At last I am back from my incredible journey to Antarctica, and falling back into the swing of things here in the CMC Herbarium. Before Christmas break, Dr. Monfils gave all of us official CMC Herbarium hats, and I swore to her that I would take a picture of myself wearing it in Antarctica. Thus, below I have included a few photos of myself donning said hat. You'll notice that in the second, I am also wearing additional hats below the Herbarium one. This is imperfect, but my defense was that it was very cold; it was Antarctica, after all!
Fellow CMU undergraduate Carlos Coronado and I holding the Central Michigan Flag
Dr. Andrew Mahon, Myself, and Carlos Coronado of CMU at the Antarctic Ice Shelf
I was very surprised, but one of the things I missed most while in Antarctica was the sound of the wind through the trees--and the smell of plants. You don't realize how much they effect your daily perception of the air until all you smell is purified ocean and ice, which is very refreshing, but not very pungent. Michigan during winter provides little comfort, as I still long for the rustling of leaves in the canopy, but at least I can get my aromatic plant fix from our Herbarium.
As soon as I returned, I began training our newest coworker, Sascha. Since I had been MIA since December, showing her the ropes was a great refresher for me, and answering her questions helped with further troubleshooting as we make our final push toward successful organization. We have now finished databasing Cabinet 13, and it is now ready for name verification and annotation. Sascha is also half way done with organizing Cabinet 14 (the last cabinet!), so we are almost at the end of the organizing/databasing process.
I have also officially agreed to work in the Herbarium full time this summer. Sascha, Dr. Monfils, and myself have made it our goal to finish revamping and digitizing the Herbarium by the end of August. I am very excited indeed to see the completion of this massive project!
Until next time,
Abigail H.
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