Notes from the field 2: advising

Dear Future Self,

As promised, I will now remind you of the awesome joys of advising. I know, it hasn't always gone well. There was that time that you kept catching your undergraduate advisee drinking out of a ditch. Or that time when you couldn't take their energy any more and challenged two advisees (including the ditch-drinker) to push the pickup truck down the dirt road and see if they could get above a specific speed. Or how about the time you asked a different undergrad advisee to make a graph that would illustrate results in a data set he had been working on, and he gave up and wrote an ode to dirt instead?

Never fear, Future Shazta! We are learning!

For the record, this advisement activity went well. Your student was bright, motivated, friendly, and enthusiastic. You handled it like a pro when the equipment broke and didn't even curse in front of her too much. Great job! Now, here are a couple of things to keep in your pocket for the future:

1) No matter how wonderful a student is, she will have her breaking point just like anyone else. Done with style, it can be fairly (sadistically) amusing to find this point. Consider it helping her to establish her own boundaries for the future. If she manages to get through pulling 7 ticks off of herself in a 5 minute period with only a minor freak-out, break out the big guns: without batting an eye, translate for her (without lying) that the muddy pond she is about to row onto with you in an inflatable children's raft is actually infested with alligators. The poor girl will be too terrified to bother looking terrified. Watch for all of the blood to instantaneously drain from her face. With any luck, Future Shazta, you will also be offered the use of a larger and sturdier boat that must be driven in by the ranch manager since he's worried you might get eaten in the inflatable. This will sooth the assistant considerably, making you feel like less of a jerk for accidentally terrifying her. I'm just bummed that we didn't get to see any alligators in the end.

2) There is some inherent humor in taking a Mormon field assistant to Mexico. She was wonderfully chill with the tobacco (we were working in a major tobacco producing area that even exports to Cuba) and alcohol ('cause your Mexican colleagues don't think lunch in the field is quite right without a beer). It was the coffee that did her in. Apparently, Mormons can't drink coffee or tea for religious reasons. This only became awkward when we were being hosted by a family whose children we had stolen for the field (more on that another time) and who wanted to show us their hospitality by serving us boiled milk from on of their own cows, mixed with Nescafe. Rule of politeness dictate that we consume whatever our hosts graciously provide, so we settled in on wooden benches to drink our milk-cafe and watch the final minutes of the Mexico-France World Cup game on a 6 inch black and white TV that was the only indication of electricity in the area. I am not a milk drinker since I don't really like the taste and it tends to cause phlegm problems (I know you wanted to hear that!) and I'm not a coffee drinker due to mild caffeine intolerance (I'm assuming the rest of the world doesn't drink coffee because they like the feeling of their heart racing and their stomach churning, but I could be wrong. Is that what it's supposed to do??), but I manned up and drank my mug. I had totally forgotten about the Mormon coffee thing, and while I sincerely doubt that Nescafe can actually be classified as coffee it was causing an issue for my poor, sweet assistant. Whispering through clenched teeth and a smile, she told me that she couldn't do it. Being the awesome person that I am, I casually switched mugs with her and told her to keep sipping out of the now-empty mug in her hand. Two mugs of the stuff later, I felt mildly ill but very proud of myself for watching out for my assistant. Then we got back in the Jeep to drive back down one of the worst dirt roads in Mexico. I am proud to report that I did not actually vomit.

3) Being responsible for an undergraduate field assistant means making sure that they are reasonably safe. Even from those alligators. While it was a bit crowded when we wedged 5 adults into a Jeep Wrangler to travel hideous dirt roads, at least everyone had a seatbelt. My assistant was further stabilized and padded/protected when we stole those two Mexican boys, ages 8 and 10, and managed to fit all 7 of us into the Wrangler. One of them was even sitting on her lap, helping to prevent her from flying up and cracking her head on the ceiling during bad bumps. See? Safety first!

We didn't once have to pull her out of a ditch and explain that the green chunky stuff in the water she was drinking did not count towards her vegetables for the day. Nor did we have to worry about her chasing bears or accidentally destroying 20% of the data set by writing the numbers in the wrong order. These accomplishments may have had more to do with her general awesomeness and less to do with our magical advances in advising skills, but we will take what we can get.

In my next letter to you, Future Shazta, I will remind you of the proper way to kidnap children in the field, eating wild berries, and creative accounting.

Cheers,

Shazta (June 2010)