I can’t do it justice.  All I can really say is that it was AWESOME.  Even in this small and shallow of a cave, it was like stepping into a different world.  It was quite humid yet cool down there, a stark contrast the the aridity outside, and had a dank, earthy smell.  We spent about a half hour down there, just crawling around and seeing how far everything went (not far).

Me in one of the crannies I managed to climb into.

We wrote our names in the log they had there, which was kept in this giant metal cylinder to keep out the damp, and took lots of pictures.

Logger unite! Tony, Jay and me in the main cavern.

I would totally do this for a hobby!  I will admit, though, I was happy to feel the fresh air and see open spaces again, and I definitely would not have been happy staying in there for too long.

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Insight into China

Posted on July 5, 2012 by ssenaga

Week three here in Shanghai, I can’t believe how fast time flies, the internship is going great! This week at Sodamedia, I have been conducting market research on the latest innovations/trends in digital marketing and advertisement. Paul, my mentor has provided me with a bunch of blogs to overlook. PSFK is a great site that covers everything from digital, advertisement, and creative ideas from around the world! Some of the products and ideas are unreal! I also read posts on Jing Daily to familiarize myself with the latest trends in China and how the luxury market is performing there. Paul says it is extremely important to stay current with the lastest news to broaden your knowledge of this ever changing industry we call digital marketing.  I am working on doing weekly blog posts for Sodamedia’s site on the latest trends, so I will provide the link in my next post!

Drunken Chicken, Fried Fish w/Soy Sauce, Lotus Root with Sticky Rice, Minced Veggie Dish

Over the weekend, I had lunch with a friend of a friend of my dad’s (that was a long connection), Lillian, who grew up in Shanghai and currently works at JP Morgan. She treated me to some authentic Shanghainese cuisine and overall, the dishes were delicious! I especially enjoyed the crab entrees as well as the drunken chicken soaked in a sake like base. By the end of the lunch, I was stuffed! We then journeyed via cab to Fudan University. Lillian says Fudan is one of the best/most notorious universities in Shanghai, so it was refreshing and interesting to walk around the university. It’s a complete contrast to the landscape of UPS, but it was beautiful in a different sense. Students flocked the basketball courts playing under incredibly humid conditions! One of the newer buildings on the campus resembled a Skyscraper!  It was crazy to think this was just a normal building a part of campus!

Fudan University Building

Crab meat with Bok Choy

I also visited East Nanjing Road and toured the Bund area (which was truly amazing!) Waited till the sun had set and viewed the illuminated Pudong Skyline and the French inspired buildings on the Bund. This area is definitely a must see in Shanghai!

A funny trend has been persisting since my arrival here in Shanghai, all of the locals automatically talk to me in Chinese. Unfortunately, I have only studied Japanese in high school (thinking it is a priority to learn the language of my culture). Therefore, I have no idea what they are saying! :/ The fun variable to consider are the times I explore the city with Chris, who is from Colorado and looks very American. This is usually how an interaction will play out. The cashier/waitress will direct the comment towards me in Chinese. I will look at them with confusion. Chris will then interject, speaking in Chinese, trying to explain to them I don’t know the language. Then the cashier/waitress will continue to talk to me in Chinese, thinking I still understand. Though this situation can be hard at times, at the moment all I can do is laugh and make the best out of it. I have been slowly learning some words, but my progress is slow…But this has provided me even more motivation to learn this complex, yet very useful language called Chinese. ~Shelby

Pudong Skyline

The Bund

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Lessons in science and research.

Posted on July 3, 2012 by awallace

Hello again!  My time in Arizona has finally come to an end – I just arrived back home in Vancouver yesterday evening.  I can’t accurately express how wonderful an experience it was: educational, amazing, life-changing, beautiful, stressful.  All at once.

Nonetheless, for various reasons and excuses, I didn’t post as frequently as I should have.  So the next best thing, even if it’s not ideal, will be for me to post about my experiences retrospectively.  Consider it storytime 🙂  A lot happened in those six weeks, so I’ll start with the most significant:  the changes I made to my project.

If you recall from my last post, I began my time in Arizona studying the lizards’ behavioral response to presented skin lipids out in the field.  My methods for doing this were thus:  every day I would go out to the field with Tony, who was working on population viability and census work.  His goal was to capture and mark every individual virgatus on the study sites.  This made all of my work a lot easier, because I could determine the sex of the lizards at a glance based on the paint code he assigned them (later in the reproductive season, when the females became gravid and looked like they were about to pop, sexing became much easier, but at this point it was still pretty helpful).  I would then capture anywhere between 2 and 5 females and, very carefully, swab their backs and sides with hexane to pick up the lipophilic skin compounds.  I would then store this swab in a glass vial immediately.

