Jeg har en gruppe!

Ok..so good news.  I have somehow managed to gather up the cojones to talk to the biology researchers on campus and have found a research group for my thesis! This might be a little less exciting of a post than previous ones, but I'll do my best and have put a few pictures of downtown Oslo at the end so you have something to look forward to.

Last week I went around to various group supervisors and asked what sort of research they were doing and I chatted with a PhD student for an unbiased assessment of them.  I was immediately drawn to the research group run by the professor of my molecular evolution class and the head of the whole ecology and evolution department on campus (Glenn).  The PhD student also told me Glenn is also one of the best to work with because he is very available to help his students.  Before I settled on Glenn's group I was invited to attend their weekly group meeting so I could meet the rest of their group and hear what they were working on.  They put me on the spot and I had to talk about myself, but they were great and I was sold on them. I knew it was a match made in heaven when at the end of the meeting they organized a pub night for the group later in the afternoon.  So it was at the pub, with the beer that my supervisor bought me (and the rest of the group) in hand, I told him I would like to join his group and his response was "Cheers!" 

So what will I be doing for my research you ask?  My experiment looks into the hybridization of Italian and House sparrows.  They are one of the only vertebrates that mate outside their species at times but they do not prefer it.  We want to look into if they prefer not to hybridize due to sexual selection or if there is a genetic barrier involved.  I will be going with a Colombian master student (Maria) in the group (who I really like..luckily) to Northern Italy and the border between Spain and Portugal for 1-2 months in the spring and will be doing mate choice experiments on Spanish, Italian and House sparrows involving their feather coloration.  Then I will be genotyping (looking at the genetic makeup) of the birds to examine patterns of inheritance and to look at the genes related to their plummage color.  I will complete the experiments with Maria but when it comes to writing our thesis' one person will write about the genetic aspect while the other will write about the behavioral aspect but we will both be co-authors on each paper along with of course Glenn and whoever else.  Also, the genotyping we will be doing may be used by another master's student so we might be co-authors of his paper as well.  So after this is all done, I will have at least two published papers.  Pretty cool.  Additionally, I'd been stressed because I was supposed to write a research proposal by Nov. 1st for an introduction to master's class I had to take but Glenn explained to me today he prefers to write them himself....sweet!   So overall things are going really well here.  I have a research group, a Norwegian bank account and Norwegian friends (all biology people as it is a relatively small community). 

Though, I don't want it to sound like everything has been really easy over here because it has certainly been difficult at times. Especially in the beginning, there were many moments when I was completely intimidated and had to stop and make myself take a deep breath and think "you can do this."  Luckily thus far, I have come to find that the things I have found the most challenging have ended up the most rewarding.  

As promised...

PS.  It has been over 1 month and I am still continuing to blog so.....suck it Jiro!