fieldwork forever?

Everybody's been doing a traveling meme for the past year - Silver Fox has a nice collection of other geobloggers who have done one this year. I didn't join in because of my paranoia about keeping my pseudonymity. But I did start compiling a list of the different places I've traveled this past year, and it's actually fairly short. I haven't done much fieldwork this past year - I counted about 12 weeks, not counting traveling I did for work that didn't involve playing in the dirt.

I never intended to be a full-time field person for my entire career, so it's ok that I'm transitioning more to office work. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't mind the lousy weather or the long days - I just miss having a life on weeknights, and I have certain commitments right now that require at least marginal attention during the work week.

I know a couple of "fieldwork forever" guys (they're all guys) who can't stand being in the office. They get itchy and they tend not to deal well with crowds, with "crowds" being more than about 5 people. I've been helping out a fieldwork forever guy with some basic computer stuff, and his level of discomfort with basic computer stuff is pretty...bad. I mean, technical skills like writing a simple memorandum or downloading a file are a mystery.

I'm glad that these guys are happy doing 100% fieldwork. But it does worry me a little - what happens if work slows down and there's a backlog of reports to be written? These forever fieldwork guys usually do ok for themselves, but come winter, when things generally slow down, they're not exactly flexible. And in this economy, being less than totally billable isn't a good thing. Sure, they'll be working ridiculous hours in a couple months, but will their management wait that long to keep them?

a new year

Looking back over the last year, all I can think is, "thank God that's over!"

Usually, my first post of the year is a review of past resolutions and some new resolution. But I broke all my resolutions in 2009, and then my diminished resolutions from this time last year didn't pan out either.

So, no resolutions! Here's to a healthier, happier, and more consistently-posting 2011.

Happy Holidays!

Accidental Remediation is going on a holiday blog break - I need to spend the next couple days shopping/wrapping, since I haven't started yet, and then I'll be out playing in the snow (weather permitting) after recuperating from Christmas.

See you in the new year!

an inconvenient death

This is somewhat inspired by FSP's collection of posts today about exam excuses (often family deaths, real or otherwise).

I've had two deaths in the family at times I was scheduled to be in the field. In both cases, I was an important but not totally critical part of the crew.

One death was a grandparent who was 91 and had been battling pneumonia in the nursing home for months. I dealt with the news ok (it wasn't exactly a surprise), but then when I called the project manager to tell him I had to go to the funeral, a bunch of repressed emotion came out and I started bawling on the phone. Manager's response: "Just go to the funeral already! Take off the week! Trust me, I understand."

The other death was of a young (had two small children) relative who was his family's primary breadwinner. We were on a little bit of a death watch, so about 2 weeks before the fieldwork, I explained the situation to the project manager: I told him that there was a very strong chance that I would be taking some time off to attend a funeral/wake in the next couple of weeks and that I would help out as much as much as I could, but that I would be attending the wake and funeral to support the widow. When news of the death came, I called up immediately to arrange things so that the project wouldn't be left in the lurch. The project manager threw a fit about the future absence, I went anyway, and the manager made sure that I never worked for him again.

Did I regret anything I did in the latter situation? Nope.

I work incredibly hard. All my reviews have said "what a team player! So dependable!" I stress out when things go wrong and I go into overdrive to fix them. But it's a job, not my entire reason for existence.

just you wait

Last week, I took the elevator downstairs with a gaggle of women in their early 20s. One started to complain about being mistaken for a teenager. She said, "my mother promised that I will appreciate looking young once I hit 30..." but she left before I could tell her that not everybody will feel that way. Like me.

Prematurely gray hair runs in my family, but I missed that particular gene. I'm only starting to get gray hair, and it doesn't seem to change anyone's impression of my age. It's too bad - I would love to be distinguished rather than young. At least that way, I wouldn't have to work my actual age/experience into conversations with every single business contact I meet so that my opinions have a chance of being taken seriously.

How did I miss this?

The bigger picture has part 1 and 2 of its photos of the year up. Part 3 will go up tomorrow. I was looking through the pictures and noticed this (from here):

The caption (sorry it didn't copy over) states that the sinkhole in Guatemala City was caused by heavy rains from Tropical Storm Agatha. It's 60 meters deep. Luckily, nobody was injured.

Some google-foo found that this sinkhole, which opened up in May, is similar to another sinkhole that opened up in February 2007. This is an example of a piping pseudokarst, which is caused by the collapse of caverns that form in weak but somewhat cohesive soil - in the case of Guatemala City, uncemented ash and other volcanic deposits.

I am not a geomorphologist and the areas I have experience in are decidedly non-volcanic (and not prone to sinkholes at all). So this was new to me. If you're interested, there's a nice technical discussion of pseudokarst here and a less technical explanation buried in the lower bits of this wikipedia article.

sabbatical fun

FSP's post yesterday reminded me of my own often absent (and finally, retiring) advisor. I've mentioned him in passing several times, and in this post I touched on his frequent disappearances.

My advisor was on sabbatical for part of my time at grad school, but it didn't have much of an impact on my academic career or progress toward completion. I think he took a 6-month sabbatical right before I started most of the fieldwork for my thesis. So he was around to help me start out, and he was more or less available to help me with my thesis. It probably helped that he kept my university town as his primary residence during the sabbatical, so he was only slightly less available than at other times.

So what did my advisor do for his sabbatical? Well, he taught several short courses in various subtropical areas that were close to beaches. He renewed his contacts with his massive network of colleagues and ex-students by visiting just about every major department doing work in our particular subfield. He attended conferences in exotic locations (somehow, I was the one who went to Ohio...). And twice a week or so, he would read his e-mail and help out with whatever crises were simmering along in his absence.

Did I feel neglected during this time? Not really. I knew what I was getting into when I applied to work with him for my master's degree. He was close to retirement, didn't have anything left to prove, and was upfront about being fairly hands-off. I was probably more motivated to finish than your average grad student, since I had a sweetie waiting for me several hundred miles away.

If I had been a needier student, if my advisor had shut off communication for 6 months, or if he had taken off during a time I had needed more attention, maybe his sabbatical would have been an issue. As it was, I just told him to have a silly drink for me and that we'd reconnect once he was back. My only regret is that I can't have a sabbatical myself...