Giant Eastern Crane Fly and other thoughts

So the second day of teaching assistant training came and went. It wasn't as helpful as the first day I found because a lot of the materials were repeated (at least twice). The most useful point was probably how to handle the icebreakers, especially on the first day, or what to do when the students are not as responsive as you like them to be. It seems that Trent puts a lot of emphasis on providing a good learning atmosphere for the undergraduate students. I wonder if the graduate students in UBC went through similar trainings as well.

Anyways, that was yesterday. Today I mainly stayed in my office, finishing up paperworks, meeting other graduate students, etc. However, the most interesting thing that happened today was probably finding this cool-looking (but dead) crane fly outside the building.


It wasn't too difficult to find the identity of this distinctive critter. It is a Giant Eastern Crane Fly (Pedicia albivitta) with the distinct patterns on its wings. In my field guide, it strangely points out that they have very long and brittle legs, which I thought was a no-brainer (unless the legs are even more fragile compare to other crane flies).

I checked out some of the other graduate students' offices and they had amazing wildlife photos, drawings and artwork on their desks while my (and my office-mates) had empty desks. So I decided to pin this insect as a memorable first insect pinned here in Ontario (actually it is my first pinned insect ever).

Quite a memorable day, I suppose.