The next day, I would go back out in the field and present these cues, along with hexane and plain swab controls, to males.  I did so by attaching the swabs to the end of a 10 foot fishing pole, so as to not scare them away when I approached.

My setup for presenting the chemical cues in the field.

I would position the swab within a body length of the male, count to ten, and then, using a voice recorder (thank you iPhone), count all the behaviors and movements I observed.

I did this for 2-3 weeks, until I got sample sizes of 15-20 for each treatment group, and ran some preliminary stats.  That’s when I l came upon lessons in research #1: A lot of times experiments don’t work.

My p values were astronomical.  I ran every kind of test you can imagine, and not once did any even come close to being significant.  There’s another important lesson buried in these events: #2 insignificant results are still results.  But there also comes a point where you, as the scientist, need to use your judgment and assess your methods.  Seeing as I’d spent countless hours running these trials and becoming familiar with the ways of these lizards, I truly believed that my methodology was ineffective.  The whole purpose of running behavioral trials in the field was to get the most realistic response possible.  But  there’s this classic trade-off that I first learned about in my Ecology course and got to experience first-hand: in the field you get accuracy but lack control, whereas in the lab you lack that accuracy but gain back the control.

In my situation, I really needed control.  It was just impossible for me to quantitively say whether or not the lizards were really responding (or not responding) to my cues because they weren’t interested in them, or because they weren’t even perceiving them, or because they were too distracted to interact with them.

So that was a woeful discovery, but an important lesson and reminder to me about my priorities in doing this research.  Yes, I’d received a grant to do this and would be required to present my results at the Student Research Symposium, so there was a certain push to get good results.  In the end, however,  I was participating in the scientific process, and it’s just as important to know what doesn’t work as what does.  In the words of Thomas Edison:

“I have not failed.  I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

The good news: I didn’t leave Arizona with no results.  I still had time to re-organize things and try out something new, but I’ll save the details for another post.  Instead, I’ll leave you with the most significant lesson of all, lesson #3: Nothing really goes according to plan, and you can’t anticipate what will happen.  Resourcefulness, creativity and flexibility are therefore a lot more important for this work than I at least originally thought.

This was both fun and stressful.  Overall, I enjoyed the challenge and still believe that going into research is the thing for me.

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First Impression of Shanghai

Posted on June 23, 2012 by ssenaga

Greetings from Shanghai! After a 12 plus hour journey from Hawaii and a pit stop in Korea, I can officially say I have arrived!  It is surreal to think I will be spending the next two months here in the city! I have heard so many great things about Shanghai from family members who have spent time in this very cosmopolitan and developed city. I have never been to China before nor do I speak the language. This alone was a big step outside of my comfort zone, but I knew doing this internship abroad was a rare opportunity that I could not turn down.

This summer, I will be interning at Sodamedia, a digital marketing agency that produces amazing and innovative mobile applications, print campaigns, and websites. Ted Sanders, a UPS alum who graduated in ’97 started Sodamedia and works with companies in the US and in Asia. Sodamedia holds three offices in New York City, Shanghai, and Hong Kong. They are currently wrapping up a project with Fresh (a higher end beauty supply company) and have created their website and print campaign for entering China. Since my first day on Monday, I have been learning about what they do as an agency, reading articles about daily innovations in marketing and technology, and have started working on a powerpoint portfolio displaying their past and current projects. They emphasize not only the importance of gaining the work experience, but also enjoying what the city has to offer. During my spare time, I have been working on getting settled into the apartment and enjoying the sights and cuisines of Shanghai.

My first impression of Shanghai was the pure grandeur and size of the city! Everything appeared even bigger here from the airport, buildings, and department stores and people here are always on the move! Shanghai reminds me a lot of NYC. The first day of being here, a fellow UPS student and intern at Sodamedia, Chris Ammons, gave me a tour of the area. Being the only two interns at Sodamedia this summer, we have found comfort in knowing someone from the states and having someone to hangout with. We saw parts of French Concession, an area with beautiful architecture and an abundance of restaurants and shops. I got a sense of the complete contrast between the old and new parts of the city from the architecture. As a side note, if you are ever in Shanghai, BEWARE of cars, bicyclists, and mopeds, there is no such rule of pedestrian right of way when crossing the street! The first day of being here, Chris and I were close to being mowed over by a large cement truck turning the corner! To avoid this problem, I highly suggest taking the metro. The metro system is a life saver, it is a great way to explore the city and is affordable, quick, and pretty clean!

