January
On Jan 13, Sam and I left for a 5 week trip to New Zealand, for my primary field season on the Taranaki coast. Sam learned to drive on the left side of the road, we sighted many pukekos, enjoyed glorious coastal views and weather, and only had one flat tire. It would be a full blog post to describe all the wonderful experiences of that trip.
February
The first half of this month was still in New Zealand. We celebrated our own version of the local holiday Waitangi Day (which celebrates the founding treaty of New Zealand and delegation of rights and land to the Maori) by visiting a native bird reserve, eating crayfish (actually rock lobster) caught by local friends, and catching the best beachside sunset of the trip. We flew home on the 18th and I spent the rest of the month catching up with folks and organizing rock samples. Nora and I spent a very awkward evening at a PBK reception that was clearly geared toward undergrads.
March
My parents visited briefly, Sam and I went to his field area for two short days and celebrated our 4 year anniversary at Pinnacles. Then I spent half the month in quals prep and the other half in a "deepwater basics" short course through Shell. I got to see the amazing St Anthony Falls Laboratory in Minneapolis, which was an exercise in surviving near-zero weather after 7+ years adapting to coastal California climate. My birthday was a "travel day" in the short course, driving from Davis to San Francisco with no other obligations, so Sam met me in SF and took me to a wonderful sushi dinner (and I got to try out my gift, a homemade car pillow I "invented" on a road trip but never expected to see materialized).
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| Trying out the Biolite stove with a carbolicious meal (pasta + instant potatoes + alfredo sauce) |
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| Underside of the Jurassic Tank at SAFL |
April
This month was a frenzy of quals preparation, with all the delights of paperwork and scheduling. My calendar has a lot of things in all caps, like PRINT POSTER and FIND DON, which I think sums up the month perfectly. The one wonderful highlight, which in retrospect was such a good decision even if it felt risky at the time, was a 3 day break for a low-key backpacking trip in Henry Coe.
May
More quals prep, and the exam itself, which I took the afternoon of the 20th. Sam spent the first week of May doing field work with Gus; I was sort of afraid to be left by myself during such a stressful time, but it turned out to be a good situation since it gave me the freedom to work long hours and eat weird things at random times without worrying about how it affected him. I managed to keep relatively calm in the days leading up to the exam, and things went pretty well and I was so happy to get it over with, but I still felt pretty lackluster about it. I'm not sure it's possible to feel really good about a qualifying exam.
I don't think I have a single photo from this month.
June
Commence the post-quals slump! I accomplished approximately nothing during this month. The month kicked off with a croquet party up on the hill, in which Sam became the proud temporary curator of the Kebet Stone. Sam was busy with bachelor party duties for his friend's upcoming wedding, and I went up to Trinity Lake for a family reunion. I expected to spend that week lazing around at the lake or maybe going for a hike. Instead I went tubing behind my uncle's boat and went flying in the tiniest plane I've ever been in, a glorious yellow canvas 2-seater prop plane. The pilot, my uncle-by-marriage's brother, is an experienced stunt pilot, so we spent a good portion of the flight in various states of non-horizontal.
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| Experimenting with gel medium & pallet knife |
July
The month started out with a beautiful wedding in Sacramento, which I got to experience in a pretty great way - as the girlfriend of the best man. I was there for a lot of the pre-wedding prep and excitement, and felt close to the couple, but didn't have to do much of anything. Obviously being the maid of honor for my best friend's wedding in 2012 was better in every way, but there's something to be said for being just a guest. Two weeks after the first wedding, we both got to be just guests at Sara and Gabe's glorious wedding in Reno, which was extra great for me because hey, Reno time! Back in California, I started co-advising an undergrad with some field work near Pigeon Point Lighthouse. Then, to round out a busy but wonderful month, at the last minute Theresa invited me to field assist in Montana, one of my favorite places in the world.
August
Sam happened to be visiting family in Montana while we were up there for field work, so he spent a day with us and got sucked in to the money hole that is the Patagonia outlet store in Dillon. Theresa and I skipped home a couple days early after it became clear that the rocks just weren't there. Our research group spent a few days knee-deep in trace fossils via an ichnology short course by Pemberton and a day trip to the Black Diamond Mine in the East Bay.
September
Sam spent a good portion of the month out of town, with a pre-birthday mountain biking trip to Downieville and a long week doing field work. Which meant that when a certain tiny puppy needed babysitting for a day, I got her all to myself (but graciously shared her with Nora ;)). Then it was suddenly Fall, with all the craziness that comes with that season - SPODDS meeting in Davis, recruiting season at Stanford, start of classes. In what was hopefully my last quarter of taking class for credit, I signed up for Sedimentary Petrography and Matlab, and TA'd for my advisor's Sedimentary Basins class.
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| Stick Steve's inaugural field trip |
October
Always my favorite month because it's true fall weather and of course, Halloween!! I'm so lucky to live in proximity to a rich neighborhood that, interestingly, goes more nuts decorating for Halloween than Christmas. It was a busy month at school as recruiting dragged on and classes ramped up (well, class - I dropped Matlab after it stopped being useful), so I did less decorating for Halloween than I might have, but we did manage to have a repeat of last year's pumpkin carving party - which turned out not to include pumpkin carving at all, probably because the Free Recruiting Schwag Art Contest sapped everyone's creative energy ;). I finally visited my brother in Oakland, when my parents came through on a birthday trip for my mom, and realized that if you live in a 4th floor penthouse apartment with three private balconies, Oakland can be pretty great.
November
This was Sam's frantic quals prep month, but instead of being the good girlfriend and doing anything possible to make his life easier, I found myself swamped with mineral separation work that I should have done over the summer. A lot of late nights for both of us in November. I had two beautiful highlights though: I led a make-up field trip for a couple students in the sed basins class, and went on a short weekend trip to Gualala to see some surprisingly great deep-water rocks, with better weather than any of us could have hoped for. Despite the fact that our roof officially started leaking 2 days before his exam date, Sam (in the words of his advisor) rocked his quals the day before Thanksgiving break. We had separate turkey dinners with respective families and for the first time I can remember, I truly enjoyed a non-traditional stuffing (I mean really, why mess with the world's most perfect dish).
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| Syncline emerging from the tide - never gets old! |
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| Cycles at Gualala |
December
True to form, this was a bit of a crazy month. Things were busy already with a final report and presentation for my only class; on top of that I managed to squeeze in 3 long days of lab work in Santa Cruz, which was less sleep-depriving than usual but still resulted in a diet high in donuts for the weekend. I took a half day off to recover from that, then spent the rest of the week commuting back and forth from SF for the annual AGU conference. I rounded that off with what might have been my very last final exam (I feel like I've said that a half dozen times in my life by now, so it's hard to know if it's really true) and spent a week recovering from the quarter and pushing through some data reduction before Sam and I headed east again for more family time. As usual I didn't do any of the work I planned to do over break, but despite this being one of my shorter Reno visits, it felt like a legit vacation. Of course Sam and I both got sick within a day of each other. We're basically better now but I lost my voice for 2 days, which made the final visits with family and friends a little strange.
One realization I've had lately is how little art I did in 2013, despite my desire and goal to do more. So if I have a resolution for 2014, it's to spend more time with a pencil, paintbrush, or marker in hand, and significantly less time online.
Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and found some time to look back on the last year before charging into the next one!
