Beam Reach

Meeting Fall 071 students in person

I got out of the office last week (yeah!) and got to meet the Fall 2007 students. It was fantastic.

I spend the majority of my working time telling students about this program and helping them through the application process. So I “get to know” most of our students before they arrive. Mostly via email and phone conversations. It was really great to meet everyone at the beginning of the program and put faces and names together. (Yes, I’m a bit of a mother hen, so it did me good to see that they’d all arrived safely with my own two eyes. And it took some restraint not to slip into full mother hen mode!)

San Juan Island is an amazing place. Even though it’s the busy time in the islands right now, it was so peaceful and quite. While I was checking in with my family via cell phone in the morning I watched three sea otters rolling and playing in the water at my feet. You just don’t see that often in Seattle.

Instructor Jason Wood and his family fed me a great meal with all locally grown food. We talked a lot about sustainability and eating and what role it plays in our lives. They’ve made a real commitment to eating healthy and locally. They inspired me to join a local CSA (community supported agriculture). Jubilee Farm is just outside Seattle and they have a local drop right in my Ballard neighborhood. I’ve thought about doing it for a while and I’m really excited to give it a try. Thanks Wendy, Jason, Tristan, and Echo for the inspiration.
The students jump right in (literally) see the photos: https://beamreach.org/gallery/v/071/

I think it will be really exciting to see how they pursue their research and the questions the program will force them to think about. (You get really intimate with your impact on the environment when you live on a boat- where does the sewage go anyway? You see what I mean.) I am looking forward to watching their progress (even though I’ll have to do most of my watching from afar).

I hope they’ll all join me in blogging so we can all see what they are up to and how they are doing.

Good luck everyone!

Tracy