Just two days after a great Christmas with my family, I headed off to the airport to meet a group of 26 unfamiliar UIUC students and fly half way around the world with them. We represented different ages, different degrees, and different career plans. Our desire to experience a whole new world was our only common thread. The purpose of our trip was to experience first-hand the people, the culture, and the emerging markets that are now a global force.

We started in the bustling city of Chennai, on India’s southeast coast. To our innocent eyes, The city was congested, the streets dirty, and the weather muggy. But we wasted no time with this superficial reaction and immediately began to dig deeper, uncovering the true nature of what we saw.

In both urban and semi-rural areas, we meet with and interviewed students of all ages,  adults of all professions, and business(wo)men of all fields. Fishermen, farmers, retailers, teachers, pharmacists…you name it. Our focus, however, was on entrepreneurs, especially women. The rise of women’s self-help groups, with great help from Dr. Madhu Viswanathan, one of the professors leading our trip, has sparked a dramatic increase in the entrepreneurial initiative and business leadership of women across India. Interacting with these amazing women was incredibly inspirational.

One of our days in a semi-rural village was by far the best of the trip. We walked the streets of the town, interacting with store owners, children, and homemakers going about their daily activities.

I entered the home (hut) of a family that barely makes ends meet. I saw where they get their water. I saw where her daughters go to school. I played with them in the streets. I saw her daily religious ceremony. And I saw the opportunities that lie ahead.

After such a vivid insight into the lives of people in this village, our last stop was the local community center, where many of the wives work in a new enterprise that hand makes paper mâché decorative dolls. It is an entrepreneurial community effort that has created a new path of opportunity for the village and is the perfect example of changes taking place in the emerging Indian markets.

From the outside, the village looks poor, unstructured, and completely disconnected from the modern world. While we from the West expect all development to take place in our image, this is not the case at all. The emerging market of this small semi-rural village in southern India may not look exactly like a small town in center Illinois, but I can assure you that it is just as sophisticated and poised for success.

From Chennai, we headed inland to the booming city of Bangalore, the technological hub of India and its most rapidly developing city. Bangalore was starkly different from Chennai: mild weather, modern skyscrapers, and fast food on every corner. Our goals here were obviously quite different. Rather than rural villages and subsistence marketplaces, our time in Bangalore focused on the technology and big companies coming out of India. Here, we visited with Boeing, Accenture, Caterpillar, Motorola, and Mindtree, some of the biggest names in business. Company executives gave us valuable insights to both the rapid development of the Indian economy and the unique approaches that were necessary for their success in a country very different that what we were used to. We also had the lucky opportunity to meet with government officials (from all three branches of government) while in Bangalore and get a first hand experience the inner workings of their system.

A perfect example of Bangalore's intrigue: Modern green development on the left, and typical slums on the right.

As quickly as it started, our time in India was then over, and our group then headed to China via a more than 30-hour transfer that included nothing less than planes, trains, and automobiles. Our first stop in China was Chongqing. Ever heard of it? I surely hadn’t. And yet it’s a city of 30 million people!! Both Chongqing and our subsequent city of Chengdu are a force to be reckoned with. They are the industrial and commercial powerhouses of western China, and they have a plan. They are already huge, and they are growing FAST. I had heard people say it before, but I never really believed it until now: Get out of the way U.S.A. China IS the next world power.

"Hot Pot": The traditional meal of Chengdu.

The final stop in our journey was the wondrous island metropolis of Hong Kong. In addition to our traditional company visits and economic insights, our focus in Hong Kong was also on politics. I had never really understood the unique political situation and history of Hong Kong until interacting with the several powerful and famous (some controversial) figures we were lucky to meet with. Sitting in a suit at a mahogany table on the umpteenth floor of a skyscraper that’s first floor is occupied by a Versace store was certainly a stark contrast to our first experiences in Chennai, but I have no doubt that they were just important. It is always critical to understand both ends of the spectrum, and I’m sure that Hong Kong will be a centerpiece in this arena as the rest of China takes off.

View of Hong Kong from Victoria Peak above the city.

Overall, I learned and experienced  way more in the past two weeks than I could ever aspire to write in this post. The insights above are just the tip of the iceberg, but I hope that at the very least I have conveyed that India and China are big, they’re different, and they’re coming fast. Their influence on the world economy, culture, and politics will reach every one of us in new ways everyday. There will be both great opportunities to embrace and serious problems to tackle. I went on this trip so that I could get a glimpse of what that future might look like and what it might mean for me. I urge everyone else, businessmen and homemakers alike, to take similar prudence towards understanding and appreciating the future that is coming.

Systems Engineering & Economics: Okay, I get it. Linear programming is important. Can I be done now? That’s how I felt all semester. After optimizing and re-optimizing every possible engineering scenario you could encounter, I became quite jaded with the whole idea of optimizing something from such a reductionist point of view. I think I can best sum this up by the following quote of Wes Jackson that I heard the other day: “When you break a problem down to a point where there’s no ambiguity, that’s where it becomes irrelevant.”