French Concessions

French Concessions

I am such a foodie, meaning I will be posting a lot of food pictures in the future!  The food in Shanghai is amazing! There are so many options here that I am feeling a little overwhelmed. I hope to try as many different restaurants and food items! Since I have been here for a little over a week, I will continue to update you on my experiences both at Sodamedia and being here in Shanghai. All I can say is I <3 Shanghai!

Cheers, Shelby

Street Food, known as Dan Bing (egg pancake, a yummy option for breakfast!)

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San Francisco Center for the Book

Posted on June 22, 2012 by eschyberg

The last two weeks of research have been fairly relaxed: no press visits or library excursions for a while. But yesterday I had the opportunity to take an introductory letterpress printing class at the San Francisco Center for the Book, which was so much fun! The Center is not too big, and its bright blue exterior reflected the atmosphere of the whole place: enthusiasm and energy were abundant. On a side note, there was a small exhibit in the center called “Exploding the Codex: The Theater of the Book” which contained one of the co-founder’s personal collection of artist books. And I was happy to see the same book that was recently in the Collins Library from Chandler O’Leary’s Anagram Press! 

I was one of about 12 others who had come to learn the basics of letterpress. We were introduced to the kinds of presses we would be using – 2 Vandercook proof presses and a little tabletop hand platen press – and then we inked up the presses and got busy. To get comfortable using the press, we pulled a pre-set card [see picture] from the tabletop press and a background pattern from one of the Vandercooks for our main project.

While this was happening, we were also in the process of composing a group poem, in the style of telephone pictionary…which just means that we could only see the line before ours and nothing else when writing our line for the poem. Once this group collaboration was complete, we got to pick our own tray of type from around the room and set our line. This was the most time consuming part of the process, and also the one where the most mistakes are made. To set type correctly, it must be placed upside down and backwards so that it prints correctly, making precision essential. Despite the tediousness of this part, it was actually pretty fun to make tiny metal letters into words and figure out the perfect spacing – kind of like perfecting the spaces and sizes and fonts in a word document, but all by hand. And then, after a couple proofs, we all had the chance to pull off a few broadsides of the finished project, in a deep navy that complemented the neon pink we’d chosen for the background pattern.

The experience was thoroughly enjoyable, and I loved learning a few essentials of such a fun and popular craft!

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Computer Science Internship: Part 1

Posted on June 19, 2012 by brathje

I thought that I would take a minute to post about my summer plans since I begin my summer job tomorrow at the Oregon Health Sciences University. I will be working in the same lab in which I spent the past three summers conducting protein research, but I am beginning a new computer science project in the lab for the first time this year, which should be really exciting!

It turns out that computers make life in a protein chemistry lab a lot easier. In fact, without computers, proteomics would not be nearly the field that it is. The experimental research that I performed in the lab for the past few years generates literally hundreds of thousands of files per experiment. Searching and analyzing a large enough experiment to determine which proteins are present and any modifications to their usual structures can take twelve hours or more. Even opening a folder containing the data from a single experiment can take several minutes since the computer has to load hundreds of thousands of files.

Efficient storage, analysis, and presentation of these huge amounts of data are fundamental to a successful experiment, and fortunately modern computers give scientists the ability to do all of this. But somebody has to write programs to sort and analyze the data, and that’s what I will be learning to do this summer.

I have to say that the University of Puget Sound prepared me very well for this internship. In fact, taking computer science this last semester is what inspired me to think about working on the computer side of protein research. My Intro to Computer Science class really sparked my interest in programming. I’m finding out, too, that it really prepared me to program “real” applications. My mentor passed on a couple of books about the programming language I’ll be using this summer, and while the language is different, I learned all of the programming concepts that I’ll need in my Intro to Computer Science class! It’s quite a testament to the quality of Puget Sounds’ Computer Science department that its introductory class gives students enough background for them to teach themselves a new programming language. I can only imagine how much more I will learn after taking upper-division classes.

Of course, the internship hasn’t started yet: while I’m confident that I understand most of the programming techniques involved, I’ve never worked with huge sets of data before, nor have I written as much code as I will need to this summer. This internship will certainly push my programming skills, and I’ll come back to my computer science classes with a lot of hands-on experience. Also, the language I’m working with, Python, is a great one to know. Google uses it to prototype most of their online applications, and it’s used extensively in the science world for its efficiency and readability.

