Rob and I played one little game of Crazy Hide and Seek, and that was the basis for our new reputation as the Weird Kids. Just because I may have been crawling on my belly and Rob may have been acting like a crab, Paulo thinks we are weird. He labeled Jean as half weird and Jeremy as the normal one, but Jeremy, as we all know, is boring, so no surprise there.

In any case, the Plant People, as some chose to call us, do seem fairly weird when we sit and sort and sort and sort. I mentioned that we had help one day, and Frank the PolarTREC teacher posted pictures from his plant experience. He compared sorting the plants to sifting through gravel, which they have to do to retrieve small items. I put him on my blogroll, and he posted an unflattering picture of me here.

Tonight we went to another talk at the heritage center. Most of the talks are on Saturday afternoons, but we are usually in Atqasuk on Saturday afternoons, so the occasional Tuesday night talk is more feasible for us to attend. This one was ok, but I almost fell asleep. No pictures! The other Tuesday night one was much better.

It’s kind of depressing to be getting to know people for three months… or three weeks… or three days!… and then go back to the normal world in the fall. I don’t like to say goodbye to people. I was happy to run into an unexpected Loon Person the other day, because it made me think that maybe this won’t be the only time we see these new acquaintances.  I also don’t like claiming people as friends without checking with them first, but I think I made a few friends so far… right, Hiroki?

Jean and I ventured out with some UTEP people for the talk and for a late dinner. Everyone eats dinner late except us, because we eat at the cafeteria more than the rest and it closes at 7. I had a nice bowl of soup and hoped that I wasn’t really getting sick, as I suspect I might be.  The past two days in the field were fairly miserable- cold I can handle, but the constant sleet, rain, and snow make even the Write-in-the-Rain paper finicky and greatly reduces dexterity. Our chances for gold in the Tandem Point Frame Olympics seem much more dim when Jeremy is too cold to say the right words and my numb fingers write slowly.

Fortunately we were able to keep field time down to 5 hours the past couple days, and Jeremy and I are STILL ahead of the game, busting out seven or eight point frames when only six are scheduled. Go us. This, of course, does not mean that we can skip a field day. If you get done early, why not do MORE science?

Why not indeed! I love science. Maybe just Barrow science, though- I’ve never tried any other kinds.