Intro to Computing  (Computer Science 101): Well, whadaya know,  programming isn’t so bad after all. I know it’s a 101 class, but for someone who has never really thought in the programming mindset before, coding can be a whole new world. Overall, I learned the basics, and they should come quite in handy as I begin modeling-based research next spring.

Ecology and Evolution: Finally!…a biology course focused on ecology, my scale of interest. Overall, this course was great. While the evolution half of the course was a bit dry and unorganized, the material still furthered my interest and understanding of evolution, in all its statistical glory. Not to mention, we took some pretty epic field trips that gave me a whole new respect for Illinois.

Introductory Biochemistry: I’ll be brief, and I’ll be blunt. This was undoubtedly the worst class that I’ve ever taken at U of I. Here’s what we were told (or could infer) on the first day of class: 1) Don’t buy the book because no material outside of the lectures slides will ever be discussed. 2) Lecture slides will be recited verbatim during class and then posted online. 3) Homework is not mandatory, but the posted problems are the same problems that will be on the tests. 4) The teacher is not a professor and has no teaching experience whatsoever. 5) We don’t have the “manpower” to make this course any better. WOW, sign me up! Suffice it to say that the only time I ever showed up to that class again was for our three exams, each of which I simply crammed for the night before by reading trough the lectures and doing the posted (test) problems.

Math in Music and Art: As can be expected from any class with as crazy of a name as this, MMA was my honors class for the semester (and my last required honors class at UofI!). A late add, MMA did not show up in last May’s preview, but it proved to be one of the better spontaneous decision I’ve made. Ever since I started playing in band, I’ve been curious to understand the math behind it all. I know…I’m such an engineer. Anyway, this class did just that! On the very first day, we mathematically proved why there are 12 notes to an octave  and 7 notes in a scale in Western music. It’s not just an arbitrary choice…It’s a centuries-long controversy rooted in fractions and irrational numbers! This class has added a whole new level of understanding to my musical background, and it has even prompted my to whip out my sax again. On top of all that, one of the most excited things I did all semester was the final project for this class. That’s a story for another post though.

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As opposed to the relatively general classes I took last semester, I’ll be diving deep into some focused topics this spring. The best part is that since I will be starting my extended commitment to research next semester (more on this soon), I’m only taking four classes! Furthermore, my daily schedule couldn’t have worked out any better…it’s the most regular and predictable schedule I’ve ever had.

Statistical Modeling: This one came out of nowhere. Since Statistical Modeling is actually a graduate level course, it never really even came up on my radar while planning my degrees out. However, the recent revelation that this course covers almost exactly what I will need to know in order to complete successful research next semester has convinced me that I simply cannot pass it up…for the sake of my career. It will certainly be hard, but I’m sure just as fascinating as well.

GIS for Planners: GIS stands for Geographic Information System. Basically, GIS is the intersection of maps, data, and statistics. Four good reasons went into my decision to take this course: 1) I love maps. 2) The job description for my dream job said that proficiency in GIS  was a requirement. 3) Urban planning is a discipline I would like to explore and understand, and this is the only course I’ll be able to take in that department. 4) My good friend Declan is taking the class with me.

Introductory Dynamics: Arranging class schedules that appease both of my majors as well as my interests has been quite challenging. To make everything fit, I had to start planning things before I even showed up on campus! Retiring professors, cancelled classes, changing requirements  and bad teachers have only added to this difficulty. Nevertheless, I’ve always been able to make everything work…except for this class. Dynamics has been the single hardest class to schedule. The class is typically taken by first semester sophomores, but I have had to push it back again and again due to conflicts. So, here I am, scheduling the second semester of my junior year and realizing that if I don’t make Dynamics fit now I won’t graduate on time. It’s a prerequisite for almost every civil engineering class that I have left to take! Okay, so no big deal right? Wrong. The time conflicts with the lab of Statistical Modeling. Of course. After freaking out a bit, I decided that, since I would probably end up ditching the Dynamic lecture half the time anyway, the conflict wasn’t terribly unreasonable. So, I pulled a few strings, sweet talked some secretaries, and got the override I needed. Take that Hermione. No time-turner needed.

Sustainable & Resilient Infrastructure Systems: To be quite honest, one of the main reasons I registered for this course was because the title had the word “resilient” in it…quite possibly my favorite word of all time. This is one of the classes that was randomly added to the civil engineering department last year as part of the push to make the curriculum better reflect sustainability issues in engineering. I really don’t know what spurred the development of this course…all I’ll say is that when I wrote up my engineering custom degree plan almost two years ago now, I used a quite similar phrase to describe my approach to civil engineering. So, while I’m excited for this unexpected opportunity, I’m actually quite skeptical about the material they will cover. Things may change once I see the syllabus…

Phoenix, AZ

By this point, Phoenix seems so long ago, but was actually the first domino that fell this fall (pun half-intended). I traveled to Phoenix through the always-awesome Campus Honors Program here at U of I in order to attend the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC) Annual Conference. At the conference, I presented the Prairie Garden Project that I led last spring (the funding for the project came from an NCHC grant that I secured last fall). While my presentation was a very small component of the conference, attending the rest of the conference (centered around innovation in collegiate education) provided some really neat sessions and programs. The best program I attended was a day-long trip out to Montezuma’s Well National Monument for a behind-the-scenes experience on how the National Park Service operates and what it takes to maintain a park, both ecologically and economically.

