Dear blog readers,
It has been almost a week in Costa Rica now, but it seems like it has been a lot longer. I think with all the hard work and constantly having something on the agenda makes the trip seem a lot longer than it really is. Thats a good thing though, because this trip has been awesome. The research looks to be rewarding as we gather up all the data we have taken and get ready to write our final report and the research team that came out to Costa Rica are all awesome people. I have gotten to know a lot of people from UD that I probably would not have ever known which is cool. Being in the rainforest for a week makes it easy to make good friends fast. I am glad all of these students came on the trip and would not have it any other way. Each one of them has taught me something really cool and has been really nice throughout the whole trip. They are a good group of people and I feel privileged to be a part of the research with them and can't wait to see everyones final results. They all work really hard and it is contagious and I know that we all got some really good data because of it. Of course, Elise is the greatest lab assistant ever. She has made this trip a lot easier on us and tries to help in whatever way possible. And of course I can't forget Dr. Brown and Richard. The way they organize everything and put together this class is pretty awesome. Dr. Brown is such a great teacher and really loves what she teaches and that makes the class really fun. She puts the students first everyday and wants them to have the best experience possible. Both her and Richard helped team habitat a lot this week. Dr. Brown probably cut our time counting species in half and organized everything really well for us and Richard helped us tons with the hobo software which we used to read the air and soil temperatures. He also taught us some pretty cool stuff about the soil and the Arenal volcano. They were both open to any questions we had about our project and gave us a few pointers, but at the same time they let us do our project the way we wanted to do it. The whole experience was just awesome. I really feel like a legit scientist and this class allowed me to grow in so many ways.
The class was really hard work and tiresome, but there is something so rewarding and invigorating about getting to chat about the research and just every day life stuff with friends over a gourmet Costa Rican dinner. I think that is what kept me going throughout the week and I looked forward to it each and every day and now it has me wishing that we had one more week to do more research.
The staff at Leaves and Lizards rocks,
Joe
