Cranky Monday

I have to admit, I'm cranky today. So I think it's time I 'fess up so I can get all of your sympathy (oh, listen to that shameless plug!). I learned recently that my funding is going to run out at the end of December - surprise! happy holidays! This means moving and it means finding new jobs and it means up-in-the-airness.

Now to be fair, I think it could be a good thing to leave this job. I've had a lot of heartache here: not the romantic kind but the kind where people get badly hurt on the job and the emotional scars are almost as large as the physical ones. And as far as I can tell, things are going to get worse here before they get better. It's long past time for me to move on. But where to? What to? Here comes the existential what-do-I-really-want-to-be-doing-with-my-life angst.

Yep. I love science. I love research. I love field work. I even love data analysis! But I also am tired of being impermanent. I am tired of moving every couple of years, of being the girl who is willing to go out to the most remotest places ever without any contact with anyone she cares about for 5 months, tired of constantly trying to build connections in new communities, tired of feeling like I'm always just fighting to get beyond the bureaucracy to the science. I have a strong CV, I'm single, I'm flexible, something will come up somewhere within time. There is a small part of me that has a strong urge though to throw my hands up and go build straw bale houses in New Mexico. Or something like that. Yeah, that's right, maybe it's time to leave the arctic (but I love the arctic!!!!). Maybe it's time to leave research (but I love research!!!!). Sigh.

So now you know why I'm cranky. Excuse me while I go bash my head against my keyboard. Actually, I'll probably go ski instead (see picture below), it's healthier and a better stress reliever and you have to breathe while doing it. Oh - and for those of you who are curious the Footprint Friday post has been updated with an answer. Thanks for playing along!

A co-worker, the Disreputable Dog, and Yeta (a tough little dog) on the first ski of the year.

Thursday Morning Antics of a Drowned Rat

I bring this brief pause from the travelogue... I still want to share more about Morocco & then there's still the Netherlands but my morning has taken my thoughts elsewhere. Besides, I have a scrumptious picture of a Moroccan meal which, of course, I left on my memory stick at home today and it has disrupted my plans for the next post. So after this message we will be back to our scheduled programing.

And now - a brief moment of crankiness (not over anything life shattering or even life altering but a little mundane morning thing). It's pouring down snow out today. That means although its mostly frozen it lands as wetness on humans and slush on the streets, big fat flakes the size of mice and just at the freezing point. It's cold and gray and makes you wish for nothing other then to curl up in front of a warm fire with a hot beverage and dream of that hot weather in Morocco. On my way to work this morning, as usual, I was bicycling, I blew a tire. Blew it all over the place in the middle of the road.

I heard a funny noise and then felt a lurch. Naturally I stopped to see what the trouble was but I encountered difficulty as a) wasn't exactly light enough out to see b) my glasses were so covered with rain that I couldn't see through them and c) when I took my glasses off I couldn't really see either. What I could see was a smear of green goop which usually coats the inside of the tire tube, and I could see that my actual tire was no longer on the wheel rim. So, I attempted to take said wheel off the bike so I could at least get the tire & the donut tube off as they were currently caught up in the braking system making even pushing the bicycle a no go. So here I am kneeling in a puddle of slush with water streaming down my face in rivulets trying to get the lever to move but it won't because it's frozen solid. I'm off to plan B which is to use the bungee cords I have on my bike to attempt to secure the said tire & tube out of the way of the brakes and the rim so that I might be able to push it the rest of the way to work. I am successful in this and begin to push. Let me say that pushing a bicycle in half a foot of slush is a lot harder then pedaling through it.

It feels like a loooonnng way to work and I keep hoping that some co-worker will drive by and take pity on me but of course, I take the scenic route which my co-workers, in their rush to work, probably avoid. Finally I get to the location of the covered bike rack at work. I take off my dripping wool hat and my glasses and wipe the water from my face. Then I get back to work on the lever. I grunt, I make loud noises, you know, the kinds of noises you do to put a little extra umph behind your arms. I notice a few co-workers scurrying past, I'm sure they're all terrified to come too close and after all, they just want to hop from their nice dry cars to their nice dry offices and avoid any lunatics in the parking lot. I do succeed in getting the lever to move finally and remove the rear wheel. I park the bike in the rack and next to it the tire and the rear wheel frame and lock it all together, the tube I take with me and then, with my glasses still clenched between my teeth I make my way to the door. My colleagues comment, as I walk determinedly to my cubicle that I look a little wet, a little like a drowned rat.

