Day 1: May 16, 2023, as told by Wesley Lefferts, again.

I know, I know, you'd rather hear from someone else by now...

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It is 9:37PM in Kathmandu and I'm sitting in some very new on-brand off-brand clothing I purchased from a shop around the corner (my suitcase is still lost from the flight over...). I know many of you are probably looking forward to hearing from the particular human on this trek that you care about, and don't worry, I'll be officially retiring from my writing position soon. I just spent the last 30 minutes sitting outside coming up with a schedule for who writes on the blog for which days! So this will ideally be the last you hear from a sassy writer like myself for a bit.

Today was the first official day of research and lectures for the students. We started data collection at about 8AM and students were running from room to room from 8AM-12PM, had a nice break for lunch, then a lunch lecture on acute physiological responses to high altitude, followed by afternoon research testing. Admittedly, my view of the day was biased towards data collection as well, so myself and my lab students spent the entire day doing research. I'm sure many of the students got out and meandered around Thamel, or lounged in the courtyard reading or chatting with their new found trek "classmates."

Today's lunch lecture was on acute physiological responses to high altitude but may has well also been a Master's course in heat stress. The room was on the 4th floor and had many windows taking a beating from the sun, so it was very hot. I was already dripping sweat after standing in there trying to troubleshoot the HDMI cord connecting to my projector just trying to get the thing to work (SEE ELIZABETH? THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD HAVE LET ME BUY A NEW HDMI CORD! **as a side note, my wife is usually right about everything, but in this case, I was right, I needed a new HDMI cord). After we finally got the projector working (and the AC + open windows) the students got their first dose of a very excited and eager professor teaching about high altitude. I made sure to leave them with a positive note regarding the effects of high altitude; I was going to have to speak a lot slower when we're up in the mountains because I'll be breathing much harder!

I'm going to wrap it up there because I tend to be extremely long winded and the power has been going on and off all evening and I want to post this without losing everything. Starting tomorrow, there will be much more organization to these posts and we'll get things moving the right direction, starting with less blabbing from me!

PS. The human(s) you know, who is on this trek, is an absolutely lovely person and they told me they miss you dearly and wish you were here.

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