Unfortunately the month of January, Taylor had to go on a trip to Mexico, meaning we couldn't do the monthly survey up in Bodega. Luckily, she still had some minor work for me to do that would last me from January until the February survey, with out rushing through it all. The material consisted of various different links to websites that could potentially help me in the long run, when going on a survey with her, especially since it's difficult to do the job while trying to explain the process to someone else through out the whole time. These surveys aren't brain surgery, but they sure do take a whole lot of memorizing different codes, multi tasking, and of course being able to identify different invertebrates. Since a lot of this information was really overwhelming on top of everything else going on at school I took it slow, I had a lot of time until the next survey so I decided to pace myself and actually spend time reviewing all of this information. In one of the PDFs I came across the list of codes that's corresponded with the different species you could possibly come across on a survey, I'm not going to lie, it did scare me a little bit. Page after page, all you could see was codes! So to make it easy on myself I decided to highlight the codes of the different animals we had seen in the previous survey, it made it a lot easier to study them and actually focus on the ones that mattered the most at this particular beach. Along with memorizing codes you have to know how to fill out the spread sheet, it's pretty straight forward, but one little mistake can mess up the entire thing. It was nice to see examples and actual steps on how to fill out the form correctly, keeping in mind that any little mistake you make could effect the data that will be input into the system. Over all, this time was for me to prepare myself for the next survey, to make sure I am fully aware of what is expected from me and to overall have a better explanation of what an actual survey is and how to properly lead one. Obviously I have a long way to go with all these requirements, but for now all I can do is try my best and put in the effort needed to show my mentor that this is what I want, and I am willing to do what it takes to succeed. My next survey is actually tomorrow! Hopefully the tides are a lot better this time and will be able to cover more of the beach, if not, it's going to be another short survey again...
Time logged for this session: 5 Hours
Total time logged: 13 Hours
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