On dropping my sopping wet outer gear and wishing I had a towel for my hair which is wetter then if I had taken 10 showers this morning I inspect the tube. It has been a spectacular blow out and will not be repairable (and of course, the nearest open bike shop is in Los Anchorage). My male colleagues all gather round to look at the tire and make comments, they laugh at my story, they make useful suggestions as to who might have an extra tire lying around of that size, they suggest that I am utterly crazy for biking in this weather (except for one co-worker who actually passed me on his bike who comments "You didn't look like you were in trouble or I would have stopped"). It is the female colleagues who, after the male colleagues are done laughing and review the events, quietly offer me & my beleaguered bike a ride home in the evening.

Workplace Changes

Things have been crazy since Friday - and it's only Tuesday.

My workplace is undergoing changes right now: funding is being negotiated, organizational structure is being dramatically altered, historical alliances are shifting, and many people, for reasons of their own, in key positions, just happen to be leaving at the same time. As a result the stress levels are high, the workload shifting and a bit unpredictable, tempers flare, and the meetings are ongoing and exhausting (& if you listen really hard in one you might just figure out what's really going on).

Photo taken near Denali by a friend of mine in 2003

One of my colleagues in my "lab", i.e. on the same research grant & project as I am, is leaving at the end of this week. I hate to admit it but I must - I am looking forward to her going. This woman has not exactly been welcoming. I have approached her to ask her how to follow a certain protocol without her turning her head from her computer or even acknowledging my presence until I forced her to by repeatedly asking her if she has time. She is very capable of her job and this week everyone is singing her praises which I am sure she has earned. Meanwhile, I have been assigned to take over some of her tasks when she leaves and getting the required information from her feels like pulling teeth and leaves me feeling incompetent and frustrated. Working with her or around her makes me feel like I'm in high school again, complaints arrive to me through gossip, if I ask a question she stares at me as if I'm daft, and she is the leader of her own little clique.

To be honest, I don't mind that she doesn't like me, we are colleagues and one cannot be liked by, nor like everyone, and honestly, I don't need friends like that. All I'm hoping for is to make it through the week patiently and with some of my sanity intact. And I sincerely hope that the atmosphere warms a bit when she leaves. I have plenty of other crazy things going on that must be squeezed in between the transitioning chaos from prepping all the field collections we took on another oceanographic trip on Friday and cleaning the gear to taking over many of the shifts on the glacier cam counting seals now that our crew is down from 5 to 2 all the while continuing to do my other projects. (And having my computer go down!!)

And today, when the day was done I bicycled home against the wind, watching the wind whip up the waves into furls and the sea gulls wheeling in the air. I took my dog out for a walk through the forest where I snacked on blueberries, raspberries, and salmon berries, admired a purple mushroom I have never seen before, and stared at a waterfall until the sound drowned out the noises in my head. We came home and Cat crept onto my belly and pawed Dog's nose. The grind of the day fades away as I remember what is important in this life and how lucky I am.

Disturbance in the Sound

Edited to add: Anyone who rents a kayak or goes out with guides in this area is furnished with recommendations on how to approach marine mammals and what not to do. The kayakers I've written about had clearly identifiable rented kayaks.

To the four paddlers of two little red kayaks in a certain bay in Prince William Sound, Alaska seen around noon today.

Dear Kayakers ~

Today was both your lucky day and your unlucky day. It was lucky because you were foolish enough to pull your kayaks right up to that calving glacier and touch it's face without being squashed by a piece of ice carving off and effectively ending your existence. A rather foolish thing, don't you think? To challenge nature for a photograph that might have been the last of you?

