Delirium and Star Trails

I don't think I've ever been this exhausted. Ever.

     I think being tired has just become a part of my personality now. Once you become so overly exhausted, you kind of become numb to it and just live with it. It's just something that kind of hovers in the background, you feel it all the time but learn to ignore it. 

    Once again I would have to lose a lot of sleep to do another behavior run. This last run of monitors was by far the most difficult, but it started out relatively well. After doing a few 24 hour runs, you start to get used to it and it becomes easier. The night of my third 24 hour run, I was able to stay up the whole time with few to no problems (partially thanks to the release of this). Being up that late isn't so bad. It's quiet and calm, and there is no one around usually so you can have some time to yourself to get things done without any distractions. Sometimes the stars are out and I go stargazing. Unfortunately, this wasn't one of those nights, but it still wasn't all bad. You just have to make it to sunrise.

     Thankfully sunrise finally came and helped to keep me awake, and so I continued my day as I normally would during these runs: monitoring. All day I monitored, growing more and more exhausted as time passed. By the time night rolled around, I was pretty far gone. Lately for these behavior monitors, we have done 72 hours total where you do continuous for 24 hours and then continue to do continuous hourly monitors after that until you can no longer stomach it, and then check three times at night. I don't use caffeine at all due to its effects on the body, so normally to get by the second and third night I take a little nap before I have to go out again, but this time I was swamped with work and someone at the station was very sick and needed some help, so I stayed up until the 3:00 am monitor.

Bad move.

     At this point my body decided it was done and I began to grow delirious. I had never had this happen before, so it was a bit of a terrifying experience. I knew something was wrong, but I felt too cloudy to deal with it. I could barely stand up straight, I felt myself actively falling asleep outside of my control, and I felt like I was hallucinating. I felt like I was dreaming very bizarre dreams but my eyes were open and I was still moving from tank to tank. You feel like things are happening completely outside of your control and there is very little you can do to solve it, but you also just feel too out of it to really engage the idea that something is actually happening. You feel everything in this kind of a haze, and part of you understands what is going on and part of you doesn't. This was a bad run. There are portions of it that I don't even remember. In my stupor I was still determined to finish the run, and I managed to do so mostly. A few data points were missing, however, and much of the data looked like a small child wrote it, but I had done it. Even in some kind of "out of body" state, I was still determined to do what I had to do.

     When you go for long periods without or with very little sleep, you kind of feel like you are in survival mode. You have to use everything you have in you to keep yourself awake, to distract yourself and hold yourself together. I felt myself losing control a little bit and it scared me because feeling like I am not in control of myself is one of my worst fears, but part of me felt very in control and very, very determined. I was going to survive.

     As bizarre as it may sound, there is a small bit about doing these that is actually a little exciting. Something about fighting to stay awake and that sense of surviving kind of feels like an adventure. You kind of have to think about it like that to keep yourself going. It's just an adventure that you are going through and in the end, you will be able to say that you did it. Telling yourself that you've made it through 42+ hours on 2 hours of sleep with few breaks is really, really empowering. Telling yourself you've made it through 72+ hours with only 5ish (maybe) hours of sleep in total and few breaks is even more empowering. I had little time to eat (some meals I just had to skip), to breathe, to do anything but monitor, but I pushed and pushed and pushed onward. That's what you do. You have to. And now, I can do anything. Nothing scares me off anymore (well, except all the math that my project mentor dished out on me). I did it. I survived. 

     You would think I would hate the experience of this exhausting run. No one would think bad of me for hating it. But, I don't hate it, because as miserable and exhausting as it was, I pulled through. I learned a lot, about science, about myself, about perseverance and the power of encouragement from people who care about you. Something like this could have the potential to scare me or anyone else off forever, but I'm not done with biology just yet. Just because something is difficult doesn't mean it isn't good or beneficial. Just because something isn't your "cup of tea" doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Sure, maybe I didn't have as much control over this project or choosing what I wanted to do as I would have liked (I was given a list of things that the station was currently looking at and what was doable, so since I am fascinated by animal behavior, I went that route. I created the proposal, though, and made it my own), but it's been such a learning experience. But, I also know what kinds of research questions and what kind of behavioral studies fascinate me and which ones just peak it a little. That's a good thing to know; it's valuable information when you are just starting out. As a biologist, there are a million different routes you can take, so it can be a little overwhelming even for people like me who know what they want to do. Being able to see firsthand and experience your different options allows you to get a better feel and a better sense of direction for where you want to go in the future, but it also gives you experience across different platforms. That's a valuable learning experience.

~

     Since I have to stay up forever all the time and recently learned how to photograph long exposure, I figured I'd give star trails a try. They are a bit of pain to photograph. You have to find somewhere dark enough to be able to capture the stars, and then you have to leave the camera to sit for 15-20+ minutes and hope that no one comes by or turns on a light or that clouds don't roll in. Sometimes you get great shots, and sometimes they are too dark or someone does turn on a light and it blows out the whole shot. It requires a great deal of patience and time to learn, and I am still trying to get the hang of them. Unfortunately the weather decided to be uncooperative and was cloudy the whole time during my hardest run, but the one before that I was able to play around and get a few shots. 

     Just like my research runs, star trail photos require patience, time, and endurance. You keep going because the end result is so dear and worth everything you put into it. Sure. maybe sometimes things don't go so well (you get a little delirious or your shot is blown out), but for all the issues, the end results make it all worthwhile. You keep moving forward. Always.

Wet Socks, Long Exposures, and Sunset Chasing

     It is dark. No one seems to pay attention to the sea when the sun goes down and the world is cast into the shadows.

But I do.

