10 Years of Ultimate

The day after regionals... always a day for reflection.  Games won, games lost, fun had, opportunities seized or missed.  In my ultimate career I've had my season end at this tournament 8 times.  My emotions upon the end of that last game have ranged from happiness to relief to indifference to tears caused by the rush of too many feelings to the surface at once.  After a day of settling though, I find myself thinking the same thing I think after any tournament- "that was fun".

Pictured: Fun.  Photo credit Stephen So.

Last month marked the 10 year anniversary of the day I first showed up to Dartmouth Ultimate practice and picked up a disc.  That was honestly one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life.  I couldn't imagine my life without the experiences, travel, and friendships that ultimate has given me.  Because I'm huge nerd, I've actually kept track of all the tournaments and teams I've played for over the years.

In 10 years, I have attended 117 tournaments.  I've played in 106 of them, the others I was spectating or coaching.  The most tournaments I've attended in one year was 20, in 2008.  I have won a tournament 10 times.  I've lost in the finals another 9 times.  Those tournaments add up to 617 games with a wining percentage of 0.56.

I attended 26 of the tournaments with the Dartmouth Pain Train, 13 with the Pimpdags, 9 (and counting) with ASU B Pleasure Ultimate, and 8 (and counting) with Rubix.  I have played a tournament in 35 different states.  Counting tournaments, pick-up, spectating, and driving through in transit to a tournament, ultimate has taken me to 43 of the 50 states.

Putting all this on a map looks something like this:

Escape

Seasonal Depression is a serious thing.  I first heard about it at Dartmouth, when the long, cold, and cloudy winters often caused depression that resulted in not a small amount of transfers.  Of course, this confused me, because I loved winter.  The novelty of having snow consistently on the ground and face-biting cold never wore off in my 4 years there, or my next 2 winters in Madison.  While other Dartmouth students made every effort to avoid Hanover in the winter, I did the Hanover FSP my Junior winter, living on campus and working for a geology prof when I wasn't taking classes.

The solution to avoiding seasonal depression, I learned, was to embrace the season.  I was never effected because I went skiing at least twice a week and love the feeling of cold air in my lungs.  I thought Dartmouth looked beautiful in the winter and loved walking across campus.  It makes sense then that when I lived in Vail there was no issue with winter depression, everyone who was there was there by choice; they had all chosen to be ski bums and embrace the cold.

When I moved to Phoenix I discovered that seasonal depression isn't just about winter.  It can be about summer.  The consistent heat in Phoenix in oppressive.  It exhausts and dehydrates you.  I can't take a cold shower at my house because the pipes are too close to the surface and the water is hot.  Air conditioning is expensive, so home temperature is about finding the balance between cool enough to avoid going crazy while not going bankrupt.

Summer at New England, the perfect escape from summer at ASU

And for me at least, the bigger issue with summer oppression is that if you embrace it, you get heat stroke and die.  In the winter I can always put on a thicker coat and another fleece.  In the summer, once it's a sunny day above 110, there's not much you can do.  And while it's survivable to play ultimate or go running at dusk, the fact that it's still 105 out at 8 or 9pm can just get to you after a few weeks.

So that's why I addressed my problem by avoiding it all together.  I escape.  Between the end of ASU finals last May 1st and the beginning of class yesterday, there were 16 weeks.  I managed to get the hell out of Phoenix for 8 full weeks and 3 additional weekends:
  Nicaragua Volcano Tectonics Workshop - 2 weeks
  TA ASU Field Camp - 3 weeks
  Working Vacation to CO and OK - 2 weeks
  Vacation to New England - 1 week
  2 weekend ultimate tournaments and 1 hiking weekend in Flagstaff.

It's these trips that keep me happy and sane during the summer.  I can deal with pretty terrible heat as long as I know it's going away soon.  So while it may not get below 100 consistently until October, I could look forward to a trip to cooler climates coming in a week or two.  And if I'm looking forward to something, my motivation increases, and I still get a lot of work done, despite being out of town so much.  Or at least that's what I tell my parents and my advisor when they occasionally express concern.

50 degrees with 30 mph winds on Mount Moosilauke.  Sometimes escaping the heat can go too far.

The College Schedule and Working Vacations

One of my favorite things about being a more or less permanent college student is the schedule.  While the rest of my 'real world' friends are counting vacation days and stuck in their offices on a rigid 8-5 schedule, I choose my work days and hours.  I go to work when I want, leave when I want, and if I want to, take a weekday off to do something fun.  I can go on vacation when I want for more or less as long as I feel like it.  It doesn't matter where or when I do my work, just that is gets done by the time it should be done.

Of course, the downside to this schedule is that while I have no set 'days on', I also don't have set 'days off'.  During Christmas break, every weekend, every evening, every vacation, it is necessary to continue making due progress on my research less I appear unproductive.  My laptop comes with me for on almost every trip I take, and I find time to squeeze is progress: a paper read on the airplane here, labs graded in the hotel there.  Just like you need to find the time to have fun, you have to find time to do work while you're having fun.