Montezuma's Well National Monument

Overall, Phoenix was just so beautiful. It’s one of the cleanest cities I’ve ever been in, and the weather was incredible. Above all, the best part of this trip was the fact that I have family in Phoenix who I haven’t seen in a long time. So, reconnecting with them and spending some quality time together was a really great experience.

Columbia, MO & Charlotte, NC

These two weekends came about as a result of the Illinois Cross Country Club (IXC), the first being the site of our Regionals race, and the second of our Nationals Race. I’m proud to say that the IXC won both the men’s and women’s team titles this year! We are the Champions!! While I did not race competitively this cross season (since I did not train all summer), I did attend both of these meets as a coach and raced the open races. Surprisingly, those open races went far better than I had ever expected after taking an entire some off. More importantly, however, was that, as the IXC Travel Coordinator, I coordinated both of these trips. Consequently, these two trips were personally by far the most stressful of any this fall. For Nationals, I had to get 75 people to travel 750 miles in five 15-passenger vans in a comfortable and relaxed manner that allowed them to compete at their highest potential, and then bring them back…for as cheap as possible and in only 3 days. Stressful. However, the trips ran smoothly and we had a great time. All that’s left to do is wish Declan good luck. He has to do this job in the spring…

Maysville, MO

This was the Open Source Ecology weekend, which I have already posted about extensively. It was only one day, but what a long day it was…

Los Angeles, CA

Most recently,  as I enjoy my week-long fall break from school, I have headed to Los Angeles to visit my two best friends from high school, neither of whom I have seen for a significant period of time since we all left for college. We’ve had a lot of catching up to do. Aside from just spending lots of time running and catching up on life plans, we explored downtown LA, hiked the nearby Malibu Creek State Park, and are now cooking our very own Thanksgiving Dinner.

And just when you (and I) thought that the year was winding down and relaxation was on its way, I go and do something crazy: sign up for a Winter Abroad course through U of I that travels to China and India for a week each over winter break. What the heck is wrong with me!? We’ve already been told that we shouldn’t expect to sleep very much on the trip. Despite the lack of relaxation, I think that these two weeks are extremely important for me. They will include lots of traveling and intense cultural/social interactions…essential to understanding the global nature of the issues I am interested in.

This year of traveling has certainly taught me more about the Real World and opened my mind more than any other year of my life. The opportunity to head out on all these endeavors is something that I am extremely fortunate to have and for which I am truly thankful. I can definitively say that I have not taken these opportunities for granted and have made the most out of every moment I have the privilege of experiences. That said, traveling is exhausting…in more ways than one…and next year I plan on scaling my travels back quite a bit, at least the far-reaching ones. For many different reasons, 2012 is going to be the Year of Focus for me. More on this to come…

“Open Source Ecology is a network of farmers, engineers, and supporters that for the last two years has been creating the Global Village Construction Set, an open source, low-cost, high performance technological platform that allows for the easy, DIY fabrication of the 50 different Industrial Machines that it takes to build a sustainable civilization with modern comforts. The GVCS lowers the barriers to entry into farming, building, and manufacturing and can be seen as a life-size lego-like set of modular tools that can create entire economies, whether in rural Missouri, where the project was founded, in urban redevelopment, or in the developing world.”

-Open Source Ecology About Page

After drooling over the many videos that OSE has posted online and scouring every corner of their website, I decided that I had to get down to Missouri and check out what they were doing in person. Now, thanks to the far-reaching vision, encouragement,  and financial support of the Illinois Foundry for Innovation in Engineering Education (iFoundry), a group that I was highly active with during my first two years at U of I, that dream has finally become a reality. This past weekend, a group of seven other students and I carpooled out to Middle-of-Nowhere, Missouri to get the OSE experience first-hand. This group of students consisted of some of the most passionate and innovative students I know. The best part? Not a single one of us had the same major! Our backgrounds spanned the breadth of science and engineering:

• Agricultural and Biological Engineering
• Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Materials Science and Engineering
• Theoretical and Applied Mechanics
• Molecular and Cellular Biology
• Electrical Engineering
• Integrative Biology
• Crop Sciences
• Physics

This group could do anything it put its mind to! I think that the intellectual diversity attracted to this trip speaks for the far-reaching impact that OSE can produce.

Despite it’s TED-level fame, the OSE experience did not start out in a fancy room with slide shows and planning strategies. Instead, we got dirty. Within 15 minutes of being at the Factor E Farm, I:

• expanded my network to include a TED Fellow
• received a hands-on tutorial of how to structurally and practically design a support column
• helped develop a plan to maximize construction efficiency
• interacted with some of the most amazing machinery I’ve ever seen in my life
• was covered in mud

Note: All numbers are completely made up and only have a tiny amount of rationale associated with them. I’d like to hear your thoughts!

