Today was my first official day as a hydrology technician intern. I got just a little bit filthy, and just a tiny bit soaked today.
My supervisor and I spent a lot of the day doing what we did yesterday. We drove all over the northwestern portion if the swamp, checking the water gauges and clearing debris. Before we went out today, we had something of an intern christmas: i was given a pair of hip boots for the summer, an aluminum clip board, a waterproof field journal, and my very own tape measure. I spent all. day. trying to learn the tape measure fluently. It's marked in feet, but instead of being divided into inches after that, it's divided into tenths and hundreths of a foot. This would be fine, except the bottom of one line is one number, and the top of the same line is a different number. I felt like a child, learning my units all over again, it was far too confusing. I can do it fine now, but it took an entire day of staring hard at my little orange tape measure.
So we went around and took water measurements throughout that area today. Once or twice today, we had to remove debris that was blocking the flow of water through the control devices. I didn't really want to stick my hands in the water to pull out the sticks and gunk, but i dove in, ripping out sticks and clearing the path like the champion I am. This wouldn't actually have been a big deal if it weren't for the foam.
The water is filled with organic material, and when it gets shaken up its froths. The consistency of the foam is similar to what happens when you make a rootbeer float. Its bubbly but firm, and I was covered in it today. I pulled an especially large piece of debris from the device, and it got all over my hands, which I anticipated, but as I pulled the stick from the water it FLUNG this foam all over my legs. My supervisor escaped unscathed, having been educated in this sort of thing, but as I looked at my dirty, frothy fingers and grody pants, there was a brief moment of mental panic. I kind of just froze, I don't think Fred noticed, but I was freaking out a little.
And then I just sort of snapped myself out of it. Before I started that day, I told myself that no matter how the bad the bugs were, I would't complain. I did pretty well, I always forget to spray my head with repellent, but I sucked it up (get it?) and didn't complain about the bugs. I figured since I was already doing pretty well on that one count, so instead of being a baby about getting dirty, I rinsed my hands in the ditch and got over it.
Later in the day, we surveyed some land for a project that's going up this summer. At this point it was raining. It had been on and off most of the day, but now the drops were sprinting off of my hood like a tiny waterfall in front of my eyes. I was scribbling stuff in my notebook, and even though it is waterproof, I managed to wrinkle the pages. So, when I was scrawling in my little book, and the rain was coming down, and my hands were soaking wet, I had another moment. It was a 'I just want to go inside and curl up with a blanket and hot tea' moment. After that I decided to eat lunch and got over it.
So now, I'm sitting in the circle chair and watching 'America's Got Talent' with some of the americorps kids and thinking about the day. I got to get a solid run at what I'd be doing this summer. I also had a really pleasant time chit chatting with my supervisor as we putt-putted around all day. I even sat in on a meeting with a USGS member. Even though I'm exaggerating a lot and complaining a little now, I had a really great day. I managed to escape relatively unscathed, which makes today a triumph in my book.
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