Day 9-10 recap "Ocho Loko"

Friday:

Proposal finished!

So we did mammal sampling, but this time, we had to pick up the traps; so the longer you work, the harder it gets.  Great isn't it?  Mammal analysis went well.  The last mouse will always have ticks and need to have its toes clipped.  Always.  We also got to return the mice today (Dr. Fore generally does it, but she was finalizing some minor edits on our proposal).

It's harder to get mice out of a sherman trap in the wild than in the lab.  My parents taught me well though, so I followed after them.  I quickly opened the trap and quickly shook the trap as to fling the mouse out of it.  Ahhh... the sweet memories of leaving home.

After we finished that, we received the edits from our mentors.  It was really strange; this time they came with "it looks good" and "just do this and turn it in" notes.  Scared the crap out of me as I didn't know how to adapt to the reaction.  But it is turned in and done!  Now I just have to do the project.

Then it was time for celebration: 1000 Hills ice cream.  10 [read: 20 really] scoops of ice cream, 5 toppings, whipped cream, and cherries.  All in a martini glass!  Not only will I be getting it for celebrations, but I will also be getting it when I'm really depressed.  After that we [ me, Nathan, Alex, Betsey, and Kara] went to the Gyros.  Wonky order, but then again, we are wonky people.

Then it happened: Ocho Loko.  I tried to get Alex to go Ocho, but he only went Four Loko.  That's only 4 types of crazy.  Ocho is where it is at.  He also realized that he didn't like that taste of Four Loko: no bueno.  We played Wheel of Intoxication (where I drank energy drinks) and "hockey."  As people got progressively intoxicated, hockey [where you spin a quarter and get people to hit other peoples drinks with it] got harder.  Except I was drinking energy drinks, so I got better and better.  After 2 energy drinks, they finally cut me off. Next week, there will prolly be an intervention.  Taurine and inositol rule my life.

Weekend: 

Blur of anime and Spectra kids.  I went to an awkward dinner and skating event with them.  It was fun when the MathBio team made a snake during the skating event and got the Spectra kids to join.  It also disturbs me that the Spectra kids are supposed to be math and science based, but they are taking College Algebra/Trig.  Even though they are starting their race to finish college early by starting this summer, they also have more than twice the distance to cover.  I also keep intimidating them with math and science of what will come to them if they stick with it.  It's saddening ):

Monday:

I went off-host sampling!  I got to drag cloth into the forest and make bait stations with dry ice.  I also found a tick on me when I got home.  He's somewhere in MoHall now.  Whoops

We also learned how to identify ticks today.  Babies have 6 legs, teens and adults: 8.  Adults are the only ones with completed genitals.  I think that beats abstinence only education.  Also, some ticks have crenelations on their butts while some don't.  And some ticks have rectangular heads while others have pentagonal (those A. Americanum are trying to summon satan with their blood offering).

We also started eating the dining hall.  They have olives.

I made bread today with mah momsie.  She yelled at me while I mixed ingredients as she fried chicken.  I was losing my Southern roots as I moved out of the house, but after that sweet tea IV and butter suppository, I'm starting to drawl [just kidding.  That accent will never stick to me].  It turned out well.

Betsey is a pansy who wouldn't try jalapeño bread; however, after seeing Kara's and Alex's reaction, it may have been out of self-preservation.

We saw the Green Hornet and 5$ a day today.  I liked 5$ except it skipped.  I didn't really like the Green Hornet too much --the main character was horrible and I hated him--.

I've probably left a lot out of this post, but I got a nice, fun day of inkscape tomorrow.

Stay itchy,

~Justin

Day 8 recap "Door Decs"

PROPOSAL IS DUE TOMORROW!

Today was another day of mammal sampling.  Just when you think you have things figured out, nature loves to add some spice to your life.  Today while we were sampling, the sky decided to rain.  I got completely drenched.  But hey, now my shirt matches my pants, and not only can I urinate without people noticing, I can also lactate! [side note: while the pregnancy test says that I'm not positive, I think I know my body a little bit better than some silly stick; the baby shower will be in July.  I'm sending out invitiations]

The rest of the sampling went normal... well as normal as walking through a field dominated by non-native grasses and a secondary oak-hickory forest looking for mice with ticks on them can me.  Not just the catching mouse part either... the walking in tick infested lands could be seen as insane to some.  But we call it biology.

