Carmen Sandiego
"She goes from Nashville to Norway
Bonaire to Zimbabwe,
Chicago to Czechoslovakia and back!
She'll ransack Pakistan
And run a scam in Scandinavia
Then she'll stick 'em up Down Under
And go pick-pocket in Perth
She put the Miss in misdemeanor
When she stole the beans from Lima
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?"
- "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego" by Rockapella
Ok, true confession: I'm a child of the '90s. The lyrics above come from the theme song to a PBS game show from the early 1990s called Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? According to Wikipedia, "the show was created partially in response to the results of a National Geographic survey that indicated Americans had alarmingly little knowledge of geography, with one in four unable to locate the Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean." (Ouch!)
In the past few years, my mom has started calling my Carmen Sandiego, not because I'm an international petty thief, but because people are always asking her where I am. When my mom's friends call her to catch up and see how the family is doing, they don't ask "How is Kirstin?" anymore; they ask my mom "Where is Kirstin?"
The pseudonym seems particularly fitting this week, since I actually am in San Diego. Andrew and I landed here last night, and we're spending a week on land preparing for a research cruise. The cruise still counts as part of my fellowship in Norway, since Andrew invited me on it and I'm going as his student. It just so happens that the cruise is in the tropical Pacific.
I'm actually pretty excited for the cruise, since I'll be helping Andrew with his landers. Landers are huge metal frames that you can attach equipment to and then send overboard from a ship. The lander free-falls to the deep seafloor, sits there and takes measurements, and then comes back up when you tell it to. Communicating with a lander is accomplished via acoustic signals - basically, you generate sound waves of a certain frequency in the water; the lander receives the signal, releases its weights, and floats back up to the surface. It will be good for me to learn how to use landers effectively, because they're a versatile and common research tool for deep-sea biology.
I'm also pretty excited for the cruise because it's at tropical latitude. When we leave San Diego, we're going to cruise south for several days before we even reach our field sites. That means that within a month, I will have done field work at both polar and tropical latitude. My body won't know what to do with itself! I actually had a friend ship me some pairs of shorts from Oregon because the wardrobe I have with me is suited for the Norwegian winter. Heavy wool sweaters and fur boots aren't exactly going to help me survive in the tropics.
It's going to be a good cruise, and I'm really looking forward to learning as much as I can. Here's to a new adventure!
Bonaire to Zimbabwe,
Chicago to Czechoslovakia and back!
She'll ransack Pakistan
And run a scam in Scandinavia
Then she'll stick 'em up Down Under
And go pick-pocket in Perth
She put the Miss in misdemeanor
When she stole the beans from Lima
Tell me where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?"
- "Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego" by Rockapella
Ok, true confession: I'm a child of the '90s. The lyrics above come from the theme song to a PBS game show from the early 1990s called Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego? According to Wikipedia, "the show was created partially in response to the results of a National Geographic survey that indicated Americans had alarmingly little knowledge of geography, with one in four unable to locate the Soviet Union or the Pacific Ocean." (Ouch!)
In the past few years, my mom has started calling my Carmen Sandiego, not because I'm an international petty thief, but because people are always asking her where I am. When my mom's friends call her to catch up and see how the family is doing, they don't ask "How is Kirstin?" anymore; they ask my mom "Where is Kirstin?"
 |
| View from my 11th-floor hotel room in San Diego |
I'm actually pretty excited for the cruise, since I'll be helping Andrew with his landers. Landers are huge metal frames that you can attach equipment to and then send overboard from a ship. The lander free-falls to the deep seafloor, sits there and takes measurements, and then comes back up when you tell it to. Communicating with a lander is accomplished via acoustic signals - basically, you generate sound waves of a certain frequency in the water; the lander receives the signal, releases its weights, and floats back up to the surface. It will be good for me to learn how to use landers effectively, because they're a versatile and common research tool for deep-sea biology.
 |
| Polar, temperate, tropical: field boots for every latitude |
I'm also pretty excited for the cruise because it's at tropical latitude. When we leave San Diego, we're going to cruise south for several days before we even reach our field sites. That means that within a month, I will have done field work at both polar and tropical latitude. My body won't know what to do with itself! I actually had a friend ship me some pairs of shorts from Oregon because the wardrobe I have with me is suited for the Norwegian winter. Heavy wool sweaters and fur boots aren't exactly going to help me survive in the tropics.
It's going to be a good cruise, and I'm really looking forward to learning as much as I can. Here's to a new adventure!
Comments
Post a Comment