Last week I only worked three out of the five days. My boyfriend came up from California and I showed him around the coast on Wednesday and Thursday. We went to Agate Beach, Devil’s Punchbowl, the Historic Bayfront, and up to Lincoln City! It was very great seeing him!
On Monday, Tuesday, and Friday I did go to work and finished up collecting aragonite saturation and pH values for potential thresholds for the various taxa I needed to complete.
The weekend primarily consisted of two events: the tuna cook-off and the Bernie Sanders rally. On Saturday from 11-3 at the Newport docks, amateur and professional teams competed in the Great Albacore Tuna BBQ Challenge! Student tickets were only $10 and you can leave and renter throughout the day. Rosalyn, Ron, and Weiwu, an REU intern, stuffed our stomachs with fresh tuna for three hours. I was so full from the event I didn’t eat dinner even though the challenge ended at 3! The food was delicious and even though our favorites didn’t end up winning, it was still a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
On Sunday, Abby, Rosalyn, Ron, Weiwu, and I all headed up to Portland to see Bernie Sanders speak at the Moda Center. We got to Portland around lunchtime and went to eat with my sister who met us there. We walked around Portland for a little bit and then my sister dropped us off at the rally at 4:30—an hour and a half before doors opened. We were able to go onto the floor in front of his podium and had a great view of the Senator. 28,000 people ended up showing up the rally—the largest rally in the election thus far. In a stadium with maximum capacity at 19,000, 9,000 people listened to his speech from outside the Moda Center. We listened to him speak about economic, racial, and social inequality, climate change, affordable college, and other serious political issues. I also ran into an old friend from high-school at the rally and saw pictures on my Facebook newsfeed of Facebook friends who also attended. It was extraordinary and invigorating.
Afterward, we went to Salt and Straw for ice-cream (I had the honey lavender flavor) and ended up getting back to Hatfield at 2 in the morning!
Micaela, you are a prolific blogger! I hope you continue after the summer is over. I figured you’d be sick of sitting in front of a computer, but you must love writing as much as research and database analysis. A winning combo for scientific success!