7 things that I jumped into - 06

06. BL4103 Honours Field Course = essential module for Biology majors back in 2001. a week-long affair spending time outfield in a neighbouring country during e September one-week term break, right smack in e middle of e semester-long full-time thesis research project (what others term FYP). our seniors had been to Sarawak & Tioman. this year, we were going to Phuket....Thailand!! =))

bird prof, coral reef prof & spider prof were e main guys running e show together with e non-Iplet Tommy, e logistics brains behind many expeditions (he told little sunshine & e cat that he used to do such work in e SAF). biohons class was to split into groups of about 5 slaves each - butterfly (can chase butterflies with nets), fish (can at least snorkel, preferably able to dive), crustacean (can't recall how bird prof described it), plant (apparently 'easy' cos they cannot run away from you, but getting to them is another story....) & frog (have to work at night cos that's when they come out). & each group had to do:

day 1: nightly presentation
days 2-4: fieldwork & nightly presentations
day 5: final presentation
day 6: free day

after a lot of noise & stock market style hollering & waving of hands & negotiation between cliques, there were 5 or so names chalked under e names of every group (in those days chalkboards still existed)....except for frog group. no takers. who wants to work every night when you could be enjoying nightly R&R at Patong beach after e presentations?

until little sunshine & e cat decided to jump in together. even though e cat was technically a molecular person with only this monkey-chasing experience beyond BL1101 practicals. we just wanted to avoid all those politicky clique-ish stuff, & certain not-exactly-outdoorsy molecular classmates whom we felt would make us die of (sarcastic) laughter outfield (handle pickled crabs using surgical gloves PLUS metal tongs?! might as well use BSL2 PPE in e mangroves =P). & cat liked catching tadpoles as a kitten & removing lizards from screaming secondary school classmates. & going into e forest at night sounded interesting (too bad no tarsiers in Phuket) =) so, onz!

bird prof said that since there were only e 2 of us, we'd have to work harder, & e whole class roared =P but e next day when we met with e frog prince postgrad who would be our TA, there were 3 more classmates joining us - those who'd missed e briefing & were by default unceremoniously dumped into frog group! & they turned out to be e most wonderful group we could possibly ask for =)

BCL (cat's thesis supervisor) was quite tickled by e fact that e department required his honours lab-slave to spend an entire week away from benchwork on entirely non-biochemical/molecular pursuits. but he was nice enough not to pile on e 'finish these 100001 things before you can leave', especially when there was stuff to prepare pre-departure =)

for e rest on this trip, refer to upcoming Phuket 2001 posts....

some other things that e cat jumped into:

7 things that I jumped into - 01
7 things that I jumped into - 02
7 things that I jumped into - 03
7 things that I jumped into - 04
7 things that I jumped into - 05 (not written yet)
7 things that I jumped into - 07 (not written yet)

[ filed under: 7_things_i_jumped_into + nature1 + phuket_2001 ]