End of semester

I walk by one of the older buildings on campus most mornings, shown above. With the semester over and campus less busy, I've enjoyed the calmness and the extra time to read papers and work on ideas. (For reference, I'm not in my lab on Christmas Eve, just posting from home.)

Last night, I had dinner at Passage to India, which I think still qualifies as something new and therefore exciting in Laramie. In the past couple years, I've lived in larger college towns (Fort Collins and Corvallis), but Passage to India might be the best Indian restaurant in any of them. (Their naan is certainly the best.) Even if it isn't that new, it still qualifies as exciting.

So after living in Laramie for a semester, my expectations of the town have been exceeded. It's prettier than I thought, and the dining options are quite decent. I'm looking forward to checking out the skiing in the coming year.

Nice, if not magical

I enjoyed reading a recent op-ed about colleges touting themselves as being similar to Hogwarts, the wizard school in Harry Potter. While none of the grad schools I visited thought to do that, and I don't suggest any grad school should, I enjoyed spending a bit of down time during finals week considering how Hogwartsian Wyoming could claim to be.

Faculty I haven't encountered any Snapes yet, nor do they wear robes or extravagant hats. Solidly muggle.

Grounds Actually, mildly Hogwartsian. Currently, the evergreens and stone buildings are white from a recent snow, making a nice comparison to all the winter scenes from any HP movie. A pair of owls hang out on campus as well. Slightly magical.

Feasting Between PiE and my home department, there's actually a fair amount of food accompanying talks and speakers. The department holiday party last weekend had plenty of tasty stuff, although that's because the faculty and grad students can apparently cook well. However, there's nothing inherently magical about that, and we tend to consume it in rooms that do not qualify as great halls. Solidly muggle.

Creatures A nice variety of species are represented, from plants to polar bears, although all are actually real. No Sasquatch research. Solidly muggle.

Housing No castles in Laramie. But my apartment seems to have insulating capabilities verging on alchemy - at times, it's 50 degrees above outside temperature without turning on the heat. A touch magical.

Superficially, then, there's not a great deal here to market as Hogwartsian. But as the high school student writing the op-ed agreed, that's not really why you choose a school.

Shifting baselines

Taking a cue from the other bloggers, I thought I'd mention the most interesting science I've been reading lately. Or rather, the science I've been reading about, since the media coverage seems to have preceded the article's publication (thanks to Newswise's science coverage).

Essentially, it appears our baselines for evaluating species - in this case, fish - can be severely off-target depending on where we set the baseline. Karin Limburg and John Waldman compared shad populations from the late 1800s, where baselines usually begin, and the early 1800s. The baseline levels derived from catches in the late 1800s represented a population that had crashed from previous levels. There's a nice graph of this in Newswise's coverage. (The article appears in the December issue of BioScience.)

In other words, many of our restoration goals could be based on already diminished populations. Fascinating, if depressing.

Cheers and Thanksgiving

How do you become a better scientist? I try to consider that question frequently in grad school. While I don't claim to have a definitive answer, I've found discussing the issue with fellow grad students and professors to be one of the more enjoyable ways to think about it.

Last night, I had a beer with a professor to talk about using my time in school to become a better scientist. It was a good time - nice beer (Altitude has some fine choices) and good conversation. One of the things I've appreciated most since coming here is the openness of the faculty and grad students - if you want to grab a cup of something (cold or hot) and talk about something more or less related to your interests, it's usually not hard.

And since John mentioned it, I thought I'd echo his thoughts - it's pretty easy to travel from Laramie. I spent Thanksgiving with family in Denver, then made a quick trip to Durango for the weekend. It was a bit of driving, certainly, but having spent my formative years within the Capital Beltway, I don't mind the distance as long as the roads are good and the scenery is pleasant.