It must have looked hilarious to the lady checking us out for breakfast before we processed mice.  I mean, we were 3 completely drenched researchers, covered with local flora and fauna, and unable to form coherent sentences due to sleep deprivation.  The same status can be said about drug-addicted homeless people; I'm still trying to prove the difference between researcher and drug-addicted homeless person.  I'll put it in the results portion of my paper.

Mammal analysis goes fine except that Alex and I were doing it still drenched (Betsey changed into other clothes)... or as fine as grooming mice for ticks, taking measurements of doppy mice, and cutting the occasional toe goes.  MathBio has a way of changing what is "normal."  I say this for both the Math and the Bio part.  The Bio part is explanatory.  For the Math part, go talk to a set theorist.  You'll see why it's hard to distinguish us from the drug-addicted crazies.

After mammal analysis, we get a revision of our proposal from Dr. Kim who was nice enough to met us in the tick lab.  Leaving to take a break before working on the proposal in order to shower, change clothes, etc, Betsey decides to let me hold her wet pants.  Now, as I am not [read: am] judgemental, I carried them for her.  In the results section of our paper, you'll find me addressing a small but often wondered question:
 Result 1) Wet clothes are hard to set on fire and takes more time than Betsey's perception will allow.

We then went to Lunch.  Alex got the usual order to feed a small village while Betsey got a huge salad.  She also got moldy grapes that she didn't eat, but she ate cheese: see they irony?  Kara and Nathan joined us for Lunch as they usually do.  Poor Kara, I think they forgot to tell her that in plant physiology that plants have the ability to enslave researchers.  I mean, why else would she return there every hour during sunlight hours to measure CO2 levels?  One could read her proposal and see it's strictly business, but I know something more sinister is happening.  Don't worry Kara, I'll save you someday when the ticks stop enslaving me.

We then went to work on our proposal:  PROPOSAL IS DUE TOMORROW OMG FREAK OUT!
The edits we had to do weren't big, so it didn't take long, but we are all still freaking out.  Our proposal has seemed to fluctuate in weight these past couple days.  We managed to cut it in half one day to 12 pages.  Now it's back up to 18.  Then I realized... it's single spaced.  So it's a magical 26 page proposal double spaced.  But it's my baby.  And Dr. Fore will be giving it last minute plastic surgery as we patch it up and tell it it's still beautiful before we send it in tomorrow before 5.  Oh godz

We disbanded until dinner.  We (Me, Betsey, Alex, Nathan, Kara, and new edition: Ben who is part of Truman scholarz not MathBio but is so much cooler than the Spectres that just moved in [more info where need later]) ate a Chinese restaurant.  It was delicious.  I got chocolate ice cream and a saucey fortune cookie about good personal affairs.  Betsey's cookie doomed our proposal stating "Set time for something tomorrow... you'll need it" or something.  I almost left her at the restaurant to save the baby.  MathBio: more dramatic than a soap opera.

After dinner we decided to make door decorations aka door decs.  After much strategic planning, Alex made ones of our names in different languages, Betsey used a mixed media of wood and construction paper to make great alliterations of what we are (I'm Judging Justin, girl knows I judge and watch more Judge Judy than a pregnant house wife), and Kara is making tree-themed door decs.  I'm making people into cool metaphors of what they are doing.  I finished Betsey's: she's a vampire hunter in a cool victorian outfit.  I mean... her name is really Elisabeth York (you couldn't get more British than that if you drank tea through bad teeth in Northinger Abbey with the Queen herself) and she catches ticks, blood sucking parasites (and after Twilight, vampires have really just become parasites on society, sucking out its intelligence).  Kara will be some cool plant lady, and Alex is going to have to wait as statistical pictures are limited to distributions which is kinda boring.  So I have to brain storm something for that.

