Dear ISP, we're over.

Today, after chopping up half a forest with my machete, hugging almost 100 trees to measure their DBHs, sticking a light meter in endless vine tangles, trying to analyze data with statistics I forgot how to use, and two straight days of writing, I am finally done with my ISP.

While it does feel like a great accomplishment to have done all I did in a month and I'm proud of myself for problem solving out in the jungle, collecting all of my data, and using it to write a solid paper without any help, I'm left feeling a little disappointed. My results really weren't all that conclusive which was frustrating because it was hard to interpret and draw conclusions from them. I also feel like I could have collected more data, and that that would've raised the caliber of my project. I'm also feeling disappointed because after planning on writing my paper in Spanish for the two and a half months before ISP started, I ended up having to write in English for two reasons, the first because I didn't have enough time to write my paper in Spanish and then get it corrected by a native speaker, and the second because I don't know how to say "standard deviation," "Bonferroni's Multiple Comparison Test" or "statistically significant" in Spanish. I think my paper turned out to be of a higher quality in English than it would have been in Spanish, but I'm still a little bummed that I didn't get to write in Spanish after having my heart set on it for so long.

But what's done is done, and I just have a few small things left to do before I officially finish up all of my ISP work. Last night I took my paper to get copied and bound, and it was pretty cool to get it back looking all official. Tomorrow the entire group leaves for La Hesperia, which is a reserve/farm to the south of Quito. We're going to be there until Wednesday morning doing ISP presentations, having group meetings, and filling out lots of forms for SIT. I'm really excited to see everyone and for us all to be together in a big group again. On Wednesday we return to Quito to stay in the hostel where we were for orientation week, and on Saturday I'll be flying home!

I posted some pictures from ISP on the photobucket website, so check those out to see what I was up to!

Hasta luego,
Caroline