The Very Begining

As so it begins, my summer at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) in Edgewater, Maryland. I arrived in Baltimore, Maryland yesterday. And from that moment on it has been a whirlwind of new experiences.

My cooking skills are bare minimum. But this summer I am committed to learning how to cook. My first meal here was a group effort with me and my hall mates.
Well there's the evidence! Sweet potato fries, Bruschetta, rice, and Nepalese chicken. Quite yummy! It was a great way to start off my time here, getting to know all my hall mates while making great food.

Today was my first official day as a SERC summer intern. There was an orientation with a rush of information from the various departments on campus. So many people work at SERC than just the researchers. The safety staff, the security (so much security! and so official!), the housekeepers, and of course all the researchers! There are lots of labs on campus: Marine and Estuarine Ecology, Protistan Ecology, CO2 and Plant Physiology, Animal Plant Interaction, Phytoplankton Ecology, Microbial Ecology, Fish and Invertebrate Ecology, Nutrient Lab, Molecular Ecology, Quantitative Ecology, Photobiology and Solar Radiation, Benthic Ecology, Forest Ecology, Terrestrial Ecology, Trace Element Biogeochemistry, Marine Invasion Research, Ecological Modeling, Plant Ecology, and of course the best lab of all Biogeochemistry.

Biogeochemistry will be my lab for the whole summer: from this first week in June until the last week in August! This afternoon, we went out to the CO2 site complete with a truck bed of knee high waders and a core sampler, in addition to the five people we squished into the small cab of a truck. At the site, I got the grand tour. There's the longest running CO2 experiment at the site as well as other experiments. I will definitely write more about the field research site in future posts.

My day ended with diner with my hall mates. My roommate made taco soup with hominy corn, kidney beans, and tomatoes with cheese and pieces of tortilla chips on top. Delicious! It was great to have a Texan flair to a meal. Southern love! I made my main meal all by myself! I cooked pasta! And I boiled the water too. Pasta with marinara sauce and carrots. It was very good, perhaps it tasted even better because I made it all. Cooking can be fun. I certainly had some fun dabbling around the kitchen. Once I get my barrings on this whole cooking situation, I will be more adventurous.

Well that's all for now. I will try to keep this blog updated with everything I am doing, complete with pictures of course. I am so excited to experience everything new and fascinating I will do this summer.