Friday, March 9, 2007

more from Monteverde

I have now been in Monteverde for almost two weeks. Everyone is thoroughly busy right now as we have our fist midterm this tomorrow. In celebration of this quickly approaching torture I am procrastinating by watching a film of fighting beetles set to very up-beat music.
The last week has contained many exciting events. Last Saturday we did the tourist thing and went to the ziplines. We spent a thoroughly enjoyable and un-educational morning flying over the forest canopy. After the zipline adventure I finally got the milkshake I had been dreaming of. One flavor tried, 20 more to go!
The week days are filled with class, lots and lots of class. Most days have biology related lectures from 8 until 3 and Spanish class from 3:30-5:30. I am starting to feel that studying and classes are getting in the way of my learning (and by learning I mean tromping around in the cloud forest whenever I feel like it). My Spanish vocabulary is expanding. I now know such useful words as querida (mistress), mapache (raccoon), and aguas muertas (neap tide).
Some days we get a break from the usual lecture format. Yesterday’s exercise in biology could best be described as “High Speed Field Biology: Survivor Style”. At 8 am we were divided into groups of 5 and presented with our research question. All field data was collected by noon. After lunch the data was analyzed, background research was conducted, and a 15 minute powerpoint was constructed. A mere 11 hours after learning of our research topic we presented our results (statistics, discussion, relevant articles… the whole shebang) to the whole class. My group analyzed the nest distribution in a species of high altitude neo-tropical bees. It turns out that Crawfordapis luctuosa (aka big friendly bees that didn’t sting us even though we hovered over their nests for 2+ hours) display a clumped nest distribution. Yay.
Today’s lecture started off with a two hour hike through the cloud forest, over the continental divide, to the lecture hall. I really think all classes should start like that. We hiked up the Pacific side and then slid down the much wetter Atlantic side of the mountain. While mud-skiing down the Atlantic side I managed a thoroughly graceful, and apparently very noisy, swan dive into the mud. While untangling myself from a guilty tree root I was told to shut up so as to not disturb the hummingbird nest someone had just discovered. It was incredible; a hummingbird had built a nest right along the trail and stuffed inside were two almost full grown chicks. That might have been the best thing I saw this week (there were also about 20 Quetzals on a different hike, but I think the hummingbirds were cuter). Anyways, at the end of our hike we popped out of the forest at an insect museum (random, I know). The rest of the day was spent learning insect orders, how to tell a true shrunken head from a knock off, and the difference between a butterfly and everything else in the order Lepidoptera. The grand finale of the day was definitely when the owner of the insect museum (a former opera singer) performed the Costa Rican national anthem on his organ followed by the US anthem on the accordion.
I guess there is only so much procrastinating one can do at any one time, so I am now going to think about studying.

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