Personal Land - $5,000,000

There is quite possibly nothing that I want more than my own land where I can firmly plant the roots of my adventures in saving the world. Everything needs a home. Revolutions are no exceptions. I don’t want land so I can make money. I want land so I can create an example and use it as a tool to create change. It will start modestly of course, but eventually, it will have all the things that I dream about day and night. At its core, this land will aim to produce as much food, fuel, and fiber as possible, while sequestering tons (literally) of carbon and using practically no inputs. There will be much more on this in coming posts…after all, it’s the top priority.

Ecological Design & Consulting Firm Startup Costs - $10,000,000

What is the most effective way to make change? Government? Industry? Academia? Grassroots? I ask myself this everyday, and I have yet to find an answer. Nevertheless, some of my friends and I have been talking about starting a company together (a la Applied Ecological Services) for quite a long time. This lump sum would easily get it off the ground and to the forefront of today’s problems.

Farmer Training Program – $10,000,000

During my own daydreams about starting a farm, I have realized just how few resources are available to new (especially young) farmers… particularly the ones that want to do agriculture the right way. Aside from directly building supply (as in the allotment two below), we need to building capacity and knowledge. We need farmers!

Illini Wind Farm – $20,000,000

This is my idea of investing…insider investing.

• The University of Illinois has committed to getting energy from renewable sources. Every time it tries to do that internally, it epically fails. Market? Check.
• Turbines have been going up throughout central Illinois at an amazing rate lately. The wind here is clearly adequate. Location? Check.
• Climate change is happening. Peak oil already passed. $h|! will soon hit the fan. Incentive? Check.

Commercial Farm Education Center  - $10,000,000

This would be an initial investment in a large commercial farm. Central Illinois is a food desert. There is practically no food grown in the entire state, despite the massive amounts of arable land. Unfortunately, most of it is wasted for these horrid crops we know as corn and soy beans. Demand for local, fresh, healthy, tasty food is currently much higher than the supply. This investment would be a big step towards fulfilling that and beginning to change the Ag culture of this state.

Food Hub Development and Implementation – $10,000,000

This one directly relates to the previous allocation. A Food Hub is a place where locally produced foods can be stored, sorted, processed, preserved, distributed, packed, shipped, purchased, etc. It is the core of the decentralized, sustainable agriculture model. Very few successful hubs are currently in existence. This funding would aim to get a few big ones of the ground in order to gain attention and begin a revolution.

Podcast Donations – $1,000,000

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I have learned much more from listening to podcasts than I have from practically all of my schooling combined. They are amazing, and they are the future. I may have to spend a bit of this money to go and actually meet the hosts as well. The main podcasts in line are Deconstructing Dinner, This Week in Science, and The Naked Scientists. Each of these shows runs not-for-profit and relies on donations to keep running. Deconstructing Dinner had such a profound impact on me over the last few years, and now it’s off the air due to lack of funding. I want to make sure that never happens again.

RunningAhead Donation – $500,000

RunningAhead is the online running log that I use to record and analyze all of my training. See my last post for a great adventure into its abilities. As I mentioned in the last post, I greatly admire the site owner for his leap of faith by essentially putting his life on the line in order to pursue his passion. With this money, he could really take the site to the next level and start the next great running revolution.

IXC House – $1,000,000

For those of you who don’t know, I currently live in an apartment building that has been completely taken over by runners. Every apartment in the building (and now overflowing into the one next door as well) is runners from either the club or varsity cross country/track teams. It’s great! Except for the fact that we have the worst landlord in Champaign County and the apartments are pretty darn crappy. Regardless, as the Illinois Cross Country and Track Clubs have grown, we have day dreamed on runs about how neat it would be to have a building we could call our own. Oh, and seeing as this would more or less be a fraternity/sorority, we’d have to give this place a Greek name. ΓΨΝ. Gamma Psi Nu. The letters don’t mean anything, but look at them: “I RUN”!

FPDCC Palos Forest Preserves Restoration – $5,000,000

Volunteering withe Palos Restoration Project during high school was probably the core reason that I ultimately decided to choose biology as one of my college majors. I also ran through these preserves nearly everyday while in high school. They are very near and dear to my heart. But they need help. Invasives are spreading faster than volunteers can restore the land. This money could finally put us ahead in the war against invasives.

Open Source Ecology Donation - $1,000,000

I will soon have an entire post dedicated to Open Source Ecology, but for now just watch this video. These guys ARE the synthesis of engineering, agriculture, sustainability, technology, peak everything, innovation, creativity, and everything that I am interested in. They are doing some amazing things and need the support to expand.

Tesla Roadster & Model S – $500,000

Tesla not only produces the fastest, badest electric cars in the world, but it also has more swag than any other car company. I don’t like cars, but these things are just too sweet to pass up. And yes, I would get both, with all the extras. Gotta save a little room for splurging in this budget…

Endowed Professorships – $5,000,000

Through my experiences on campus, I know that professors can have a major influence with what gets done at a school. And frankly, I’d like to get some professors here at U of I that think like I do! Supposedly it currently costs about $1M to endow a professor at U of I, so $5M should get me five, one in each of the following areas:

• Local & regional food systems
• Engineering/Science education
• Endurance Training (1/2 time appointment, with the other half being the head coach of the Illinois Cross and Track Clubs)
• Atmosphere-Biosphere Interactions
• Savanna Agriculture/Permaculture

Stock Market - $1,000,000

I’m listing only a measly $1m for the stock market, because I really don’t like the stock market. As you can probably tell from everything else listed here, I am much more of a micro-finance/venture capital kind of guy. I guess I would just put this in there anyway to keep up with how it’s going and play around.

