Today started as a complete bust. I and the student helping me had rushed through our breakfast of flatbread and bean soup to get our equipment ready, only to find no cars ready to take us to the field site. Finally we got a ride with a surly geology professor, and after half an hour of bouncing along the dirt roads arrived at the field site. At 8am, the heat was already rising off the green-golden grassland. The two of us dragged our equipment up and down the long walk to the experiment: giant case with a “portable” photosynthesis measuring thingy, car battery to power it, and a light-sensor magic wand.

The plan was to collect lots of photosynthesis data on the grasses here, to figure out why it is that when we have more species in an experimental plot, total productivity rises; apparently the species are each carving out a very specific niche, to take advantage of distinct resource pools. My job was to figure out how they are carving up the light resources in the canopy.

I had lent the machine to another student the day before, and he had gotten it dirty and messed up some small things, so I was already a little grumpy. But here came the whopper: I opened the case and found I had forgotten the cable to connect the machine to the battery. “Dang!” I shouted. No, actually I was quite a bit more creative than that, and my student definitely learned some new English phrases. I stewed on it, and after some phone calls, decided the morning was already wasted. I eventually got myself back to the station (my student did some magic wand light measurements for me), and found out the next clunker of the morning: my room was a total wreck. 

Samples and equipment were willy-nilly scattered throughout the room. Wha? It turns out yet more folks were coming to this station, run by the Institute of Botany in the Chinese Academy of Science, and so my room was being “readied” to go from two to five people… and we would have no space to store our equipment or samples. After a frustrating conversation with the impassive dorm-management dominatrix, I returned to sit on it, muttering under my breath.

The whole point of being here (here, actually) is to do some creative biology research on how species interact to drive ecosystem functioning. So far, it has been going great, data are rolling in, and I’m making myself useful to the Chinese researchers here in a few ways. But every now and then, a day like today rolls around, when nothing goes right.

However, things quite suddenly and completely turned around. I spoke with the station director, and hearing my frustration he offered to clear out some lab space for me to store things. Ok: great, actually! Then, I found out that one student in the “good” dorm was leaving, and I could take his place: Even better! When trying to arrange a car for the next day, one driver suggested that I just borrow a car and drive myself, so I wouldn’t have to wait around: Super! Finally, another photosynthemaniac needed some help, and I was able to fix her machine in a display of cleverness and competence: Ta da!

So all of a sudden, a grim, data-less day brightened. A few minor triumphs made up for the day’s false starts.