This is not an ordinary day, today is my birthday

And I will get the best gift ever, because today Maja flies to me!!!

I may have left you with the impression of the lab work as hard and stressful - and it is. Today we are running the last analysis and writing up the reports, which makes the stress level go up to an all time high. We have spent many long days in lab and with computers. We have crunched tons of data and dived into totally unfamiliar fields in a way to short time, and all have that nagging feeling of leaving too much data behind (we do community analysis, after all...) - but even so, this place is brilliant.

The facility is three stores, with three separate suits of stairs, a nice view over the ocean and packed with unexpected nooks and crannies everywhere. I walk down the corridor in one end and see Carie coming from the other with a rack of test tubes. When I cross a corner I almost run into Richard who is looking for someone. Through a window I see the next group in a heated discussion of this or that incomprehensible diagram, and in the computer lab people do pretty good imitations of chickens. The whole place is buzzing like an anthill - or why not like a microbial mat - full of interesting people and projects and things. And everywhere is the smell and sound of the ocean. This could just as well be the Western Biological Laboratory that Steinbeck describes - and in many ways it is.

On a total different page. A few days ago I experienced the third totally independent and unprovoked confirmation - this time by a leading Deep Time geologist - of my physical similarity to Lenin. I'm still not sure how to react to that information.

And tomorrow is the last day. After that I have to leave these people, this place, this group dynamic and this wonderful course. I feel last-day-in-school mood crushing down over me. Good thing we will be too tired to be very sentimental about it.

Wild life spotting: I spent some quality time with the seals again today. And they have feral cats here. And a local crow was gracious enough to pose on a stick for the camera.
Suck factor: Low
Wow factor: High