field trip in california

welcome to introspection ft. harsehaj! ⭐️ i’m harsehaj, a 19 y/o always up to something in social good x tech.

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onto today’s topic: field trip in california 🪨 

i feel so bad for anyone that didn’t take the geology class that just sent me on a week-long trip to eastern california with strangers turned best friends. while our friends at chapel hill were locked in studying for midterms and going to class, we were hiking yosemite national park, mapping the topography of different rock sites, and climbing canyons with compasses in hand.

life at unc-chapel hill is good don’t get me wrong, but this opportunity to escape and actually be able to spend time with the same people consistently (opposed to the fleeting variable encounters while at school) was much-needed. 😁 

i’ll paint a quick picture of how our days went on the white mountain research centre in bishop, california.

at 6am, we’d wake up (perhaps snooze our alarms one too many times) and get ready for our 7am breakfast. our delicious meals were cooked for us by the research facility staff and i looked forward to eating the sandwiches we made for ourselves later in the day during lunch. from 8am to 5pm(ish) we would be “on the field,” which could include any of the following:

1) checking out a new national park and learning about the rock formations and their significance.

2) hiking trails with lakes, rivers, mountains, and of course, rocks, surrounding us.

3) collecting samples for our group research projects — this was the actual purpose of the trip. my group was collecting data for our hypothesis around lead concentration in different rocks vs. soil samples as proximity to civilization changes. 🔬 

after 1-2 hours spent in the car and a long day of any or all of the above activities, we’d chill at the research facility until dinner at 6pm. i spent that in-between time laying in the sun on the grass and reading. if you know me well enough, you also know that rotting in the sun is one of my absolute favourite activities.

after a delicious dinner, many of us typically decided to lock in and finish pending homework and catch up on assignments since school was still in session. the late nights were spent being college students and messing around.

sleep before 3am and repeat. :)

as each day passed, our field notebooks overrun with coordinates, observations and diagrams grew more and more full. i learned so much more about the world around me and most importantly, i felt my spirit of curiosity regain some fuel from my childhood as i grew comfortable with asking questions and drawing conclusions, even about a field i previously had 0 interest in.

definitely my favourite field trip yet. 🗺️ 

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