In standard fashion, a week after finishing this internship, it is really starting to hit me how lucky I was to have been surrounded by such incredible people this summer. From prepping for the final presentations to the last minute literature review on community engagement evaluation, the last two weeks of the internship were a whirlwind with no down time. Since that time there just hasn’t seemed a time to collect my thoughts and finish off this final blog (sorry Sea Grant!) Two flights and a U-Haul trip later (more on this in a hot minute), I was right back in the swing of things. Four hours after my getting picked up from the airport I was sitting in a lecture hall in New Britain Connecticut getting briefed on the syllabus for the upcoming semester. I know I’ve got plenty more to experience, but I’d like to think I’ve done a fair share of traveling for my age. Yet of all my experiences, coming home always feels the weirdest. Feeling like your experiences have given you new perspectives on life and helped shape you more into who you really are. Then coming home to find that, while you were out there exploring and growing, life at home had just kept on going without you. Home hadn’t changed a bit. Which to be honest can be pretty nice, but at the same time makes you just want to scream. I’ve got so many stories to share, but no audience to listen to them.

This summer has been different to all the traveling that I’ve done in the past. I wasn’t backpacking my way through Europe while I should have been in class, hitch hiking through Nepal or diving in the South Pacific in the name of science. Newport Oregon was the closest to home that I’ve spent an entire summer in 3-4 years. That feels pretty odd when I write it out. But what’s even weirder, is that it I felt more out of my comfort zone this summer in my own country than I did in any of my trips in recent memory. For the longest time I couldn’t figure out why that was. The people I was surrounded by were incredibly friendly and I was in a state that I had dreamed about visiting for years, why would I be out of my comfort zone?

Until this point I had only met individual peers whose commitment and motivation just caused you to respect them. This summer I found myself living with 18 of those people all at once. Every single one of them joked around like a normal person, but get them on the topic of their field or their passion and they would blow you away. It was humbling and inspiring. Being surrounded by so many incredibly intelligent and motivated people properly intimidated me at first. What was I doing there? I was older than they were and still procrastinated so hard that my final blog post was a week late (my bad). Did I have what it would take to make it in this field? Oddly enough, at the same time that I was nervous, I was hopeful that there were so many amazing young people who hadn’t decided to chase the money. Instead they chose a career to make a difference in the world. I had found a group of people who cared more about helping the planet more than the nice things money could buy. Intimidation gave way to motivation and I wanted to do as much as I could for the environment that I loved so much. Maybe I couldn’t make it in the hard sciences, but I feel like I knew that all along. I’m a people person who loves the environment and I reckon the best way of doing my part is to work with the people.

Alright introspective monologue over. Onto more important things:

The Objective Top 3 list of the Summer at Hatfield Marine Science Center

Forward: Top 3 was a joke that originated in Angelina making fun of me for saying it constantly. It turned into a way to exclaim something that is properly epic. Saying something in the top 3 does not rank first, second or third, but rather a collective top 3. These are some of the things that stood out this summer and get the nostalgia running pretty hard.

Top 3 Modes of transportation:

1. Hatfield marine science center foldable bikes
2. Begging the Californian interns to drive us around
3. U-Haul Truck: Zach and I had our flights home out of Seattle. We had originally figured we’d be able to hitch a ride with someone, but the Wednesday before the internship ended we realized that was not the case. As a semi joke a friend of ours suggested renting a U-Haul since we had to be 25 to rent a car. After having a good laugh we took a look into it. Not only was it cheaper than renting a car or taking a bus/shuttle combo, we only had to be 16 and could drop it off in any of the U-Haul drop off points in Seattle! So without further hesitation we rented a full size (the only size available) and drove this bad boy 6 hours north. Was it the most extra mode of transportation? Possibly. Was it genius? Well.. we would like to think so. Did we have a blast doing it? You betcha.

Top 3 Cinnamon Rolls (No brainer on this one):

1. Fishtail Café
2. Fishtail Café
3. Fishtail Café

Top 3 Waitresses at Fishtail Café

1. The sweet middle-aged lady that calls Zach and I baby
2. The sweeter older lady that refers to Zach and I as her boys
3. The 20 something lady that assumed we were there to flirt with her (We just wanted cinnamon buns)

Top 3 “Songs” of the Summer

1. Norf Norf by Vince Staples
2. The entire Moana Soundtrack
3. The entirety of Funk Wave Bounce Vol. 1 by Calvin Harris

The last two albums were basically extended songs as that is all we listened to this summer.

