Subject: spring is arriving in fits and starts here
Date: Feb 26 09:42:40 2004
From: Devorah A. N. Bennu - nyneve at amnh.org



hello tweets

this message is coming to you from the right-hand side of the
country, where the word "cold" was redefined once again this
past winter.

I am sitting in my office with the window wide open to admit a
few cooling breezes from the still-dull central park across the
street (I think satan himself is the master-controller of my
museum's central heating array).

All of a sudden, I became aware of birdsong, lovely amazing love
songs full of passion bouyed upon the breezes, high above the
omnipresent chorus of honking car horns.

CAN IT BE POSSIBLE? Is spring here finally? Or is she teasing
me with her horny birds that are almost exploding with surging
hormones?

It was snowing only one day ago, all day long. Today, thanks to
the presence of the sun combined with the efforts of satan himself,
I am absolutely convinced that it is a pleasant 70 degrees outside
my window. My binoculars beckon to me, they are standing next to
my computer monitor, urging me to ... to ...

NO, I can't do it! I have two papers to write and a million genes
to sequence, and all of that work must be finished by TOMORROW.
(of course, these are BIRD genes so this is fine with me).

Back to work, but I will leave part of my brain free to focus on
singing birds outside my window. Who cares if they are "only
starlings"?

Waiting for the warblers,

Devorah A. N. Bennu, PhD
Chapman Postdoctoral Fellow
Molecular Systematics Laboratories
Department of Ornithology
The American Museum of Natural History
Central Park West at West 79th Street
New York, NY 10024-5192
212.313.7784 (office) 212.313.6962 or 212.313.7773 (lab)
email:nyneve at amnh.org or nyneve at myUW.net
work page http://research.amnh.org/ornithology/personnel/bennu.htm
personal pages http://research.amnh.org/users/nyneve/