Personal Savings - $10,000,000

The engineering economics class that I’m currently in has taught me well the “time value of money”, so I guess that some of this money should be saved for future use. I’m not sure if I would put this wad of cash under a floorboard or actually somewhere productive, but if I did it right, this should cover anything personal in my family for quite a while, no?

Chicago Urban Agriculture Project – $5,000,000

While I don’t think that Urban Agriculture is the solution, it definitely an important part of it. Currently, Will Allen at Growing Power is blowing everyone away in this arena. I’d like to become a partner in his revolution and start a similar large-scale project in Chicago.

Direct Action Against Fossil Fuels – $5,000,000

I’m not sure exactly what this would consist of, but I know it would be epic and I know that it would help prevent any new coal power plants from being built and towards making the lives of oil executives extremely miserable (a la The Yes Men?). I know that this is not the most effective way to make things happen, but there’s still a place for it, and it can definitely be fun!

Let’s start with some basic graphs just to make sure my data is accurate.

I Run Faster When I Try Harder…Duh

X-axis: Distance

Y-axis: Duration

Insight Classification: Intuitive

Explanation: Sure, another intuitive relationship, but nonetheless interesting to see that the trend is so strong and with relatively little variation. Anyone want to bet that the slop of that trend is about 7.5?? Also, notice how the different bar colors group together in this graph. This is no coincidence. See the legend to make sense of  it. A question for my fellow runners: Could there be any better proof that “Badger Miles” are in fact accurate over the long-term? However, if I had implemented badger Miles over the last three years, we wouldn’t be able to analyze all these amazing graphs now would we?

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Now let’s move on to some interesting graphs that reveal some things about our climate.

My Running Log Is A Weather Station

X-axis: Temperature

Y-axis: Cumulative Duration of Runs

Insight Classification: Climate

Explanation: Okay, this one’s a bit more complicated. On the x-axis we have the temperature that I recorded for a run, and on the y-axis we have the cumulative duration of runs (in hours) that took place at certain temperatures. Individual chunks within each bar represent individual runs. So what does this graph say? Well, assuming that I ran almost everyday in the last three years, this curve tells us that annual temperature in the midwest falls into a bell curve or “normal” distribution. Intuitive, once you understand the data. It will be interesting to see how this curve shifts in the coming years…

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By Far The Coolest Graph My Data Can Make

X-axis: Date

Y-axis: Temperature

Insight Classification: Climate

Explanation: This is an amazing documentation of the annual temperature variation in the Midwest. You think I could generate climate models solely based on my running log?? Makes you think about the power of crowd-sourcing data sets. Check out that ONE run below zero…Gadz, remember that fartlek? You took the bus home.

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And finally, let’s move on to the real analysis: My Training

For this portion, almost all graphs will compare pace with some variable. While pace is not the only measure of fitness, it is a pretty good general proxy in this context. Keep in mind that a lower pace is faster (i.e. smaller bars/values are better).

My Running Life

X-axis: Date

Y-axis: Daily Distance

Insight Classification: Life & Training.

Explanation: What a masterpiece. Some interesting questions to ask:

1) What was I DOING on the day of that huge spike?! Well, that would be when I raced my own half-marathon and then went back to run the last bit of Mom’s with her as well…and then cooled down.

2)Why does a cyclic pattern emerge? Each cycle represents on training season, of which there are two per year: cross country and track. Each cycle starts with low mileage to recover after the previous season, steadily ramps up mileage as fitness increases, peaks mid-season, and finally tapers off at the end of the season for top race performance.

3) Why is there a weird dip in the last big cycle (last spring)? That would be what happens when you have tendonitis in your IT band.

4) Why the heck is there a huge gap at the end of the gap? This one has two answers: Costa Rica and Panama.

5) Why can I so easily find and explain the variations in my training? Because RunningAhead is AWESOME!

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X-axis: Distance

Y-axis: Pace

Insight Classification: Training

Explanation: The colors really come into play on this graph. Most importantly, green represents longruns, which is a technical term that applies to the one run per week that accounts for about 20% of your weekly mileage and aims at increasing aerobic capacity. Yes, to runners, longrun is one word. Contrary to what you might think, this graph shows that I like to run my longest runs the fastest (except of course for those yellow ones which represent interval workouts, but those are kind of their own category). I firmly believe in the idiom that “long, slow runs produce long, slow runners.” Not all runners feel this way, and I would be VERY interested to compare this graph with some of my fellow runners (ahem…Sean).