Top 3 Movies of the summer

1. Moana – watched it 3 times and listened to the soundtrack ~a million times
2. Shrek – ability to quote this movie is amazing
3. The Dark Knight – So many people hadn’t seen this movie??

Top 3 worst Lil Yachty lyrics – Lil Yachty is a terrible rapper, but his terrible lyrics are one of the things that really brings people together.

1. “You need to stay up out them streets if you can’t take the heat. Cause it get cold like Minnesota, cold like Minnesota.” – Because he’s been to Minnesota and its “really cold there”
2. “Almost had a lifetime sentence, but I beat it, shout out to Pat! Pat, that’s my lawyer, he got me off them charges. 8 stacks for that boy, he took care of the boy” – Hits a soft spot because we, regardless of gender, are part of the “boyssssss”
3. “Remember that time I put those pepperoni on your face. Made you a creature. Now I think about you, every single time I eat pizza.” – Top 3 most heartfelt love lyrics of all time, FOR SURE.

Top 3 Activities to Participate in on the Hatfield Dorm Porches

1. Cold Ones and Ice Cream Porch Nights – A time for people to come together and talk about science, our feelings, Lil Yachty, race relations in the U.S., travel stories, and anything that comes to mind. A proper judgment free zone.
2. Beer Can Hockey w/ broom sticks– self explanatory
3. Impromptu dancing while waiting for any of the Californian’s to drive us places.

Top 3 Exclamations

1. YA BOYYYY – A true classic way to welcome someone into your home or welcome yourself into someone else’s home
2. TOP 3 “insert object being pointed at”, TOP 3 “insert another object” – just a great way to display affection of whatever you’re looking at.
3. I AM SHOOK, I TELL YOU, SHOOK. – Usually exclaimed after Game of Thrones.

Top 3 Things to get stressed about

1. Lack of proper signage at the Marine Reserves
2. Lateness of blog posts
3. Game of Thrones

Top 3 things spotted while snorkeling in Newport Harbor

1. Some kelp
2. Rocks
3. TWO crabs

This could go on forever, but this is already super late. So I will finish it here. Thank you everyone for a wicked summer. Especially Sea Grant staff for organizing everything and constantly being supportive of us.

This summer I wanted to use the time away from home to set challenges for myself and see how many I could complete. Setting goals always seemed like a great way to work on self-improvement. So right from the start I set three goals for myself:

1. I wanted to run at least 3 times a week and get to the point where I enjoyed running.
2. I wanted to read for pleasure more.
3. I wanted to avoid the late night work sesh’s that stem from an unhealthy amount of procrastinating that has haunted me my entire college career.

So before we dive into this week’s work update, I’ll update everyone on my personal summer goals.

1. In the first week and a half I ran 4 times! That was more miles run in those 10 days than in the last 5 years, I was quite proud of myself. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you really hate running), that feeling of pride was not strong enough to stop me from giving up running completely when a group of interns roped me in to joining the local pool with them. The only sport I’ve ever done has been swimming and I’m quite awkward on land. After 11 years of competitive swimming, I’d like to think land sports just aren’t my thing. So I happily made a quick goal switcharoo to swimming at least 4 times a week instead of running. With a good group of supportive swimmers we’ve been able to motivate each other to hit that goal just about every week. All I can hope is that by the end I can still beat the 14 year old swimmers that I coach back home. Goal #1 = Kind of complete?
2. Well… I’ve read a bunch of research articles, papers and two textbooks. Learning is pleasure, right? Goal #2 = to be determined.
3. The past two weeks have been a grind to research and finish my final presentation and poster. While I didn’t procrastinate necessarily, I did burn the midnight oil. It’s just something about the quiet peacefulness of 4 am in the Hatfield library that really just lets the thoughts flow out clearly. Working in the ODFW cubicle staring into the corner of a wall is honestly driving me insane. It’s a quite a bummer I can’t do the out of project work out of the office. Oh well, the late nights will have to continue for now. A successful presentation and poster later and Goal #3 = half way finished, I think?

This leads into the next section of the blog… Presentation and posters! Presenting on our work over the summer felt like it snuck up on us. In reality this whole summer seemed to just slip away. I knew from experience that this 10 week program was going to go quick. But knowing and experiencing are always two different things. Walking home the other day felt like it was the first week and we had just signed our ODFW paperwork.

