The Power of Now

To begin, a word (I'm really into words) on the nature of recording personal commentary within a public domain such as Al Gore's interweb (a.k.a. a series of tubes). In starting this blog, my intended audience were my close friends and family. Naively, I didn't stop to think that there was no way to limit said audience short of password-protection, which never even crossed my mind. What I'm trying to get at is this: in my last blog post, I referenced a longstanding, exaggerated joke (who, me?) without realizing I was making it at the expense of specific people whom I never thought would read my blog. I have removed the insulting passage and I regret any offense taken--it was thoughtless and unkind and I really didn't mean anything by it My worst self seems to come out when I'm in a summer camp-like environment, so forgive me if I revert to 12-year-old behavior.

Now, on to more important things! The last few days have been very quiet: a lot of lectures, field exercises, reading (I found a recent issue of The New Yorker on Josie's floor, so I've put Lolita aside for a bit), so-bad-they're-great movies (fan favorites include Pretty Woman and the timeless Now and Then--guess who's Chrissy?), strolls around the neighborhood, sunsets, and steadily fantastic meals (though I've just about sworn off dessert because I can't handle the sugar).

I decided to change the focus of my individual project, because I looked deep within myself and determined that I do not have the patience (or particular interest) to collect and sort so many insect specimens. I am now going to compare several abiotic (that is, non-living) factors at three, instead of two, different types of forest edges: forest-pasture edge, forest-reservoir edge, and forest-road edge. I will look at whether the soil moisture, humidity, temperature, and amount of light differ across these slightly different, man-made landscapes.

This afternoon was my first official day of project field work and it was a lot less fun than I thought it would be. Tromping through raw forest is...difficult. There are vines and spider webs EVERYWHERE and I forgot my machete (just kidding)! Plus, it's been raining for a few days so I kept stepping in gross piles of mud and slippery leaves. That said, I'm slowly getting the hang of it and tomorrow I'm going out with a field assistant, so it should be a bit easier.

The most exciting--and tragic--event to occur since I last posted was the death of Leopoldinha (so dubbed by Olivia), a Glittering-bellied Emerald (we think) hummingbird who flew into our dining room and then exhausted herself into shock. We know she was a female because of her size and coloring--very small, and while gorgeously iridescent, much less colorful than a male would have been. When she finally fell, Ze brought her outside and a few of us gathered around, monitoring her breathing and watching hopefully to see if she would recover. Things were looking good for awhile. Tim held and stroked her to warm her little body, and dripped a little water onto her beak and she appeared to be rallying, but late that night, she croaked (I was about to type "passed away" but then got nervous I was losing my cynicism after only 10 days away from the tristate area!). We buried her in a flowerbed. Heartbreaking, yes, but it was really, really cool to see her up close and touch her. I tried to post a video I took but it was taking forever to load, so here're some pictures instead.

I am at the point where my distance from home--both geographically and temporally--is starting to really sink in. This isn't a negative realization, but it is a little disconcerting. For the past few days, I have had the feeling that my life is going on without me. Not true, of course, because my life conveniently follows me around and right now I'm very clearly in Brazil, but also disconcerting. I'm hoping this will fade with time, and though I love blogging and keeping in touch with friends and family via G-mail (my virtual home) and Skype, I think that spending a little--just a little--less time on the internet will help. It's great to be connected, but the more connected I am to another, sort of plane of existence, the less I am connected to my current reality, and who doesn't want to live in the moment?

Enough with the philosophizing. Today is Thursday, which means...another social! Spirits are high again, and Darcy has taken it upon herself to instate a "formal" dress code for tonight's festivities, whatever they may be. This is mostly because laundry day was Monday and most of us are completely out of clothes save our dressiest garments, the only ones we don't wear in the field. One of us even brought wigs with her! As my buddy Ethan put it, "Does everyone have tickets for the shit show?" Weee'll see-ee....

P.S. How 'bout that presidential race? Just read this great article, published in (on?) Slate, everyone's favorite online magazine, by Meghan O'Rourke, a[n excellent] staff writer who happens to also be one of the poetry editors of The Paris Review (but doesn't work in the office; I never met her). Interesting that the picture at right is the first one to come up on a Google image search, nao?

P.P.S. I tried mangosteen! It was bizarre but pretty delicious--a hard, dark shell enclosing soft, white, juicy, vaguely citrus-like flesh that comes in cloves a la garlic. The only taste comparison I could draw was...lemon sorbet? Except not cold. I bought two but unfortunately didn't cut open the second one fast enough; it went bad and grew some kind of weird, yellow mold inside. I'll save it for you, Dad, so you can scrape it off and eat it anyway.