Good morning! Zaoshang Hao! (good morning in Mandarin). I can technically say this for my entire working day except for today when I get up a little early to start tomorrow’s work day tonight at 10pm so I can meet with an U.S. school at 11pm.

Do you follow me? I can barely follow me. It is because I am working the night shift. I typically work from 12AM -12PM and follow the night shift scientists with my questioning and photographing and video taking. Although I make exceptions, with in reason, to get schools connected from all over the world to the scientist who come to sail on the JOIDES Resolution from all over the world.

My Education Outreach Counterparts, are news reporters from China and they follow the day shift of scientist and will start to do some of the live broadcast requests from schools, universities, and organizations that fall near the time zone of the South China Sea and I will take mostly take Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The scientists split their time equally between the two shifts so that they can continue the work 24/7 in the labs. There is only one time of day that no one is in that lab working on samples, or running hole or half core analyses and that is at the cross over meetings at 12:00PM. These last 15-20 minutes and then the official change of shift happens. It takes a little while for the lab to start humming again and by quarter to 1pm everyone is back to identifying rocks and sediments, fossils, and magnetic, physical or chemical properties of those samples.

There are some advantages to being on the night shift, OK one advantage. You get to see the sunrise every morning. And on the South China Sea this time of year sunrise is far more pleasant in temperature than sunset. This morning I just had to look out my office window! Not a bad view eh?