Above the Inversion (& Good Advice from Wiser People)

It's been about a month since I lasted posted, which totally blows my plan to blog weekly.  Whatever.  It's been one of those crazy busy months, really bad-busy.  There hasn't been a lot of opportunities to take pictures, so most of the coming adventures will be animated by me.  This particular entry will cover the things I've seen and learned over the course of the winter.  Below I've got blogs about 1) success in rock climbing, and the wisdom of children; 2) the impact of stress of the body; and 3) a story about feeling crazy.  But it will all be more light-hearted than it sounds.

As you may know, Cache Valley is subject to temperature inversions in the winter that lead to horrible air quality.  So horrible you can taste the fumes in the air.  Regular Seasonal Affective Disorder is bad enough, but I'm pretty sure it's worse when you can't see the mountains around you, even in the daylight.  It's like living in a PM-2.5 Soup.  However, Logan Canyon and higher elevations are just a few miles away, so I've been able to reset after a stressful week.  I like to think of these trips as mental health days, where I can breathe easier and think more clearly.  Check out a few images from these excursions:

Fog setting in above Bear Lake, viewed from the Bear Lake Overlook.  

Sweet snow texture, seen from a snow shoe excursion.  

Best tree ever, near the Beaver Mountain boundary.  

More trees around the boundary.  

Feeling good, even if my helmet always looks crooked.  

Nice cross country ski trip up Green Canyon,.  

I may not be good at cross country skiing, as demonstrated by my ability to fall every time I pass someone, but it is nice to feel the sun.  

During these trips away from Logan, I've spent a lot of time mulling over the future and how much of it I am in control over.  Graduate school can be a discouraging experience, with fleeting moments of success, so I've been trying to find ways to emphasize success over all the drudgery.  Grad school has also given my the opportunity to speak with a number of visiting lecturers that USU has invited to speak about their super cool research, and I've learned a few things that I'm hoping to apply to my current job:

1. You can choose the people you work with/for.  You've got to kick some people off the island and work for people who let you do what you want.
2. After choosing who you work with, you're in charge of making the best of the place you're at.
3. It's important to know how to be wrong, ecology is hard and doing good research requires constantly questioning what you thought you knew.

So with this knowledge, I'm going to kick some people off my island because they stress me out and cramp my style (though, not my boss, I like working for her), I'm going to make the most of USU, and I'm going to face my data with a brave face, knowing it could prove my original hypotheses wrong.  I'm also going to continue fleeing up the canyon on a regular basis in order to keep my lungs healthy and my mind strong.  Hooray.