In case you weren’t at the Sea Grant final presentations, I presented on the importance of community engagement for research scientists. I modeled the presentation mostly on background research rather than on the Oregon Marine Reserves, as they are currently transitioning towards an engagement model rather than a pure outreach model.

With just a few days until I present, I was very much looking forward to getting feedback from my mentor. In true fashion she gave me some feedback in ways that seemed as blunt as possible. Which, after getting over myself I realized how important it was. The advice that stuck out the most was that I needed to explain the topics as if I was “explaining it to my friend at the bar.” She wanted me to pretend there was a barrier of noise between myself (the message sender) and my mate (message receiver). In order to get my message across effectively I had to be clear and say it as quickly as possible to avoid getting, literally in this case, drowned out by the noise. In reality noise could refer to literal noise, visual distractions, extra words, other conversations, etc. This noise distracts and takes away from the message you are trying to convey. I had always recognized noise, but always in terms of designing a campaign message. For some reason it never occurred to me that the same idea could be applied while giving a presentation. Kelsey also encouraged me to get out of my comfort zone and use PowerPoint to aid the presentation, instead of being the presentation. I took out as many words as I could and replaced them with easy to understand graphics and pictures.

This forced myself to be able to confidently explain the topic without the use of notes or cue words. Practicing this resulted in a few 3 am nights in the library practicing to my audience of wheelie chairs. But once I got it down, it felt sooo goooood. It was so much harder, but I felt my presentation skills improve loads. S/o to my mentor Kelsey for the top pro tips.

Of course we can’t forget to talk about the one event that was so incredible that it just eclipsed the whole week. An event that felt spiritual, as if you could feel it throughout your entire body. An event that mentally and physically puts you in a state of awe. An event that, should you be lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time for, you would be a fool to miss out on. An event that I know that I will spin never ending yarns to my grand children about. An event that I hope goes down in history as a moment where we put away the sadness and strife of the current state of the environment and politics and replaced it with joy and wonder. Obviously we’re talking about the pre-final Sea Grant presentation cinnamon bun trip! 5 Sea Grants interns, 5 cinnamon buns and 5 full happy stomachs, what more could you ask for?! Granted they weren’t the best cinnamon buns of all time, but boy were they still so good. Really overshadowed just about every other event that occurred recently.

Every blog post I have written so far (and the following blogs in the next few weeks) has dealt with work and the work environment. But ya boy hasn’t just writing blogs and working this whole summer. Oh no, the rowdy strapping group of educated youths at Hatfield Marine Science Center have been taking full advantage of their limited time in Oregon. Ranging from weekend trips to Crater Lake to organized camping trips through Sea Grant and REU program, we’ve been getting as much exposure to (arguably) the most beautiful state in the US.

Waterfalls and Mt. Hood

Zach and I were lucky enough to hop on the REU camping trip a few weeks back. The highlight of the trip (besides the wonderful bonding we experienced) was hiking up to the tree line of Mt. Hood. It was a beautiful day for a hike. Not a cloud in the sky, yet there was a coolness in the air that made it perfect for shirts and t-shirts. Crossing snow patches in 85 degree weather just boggled my New England mind. If these snow patches were the leftovers, it made me wonder what these trails looked like at the peak of winter. 14 miles round a trip to just over 9000 feet, not too bad!

Zach and Dimitri, part of the DIVAs (Dads in Vertical Ascent) (Not actual dads), under the snow capped peak of Mt. Hood.

Beautiful days in the high 80s with snow are just a recipe for impromptu snow ball fights

The REU camping trip also included visiting just a bunch of waterfalls. Of the ones we did visit, two stick out clearly in my mind. Those two were the Tamanawas Falls and the Multnomah Waterfall. The Tamanawas Falls are a huge 100 foot waterfall at the end of a nice easy hike through the forest. There were a few thing that made these falls stand out:

1. They were about as thick of a waterfall as they come. It wasn’t a wimpy tall stream coming down, the amount of water pouring off of this cliff was unreal! You could hear the roar a good 5 minutes before it properly came into view.
2. By scrambling over a few moss covered boulders and accepting the fact the spray was going to drench you, you were able to get behind the falls. Behind the falls was a massive cavern that had incredible views of the water pouring down, the stream winding its way through the forest and the mosses that covered every rock that was touched by the spray. I’ve seen some falls in my days, but this was epic.

This summer I’ve committed to honing the photography skills I’ve picked up during my online intro to photography 101 class I took 2 years a go. Ya boy is shooting on M!