The one hundred count sounds like a marathon or a dietary challenge. In some ways, it is both of these for it requires stamina and endurance, and the seasickness that often accompanies the one hundred count could sell as a weight loss program. In fact, the one hundred count consists of staring at a pile of pink goo under a microscope and poking at it with a sharp metal stick. Highlights include sitting while on watch. Downsides include picking through and identifying tiny zooplankton for an obscene amount of time.
I was almost a quarter way through a one hundred count, calling out the names of the zooplankton I had identified, when I excitedly shouted, "Chaetognath!"
"Really?" the second scientist asked me. Chaetognaths had never shown up on the one hundred counts before. My lab partner came over to the microscope for a second opinion.
"I don't think so, Aliza. Where are the fins?"
"But it's my critter fritter," I defended. "Look at the bristles on its mouth. And it's transparent and clearly a worm." On shore in Woods Hole, Massachusetts, I had studied the chaetognath as my assigned zooplankton and finally seeing it under a microscope, knowing it had been floating in the real live ocean before it was grabbed by the Neuston net and drowned in ethanol by one of my shipmates, ignited a special thrill and passion for this minute worm that I never knew I had.
This moment was one of those hands-on learning experiences advertised in catalogues--when a tedious homework assignment leaps off the page and lies freshly killed in a petri dish.
Three minutes later, I picked out another chaetognath from the mess of pteropods, siphonophores and copepods. This time no one doubted me. Another tally was recorded next to the chaetognath.
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