Fieldcourse memories
This article is dedicated to those outstanding young postgrads who earned the coveted title 'demonstrator' at the Pak Tam Chung field course for this year's hapless intake of undergraduates. The staff organizing the field course realized very early on that controlling 140 odd urban teenagers on what may be their first exposure to nature and ecology type stuff would be tricky. So naturally they turned to that wonderful supply of slave labour - the postgrads. In order to tempt them out of their Lamma Island, SWIMS and New Territories hideaways, free food and lodging was promised at the holiday camp venue for the field course. All the postgrads deserve a big 'thankyou' from the staff for helping to make the field course such a success: they worked hard to fulfill the goal to make the field course an exciting learning experience for the students. Several postgrads deserve individual mention for making this year's course a particularly memorable trip. The outstanding contributions of these people were marked at the end of the field course by a moving ceremony, hosted by new staff member Dr Steve Pointing. A total of five awards were made and the lucky recipients are depicted below:
The Grappa Award Sadly the first award was presented not for any great academic achievement but for a career-wise, potentially suicidal act of trying to encourage our illustrious head of department to partake of some warmed up Grappa. A few degrees to the right and Professor Hodgkiss would have been taking an early bath that night, before filling out this research student's dismissal notice we suspect! Yes - the first award goes to 'sick cat' Neil who was awarded an extra large bucket for future use.....
The Lost Fungi Award Happily most of the postgrads worked very hard on the field course, often showing incredible devotion to duty. One postgrad noted for her passion for fungi was nonetheless seen enthusiastically showing students sandy shore infauna on the trip to Starfish Bay. Despite this keen effort she was still spotted with a far-away look in her eyes every now and then, dreaming of fungi and microscopes no doubt. So the second award of a seaside bucket and spade went to Yanna, to try and make sandy shores just a bit more fun for her!
The One That Didn't Get Away Award After two days of marine ecology the students were "treated" to a day at the stream. Freshwater ecology polled top of the field course for popularity and this has to be partly due to the almost super-human efforts of some postgrads in bounding over the rocks to try and catch every single species (and at times it seemed like every member of every species) in order to broaden our student's minds. Naturally 'fisherman's' tales started spreading among the postgrads and students alike, and although (as with all good tales) there is no reliable photographic evidence, I personally saw William catch a fish THIS BIG. So William received a fishy-candy award for being the best fisherman of the day.
The Landing In Deep Water Award Also on the stream ecology day, some postgrads were so devoted to their duties that they risked life and limb to bring to the students the joys of freshwater ecology. Whilst trying to net a few dragonflies one postgrad suddenly disappeared -no, don't call Fox Mulder, it wasn't an alien abduction - just Mony falling into very deep water (though some say she is always doing this!). The fourth award was therefore made with safety in mind, and Mony received a fine pair of water-wings to wear on next year's field course.
The Contribution To Culture Award The final award was made with some solemnity. One postgrad suffered a wee bit from being the only antipodean among a pack of merciless Asian and European staff and postgrads. Poor old Gavin was feeling 'rough as a nun's nasty' anyway as he was leaving for a 2 month sentence in pommie-land (just like going to jail for Aussies) after the field course. The poor sensitive guy was teased without remorse over his curious vocabulary and his love of a certain fluffy domesticated livestock animal. In fact we are pretty sure that all this made him rather homesick, so the final award of a cute, cuddly, fluffy, attractive (?) sheep, went to Gavin by way of an apology for such poor treatment at the camp.
Steve Pointing
P.30&32
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