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Things Don’t Always Stay The Same

X-axis: Date of Longruns

Y-axis: Pace

Insight Classification: Training

Explanation: This graph singles out longruns that I have run over the last three years and charts their pace. During my senior year of high school (first year on the left), you can see that the vast majority of my longruns were at a sub-7-minute pace. Those were the days! I had more runner’s highs on those longruns at Argonne than I ever have in my life. However, once college hit, you can see a pretty clear shift in average pace, with many more slower longruns. Why is this? There are many reasons that have caused this switch, including crappy places to run (i.e. C-U), coaching philosophy, and teammate philosophy. Unfortunately, none of those variables are quantitative, and therefore we can’t graph them. :.[

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There’s Always The Confusing One

X-axis: Subjective Run Quality

Y-axis: Cumulative Duration of Runs

Insight Classification: Life

Explanation: WOW, what a beautiful bell curve! Gaussian distributions don’t just occur in textbooks! This graph basically shows the frequency at which I assign particular quality values to my runs. You can see that those 10/10 runs where I get intense runner’s highs are pretty rare. Fortunately, those really crappy 1/10 and 2/10 runs are also rare!

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I LOVE GRAPHS. And I bet you now do too…

The previous graphs are based on self-documented training data of long-distance running over the last three years. All credit for data storage, manipulation, analysis, and graph creation goes to the amazing Eric at RunningAhead.com, the BEST online running log ever made. Any success I have experienced in my training over the last few years is in no small part due to the amazing analysis and documentation I can do using the ever-improving and free website that he as created. The running community is truly indebted to his kindness and genius. Thanks Eric, this one’s for you.

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I now know what it feels like to be the minority. I have been shouted at in the streets, discriminated against in a store, almost beaten up over a cultural misunderstanding, been given “the look” more times than I’d like to say, and, worst of all, been the target of many assumptions that I highly resent.

I have acquired a new perspective on my values and priorities in my life. When your mind doesn’t have to think about anything in particular, it’s allowed to think about whatever its wants. Over my three months in Costa Rica and Panama (especially in the many long bus rides) my mind has been allowed to wander wherever it pleases.  Looking back, it’s very enlightening to realize what things I hardly thought about all summer that had previously occupied large portions of my mind just weeks before. On the other hand, it was fascinating to see my mind revisiting things that I had never really given enough of a chance before. These topics, that dominate my mind when the strong filter of what I “think” I need when I get entrenched in certain ideas or lost in the routine of everyday life, are the things that must be truly important to me. As I move into this new semester, I think I have the best perspective on my priorities than I ever have before. Can’t wait to see to what new places that perspective can take me…

I’ve learned how to travel cheap and still stay within my comfort zone/feel safe. This will undoubtedly prove extremely useful for the many future travels that I am already planning.

I have experienced and actually been a part of a different culture for an extended period of time for the first time in my life. A deep understanding of another culture is so important for more than just the sake of understanding that culture, however…I think that I now actually have a better perspective of my own culture. Nothing beats a perspective from the outside looking in.

I can be pura vida. Basically, I slowed down quite a bit this summer (may be hard to believe for those who met me for the first time over the summer) and learned to live without technology every second of my life. While this doesn’t mean that I won’t return right back to a crazy-fast, technology-filled life once I return to campus (heck, as I look at my Post-Summer To Do List, I can already see that it seems highly unlikely), but at least I know it’s possible and feels great.

Biodiversity is more diverse, ecology is more complex, and evolution more inspiring than I ever thought before. That’s saying something.

I formed some really great relationships with my host-family and other friends that I met over the summer. The fact that I will be leaving all of them behind tomorrow is only just beginning to set it. That said, I have no doubt that I will return to see them all again.

I really missed running. The last three months of abstinence has been the longest inactive period I’ve ever endured since becoming a runner over 8 years ago. Core and lunges just don’t cut it. I need some endorphins.

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Photos from the past month that I haven’t been able to post until now:

Villas Mastatal (First Farm)

Finca Amrta (Last Farm)

Panama Border, City, and Canal

Fortuna and Bocas del Toro

Research

My first five days in Fortuna were spent primarily out in the field collecting data on the size and growth rate of a certain palm species in a particularly interesting chunk of Fortuna’s forest. The data I collected is just a small part of a much larger project to quantify the standing biomass and carbon flux of a much larger portion of Fortuna, which is currently the doctoral work of a grad student at UofI. My work on this project primarily served to give me some real hands-on research experience in the field while contributing towards a ongoing project that I’m very interested in. That said, I still might get the chance to use the data I collected in my own senior thesis project in the future.

Despite how much I enjoy talking about ecosystem dynamics and tree physiology, I think I’ll spare this post the many fascinating details and motivations behind this project and just provide a quick summary of what actually I did in the field:

1. Find young Colpothrinax aphanopetala (a large palm tree with fan-shaped leaves) individuals of approximately 5 meters in height: This basically involved wandering aimlessly through the forest until I came upon healthy individuals of the correct size. Luckily, I never encountered a single snake, which I was told is a rare privilege.
2. Measure height of tree & count number of fully expanded leaves: Seeing as I was in the middle of nowhere and without a ladder, this had to be done with a tape measure and some basic trigonometry that I had to dig out of my brain’s archives. Leaf-counting isn’t that bad when the tree you’re studying typically has between only 10-13 leaves and they’re all at eye level.  
3. Tag youngest fully expanded leaf: In order to insure that we can identify this leaf a year from now, this was done using several strategies: numbered metal tags, spray paint, and reflective plastic flagging tape. The idea is to come back in a year and see home many new leaves have emerged after the tagged leaf. That will give us an idea of the growth rate of this important species.
4. Take hemispherical photos of canopy above each tree: A hemispherical photo is exactly what its name implies and is taken using a really cool (and expensive) lens. These images of the canopy above each tree show how much light actually passes through the forest canopy and makes it to the measured tree. This is also important to determine growth rate.

