The Other Half of Being a Researcher

Anyone who knows anything about research knows that half the work is actually gather data. The other half is writing: writing grant applications, writing abstracts to submit to journals and conferences, writing articles for publication, writing posters or presentations for conferences... It's a never ending cycle of writing and the fun part of research. (Actually, I find science conferences quite fun but that's another discussion.) 

For the last week, I've been writing and editing and re-editing an abstract to submit to the 33rd Annual Symposium on Sea Turtle Biology and Conservation. I'm not the only one--I've also helped edit two other abstracts for submission to the same conference. Of course, one absolutely must have an amazing title for a presentation. The last time I presented at a science conference, my talk was entitled, "Down-and-Dirty: What Hoover Vacuums and Sea Cucumbers Have in Common in a Tropical Coral Reef Environment." Have to figure out how to rival that, right? 

Here's my list of possible titles for my poster about this summer's volunteers: 

-Volunteer Researchers and Charging Sea Turtles (The charging sea turtle story, in case you've forgotten.) 

-It Wasn't Raining When We Left: Field Research and Volunteers in Honduras (ATV Adventures, Night 2) 

-Basic ATV Maintenance and Other Necessary Skills for a Volunteer (How many times can one ATV break?) 

-'There's a Crab in My Trousers' and Other Volunteer Events of Note (One night, a BICA volunteer work up, exclaiming, in her heavy Scottish accent, "There's a crab in my trousers!") 

-Crocodiles, Spiders, and Scorpions--Oh My! (One night on Cuero, the guard with Arianna, Robyn, and I tried to tell us something about an area of the river that ran next to us on the beach. All we could understand was something about "crocodilo" and "peligroso," neither of which was very encouraging without context from the rest of the sentence. The wolf spiders and scorpions were both in the woods on our Utila beach.)

-We Don't Have Protocol for This!: Field Research and the Volunteer (TWO TURTLES!!!) 

-Listening for Hatchlings and the Role of Volunteers (According to one source, you can actually hear turtle hatchlings when they're in the nest and scrabbling towards the surface.)

Any winners? No? Don't worry, I did come up with another title--one that's both catchy and a little more serious than the ones listed here. 

In other news: I leave for South Africa on Saturday!!