I’ll continue to update this blog about my science internship and about everything else I’m doing this summer. I’m sure that I’ll be doing more protein chemistry research in the lab for the project I worked on last summer. My Chemistry Analysis and Equilibrium class was definitely helpful for keeping my lab and chemistry skills in practice. I’m also working on a musical score this summer, so that should keep me busy the rest of the time. While I have most of the songs “written” (meaning that I can play them at the piano), I have yet to write anything but a few notes down on paper, so hopefully I’ll make some headway this summer. While I really enjoy the creative side of music composition, the necessary transference of notes to paper is always far more tedious than I anticipate. It’s amazing how much new music you can improvise when you’re procrastinating on actually writing down the notes!

That’s all for now. I’m writing this blog post outside and the sun has finally come out, a rarity even in June here in Portland, Oregon. Time to get off the computer and laze away the rest of the afternoon in the sun.

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Cranking out the videos

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Casey Krolczyk

I’ve already posted a thousand times in the last day, but I have to share the latest video I made for the American Friends of UNRWA.  Everybody needs an inspirational video to get them going on Tuesdays.

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My first big project with AFU

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Casey Krolczyk

I finished my first big project for the American Friends of UNRWA last week.  We hosted a 5K run/walk as a fundraiser for summer children’s programs in Gaza on June 9th, and I was assigned to be the photographer for the event and put together video/photo galleries on our social media pages.

Foe-toe from the 5K..

.

I had done basic editing to post my radio shows to YouTube before, but this was my first full-fledged production.  Cool part of the story though, I discovered the music I used for the video at a concert by Omar Offendum in the WSC RoFunda.  I contacted him via email for permission to use the music, and he replied with a “yes” almost right away.  He even said he’d promote the video when it was finished, but that part of the deal hasn’t materialized.  Anyway, it was cool to get in touch with such an amazing artist and poet.

Take a look!

There will be more videos to come.  Keep it cool Logger Nation.

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Quick thoughts about DC

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Casey Krolczyk

In a lot of ways, Washington DC is just like Washington state.

Here are just a few examples:

1. There is a Takoma here in DC.  My aunt and uncle live there, as well as Patrick and Emily Schneider’s aunt (she saw me on the streets wearing my Puget Sound shirt… she says “hi!”).  There is also a Mount Rainier, but I haven’t been there yet, and I’m assuming it’s not as great as ours.

2. I live on the George Washington University campus, and there is a Sigma Chi fraternity house just down there street.  They sit out in front of their house shirtless almost every day… just like at Puget Sound!

3. DC is bigger than Puget Sound (no way, right?), but I don’t feel disconnected or lost-at-sea.  I see people I know around campus, I run into other interns I know on the street, and there are always friends close at hand.

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Washington to Washington – the start of a summer in DC

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Casey Krolczyk

Welcome to my blog everybody!  My summer adventure has been underway for a few weeks now, so I have a lot to get caught up on.

(The official theme song for this post can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYutrvZZ7IY )

A bit of background information to fill all of you in…

Laying the foundations – There are two other Loggers who have completed the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations’ (NCUSAR) internship program in Washington, D.C. before me: Kammi Sheeler (’11) and Isaac Olson (’13).  Professor Patrick O’Neil mentioned in one of his classes that it was highly-rated program, and Puget Sound students had gotten into the program in the last two years, so I decided to go for it.  I applied to NCUSAR back in early March and was accepted in late April.  The National Council then sent my résumé to a few different employers that were somehow tied to American-Arab relations.  A small NGO called the American Friends of UNRWA (AFU) interviewed me and offered me a job as their Advocacy Intern, and I was happy to accept.  In a nutshell, I work at AFU five day each week, and I take classes and do site visits around D.C. with NCUSAR on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.

A brief overview of the key-characters in my life right now:

National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations (NCUSAR) – they’ve been around since 1981 using education to promote stronger, healthier relationships between the United States and all 22 Arab countries.  Their internship program is one of many they have, including high school and college-level Model Arab Leagues, conferences on U.S.-Arab relations, and fellowships that bring academicians, congressional representatives, and business professionals on trips to key Arab institutions and organizations in the Middle East and in the United States.  Their founder, Dr. John Duke Anthony, conducts most of the internship seminars.

The American Friends of UNRWA (AFU) – AFU is a non-profit using education and fundraising to support the work of UNRWA, the United Nations agency charged with providing protection, education, and other essential services to refugees and their descendents originating from the 1948 Arab-Israeli War (… or War of Independence, whichever you prefer).  I’m their Advocacy Intern, which is a pretty flexible title.  I run their social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.), produce and edit videos from events we’ve hosted, and conduct research on issues facing Palestinian refugees.  We operate out of a small office on K Street in downtown DC.  There are two full-time employees and two interns.

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