Life as an Ecologist…

The Night before the Fulbright

It‘s 11PM. The lights are off, and sleep eludes me as I consider that the only thing standing between me and the greatest change of my entire life is six hours. Before the sun has even thought to rise, I will take a physical step to mark the fulfillment of many non-physical steps over the…
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No One Warned Me About the Wasps…Life as an Avian Ecologist

I should have turned back when the first wasp nearly collided with my face. I should have closed my car’s back passenger door and just gone back inside. But I had an appointment to make. And besides, how crazy would I have to be to suspect that a nestful of them had infiltrated my car…
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Microaggressions, Stand-by, and Korean: Diary of an Ecology Master’s Student

There are days when a person just needs to be surrounded by strangers. I don’t mean meetable strangers, like people at a party who might want to socialize with you. I mean, going to an area with people who do not know you and do not wish to know you. Just enough people to know…
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ChatGPT Predicted my Future: Career Preparedness and Ethics of AI

Earlier this week, I asked ChatGPT to forecast my future. 2 years… 5 years… 10 years… 20 years. From a Fulbright scholar to a PhD student to a professor. At each step, carving out a research niche for myself at the intersection of ecology and social meaning. ChatGPT was Right… How could ChatGPT forecast my…
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The Day Began with Poop—and Ended in a Shed

Today was the kind of day where I was so busy I forgot to eat. The kind of busy where my brain fails to send hunger signals through my body because I’m so focused. The kind of busy that changes life from monotonous to wonderfully adrenaline filled. That feeling when you’re at the start of…
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5 Takeaways from Attending The American Ornithological Society Conference

Three things happen when you put an introvert in a closed campus with 1,100 colleagues. This past week I presented at the American Ornithological Society Conference, or as my friends know it, at a bird conference. Tucked up in the mountains of Estes Park, the days went like this. 7 AM: Wake up for breakfast…painfully.…
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The Very Good Reason an Ecologist is Taking an Anthropology Class: Second Semester of Grad School

I’ll admit, after two weeks of contentment in Korea, my imagination had toyed with the tantalizing idea of dropping grad school and teaching English online from Korea. Well, actually, I toyed with the slightly more terrifying idea that I might end up doing a PhD in a Korean university (of all the things I love…
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Popping the Question: Selling my Soul to Academia

After two years of denial, I have come to accept I am in love…with academia of all things. Leaving behind my comfortable job in science education, I’m diving in into the challenging, often annoying, world of academic research. It was all confirmed the day of my research proposal.
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I Wear Too Many Metaphorical Hats and Not Enough Real Ones

What is the point? I’ve actually grown in subscribers to my surprise, so I’m asking you. What do you want to see from me? Which hat caught your attention? Or should I just write away until I somehow figure out what my angle is?
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