Yeah, diving in the Sound without a drysuit is chilly, but as much as I love looking at it from above, it’s really cool to see what’s actually in there. (Giant plumose anemones, anyone?)

Anyone who knows me a little bit, or has listened to me reel off my list of major / minors / study abroad experience / career interests*, has figured out that I love water.  I was born in Southern California and lived about eight miles away from the beach until I was 11 years old, at which point my family moved away to Northern Virginia (not to be confused with Virginia).  I’ve been rowing for seven years, working on my eighth, and got SCUBA certified two years ago.  One of my requirements when I was looking for colleges was that it had to be on one coast or the other, nowhere in between.  Flying into Sea/Tac the day before freshman move-in day in 2011, I saw the dark blue of the Sound running through the dark green of the forests – I have a bit of a soft spot for evergreens – and I knew that I was in the right place.

Shameless advertisement for the crew team? We’re a nice group of people with a solid appreciation for water and the mountain.

“Mother of waters,” which was pulled from the Puyallup language, technically refers to Mt. Rainier, whose glaciers are the headwaters of several different watersheds in the area.  (Side note: if you’re outdoorsy and want to go on class camping trips, I recommend the environmental policy and decision making [EPDM] program.  I spent the first three weekends of this semester hiking on Mt. Rainier, rafting the Nisqually River, wandering around mud flats, and so on.)  Water is kind of important in this area, and I like this connection between the mountains and the Sound.  The physical landscape, as well as the regional economy, is kind of shaped and defined by water – even before the Sound existed, glaciers covered this region and carved out the Sound’s basin as well as all the hills that keep things from being flat and boring (not like I’m biased or anything).

And once I’m in the Gulf of Mexico, I’m just a hop, puddle-jump, and a boat ride away from my study abroad country. Ah, the good old days of being able to dive in just a Puget Sound uni for the photo ops….

I’m going to graduate in May, which is weird, and means that I have to have an answer to people asking me if I’m going to stay out here or go somewhere closer to my family.  And actually, as it turns out, the answer that I happened to come across is: neither, at the moment.  Don’t worry, though, I’ll still be involved with water – I’ll be rowing the length of the Mississippi River, doing environmental education and water quality research with the UPS alum-created nonprofit group OAR Northwest.  Studying freshwater will be a bit of a change, but as Finding Nemo taught us, everything ends up in the ocean, and after a few months I’ll be in the Gulf of Mexico.  (And after that, yes, I do want to return to the Pacific Northwest.  Sorry, Mom.)

* “Hi, my name’s Leah Shamlian and I am a senior at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, majoring in English with a concentration in creative writing and double minoring in environmental policy and religion; I did a marine field research study abroad program in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean, and I want to go into science communication or environmental writing.”  Have to say it quickly, otherwise people lose interest.

One of the biggest perks of interning at a government agency is walking into a big, important-looking building like you own the place.

This may be old news to some of you, but because the student blogs are just starting up again, I figured it’s acceptable to draw on my experience as a summer intern for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (yes, I know most of you would know the acronym, but it’s fun for me to throw the whole title around).  I worked with the speech writing department in the Office of the Administrator, and my first day of work was the day on which EPA made the biggest announcement of the past twenty-odd years – so my first impression of my supervisor was him running out of the office, shouting expletives, on his way to the press conference.  Basically, this internship put me at only two degrees of separation from the Grand Poobah, the Chief of the Pecking Order, the Muckiest of the Mucky-Mucks, Administrator Gina McCarthy herself.  When she came to Tacoma in early August, I sent some restaurant recommendations over to her schedulers (which made me quite jealous, because I have a distinct preference for one Washington over the other).  I have no idea whether or not anyone made use of my suggestions, but don’t burst my bubble.

One of the biggest downsides at interning in one of said important-looking buildings is the stairs.

This internship was a fantastic experience, and I learned a lot about U.S. environmental policy – and also about public perception of U.S. environmental policy.  I have a certain fondness for water and water-related issues, so one of my favorite speeches to work on was given at an agricultural conference on the subject of the Clean Water Proposal.  Not only was this a policy area in which I was particularly interested, but it was also an intriguing situation because the agriculture industry is not all that fond of EPA.  I don’t imagine that giving a speech to a hostile audience is very fun – but writing one is, especially when some (note: not all) of the arguments you’re rebutting sound like the one dismissed in the title of this blog post.

So, how does this relate to student life at Puget Sound?  Well, Puget Sound was represented in EPA’s Office of the Administrator, alongside places like Boston University, Cornell, and George Washington University, and I think that’s pretty cool.  (We’ve been represented on Capitol Hill occasionally as well.)  Also, speaking as someone who has loved UPS since I saw it for the first time the day before freshman move-in day but was somewhat concerned because no one in the DC area had heard of it, I am delighted to somewhat alleviate some of your fears: no, we does not have the name recognition factor that big public and private universities have.  But – and this is an important “but” – that’s okay; it won’t limit your options.  Because wherever you are, you’ll have to make your own opportunities, so might as well be somewhere you love.

