Anyway, last month Brendan, Maxine and I completed our four-month field season with Flakes group, the monkeys you have been seeing up until now. We finished all the experiments I described last post, and Brendan flew home. We had been so efficient, in fact, that Brendan left a month earlier than he had originally planned, and I have been doing standard assistant stuff ever since. It was definitely the efficiency thing that made him leave, by the way. He assured me in no mild terms that my body odor hardly played any role in his decision. So I have that going for me. Also these photos:
I'm not entirely sure why these photos make me so happy, but honestly, if you can look at these without so much as a twitch of the lip, you may wish to consult a physician.
Aaaaaanyway it was very emotional, I made a heartfelt photo montage of Napoleon's greatest moments...
... we had a goodbye party (the other PhD group also left, leaving only the core team here), and got a little tipsy...
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| No, dude... I love you man, you should just stay... forever... |
...and a lot sad...
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| FOREVER I TELL YOU (uncontrollable sobbing) |
My team went out for one last hurrah with Flakes group (I will be seeing them again, but I have mainly been working with different groups this month) and I finally got a couple of photos of myself with them (I've been hearing a lot of muttering that I'm making the whole thing up, so...)
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| I'm the one on the bottom |
Anyway, life is rather different now. There are fewer of us here, and I have had to learn a whole new bunch of monkey IDs. I'm also trying to finish editing my data for Brendan, and figuring out my future (I've been accepted to a couple of PhD programs in the US, including to UCLA where I would return to work with these monkeys, but I haven't made any kind of decision yet), and mentally gearing up for my family to come visit at the end of the month. It's been hard work and I again apologise for not posting recently.
However, that is about to change (again) (hopefully). I have decided that instead of trying to write long themed posts explaining what has happened in my life since the last post (like this one), I will skip ahead and tell you everything that will happen right now. I have two more weeks of work here, after which my parents and siblings will turn up. I will introduce them to my monkey friends, and then we will see Costa Rica together. Then my travels here will be over. Some time soon I will make a decision about my future, and I will most definitely be going to Japan for a month and a half, but you probably won't hear about that on this blog (although again, that sneaky url does give me some wiggle room).
That being said, I still have a whole lot to post about. Lots of little things happened here that yielded some pretty cool photos, which I was unable to fit into the aforementioned longform posts. So I have decided to bring these mini-episodes to you in the form of what I shall be calling vignettes, because I am pretentious. I will pre-write these and upload them hopefully once a day. There should be material for at least 10 of these, so my plan is to have a week and a half of new content being posted every day. Tell your friends. (Don't actually tell your friends).
Tomorrow will be introducing you to some new monkeys, including Pitufo, who is missing a hand, Moth, who is missing a nose, and Hannukah, who is missing a soul. The day after you will be meeting Harvey Dent, the most badass howler monkey this side of Guatemala. Also expect some wildlife posts. And a newborn baby.
Much love,
Me.
PS The awkward grooming session photos are back!!!!
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