While this blog is still in its infancy, I know I can say that most of my field seasons (whether they be summer or winter, or even spring break) cannot be summed up in one blog post.
Summer 2008 is the exception. The majority of summer 2008 was spent in a Calculus II course at College of San Mateo, hoping in vain (well... as I'm now a grad student... not completely in vain anyway) to pass. You see, I took Calc I at CSM the previous summer, and it proved to be a cakewalk, compared to the same class at MSU. At MSU, they use it as a weeder class to get rid of people who are mathematically retarded. In the case of MSU, there are a lot (and I mean A LOT) of engineering students, and our program is fairly strong here (whatever that means; I'll make negative comments about engineers in some other post in the future). So, that translates into a class that attempts to weed out engineering students. That would be fine, except that (GASP!) I am not an engineering student (thank god). You see, myself included, and many, many other paleontology students are plagued with being bad at math (I am actually rather proud that it is not intuitive; I guess I feel it shows that I'd rather think about things than play with a
calculator or a slide rule all day [again, I'll save rant for later post]). In any event, Calc I here at MSU was practically impossible for me to pass. So I took it at CSM, and it really, really, REALLY paid off. I got taught the basics, and I passed.Fast forward to Calc II. Calc II at MSU isn't so bad, but SVP 2007 kinda screwed that up last fall, so I dropped it, and then spring 2008 really kicked ass in Stats 332, without the prerequisite (thats right Dr. Boik, you asshat, I passed). So I expect a not-so-terribly-difficult time in Calc II. WRONG. I show up on the first day, and its this short dude with crazy white hair named Adolf Schender or some shit. Shortest Nazi I've ever met, anyway (and I knew a couple in high school).
He passes out the syllabus, and I shit you not, on the front it has a subtitle called "Student Learning Outcomes." Then, below it, instead of just numbering them, or having bullets, or dashes or something normal, it says SLO1. As in "student learning outcome 1." Then, SLO2, SLO3, SLO4, SLO5, SLO6, and SLO7. What the fuck? Are you kidding me? I don't even remember some of the nazi-ass instructors at MSU pulling that shit, and this was at a goddamn community college. Anyway, the douche (er dude I meant) was a total asshole the entire class, and to summarize it I passed, and ya, so fuck that guy.Oh, right, fieldwork. So this stupid math bullshit ate up 90% of my time all summer; at least the prior summer (2007) the class got out at 10:30 am, so I could drive out to the coast and actually have a cool life. This summer, however, the class got out at 1; granted, sunset's at 8pm, so I could have gotten 7 hours of work in, but I kinda wanted to be with my family a little bit too, ya know? So I could pretty much only go out on the weekends.
Which is why I only made it out to the coast five times the entire summer; thats usually the number of trips I do in a week and a half. Next summer will be different, where I'll be staying
down in Santa Cruz for 3-5 days at a time (master's thesis fieldwork).So... in the attached photos, you should see a picture of a bone in situ, and a big shark tooth. The shark tooth is none other than Carcharodon carcharias, or the great white shark. The bone is a phalanx from some kind of walrus (possibly a Dusignathine, or double-tusked walrus). Besides these, my friend Kim Wendell found a very nice juvenile Herpetocetus petrosal (i'll be doing several posts in the future about Herpetocetus, fear not). There should also be a couple photos from my field area.
But... that was basically my entire summer. I usually found that amount of stuff in one or two day trips during the winter. It doesn't really matter, because I'll be going back and starting master's thesis fieldwork in a couple months, and will really be able to find some good fossils.
