Comps studying

Ok, here I am studying for my comps. Actually taking a short break to write this post. I hope you all notice the La Nina post below. What might happen to you in a weak La Nina? Well, if you live on the Gulf Coast you will see it a bit drier than normal, and if you live in the northern Great Plains and Montana you will see it a bit cooler than normal (yay). In the Pacific Northwest it should be a bit cooler and wetter than normal. These things you can expect for the spring.

Anyway, I was going to write something about the daunting amount of reading I have piled in front of me. I realize it is not really THAT much. It could be worse. I have a binder devoted to climate papers - including Teton specific glacier stuff, other Rocky Mountain glacier stuff, ENSO papers, PDO papers, and decadal-to-millennial scale climate variability stuff. Then there's the geography binder (which is thin) and it has stuff on Western settlement geography, grazing history related to settlement, bioregional history stuff, and a little National Park Service historical geography. I've also read a few books which can't be in the binder. Then there is my vegetation/fire binder which is very thick and it has postglacial vegetation papers mostly from surrounding my area, Western US general veg history, charcoal methods papers, tree-ring methods papers and other tree-ring studies in my area, fire and climate stuff from the Western US, a source-area paper or two, and a copy of the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy and Guidance Overview. My next binder is just as thick and includes all the papers we read in the Vegetation History class I took, and lastly I have an archaeology binder that includes some random papers of Jackson Hole archaeology and pages copied out of *the* volume on archaeology in the valley. Oh, and last but not least I have to go over my notes from my Quaternary Geology class and go over a glacial and Quaternary geology book to get my bearings in Quaternary geology again. I keep forgetting about that! Ugh!

I have to go over all the old papers I haven't read in a year or 6 months, and finish reading the geography stuff. I'm hoping for January 25th or thereabouts for the test. I think I'll be ready.