Summer in the Air: Internship!

So this is what has taken up all of my summer. From 9-5, everyday, I go to FIU south campus for an internship with the USDA and the agroecology department at FIU.
It's a wonderful experience and I've met some really wonderful people (and a not so wonderful scary ecoterrorist) but I have to say, it has been worth it. My inner (or maybe not so inner) tree hugger really squealed at the opportunities and everything we learned. It really confirmed that this is something I can imagine myself doing for the rest of my life. It was a 6 week program in campus and during the last two weeks, we worked on our research paper on a topic we learned, created a PowerPoint and went back August 6th to make a giant presentation to a room full of people about our internship. In addition to that, we also made a video about the internship and a giant poster about the six weeks

Here are some pictures of my FIU experiences (not a lot, sadly and including pictures from my long rides there and back). The last two days were definitely the most fun, as we not only got a mini party but a field trip to Fairchild Gardens.

They thought the coffee would be like fruit punch, "because you always see people drinking it and laughing!"

The scenic route home

$1 venti iced tea!

We visited Fairchild Gardens on the last day

A really old tree

My walk from the bus stop everyday

Not the best picture of us, but these are the people I spent my summer with. The background was really funny because at the moment, we were making biofuels from waste vegetable oil (with lots of chemistry stuff like titrations that I understood! THAT'S WHY YOU STAY IN SCHOOL!)

About half of us hiding in the shade. Every Friday we went to the garden and worked there--not pansy stuff like planting flowers, but uplifting old gardens beds, pickaxing grass away (I also realized I am NOT good with a pickax), transporting barrels of dirt and laying down new garden beds. It was at the FIU organic garden which is really cool because they compost everything themselves, collaborate with the FIU cafeteria and get coffee beans for use in compost, and have biofuel plants.