Things I've learned today:

1.  I'm judgemental
2.  Betsey is more judgemental
3.  If Alex makes a mistake, it will get judged fo' sure
4.  Rain makes things more fun
5.  Ticks

That is all

Stay itchy,

~Justin

Day 7 recap "Alex in Wonderland"

Today was Alex's Birthday!

And nothing says, "Happy Birthday!" more than 7:30 AM tick sampling.  Waking up that early isn't a problem for me; I have two alarms and a game plan: before I go to bed I drink tons of water/coke/etc, so when I wake up, the adrenaline rush from hearing alarms going off/ being paranoid jump starts my bladder.  Then I have to at least walk to the bathroom.

Waking up is not the worst part of this.

We go to the field dominated by non-native grasses first.  It's relatively simple, you check to see if the trap is open, closed, or contains an animal and shout out your response.  Then Dr. Fore scrambles to write things down; I don't know how she does it as we aren't exactly bringing our "A" game team spirit.  A post-stroke (read: Courtny Cox) Nirvana may be more coherent.  Nature remedies this though.  There is so much dew on the grass.  After walking down the line, your pants are completely drenched or dominated by the non-native grasses.  It's a nice pick up and keeps one from going to sleep during the job.  It also saved me when I almost wet myself today.

See, mice don't weigh too much, and the first trap I picked up was heavy.  I peek into to make sure there was an animal in it... I mean... who knows, maybe some prankster filled with with oddly moving rocks.  Or maybe some vortex was opened inside the trap.  Or it could be filled with pixies and gold!

But it was later found out to be a rabbit which is a much better alternative to chipmunk.

So we finish grabbing all the traps with animals, 10 in total, and decide to get breakfast before we process them.  Not being a morning person at all, I just decide to get something to drink.  While I normally would just get a Coke or Dr. Pepper, Betsey and Alex are trying to steer me away from soda (dangerous thinking I know).  I get a one of those V8 with strawberry and kiwi.  It was good, but it was still filled with sugar and relatively nothing else.  But what can one expect.  They also found it really strange that I eat kiwis with the skins on them.  Betsey fantasized it as eating hair; I prefer astroturf.  Regardless, kiwis need some sort of texture to contrast the mush and tart and slight sweet.

After this, we go back to the lab to process the animals.  Mainly we measure their feet, sex, weight,and if it's a recapture as well if it as any ticks on it.  If it isn't a recapture, we clip it's toes to mark it.  It's not as bad as it sounds, but it is not something one looks forward to when you should still be sleeping.

We mostly get Peromyscus leucopus but sometimes we get the cutest smaller mouse whose very long name starts with R.  (It's like Rethmodamadies... or at least that is how you pronounce it).  So at least the things we get to groom are cute.

But then there are the ticks...  we get larval and nymphs on P. leucopus so it's mostly picking of small ticks that don't look too intimidating, but sometimes you'll see an adult tick... and most of the time it's on you.

We finish processing and decide to adjourn for an hour or two.  We all were hot, wet, and really wanted to put clothes in our freezer; almost like Spring break!  After this interim we get lunch and discuss what we need to do; proposal, proposal, and proposal.  Betsey also wanted to examine the data to know how much we would need to process in the following week.  I know, such a slacker!  Does she not know proposal?

But we decided to look over the data while our proposal was in the shop, having parts taken off and sold on the black market of proposals as it was a tad too inflated.  Let me tell you, Alex is an excel wizard, and I quote from him, "I was almost an accounting [read: excel] major."  But he had columns flying every which way as we made an easy-to-read list of all the mammals captured from 2010.  The highlight was when we had to print it; there is no printer in our lab, so we had to find somewhere else to have it printed.  Alex found a huge list of printers in Mag, but we didn't know exactly where we could get into, so we narrowed it down to the main floor and the floor we were on.  Then, we fell into two feelings, one where we went searching for a printer in an open room and one where we set trying to logic it out.  Let me tell you, Logic-ing where you can print while sleep deprived is a hoot.  Eventually, we follow Betsey's idea to print from a copier in the main office.  This doesn't work the first time as we didn't input a code; a nice receptionist lady shows us how to do it from her computer accidentaly printing out several things while she was just trying to show us how to print.