Gotta love clichés.

Okay, I haven’t verified this particular fun fact, but I heard it from the mouth of the most famous of UPS’s ocean rowers, so I figure he’s a decent source.  Jordan Hanssen, class of 2005, came to campus last week to give a talk about how, this one time, he and some friends thought it’d be pretty cool to row across the Atlantic Ocean.  Long story short, not only did they think about it, they actually successfully did it, which landed them in the Guinness Book of World Records, created a nonprofit group called OAR Northwest, and inspired a book called Rowing into the Son in the process.  Now they’re doing research and environmental education expeditions.  No big deal.

Let’s just get this out there: how crazy impressive is it that this group of Puget Sound grads (all of whom, let the record show, were a part of the crew team as students here, thank you very much) rowed across an ocean?  The physical and mental endurance to do something like that is a bit inconceivable to me, just sitting here at a table in the SUB typing away at my laptop.  The general Puget Sound population already thinks us rowers are crazy enough, with our 4:30 a.m. alarms for chilly morning practices on our good ol’ American Lake, and we aren’t the ones crossing 3,000 miles of open ocean in a 29-foot boat.

This coming Saturday morning, April 12, alumni of Puget Sound Crew will gather at American Lake for the team’s 51^st annual dual (or duel, depending on how you think of it) with Pacific Lutheran University, known as the Meyer/Lamberth Cup.  Years of tradition will comingle at the grassy and slightly muddy hill of Harry Todd Park, represented by present rowers and past, along with any non-crew-related students who feel like sitting around watching boats row by.  A four-foot-tall papier-mâché sculpture of a person’s head may make an appearance.  You never know what these alums might come up with.

And, because you all were wondering, the number of ocean rowers who are also Loggers is five.

I hadn’t given any thought to the history of women’s climbing in Washington prior to a recent event I attended: Washington State Senate Resolution 8694, which honors women and girls in sports (including climbing, as referenced by the title of this post), was being recognized by the state senate.  And so a handful of Puget Sound representatives, myself included, found ourselves in the state capitol building, on slippery leather seats, looking down onto a room of senators and shiny desks and oddly flowered carpet, and heard the following statement:

WHEREAS, The University of Puget Sound athletic department offers eleven women’s varsity sports at the Division III level, giving two hundred ten female student athletes the opportunity to compete in collegiate athletics; its women’s soccer squad has won twelve consecutive NWC titles, the longest active title streak in Division III women’s soccer history; and its women’s crew squad has reached the NCAA tournament eleven years in a row….

As the speaker read the names of the people attending, the senators rose and applauded.  So now I can say I’ve gotten a standing ovation from people far more powerful and influential than I am, how’s that for a bucket list item?

Disregarding bucket lists for a minute, though, I have to say that I’ve achieved far more athletically and personally at Puget Sound than I expected as, say, a junior in high school who was a bit surprised to find herself rowing in the top varsity 8.  I’ve had conversations with people here about how excited we are to see this person beat us on the upcoming 2K test and how impressed we are with that person’s progress.  Maybe I was just an exceptionally self-centered high schooler, but things like that would have made me a bit bitter a few years ago.  Watching and learning from the examples of past and present UPS rowers has both inspired me athletically and helped me grow as a person.  And, as the WA state senate has pointed out, personal growth is an integral part of athletics.

But seriously, how cool is it that the state senate has a proclamation and an event specifically for female athletes?

Part of me wishes I could have flown back to Washington immediately after returning to the United States from studying abroad on the island of South Caicos.  Think of the culture shock of Tacoma versus a fishing village in the Caribbean – cloudy skies, elevation changes greater than twenty feet, people (with working cars, no less), buildings taller than two stories.

When I was flying from Providenciales to South Caicos last October (a grand total of thirteen minutes and ten seconds from takeoff to touchdown), I watched the ocean vary in shades of turquoise and the spits of white sand illuminate the water from beneath.  When my flight from Providenciales was landing in Charlotte, NC in December, I (along with my study abroad classmates who were on the same flight) was glued to the window, marveling at all of the colorful electric lights marking the runways.  When I was landing at Sea/Tac last week, I watched the imperturbable snowy slopes of Mt. Rainier as the plane descended through the steely clouds.  It’s been a rather varied month and a half, location and climate-wise.

But in my first week back in Tacoma, I have realized two things: first, that the best way to reacclimatize to the Washington weather is to lose your jacket, and second, that if you struggle with seasonal affective disorder, the way to cope is to move to an off-campus house with a dimly-lit bedroom that forces you to rely almost entirely on your happy lamp.   That being said, though, I’ve always found Tacoma’s grey skies to be rather nice – like a calm grey blanket hiding the Pacific Northwest’s beauty and character from the rest of the country.  But I have to say, seeing the gleaming pink queen conch shell (Strombus gigas) on my windowsill juxtaposed against the evergreens and mist outside is still just a bit startling.