Great Lakes. Great Times.

8:00 am, Tuesday, September 1st: With a map in my hand and all the feigned confidence in the world, I stepped into the Dana Building (home of the School of Natural Resources and Environment) for the first time since last April. I joined a room full of 175 incoming SNREds, most half asleep, not ready for the physical and emotional effort of meeting people. We climbed aboard three charter buses and began the four-hour ride to Lake Douglas and the UM Biological Station.

If I didn't know anyone when I sat down on the bus, I certainly did by the time we finally arrived.

I quickly realized that it's extremely uncommon to start grad school immediately after undergrad. I felt young and inexperienced. I also realized that I couldn't pick out the 22-year-olds from those who'd been out of school for several years. Presumably, I didn't look as young and inexperienced as I felt.

But most importantly, I realized that I was definitely in the right place. Everything everyone believed in-- I believe in, too. I get hopelessly excited about energy systems. I am not the only one offended by the lack of recycling bins next to trash cans in public places. And as one faculty member told us during our first five minutes at the Biostation, "Until now, you have been taught that everything is linear. That's crap."

I was blown away. That's exactly what I've been thinking for years! The simple solutions advocated by politicians, pundits, and professors are well-intentioned, but they are so often - to put it bluntly - crap. You think you can solve climate change without addressing poverty and racism and urbanization and water issues and education and social stability? Well, you can't. This world is a huge, confusedly interconnected system, and it's refreshing to be around other people who believe in that.

So, heartened by the enthusiasm and idealistic realism of the community I'd adopted, I jumped eagerly into the whole orientation thing. Despite the bitterly cold weather (40s at night, on the lake, in unheated buildings), those three days were incredible: canoeing around the lake, rafting the Sturgeon River, fish shocking*, GPS scavenger hunt, and happy hour every night courtesy of the University of Michigan. It surprises me that a university can provide alcohol to students; I still feel like I'm barely old enough to drink. Again, that's the young and inexperienced thing coming through.

* Never having heard of fish shocking before, I could only imagine malevolent ecologists torturing poor flopping sunfish by administering electric shocks- with an evil MWAHAHAHAhahahahhahaa, of course. Turns out, that's both entirely true and entirely false. Fish shocking takes two electrified metal poles and waves them around underwater to stun the fish temporarily. Other people then scoop up the stunned fish in nets. We placed them in a cooler to identify then release; real ecologists use fish shocking for population counts or tagging studies. The fish are fine in a couple minutes, and the 25-inch brown trout we caught was feisty and unhappy about being held in a cooler when he woke up. He didn't seem to understand that when I reached down to pick him up, I really was trying to return him to the river.

Anyway, fish shocking is apparently the most humane way to capture fish. Since they are temporarily stunned, they don't injure themselves on the nets, and ecologists never pursue fish that don't float to the surface when shocked. Also, fish shocking means you get to wear rubber waders--what style!! That may have been the best part.

Upon arrival back in Ann Arbor (A2 for the uninitiated), the weather felt downright summery. I discovered I had caught a cold from the frigid water activities in northern Michigan. I knew fifteen to twenty of the 175 new SNREds (the program has 495 total) better than I knew the roommate I was coming home to, and I felt more at home in a cabin on Lake Douglas than in my real apartment. Nevertheless, I was...

home.

- to be continued -