This week was my final full week as an Oregon Sea Grant Scholar. In addition to preparing for the symposium, at work I finalized tables for the aragonite saturation and pH thresholds for echinoderms, amphipods, and polychaetes. I will finish up with fish and bivalves this coming week. Also, this week at work, we discovered that Bernie Sanders posted a picture of Rosalyn, Ron, Weiwu, and I on his campaign Facebook. I was honored to be one of the 21 pictures he posted.

With regards to the final symposium, I thought it went really well. I felt really confident presenting on CBRAT and really knowledgeable when I could answer and explain my poster to questioners. I thought the symposium was well executed and a good last event/goodbye as most of the scholars left Hatfield for the summer and, I will not see all but Ron for a long time.

We did make the most of our time together this past week knowing that we had limited time. The Sea Grant scholars and the REU interns went out to Local Oceans for dinner on Wednesday as sort of a ‘last supper’ kind of deal. Afterwards, we went to Beir One and met up with more interns and enjoyed each other’s’ company while playing games.

On Thursday, my family came to take me to dinner after they spent a few days camping on the coast. We went to the Noodle Cafe and I had amazing pho!

Also on Thursday, the interns all had one final bonfire and listened to farewell songs.

Finally, on Friday I said goodbye to Austin at Hatfield, and I said goodbye to Abby and Rosalyn after they dropped my off at my house in Salem (on their way to Portland).

While it was sad to say goodbye, I still had an enjoyable weekend. I saw my dog, I saw Wicked in Portland on Saturday, and I was able to spend time with my family.

All in all, this week has been a good start to a great end.