Then we left to go up the stairs and print; we left through the main door which we did not enter and was closed.  It's one of those doors that once it opens, it's weighted to stay opened, and I was the last one out.  Everyone looked at me... not to shut it, but not in a way that it was okay to be open.  Unable to make up my mind of what to do with the door, I, along with Betsey and Alex, ran up the near by stairwell.  Oh them researchers sure are crazy.

Then came the edit from Dr. Fore.  It was strange.  It pointed out some things that were wrong (some of them from what we wrote, some of them from what she had written), and some very odd things.  She noticed when there was an extra space, a minor indention error, or even through what must be paranoia of words being different size (I swear... that "another" is the same as all the other words!).  It left us with a lot of work to do and some great conversation while doing it.

Unbeknown to Alex, we were also secretly planning his birthday bash.  She was contacting people to meet up; I was dreaming of dollar cones.  That was the bait; we were going to lure him to TCBY to get dollar cones.  They were delicious and something I will do every Wed. until I die (and I will request that after I die every Wed. one be placed on my grave... with sprinkles).  Then when we (me, Kara -- plant biologist extradordinare -- Alex, and Betsey) started to leave, I feigned having to go to use the bathroom.  In this time period, I had precious moments to find Alex an ice cream cake.  There were many decisions, but most involved peanuts or peanut type toppings which was a no-no for Alex's diet.

I finally decided on a White Chocolate Mousse cake.

Luckily, the TCBY and Bellacinos share the same place, so I used a Bellacinos bag to carry the cake into the car.  Even more lucky, Alex didn't ask questions to why I had so many grinders.  Kids gotta eat ya' know.

We got back to the dorm where our small group was gathering and Betsey and I realized: we didn't have forks or knives.  We tried to text the last guy coming to bring some, but he brought Gyros food instead (very close, but no cigar).  Betsey then tried to stealthily ask if anyone had any forks/knives which lead to confusion and someone eventually asking Alex.  He then volunteered to run home and grab some.  It was great.  I think he suspected something -- if not knew-- but was rolling with punches.  I mean... what is the worst that could happen?  Free cake?

He came back and the festivities started: cake, Little Fockers, and laughs.  It was amazing.

Things I learned today:

If Betsey and I have better communication, our like-mindedness and sleuth will achieve much.

Many ice cream cakes have peanuts.

A little dew  adds up to sea world.

I shouldn't blog at midnight as it starts to lose it's charm.

Stay itchy,

~Justin

Day 6 recap "Juice Race"

All right folks, here's an exciting recap of a day of the glamorous, Kesha (read: K$sha) lifestyle of a MathBio researcher. 

No, you didn't read the title incorrectly, I'm giving the first recap on the 6th day.  Why?  Today, at our MathBio group meeting (that is with all of the other amazing MathBio teams) Dr. Pam Ryan, head of MB, wanted us to make a journal of the things we do during MB.  Maybe it's supposed to be a sacred relic for when I'm old and fat so that I can look back and see: Hey... it could be worse; you could be out there sampling ticks.  Or maybe it's so they can say that their researchers actually do things.  Or maybe she is trying to become a historian.  Crafty.

So this blog has been born either out of self-preservation, 1984 Big Brother tactics, or one woman's quest to defy her math background and research the War of 1812.  If any of the mentioned offends you, you may want to leave now as I'll probably do worse.

After the group meeting, Lunch happened.  Lunch, not lunch: Lunch.  You see, we get 5$ (if you think this is strange to look at, sound it out.  Then sound out: $5) for breakfast and 10$ for lunch with our amazing program, but no one wakes up early enough for breakfast, or if you have to, you generally have to be doing something more important.  What does that leave?  A 15$ lunch, or more appropriately named: "L"unch.  I'm not so great at the engorging of so much money; I can only fit 7-8 ones in my mouth at a time, but some of my other fellow MathBio-ers are a lot better at it.  Let me give you the lowdown:

Alex -statistics research partner- Eats almost if not more than the 15$ a day, mostly in potatoes, hamburger, and shame.  He defies physics as all this mass goes it and must be transformed into pure happiness as there are two universal truths and they are both about him: he is always happy (but not in a psychotic mood) and is very skinny.  We are also going to be the only statisticians who model active populations that are going to get yachts, Nobel prizes, and many honorary PhDs.  We'll have so many honorary PhD's that we'll have to reject some as they just aren't good enough.

