The Year End Wrap Up

It's the end of the year, and this week at the lab was a quiet one as Dr. Ingels and I talked about how to wrap up my time at FSU. I still have another semester left, but I have finished my research and have almost 1,000 sediment residues in storage at the lab. These residues are the remnants of all the sampling I've completed and are not valuable to future research; the nematodes and other meiofauna and macrofauna I've extracted are stored separately, as researchers may be interested in conducting more work on these samples. With the year and my research wrapping up it is finally time to dispose of all the residues, which will be my task in the coming weeks. We have a large container waiting for all this mud and water, and I'd hate to be the person who has to move it when I'm finished. There are a few upsides to this major task. First, I clear up a lot of space in our storage area. While we have multiple shelves to hold samples, boxes, and materials, I am using almost two full shelves of space with just residues, which can certainly be put to better use. Additionally, I have two rolling coolers plus three to four large plastic totes holding these residues, which will make for great packing containers when I graduate.

Although my own research is finished, I will likely still help others out with their work. My roommate is one of the lead PhD candidates in the sharks and rays lab, and she always needs help out on the water with their shark surveys. I'll have more time to assist her and others with their work, but also enough piece of mind to turn down opportunities if I need a break to relax. While I won't be at the lab as frequently in the spring semester, I will continue to post weekly. These posts will likely be a mix of additional research activities, conferences updates, job and future direction updates, and highlights of cool research happening elsewhere. There will not be a post next week though, as I will be traveling and taking a mini-vacation. Stay tuned for the next blog update, coming in 2024! Have a great new year, everyone.