March 13, 2016

A continuation of paddle work has ensued! I am now into the nitty gritty, shaping and working the transitions from the handle to the shaft, and the shaft to the blade. Mostly using hand powered sandpaper at this point, each session leaves my upper triceps aching. I am also making sure that the blade of the paddle is flat and symmetrical. This requires some more smoke shaving, the use of an orbital, aaand more hand sanding.

Friday morning we woke up early to catch the sunrise. The trail was called the Pillbox trail, taking us up a ridge on the East side of the island.  Hiking up in the near pitch black, we arrived at the top a mere 20 minutes later. The pillboxes located on the trail were previously used during World War II to track targets at sea and send locations for firing. They also gave way to nice seats for watching the sunrise. We decided, however, to walk just a little farther and grab a spot minus the twenty-five other spectators. Behind me in the picture on the right are two islands that are called the Mokes.

Later in the day we enjoyed a Hawaiian burger that included fresh pineapple, teriyaki sauce, lettuce, tomato, onion, swiss, and mayo. A crazy combination, that left us very content. Thanks to the waiter that insisted we try it (with added bacon!)!  There was also a quick stop to Waikiki Beach, to check that off my list. This is the beautiful, sought after vacation spot on Oahu. Gorgeous, but too crowded for my taste.

Saturday we went to check out the Swap Meet. This market place had over 400 vendors selling both original artwork and touristy souvenirs. In the central picture, the dark fruit is an avocado; it’s crazy huge!

After picking out some souvenirs, we headed for the peaceful tranquility that the Byodo Temple offers. This temple was built to commemorate the first Japanese immigrants that came to the island. It is a small scale replica of the original in Japan, located at a United Nations World Heritage Site. You are invited to find a quiet place to meditate or just walk around and enjoy the temple and its grounds.

To really immerse myself in the habitat of Hawaii, my host family agreed to a camping trip! We slept nestled under an indigenous Acacia Koa tree. If there is a wood that understands the pulse of the Hawaiian people, it would be Koa. It was considered a wood of the gods, and is now protected due to over harvesting. I have been learning a lot about different woods through working on my paddle project. The mountains that we woke up to were stunning, and then we proceeded to make and eat eggs and spam for breakfast. Spam became popular during World War II and has continued to be a staple for the Hawaiian people. It’s pretty tasty!

On one last note, beware of the bugs. This one is considered small!

-Maddie

Although my 61 hours of volunteering at Tri-State so far is impressive, it is nothing compared to the many volunteers whose total hours of service number in the hundreds. However, despite my lack of experience compared to them, this week I was asked to help train another high school volunteer who was interested in bird care, which is what I am primarily doing at Tri-State. My main duties for each bird are to clean their cages with a hose, swap out their water bowls and bath pans for new ones, prepare their food (which can vary from simple wild bird seed for songbirds to a plate of chopped up chicken, fish, dog kibble, rodent, and egg yolk for a vulture), and give them their meds in the food. Now, I can easily and confidently describe this process to you guys, but a week ago when I was a rookie that wasn’t the case.

Since I’m so new to Tri-State and the in’s and out’s of the facility, and because I am in high school, it was easy for me to connect with the 16-year-old junior shadowing me. Getting to train another volunteer was a nice change of pace from the daily routine I have fallen into. It’s funny because even though in reality I’ve only been volunteering at Tri-State for a week, it feels like a lifetime of work since I have been coming in every day from 8-4. Seeing the big smile on my shadow’s face as we cleaned the cage of a Blue Jay (pictured below) reminded me of my own joy just eight days ago when I first started volunteering at Tri-State. It’s crazy how quickly the roles have reversed! I have outgrown my novice status and become not only a master of bird care, but a teacher of it as well.

Yesterday we traveled all the way to the other side of San Francisco to check out a store called Indosole. This company makes soles for shoes out of used tires, and since the beginning of the business, they have deterred about 30,000 tires from landfill! This company first caught our attention by their B-Corp certification and sustainable promise. I was in contact with the founder of Indosole, but we were running out of time so we had to visit the company and forget about trying to schedule a meeting with the owner. Luckily the owner’s brother was there and was telling us about their work with the community of workers from their factory in Peru. Indosole has plans to help the community grow by providing schooling for the children near their factory. He also told us how much they value a sustainable business and how hard they continuously work to keep up their sustainable promise to customers.

Yesterday I also learned the value of stepping out of my comfort zone and just talking to people. I would not have learned so much about Indosole’s future mission if I did not begin talking to the workers. Also, one of the workers grew up ten minutes from my house and was supposed to attend George School to continue her family’s legacy… It’s a small world.

Here are pictures of me and Molly’s new shoes!

-Lily

After months in contact we finally met…. Cassie Hughes!! She graduated WT class of 1996 (when Paul was a freshie). She greeted us with her adorable (and very soft) puppy, Romeo. After introductions, we were on our way to Nature Bridge. We drove over the Golden Gate, but there was too much fog and rain to see the ocean. We could still look up, the edge of our vision catching to top of the Golden arches (not McDonald’s). Immediately outside of the bridge, Marin Headlands begins. It’s a national park, which was reserved in 70’s. It’s amazing that just 10 minutes outside the city, we felt like we were entering Jurassic Park.