Betsey -biology research partner- eats about 9-10$ a day, but she's a vegetarian, so her burger is about 8$.  Still, she has shown me the value of 3 for 1$ cookies; generally I'd stay away as they look stale, but her alternative hypothesis were that they were pretty moist.  P-values through the floor ya'll!

The other MathBiots ate with us as well, but I haven't sampled their over gorged eating habits enough to put a guilty price tag of gluttony yet.  But don't worry, I'll have plenty of weeks to sample.

Afterwards, we had a team meeting with just our partners and our mentors.  I love my mentors, they represent everything you would want in people who are trying to make you succeed.

Dr. Hyun Joo Kim -statistical genius- This woman is amazing.  She banned any Barbie books in her household as they condoned sexist, wanton ideas.  She is also super amazing at all forms of statistics and is very gentle with criticism; it's precise but not harsh.

Dr. Stephanie Fore -biological master- This woman is intimidating.  She's smart; she knows what she wants; and she knows how to look at you if she feels you aren't doing what you should be doing.  She's the perfect "bad cop."  When she's reading your revision of a proposal, there is a fear of her lashing out and ripping your throat out for bad ideas or redundancy, but her remarks are always insightful and never with venom; however, you can still imagine the fangs. 

So, we went over our proposal.  The highlight of the conversation came when Dr. Fore argued with Dr. Kim over the structure of the proposal.  Dr. Kim thought it should have an introduction and a background while Dr. Fore thought it should just have a background.  I know from the animal planet when two lions are fighting, the camera crew is generally very far away, so I decided to stay away and just observe.  Ultimately, Dr. Fore won out either through "we are trying to get into Biology journals" or by dragging out the argument.  Either way, we just named "introduction" to "abstract" and kept chugging revisions.

Next came preparation for trapping.  So, we cleaned Sherman traps, wired broken ones, and made peanut butter and oatmeal bait.  I was the fortunate one who got to make the bait and my fingers still smell like peanut butter.  I could only imagine some black version of Paula Deen in my head (maybe her and George Washington Carver Jr's, the only black man ever to have invented something by my high school textbooks, baby) while I was mixing it.  During this crazy cook show, Dr. Fore was explaining to us how to adjust the locking mechanisms of the Sherman traps; it's really quite fun.  You move this metal projections about until it just latches the door down just enough.  It's quite erotic.

After this, we go to set the traps!  We drove out the University farm at about 3, so it's nice and hot outside.  We go by the field dominated by non-native grasses first.  It's relatively easy to place the traps.  You open the trap, put in some peanut butter, and place it down.  Most of the time you are trying to figure you where you go next.  It's a 8 x 13 grid for 104 trapping stations for 2 areas; that's 208 traps that have to be placed.  The stations are marked by small white or pink flags jutting about 2 feet from the ground, or at least they are supposed to be.  However, by wind or deer, or storm or deer, or snow or deer, they always get knocked down, and they aren't always on a direct path in front of the last one.  So you'll walk about 10 feet from the last one, look around, and realize that you have no idea where the next one is.  Also, you get the added fun of small trees in the field dominated by non-native grasses, so you get to go into trees, around trees, up trees.  It's great.  I felt like I was playing some sick version of Legend of the Hidden Temple mixed with Evil Dead and that that trees were going to do some very bad things.

Once those were done, we moved to the secondary oak-hickory forest.  It's a lot like the field dominated by non-native grasses, but it has many trees and plants as well as more places to slip and fall.  You also can't see people to your left and right as easily, so you feel like you are lost constantly.  But that's okay, as the flags must feel that way too.  There are some flags I think they tried hard to hide while flagging as you'll walk about 10 feet and see only trees and grass.  But I fear not, as Where's Waldo has prepared me for the days of looking for red and white.  But Justin, aren't the flags pink?  Why yes... but I am colour-blind.  Tease me now mortals!  Tease me, but I will not show you the flags to your salvation!