This can all get stressful, constantly trying to make progress, knowing that you could/should be working during every possible downtime.  I know grad students who work every weekend and every evening.  It makes it hard to relax sometimes knowing that I'm being outworked, knowing that it will still take those students 5 years to graduate, and wondering if that means it'll take me 6, or even 7.  Monotonous days can also get stressful and the Arizona summer heat doesn't help.  It's depressing, 95 degrees already biking in to work at 9am, still 105 out at 7pm biking home.

My office for a week

Hence, the glorious solution that is the working vacation.  I got the idea from my advisor, who peaces out to Italy for a couple months each summer to write grants and papers.
It sounds like a lot of work and she's incredibly busy when she's over there, but if it's work that has to be done, I'm sure I'd rather be in Tuscany than Phoenix too.  Again, for grad students and even professors in the summer, as long as the work gets finished, it doesn't matter where it's done.

So that reason is why a couple weeks ago I spent a week in Vail, Colorado.  While there I prepared two posters for a conference and advanced my research quite a bit.  In the afternoons I'd watch the daily thunderstorm roll through and then I'd go running in the 60 degree temps that followed.  Sure beat the hell out of Phoenix.  I think next summer I'm going back for multiple weeks.

Hike up to here in the morning, read some papers in the afternoon

ASU Field Camp

This will be the third summer in a row I have been a TA for ASU's summer geology field camp.  It's a great deal I've been able to get myself into, and provided the bear from last year doesn't come back, it looks to be a great 3 weeks of cool (ish) weather at 5500 feet, geologic mapping, and great camp food.  I always enjoy getting back to my roots, both camping and geologically, and it's a lot less stressful (though at least equally as much work) to be a TA than to be a student.  It's a good way to start the summer and get excited about geology.

Mapping Sector One viewed from Kush Mountain with ASU's Camp Tontozona in the foreground.

The Central American Volcanic Arc

I have seen both a continental volcanic arc (the Cascade Arc in Washington) and an island arc (the Caribbean Lesser Antilles) before, but the arc in Nicaragua is unique due to it's density. Standing on top of a volcano, you can see the arc stretching out in both directions to the horizon.

Rota, in foreground, with the actively degassing Telica and San Cristobal barely visible through the haze behind and to the left of Rota.  Photo taken from Cerro Negro looking northwest.

   

I've also seen and climbed restless volcanoes before: St. Helens, Vesuvius, and Yellowstone. But again, the density of active and potentially active volcanic centers in Nicaragua is impressive. Telica, San Cristobal, and Masaya all produce a continuous gas plume and Cerro Negro, last active in 1999, has consistently erupted every decade or two since it began in 1850. Apoyeque frequently has seismic swarms, Momotombo (my favorite volcano name in the country) erupted in 1905, and Concepcion erupted in 2009-2011.

 The consistency of activity and the relative safety of travel in the country makes me confident I will return to study the volcanoes there. It's a great place to do it, and a lot cheaper than traveling to Indonesia or Kamchatka, where the volcano density and activity is similar.

Nicaragua

I just returned from a two-week long workshop in Leon, Nicaragua on the subject of Magma-Tectonic Interactions in the Americas.  It was an amazing experience that included field trips to Masaya, Cerro Negro, and San Cristobal volcanoes, which are all actively degassing.  The workshop included instruction on GPS, seismic, petrologic, geochemical, and Coulomb-stress methods of investigating tectonic and volcanic activity.  I learned a ton and also got to meet a bunch of other similarly interested graduate students, post-docs, and professors.  I also came away with a few new ideas for research to do this summer and some potential future collaborations.  I'm excited to get back to research this summer.

Me at Masaya Volcano

Rebranding

So it's been almost 2 years since my last post. As a general update, here's my current status:

 I am still a graduate student, though I'm now a Ph.D. candidate. I passed my quals last November. I just finished my 3rd year at ASU and am looking at 2, maybe 3 more before I get my degree. Research is going well. More on that later maybe. I spent the last 2 years as coach of the ASU mens ultimate B team. I love it and plan to continue coaching as long as I'm here. Despite living in the desert, I still have managed to ski ~15 days each of the past 3 winters. So I'm doing pretty well.

 I decided to attempt to keep up with the blog again in part because I have a pretty cool summer planned and this is a great way to keep in touch with people and also keep an archive of my activities. I also have a couple grad school survival-themed posts I'll dredge up when I get bored. Though I probably won't talk about research or school that much. Mainly I want to write about the awesome things I do to keep myself happy and sane while trying to avoid being weighed down by the stress of creating something novel that benefits humanity (i.e. doctoral research).

 So, without further ado, updated blog! Next post coming soon explaining why exactly I chose today to do this.