    Gripping the gate posts and standing on the rather thin piece of wood that is holding the gate together, I peer through the gaps of the old wooden posts, desperately trying to see one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen in my whole life. The sun has long left her place in the sky and has cast the boldest of red lines between the navy blue, nearly black sea and the even darker sky. The moon hovers slightly above the horizon, the whole of it visible and outlined with just a crescent of light. Only a few shy stars have appeared, keeping close to the moon. With the wind in my hair and my eyes wide open, I am in awe. This is one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen, and I continue to grip the gate posts as if letting them go means losing this moment. My breath is gone, but my sense of life is fully present. 

~

Nothing could have prepared me for this trip. Nothing. 

    The beauty, the struggles, the different culture, all of it. Even the preview trip that I came on never fully prepared me for what I would experience when I traveled alone to Chile. And the funny thing was, I felt so prepared. I thought I was prepared. I had everything I needed, mental preparation included, but none of it quite readied me.

     The thing is, though, I don't think you ever can be prepared to travel abroad. You can never tell what might happen, you just have to prepare yourself for both the best case scenarios and the worst and be flexible enough to ride either, something I desperately need to work on.

     I had a shaky arrival. My transportation didn't quite work out the way it was supposed to, and I arrived very upset and frightened. I had also been so strong for the past year and a half about coming down to Chile and being here for seven weeks, away from home, family, and the comfort of things I knew, but the last few weeks leading up to it, I crumbled. I was terrified, of what could happen to me, if I would be a good scientist, if my research would pan out, if I would ever actually get a moment to myself. I was struggling, and traveling alone wasn't helping. Don't get me wrong, I have always wanted to travel alone. Just not to a third world country where English isn't the native language. There are so many things that could go wrong, and even though my Spanish isn't terrible, it's certainly not fluent. The other student in the program wouldn't be arriving until later, so there was no help there. But, I had put way too much into this for fear to kill me at the beginning. I had to do this, I just had to.

     I've mustered up more courage and determination than I ever have before, I've pushed through and accomplished things I never thought possible. My research has been moving, slower than I expected, but all due to circumstances out of my control. At first, I was very upset about it and felt as though I had really let a lot of people down. A lot of people put time, effort, and a lot of money into this, and I wanted it to go perfectly, and the fact was it just wasn't. I felt like I had truly let them down. A conversation with someone I greatly admire made me feel a little more at ease. "You haven't let anybody down. Research takes time, I mean there are things that are out of your control. But, if you are having problems, that just means that there is progress." Those were some of the most encouraging words I have heard in a long time and they truly encouraged me to breathe and just keep going with the knowledge that everything will turn out.

     One of the more challenging aspects of my research involves 24-hour behavior monitors, meaning that once an hour every hour for 24 hours, I have to monitor and record the behavior of my animals. It is a long, arduous process. No one pretends to like it. Once 3 AM hits, it's been dark for hours, it's cold, you've been monitoring for what feels like an eternity, and all you can think of is sleep. The first time my socks were sopping wet and there was just no point in changing them because they would once again become soaking wet. So, you grit your teeth and push through all the exhaustion. I stayed awake (well, I took a few catnaps) and continued on, for everything I had worked hard for, for all the people who supported me. When I saw the sunrise that morning alone with just myself and the sea, I felt something in me that I hadn't felt in a long time: I was so very proud of myself. I had done it. Something about working that hard gives you something in return; a sense of purpose, an inertia of sorts. I was able to look back on those difficult 24+ hours and think to myself, "I did that." It was not an easy feat, and at times it was downright miserable, but I made it. I'm in the process of doing another one as I type this, but this time, I have my chin a little bit higher (and thankfully socks that are a little bit drier). 

~

     Recently I learned how to take long exposure shots. As a matter of fact, I learned how to take them by accident. I had heard about them beforehand and had a general idea about how to do them, but I had never actually gotten around to taking a long exposure shot and didn't have a tripod until this trip. One evening while I was out photographing, it was becoming too dark to shoot anything, so out of curiosity I began fiddling with the shutter speed to see how low my camera could go. I noticed that it went all the way down to seconds, so I figured why not have a go and play with it? That was all it took to hook me.

     Long exposures are relatively easy to take but have a beauty about them that makes them feel like they took so much more effort. I am enchanted by their soft appearance, making rushing water look like a soft fog hugging the nearby rocks. I have absolutely become enthralled with creating them and don't foresee myself stopping any time soon. 

     I am also very and truly addicted to photographing/observing sunset. It is my favorite time of day: everything is cast in a golden-yellow haze and the sky itself seems to burst with color. I always have an irresistible itch to be among these views when the sun goes down, and I feel most invigorated when I am there in the midst, trying my best to capture at least a small portion of what I see. I have seen some of the most beautiful sights of my entire life. They have left me breathless, starring with wide-eyed wonder. It's all so surreal to me, sometimes it just renders me absolutely dumbfounded as to how I even got here in the first place and was granted the ability to witness such beauty. It makes me feel quite blessed, but also so happy and alive. Traversing through winding rocky beaches searching for the best places to shoot has become one of my favorite parts of this experience, and I know it will be something that I will dearly miss when I depart. I cannot even begin to impart to you just how really and honestly happy and full I feel when standing by the powerful, swelling ocean, my hair whipping across my cheeks and the sound of the waves crashing and birds calling to one another mixing together in a rush of sound. Being somewhere you love with something that invigorates you is a feeling unlike any other, and you never have to question if it's the real thing, you just know. The things that are supposed to happen to you in life will come, and when they do, it will feel like you are right where you are supposed to be.

I have so much more to say about my experience, and so much that I could never say or never really convey. But, I am going to try. I'll continue to make blog posts on my experience, and hopefully I can share with you a little of what I've seen, what I've experienced, and what I've learned. And of course, more shots from my photography adventures.

Thanks for tagging along.