We finish the trapping, and you think that everything is all right in the comfort of an air-conditioned car.  Then you realize that an adult D. variablis or A. Americanum is crawling on your clothes and freak out.  I still remember the day when we were meeting during the school year after a sampling; Betsy had a tick crawling up her shirt, and Dr. Fore just reaches over, picks it off, and drops it into her Mr. Pibb like it was no big thing.  In a few more weeks, I will become this.

We get back to the dorms and decide to go to Wal-Mart before working on our proposal.  Long story short, we each get 59 fl oz juices (I got Simply Orange with Mango they got Simply lemonade... commies).

The whole way there and back, I am trying to convince Alex to pick up hitchhikers.  At one point, I almost got him to kick out Betsy so we could get 2 hitchhikers!  Unfortunately, our only choices were a black guy with no shirt and a devious-looking Asian.  You know the rules: no shirt, no switchblades, no hitchhiking. 

We get back to the dorms, and we order a pizza.  Our dorms are closed during the interim, so we try to give the pizza guy enough info, but the word count for the box is probably around 5.  So well written odes and warnings toward trying to come in fail.  The resulting message was : Dormclosed, parkBnB, wemeet.  I'm surprised the guy came at all.  If I was him, I would let the druggies just think they ordered pizza during a hallucination.

After pizza, and watching midgets romance and sketchy love triangles, we get to working on our proposal again.  Hours pass... we get delusional.  We (read me and Betsy) realized we have a lot of juice.  Alex is almost done, and we freak, half in awe, half in fear, of such juice mastery.  Then I try and suggest a race.  By that I attempt to get a head start but everytime I would try and drink, I'd start to laugh.  This happened for almost 15 minutes.  It was quite legit.  Betsy de-activated her facebook in attempt not to see me from this.  It happens I guess.

Now, I try and trade sexual favors to Orpheus in order to sleep.  But that won't come until 1 AM, I guess cat pictures until then.  Such a tease.

Stay itchy,

~Justin Baraboo

Proposal et alia

Finally, a blog about ticks.  But not just any ticks, we only look at the active ticks; the ones either scurrying around or climbing high or the ones snugly attached and sucking like the world is their milkshake.

Don't think of me as a sick person, it's research.  Totally business.  So is this another one of those research blogs where I bombard you with facts and info and fake smiles through caffeinated-sustained impulses?  Does it sound like one?

I know... sassy.

First, I'll let you know where we stand.  In terms of real life, that depends on your position from good ol' Kirksville, Missouri, donned K-vegas by those who know it best.  It's a lot like Vegas, but meth is the drug of choice and instead of lights and strippers we have wind blowing in your face from all directions and cicadas.  Plan your next tipsy vacation carefully, we are quite the destination.  In terms of the mental work of the research, we are finishing up our proposal.  We gave presentations of it last week (I'll update another that story another time).  So it's a hurry-scurry to get all of dots crossed and our t's blotted with red ink of our mentors as we keep rolling out the editions.  If puberty could be reduced into paper form, this paper would be more of a confusing mess than Justin Bieber fans.  [Would hit Twilight with this, but I'm not interested in menopause: I'm looking at you Twilight Moms].  But if this foundation gets laid right, the road to a good project is paved.  Unfortunately, we are paving our road with mice and ticks.

In terms of physical work, we stand either in a field "dominated by non-native grasses" or a "secondary oak-hickory" forest.  "dominated by non-native grasses" is the last name of the field, "secondary oak-history" is the first name of the forest: don't forget it or you aren't embracing the biology of the MathBio study.  I'll get into the techniques of our sampling later.  Trust me; it's so much fun!  Take everything one could love about the outdoors: sun, plants, nice air, etc... and add ticks.  I think Alduos Huxley sampled ticks.  I mean, how else could he get that baby scene.


Well, the proposal is calling me, and by that I mean the idea of our mentors beating us for not working.  Tiger mentoring, it's cruel and vicious and gets you published.

Stay itchy,

~Justin Baraboo