Field Biology Course

I had already known that my professor was going to teach a field biology course to 15 Panamanian undergraduate biology students during my time in Fortuna, but what I didn’t know was that my professor wanted me to actually take the course with them! I had been under the assumption that I would just be helping out with odds and ends as needed. Once the initial nervous wave passed, I immediately got excited…I had been meaning to take a field biology class one of these semesters anyway. And so, before I knew it, 15 new students were occupying the small house were there had previously just been two of us, and I was the only gringo, non-native Spanish speaker in a highly technical biology class — taught in Spanish.

Although a bit daunting at first, the class turned out to be absolutely amazing. First of all, I made really good friends with all of the Panamanian students, especially while spending many hours teaching each other about our respective cultures and languages. It was really great to experience this new culture/language with people my own age…something that I had only barely been able to do while in Costa Rica. I think my Spanish comfort sky-rocketed even more, especially with the many slang words I learned from the students. Not to mention, we all had to write several papers and give several presentations on experiments that we did throughout the week. Before this course, I knew that I could write scientifically in English. I also knew that I could write in Spanish (probably better than my speaking). However, writing scientifically in Spanish, is a completely different beast, and one that I think I may have finally slayed by the end of the 10-day course.

As far as the biology part of the course goes, I learned a ton as well. For the first time in my life, I finally experienced real ecological research first hand. Sure, I have had a 5-hour biology lab every week during school for the past year, but that isn’t quite ecology and is really kind of “fake”. It usually goes like this: “Hi students, here are some instructions and fancy equipment. We know what results you should get, so try not to screw up and hopefully you can get the same results.” Working in the field, with your own, untested hypothesis, means operating on a completely new (higher) level and is something that is very difficult to achieve in the classroom. To some biology students, field work is scary, but after this past week I am now even more drawn to the science.

Another goal of my time in Fortuna was to focus in a bit on possible/plausible ideas for my senior thesis research project (something I have to do in order to get my biology degree). While I still definitely haven’t figured out what I want to do, I’m surely at least a bit closer. Specific topics may still be a long way off, but that’s okay. More than anything now, after actually doing some real field biology, I have a better perspective on what is feasible, interesting, and how I would actually go about doing it. That is, I’ve learned that science is more powerful and research more available that I ever thought before. This new perspective will undoubtedly lead me down some wonderful paths in the next year, and I’m sure that specific project possibilities will come along in due time.

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Yesterday, the field course ended and all the students left Fortuna, leaving only two of us here, once again, to enjoy the beauty of the cloud forest. In my last few days here, I will be helping the other student here collect root specimens for her (fascinating) doctoral research and may also swing over to Bocas del Toro, probably the most famous beach/coastal area in Panama,  for a day to enjoy the sun and salty breeze one last time before I head home. On Thursday I’ll head back to San Joaquin in Costa Rica to spend some last-minute time with my host family and friends there before heading home on Monday. My how fast 3 months can go…

On the other side of the border, I encountered not just a different country but what seemed to be practically a different world. If I had come from the U.S., I probably wouldn’t have noticed anything at all, but after having spent two months with her Latina neighbor, many of Panama’s different characteristics jumped out at me right away. During my first bus ride (from Rio Serreno to David), I decided to pull out my notebook and create a list of these differences. I had a full-page within minutes–before we even left the Rio Serreno city limits. As a result, half of me got excited for the world of new experiences that obviously awaited me, but my other half became a bit nervous…this wasn’t the Costa Rican home that I had known for, well, what seemed to be forever.

Twelve hours of bus rides later, I was in Panama City (luckily, unlike Costa Rica, Panamanian buses have comfy seats, air-conditioning, and movies…in Spanish, and of which I understood a good 75%!). In Panama City, I was lucky enough to have my professor pick me up from the bus station and take me into his home. Over the next few days, I did my best to get to know Panama with the little time I had.

Within the city, my primary attraction was to Casco Viejo, the oldest part of the city, which reminded me very much of the French Quarter of New Orleans. There, I walked the coast, explored the churches, ate in some interesting cafes, and attended the Canal Museum (which I did my best to plow through in Spanish). Another interesting area was Ancon, which was originally part of the U.S.-managed area around the canal. For quite an extreme change, the buildings and area here made me think that I was on an old army base…quite a bit different from a historic New Orleans. From this army base, I headed to the heart of downtown, which is right on the Pacific coastline and has skyscrapers going in at an alarming rate (including a few by Mr. Trump himself). If you haven’t gathered it from this basic information already, yes, the downtown area made me feel like I was in Chicago again, complete with Lakeshore Drive and Grant Park. What a complex place Panama City is!