It was your unlucky day because you blatantly broke the Marine Mammal Conservation Act (1972). Did you know that when seals lift their heads to look at you it is out of concern for your presence and not to pose for a photograph? I know, dear kayakers, that you must be a bit ignorant, hence the close up view of the glacier, but even you must have noticed the fact that as you approached them, even tried to put your kayaks on the icebergs the animals were resting on, that they fled to the water. You were there on a day when the brash ice was sparse and the seals had to clump together to find space in the ice.

Aerial Image of Harbor Seals hauled out on Ice

What you didn't know is that we saw you on glacier cam and that we have video footage of the whole thing. That's right, we remotely monitor these seals on an hourly basis all summer long. We weren't looking for you but how could we not notice? And there is a penalty for such disturbance of the marine wildlife. Had you merely accidentally scared them we would have let you off the hook but pursuing them? Foisting your kayak on their bergs as they frantically dove for the ice? That was inexcusable and avoidable and I regret to inform you that we ratted you out.

Guided Mis-Information

I was hiking at a local national park the other day. I had to hike past some groups of people bundled around the entrance trail to get to more reclusive paths. As I was passing a group I heard "There's two types of killer whales: meat eaters and vegetarians".

Wha? What?? Did I hear that right? I did. Not only that but the information was coming from a park interpretive ranger guiding the group. A park ranger who lives in a town where significant killer whale research goes on. Where he has access and has talked to biologists who study killer whales. Ack!

For those of you who don't know: There are two types of killer whales. In that the ranger was correct. Now I recently finished completing a lot of work on this orca ID Catalogue for Eastern Kamchatka, Russia. I'm not a main author but I am acknowledged and let's face it, I put in a lot of work on it. So I know a little bit about the subject. I know 500 plus Russian killer whales by name.

The two types of killer whales are the Residents & the Transients. These labels are totally mis-leading and are based on previous assumptions about orcas but somehow they've stuck. Resident Orcas are fish eating orcas and they tend to not to travel very far. Transient Orcas are mammal eaters and they have to travel farther for food. But both groups tend to be loyal to a certain territory. The interesting thing as that these two groups are distinct genetically, where ever you find orcas. That means that while the orcas here at the north pole are genetically distinct from the orcas at the south pole the fish eaters and the mammal eaters in both places are still distinct from each other. So this is not necessarily a learned behavior but an inherited one. (Can you hear it now though? Orca prejudices - daddy will never speak to you again little fish eater if you marry that mammal eater!).

I can only guess that the ranger has been exposed to the saying "I'm a vegetarian but I eat fish" too often. But come on, who is he fooling? These are predators? Have you ever taken a look at those teeth? There should be a park sign that says "Please don't feed the tourists mis-information".

Visiting Relations

I love my relations, I really do. However, I must admit that I am used to having my little space all to my self and used to be alone. So my nerves were a bit strained by the end of the visit from my mom and 4yr old niece. Having three people and two animals in my house which measures 20x30ft (6x9m). means there was no alone time for the entire week. My niece was go-go-go, full of energy and curiosity. My poor mother on the other hand caught some sort of bug and came down with a fever and was, rather understandably, grouchy. She probably was wishing my extra bedroom did not consist of an air mattress on the floor which invariably became a playing ground by the nature of the fact that when it was down it took up all the available floor space. They were opposite ends of the energy spectrum. While I enjoyed the visit there were a few moments when I thought ‘Ah! I need some space!’. It wasn’t so much the physical space I was craving as the mental space.

Needless to say it did not help my cause that we had in this time, two emergency visits to the vet, that I broke up (maybe?) with the guy I was seeing, that the weather cleared last minute and I had to go fly aerial surveys at uncomfortable hours of the day, that my supervisor announced that I was getting an intern the very day she was arriving, the fact that we have a new family member (CAT, the kitten who followed my niece home), nor the fact that I was worrying about our Russian field crew’s ability to leave the field as scheduled due to the volcanic eruption I posted about yesterday.

I know, you thought I had just started this blog and then I had already abandoned it.