It is so good to be back at work! I know, that may sound strange, but I am genuinely excited to be back at work. I love what I do and where I work. I spent the morning catching up with my boss, bringing me up to speed on the recent museum politics, the entomology departments usual chaos and woes, met the new batch of volunteers, met the visiting Russian scientist (who has been in residence in our bug rooms for a couple months now), reacquainted myself with my ongoing projects and research, had only minor reorganization to do to unearth my desk and work spaces. Although someone walked off with my microscope! After the catching up, I jumped right in where I left off on an ongoing project, I wrote a more detailed explanation of it in this entry. Since I don't have samples yet to work with I concentrated largely on the Lepidoptera library, which I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had help. This part, the largest part, of the department's library materials will be organized by the end of tomorrow. This is a huge feat, I can't even begin to communicate just how disorganized this library is and how amazing it will be when the project is finished. Looking at the U.S.G.S. water gages, the real time data shows the branches of the Susquehanna that I'll be collecting insects along are still running a bit high, but have been dropping off significantly over the past week. Still trying to coordinate and determine when my field season will begin, it may be as soon as this Thursday to do the initial set up of traps. There is a lot to sort out before half the department leaves for Haiti and the Dominican Republic in a couple of weeks for the second of nine two-month expeditions. And there is a lot I need to accomplish over the duration of this eight month long project. Whew! Am I glad to be back!