One day, on my way out of the city, I decided to stop by the monstrous new mall that seemed to be the city’s most popular location. Now, for those who know me well, a mall is the last place you would expect me to be. Consumerism is my enemy, and the whole atmosphere  just make me uncomfortable. Nevertheless, as I had heard several times that, as a result of the canal, consumerism was a central part of Panamanian culture, I felt the mall a necessary stop in order to get the full Panama experience. I was also very curious to see if the rumors of rock bottom prices on everything in the country were in fact true.  In the end, as you can probably expect, I was only able to deal with the mall for a bit. After a lap around this Everyday, USA outpost and finding nothing the least bit cultural about it (or unbelievably cheap for that matter), I couldn’t take it anymore. So, I headed to the mall’s movie theater and saw the long-awaited, new (and awesome) Harry Potter movie. I’m not sure which location seemed more fake to me: Hogwarts or Albrook Mall.

The last, and perhaps neatest, activity of my Panama City trip was attending the Panama Canal Visitor’s Center at the Mira Flores Locks (the first of three canal locks when coming from the Pacific Ocean). The Visitor’s Center itself was quite impressive, with a large movie theater playing a movie of the canal’s history and a four-storey museum about the construction, maintenance, and future expansion of the canal. However, the best part of the experience was heading to the top floor for an impressive bird’s eye-view of the lock and canal. From there, I was able to view a small ship pass through this set of locks. While the slow process was not the most visually exciting experience ever, it still left you somewhat amazed…as if you had just traveled the entire web of globalization for which the canal is somewhat of a poster child. That said, after my short rendezvous with Panama City and the Canal, I headed for the small little outpost in the middle of the Panamanian mountains where biology would soon become my one and only focus. And so the third and final Phase of my summer began…

The daily routine and setup there was similar to that of the first farm, but with more cooking all around. The volunteers were supplied with all the staples, but we had to cook for ourselves, which was really fun and produced some quite epic meals. The farm’s crop diversity, location, community, and overall plan were better than any we had previously experienced. The owners were two U.S. expats who knew so much about the 200+ varieties of trees alone and countless other plant species on their land. The “short” tree tour took two hours.

Over the two weeks on spent on farms in Costa Rica, and especially at Finca Amrta, I was able to interact with many new crops and really learn what agriculture is like in the tropics. Prior to my agricultural experiences in Costa Rica, I had what I would call “tropical envy.” I was convinced that the tropics were any plant’s paradise and that these farms would put anything I had previously experienced to shame. Now, while there is certainly some truth to these claims (hell, Costa Rica’s insane biodiversity certainly speaks for something), my jealously has subsided quite a bit.

Sure, the tropics still win in the sheer number of possible crops, but we (temperate region folk) have a whole separate subset of cool-weather crops that they can’t even begin to touch (rhubarb, Brassicas, asparagus, etc.). The tropics may not have snow or frosts, but their dry season can be just as harsh with droughts. The tropics may have more rain, but this is often too much, causing many crops we know and love (e.g. tomatoes) to only survive under the protection of a roof or barrier. The tropics may have a stronger sun, but we have the day length advantage. The tropics may have a varied terrain, but we have 10 times the top soil.

The comparisons are interesting, and my thoughts have run far deeper in the last two weeks. Overall, I still have no doubt that a well-run tropical farm can out-produce a well-run temperate farm…that’s basic ecology. However, the divide isn’t as steep as I previously thought, and my perspective is much more balanced. We can do some “epic $h!t” up north. I know. I’ve seen it. If only the vasty majority of our country wasn’t ingrained in a system of epic stupidity…

I definitely plan on returning to Finca Amrta in the future. Not quite sure when that’ll be, but if I learned anything there it was that if I’m open, things will likely fall into place. “When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream.” The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

But, alas, my interests are wide and my time here is short. I left the farm with just under a month left on my topical journey and an entire country yet to experience. So, on Monday, Chelsey and I parted ways, and I headed first for San Vito, Costa Rica. San Vito is home to the Las Cruces Biological Station, one of three stations in Costa Rica owned by the Organization for Tropical Studies. OTS is an organization of universities from around the world that conducts research and educational programs in tropical biology. Their two month-long intensive tropical ecology program was the program that first brought my attention to Costa Rica. Last summer, I was ready to come to down here for their program, but the whole universe once again conspired towards a different plan (forgive me…just read The Alchemist…anybody??), and the rest is history.

Las Cruces seemed as if someone had taken a small chunk of a University and dropped it in the middle of the forest. There were laboratories, dorms, dining halls, conference rooms, offices, smart professors, tired grad students, and confused undergrads (like me). Las Cruces, like the other OTS stations, serves as a central hub for biologists to access all the facilities and info they need to conduct research in the surrounding forest. Many students also come through to take classes or do research on a variety of topics. Overall, it was a really neat academic microcosm that served as a good stepping stone towards Panama. I spent one night at Las Cruces and then finally headed towards to border. Little did I know that a great adventure was awaiting me ahead…