Young at heart

Sally, Bies, and Teresa. My students.

I am advising their student research project this term on the effects of invasive zebra mussel attachment on Campeloma snail fitness. Katie and I alternate advise each spring and this time I am only advising one group. They are a good one. Sally from Florida exudes "valley girl" a bit but underneath is so sharp and savy, a statistics wiz and a habitual giggler it seems. Jason Bies, or just "Bies" as we all call him. Definitely the natural leader in the group. He loves fish, canoeing, indie music, and twanging old time on the jaw harp. Both witty and down to Earth all at once he is an old soul and a friend too. Finally, there is Teresa. Solid through and through and a pleasure to be around. She works hard and is constantly amused by me. Part two of giggle fest.

I helped them clean out the "snail locker" as its been dubbed, their makeshift research lab in the basement area of one of the labs here. Dark, dusty, and dank with leaf mold it is the perfectly quintessential mad scientist laboratory. There is no Frankenstein monster though, only tanks full of snails and a couple eclectic college students.

They keep me young at heart.