Dinosaurs, Smoke Monsters, and Foreign Invaders. Aka Movies.

Today was a learning day.

That sounds like kindergarten, but oh well.

Today was also our first full day in Hawaii, which meant it was our first time visiting the valley where we’ll be doing all of our research. After a refreshing beach walk with Shelby (during which we got slightly lost, if that’s even possible, and bypassed the turn-off to the ranch), we heard an awesome lecture from Dr. Terry Hunt, who told us about the archeology in Hawaii, and more specifically the patterns of how various people groups migrated across the Pacific. He, and Dr. Lipo, explained to us the flaws in traditional archeological viewpoints that made too many assumptions with too racist a mindset about these cultures, meaning that many of their earlier theories, the ones that were widely accepted, ought to be challenged. Even though I have never studied archeology, I found the information extremely interesting. Unfortunately, I had just put on sunscreen, and it somehow found its way into my eye leaving me teary-eyed and runny-nosed for a good forty-five minutes before I finally got up the energy to climb out of the hammock and go wash it out. Nevertheless, I managed to learn something, even if I couldn’t see the pictures, so it was a good morning.

Lunch was a little rushed because the Q&A about the lecture ran long (apparently I wasn’t the only one interested!), but we quickly found our way to the Kualoa Ranch, a gigantic tract of land encompassing a beach all the way up into the Ka’a’awa valley (and some other stuff around it, but I don’t know exactly how much). The funny thing about this particular valley is that it’s been used as a film set in tons of famous movies and shows. Jurassic Park, Lost, Pearl Harbor, 50 First Dates, etc. Today they gave us a bus tour to see various sets, and while driving, we also saw people getting tours on ATVs and horses. I guess we’re going to become another of the attractions when we’re our collecting data.

When we got back from the valley, we began planning out the data dictionaries for our various projects. Though I was confused yesterday about what exactly my group was supposed to do for topography, today made a little more sense and planning it out forced me to think it all the way through. The more I participate in it, the more I understand just how valuable planning really is. Not just for efficiency or good use of resources, but also to outline in your mind what exactly it is you’re looking for. Though this probably isn’t related to what my final project will be (I guess it’s too soon to tell, though), I’m really excited to get more experience working with georeferencing and GPS and all the other things that our going to come into our topographical endeavors. This will be the first time in my life working with data that I’ve actually collected, as opposed to just having pre-prepared shapefiles handed to me in a lab. I’m starting to feel like a researcher, or a researcher-in-training, I guess, and that feels pretty darn cool.

Sleepy time now. Goodnight!