Last week, I began the longest and most important project that will be in my care this summer. I am a research technician for a lab that (in a nutshell) conducts very large experiments to study the effects of climate change on plants. The researcher I work for has gone to the field – a 25-hour drive away – leaving me (and another grad student) at the lab until mid-August. There are a couple of sizable projects, as well as several smaller ones, that I am in charge of while she’s gone, but none is as large or as important as the one I broke ground on at the end of last week.

Two Fridays ago, I placed dry seeds from our seed stores into plastic petri dishes on top of filter paper and suspended in water, then I threw them into a dark cabinet. Over the following days, the darn things refused to germinate, completely ignoring my silent pleas. When it was evident that there would not be seedlings to plant before she had to embark on the long drive to the field, my boss verbally demonstrated to me the the proper procedure for planting the delicate dears without mercilessly slaughtering them. I (and the defenseless seedlings) were left in good care, however – my friend (her grad student) showed me a trick that allows one to pick up and manipulate the tiny germinants without putting any pressure on their soft bodies. It didn’t quite hit me until I was left alone with a pile of petri dishes next to my rack of dirt that I will be spending the next few months of my life establishing and protecting more than five thousand of these little plants. My job will end when 5000+ robust rosettes make their own 25-hour journey to the field to be planted as this year’s cohort in a half-decade-long experiment that is my boss’s brainchild. I’m not sure what I’ll be doing after this August, but until then, I’m donating my life to these little plantlets. They will succeed and be great, darn it!

-Amy