Hear ye! Hear ye! This is the last week for me at the VC! I am sad/happy/stressed to leave. Sad because I have made some lifelong friends to whom I will have to say goodbye to. Happy because I miss my hometown. Stressed because I have to pack/clean/finish my project/finish my portfolio!

Last week was a crucial one, for I did visitor assessments to see what people learned from the panels. People seemed to understand what the LHX tag does and how it works. That is a main point of the research, which makes me happy to share to the public, and even happier that they understand this concept. I did see that people didn’t read the entire thing because it was so full of text. So my first order of business is to shorten the text into captions and bullets to make it more vacation-friendly.

My symposium experience on Thursday was excellent. All of my fellow scholars did an excellent job with their presentations, from which I learned about policy, web design, shellfish transport, nutrient deposition, and other great subjects with which Oregon Sea Grant dirties its hands with.

The rest of the weekend I spent with Betty and Margaretmary in Corvallis, McKenzie for camping, and the Terwilliger Hot Springs. We had a blast! On the way back from the Hot Springs, we stopped by the Scandinavian Festival in the town of Junction City. A weird experience, but a good one regardless!

This week, I intend to finish my assessments, my portfolio, packing, cleaning, and conducting live performances at Cafe Mundo on Thursday as well as a farewell party on Tuesday at my mentor’s house!

Thank you all for reading and to OSG staff for this great experience. I recommend this program to any who find interest in outreach, and a multi-discipline approach to science and community.

-Diego