field day

I took my students out for a field lab this afternoon.

Field labs are always tense ahead of time - having to remember all the equipment, the whole folderol with getting vans from Motor Pool (I swear, the Woman at Motor Pool would never let a van out if she could come up with a good enough reason. She always warns us to drive safely, and not to mud up the vans, and to not leave trash in the vans...lady, the vans are not All That. They are 20 year old Dodge Ram Vans with 100,000 plus miles on them. They have parts that fall off of them regularly. They are held together in places by baling wire and duct tape. I once had the power steering totally give out on one - it was lucky I had a big strong athlete guy in my class to drive it home. And you're worrying about mud or a candy wrapper?)

But once out in the field, I'm always happier. This is my element. This is where I'm supposed to be. This is where I know all kinds of stuff, not the least being, what the different species of plants the "kids" are supposed to identify are.

And this is where I can share the little nuggets of natural history that I know, pass them on to the next generation as it were - if anyone's listening. (Actually, usually, someone is. I'm always surprised upon re-meeting students years later, when they're in graduate school, and they say something like, "Remember the time when you showed us how to tell grease-grass from other species of grass? I never forgot that." or "I was the only person in my botany class who knew the difference between the black oak group and the white oak group on the very first day. I got bonus points on a test because of that!" So I figure it's worth it to share my little stories, even if some of the students sigh and roll their eyes, or even if they act like I'm "Ducky" on NCIS. (My stories do NOT ramble quite that much...)

It was forest sampling day today. I broke the class into two. By chance, I wound up with the "serious" students - the ones who paid careful attention and took notes when I was telling them what to do in class. My assistant wound up with the "dee dee dee!" group or the people who were too busy writing notes to the person next to them (and don't think I don't see what you're doing) in class.

So I'll pay for it when I have to explain to them how to analyse the data; the group with my assistant may well have screwed up data I will have to straighten out. But whatever. It was pleasant being out in the field, because, as I said, the students I was with buckled down to the task and they mostly knew the plants, so I had little I had to do other than verify an identification here or there. So I roamed around picking up and looking at things like oak galls - just hanging out in the woods - something I don't get to do enough, because I'm usually alone, and I get spooked running around in the woods alone, because I've heard too many stories about moonshiners or people who grow pot and put pungee stakes and man-traps around it, or about the weird creepy inbred "holler" people...guess I saw "Deliverance" at too impressionable an age.

It was a good day for it, too - cloudy and cool. (Yesterday was miserable hot, like summer's last blow. Today was predicted to be that way too, but for once the cold front moved faster than expected). It was fallish and cool, and leaves would filter down off the trees. I could see whitecaps on the little lake near where we work and there were osprey or something flying overhead.

It's peaceful out in the woods, too - no one can reach you, no one can come and take you away from what you're working on. You can focus on the single task at hand. And if someone comes to you later and says, "I needed you to do xyz..." you can just look at them and say, "Dude. I was in the field." And in my department, that's all you need to say: I was in the field are the magic words that get you off the hook of not having been present to attend to the whims or desires of others.

It's the one thing, I realize, that's more important than all the other things we do or are made to do. It's the top priority and it gives you the right to say, "no, I couldn't be at the meeting" or "no, I couldn't do that for you right then" or "yes, you are right, you came by my office and I was not there. But it was not my office hours and I. Was. In. The. Field." And no one can say boo about it.

I love it.

Also - no one in my group had a cell phone (maybe there's no reception out there, I don't know). For once, no one was being interrupted by boyfriends/girlfriends/parents/sorority sisters/fraternity brothers/etc/etc. Again: the fieldwork was the top and only priority. And it made me happy.

I think it's that I multitask too much - and I am to much a people pleaser most of the time - but being able to be "out of pocket" (as they say around here), and having a GOOD EXCUSE for being out of pocket fills me with joy.

"I couldn't do it. Sorry. I was in the field."
"Yeah, I know he called. But I was in the field."

And it's the one explanation everyone buys from me - the one thing that doesn't make them sigh, and make you feel like they're thinking, "Migraine? Is THAT her excuse? She says she was home puking her guts out and feeling like she'd like to remove her right eye with a bayonet? Wow...that's really....lame." or "Helping out at church? That one sounds fishy to me. Seems like she 'helps out at church' every week or something..."

But it's nice - nice to be able to do ONE thing, just ONE thing, and not have the feeling of being pulled in eighty different directions. I wish I had a life where I could be more imperious and focus on one thing at a time more, instead of falling prey to people wanting to "talk" when I'm grading papers, or colleagues wanting to share their latest piece of personal puffery when I'm frantically trying to prep for a class....I need to be less of a nice person, I guess, and once in a while just say - and mean it - "I can't talk right now; I'm working on something I have to get done." And say it so they believe me.