It really did look that way too; past the bridge, we went through a dark tunnel at the base of one of many small mountains. The road appeared to travel through a canyon in the middle of all these green ridges, each topped with mysterious fog. Once we arrived at Nature Bridge, Cassie walked us (and Romeo) to the beach and explained her organization. Nature Bridge works cohesively with the Parks Service as a non-profit, educational, “camp” of sorts. They strive to bring an awareness of the beauty and power of nature into city schools. A group of interns at Nature Bridge are a part of TEEM- teens educational environmental mentorship… Many of the teens we met with said that prior to Nature Bridge, they had not been to been to Marin Headlands and were surprised by the beauty of a town so close to them. Together we brainstormed “what we know” about the Pacific Garbage Patch, Trawling, oil spills, and what we can do to fix it. This also led us to discuss what we wonder about each of the topics. I was impressed by all of the information and ideas being bounced around by each students and the passion they talked with. We then watched videos about the Pacific Plastic Garbage, and a Ted Talk on a proposal on how to efficiently clean up all of the plastic. The TEEM split up into groups to play games with the younger kids who were camping there. Later we went to the touch tank room and fed sea stars (which are not called star fish because they were proved to not be fish), sea urchins, eels, crabs, sea anemones, and more, where we met with Cassie again.

Before we left, we had a chance to talk freely with Marissa and Katie from TEEN. They told us about all the opportunities they’ve received through Nature Bridge. Although they mentioned the great teachers, mentors, hiking trips, and study topics, they were most grateful for the program as a community. Also, Marissa and I both love Chance. Our talk with them confirmed what Lily and I had been thinking; that Nature Bridge is a near perfect organization. When taking to Cassie, she told us about how NB does outreach and scholarship programs, so the demographics of the Bay Area match the demographics NB serves. They found a way to make sure EVERYONE has access to the natural environment, as well as involved teachers, interesting curriculum, opportunities for research, paid internships, and a strong community. This kind of educational program elevates environmental issues in a way that involves more than just elite white conservationists. This kind of environmental and social good is exactly what we need to build a more conscientious and aware community.

Coincidence or fate placed me in Iceland just in time to attend the annual Stora Myndin Conference in Reykjavík. Stora Myndin is the largest conference for industry in Iceland.  As I sat in the crowded ballroom of the Hilton Hotel, one of the county’s finest, photographers and news crews could be found at every turn. The pictures below are of the first three speakers, see if you can spot the striking similarity between them…

Ragnheidur Elin Arnadottir-Minister of Industry, Tourism, and Innovation

Gudrun Hafsteinsdottir-Chairman of the Federation of Icelandic Industry

Katrin Dora Thorsteinsdottir- Head of Human Resource and Education

If you for some reason missed the similarity…all of the speakers are women!

That’s right, women completely dominated the conference. Women are at the front line of industry, unlike in the United States. It was a nice change of pace, to see strong independent women holding such high positions, as opposed to the typical middle aged male that I have become so accustomed to seeing.

The conference focused on Iceland’s predicted economic growth and the country’s need for approximately 2,000 skilled and unskilled foreigners every year. The discussion then swung from industry to the environment, specifically on Iceland’s strides in sustainability. After the conference finished, I was able to walk around and see some innovative businesses and start ups  (again many of the spokes people for the businesses were woman).

One of the more well known businesses there was Össur, a company that specializes in prosthetics and braces. One of their most famous clients is South African Amputee Olympic Runner, Oscar Pistorius , aka “The Blade Runner.”

One of my personal favorite start ups was BioEffect, a company making age defying cream. Of course I had to take the opportunity to see the “before and after” test that clients do when starting BioEffect. 

The results made me realize that with the UV damage discovered on my face,  I better wear more sunscreen this summer! Maybe the free sample of BioEffect I was given will make my nineteen year old self look seventeen again…

Cheers to the major girl power happening in Iceland! Until next time!

-Sammie

Today ended by first week at IONX where I have been working as a computer science intern doing data analysis and developing some programs that can be used to analyze data. Today marked the finish of my first program, for the most part. What the project does is goes through and gets all data that is stored in an offsite server and pulls of the data to a grid on the computer. The program then turns that data into a CSV file. A CSV file is a comma separated value file, which is basically an excel sheet, but instead of boxes separating the data it is commas. All in all the program is not too complicated, but there were a couple of sections where I got a little lost on how to proceed, luckily Trevor, my boss, was able to help coach me through the steps. I am attaching a pdf of a copy of the main part of the code which was developed and written in a program called LINQPad using C# and LINQ languages. Program code.

Here are also some pictures of IONX. This is their headquarters where multiple companies are based out of. About 30 people work here and behind the building is a train yard where they can test and demonstrate their new products.

 Next week I will be continuing to develop my programs and making it more dynamic for different cases of where it can be used.