I am still waiting

I am beginning to feel a bit nervous about my upcoming field season. I have thought through the experiments, the protocol, the data collection and the "plan", but in the field everything tends to go awry and all you can do is react, react, react until you have a pile of hopefully useful data. My goal is to return with a stack of this type of useful, well-replicated data, as well as specimens and all my toes.

There is so much to consider when planning a trip such as this - it is not merely an easy jaunt across the water. Many apparati that we need are only available from North American shops so I had to plan this well in advance. I am double checking frequently and hoping I made the correct decision.

Otherwise, I have been mentally packing and trying to figure out exactly what I will require to keep me going for the next 4 months. Sometimes I feel like I would be happy with just the clothes on my back, but when I start thinking of things I might want or need, the list grows exponentially.

I suppose ultimately I have been waiting a long time to leave, and it is just time.