and I owe it all to my fan

 Greetings to the herd! 

After giving everyone enough time to thoroughly enjoy Linden’s reporting from Sweden, we are back with some blogging action. 

I am writing to you all from our very own Williamstown! After a nice hiatus at home, where I spent some good days on the last bits of snow, I packed up the car with all the essentials set my sights back east.

On campus, I have been busy with my two important jobs: 

1.) proud member of the summer clog supremacy and 2.) working in the environmental analysis lab. These two jobs are, as anyone would have guessed, intricately interconnected.

Fig 2: women + clogs = best results; Ava and I toting around our beloved stream samples.

                            

Working in the lab with my wonderful lab partner Ava, we spend our days tackling a variety of tasks. Our main task is, of course, catering to a fabulous lab atmosphere with 24/7 tunes and ample snack breaks (with a strict adherence to lab safety and protocols). On the side, we spend a lot of time running samples, which we like to do anywhere between one and four times depending on how often we forget a critical step and begin anew (only partly kidding, we are getting pretty good).

What sort of samples are we “running”, might you wonder? Water samples! Which brings us to the most exciting part of the job: going around in Hopkins forest with a variety of forest-minded friends to collect rain and stream samples and check on weather stations. We then take these samples and perform a series of chemical analyses to see what's going on with them. Why? To keep the metaphorical finger on the pulse of the Williamstown atmosphere, soil, plants, etc via water data. It's extremely glamorous. 

 

Fig 2: Aforementioned instances of glamorous tasks: collecting measurements of debris damns in the creek and checking data from a weather station.

Beyond the day job, I spend the rest of my time with fantastic company (including many friends and members of our beloved team) here on campus and enjoying the fruits of an east coast summer: experiencing the sights and smells of all the New England greenery, cooking, picnicking, running, swimming, and generally having a very nice time hanging out. 

some friends and various picnics!

And of course, I owe it all to my mighty box fan; whose ever-constant hum keeps me bearably cool in this New England July.

stay tuned for more eph nordic news! 

-- Molly B