Tag: Life Update

An Earnest Desire to Save the World

“TEACHER seeks pupil.
Must have an earnest desire to save the world.
Apply in person.” –Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

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As I continue to creep (crawl? stumble blindly? drag myself?) toward the completion of my PhD I have begun seriously contemplating what exactly I want to do when I grow up.  Progress has been slow and circuitous, much like this essay.  But I feel calmer than I did when I first realized “Be an ecologist!” had stopped being enough of an answer.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.  

Regardless, I’ve been trying to take steps toward actually figuring this thing out for myself.  A bit of soul searching, a la Chelsea’s advice about a happiness brainstorm, really helped.  I’m happiest when I can travel but have a solid home base to return to, so I’m no longer prioritizing an academic career and the period of post-doctoral transience that usually comes along with it.  I’m happiest when I’m collaborating with lots of different folks who I can teach and learn from all the time.  I’m happiest when I can do public speaking and science communication, and I’d love to find a position where this is encouraged, valued, and incentivised.  I’m happiest when what I am working on makes a tangible difference.    Continue reading “An Earnest Desire to Save the World” →

#CERF2015: A recap

If you follow me or STS on any of the social medias (Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr), you know that over the second week of November I traveled to Portland, OR for the bi-annual meeting of the Coastal and Estuarine Research Federation (CERF).  It was a overwhelming, inspiring, fun week.  In the past, I have written about my major tips when attending an academic conferences and Meridith has given insights into her conference fashion choices.  This time, I thought it might be fun to recap the trip itself, for a little insider scoop on CERF and life as a graduate student at a professional meeting.  I promise it’s more than sitting in talks, but you’ll have to read on to find out more! Continue reading “#CERF2015: A recap” →

Life Update: Where the heck have we been?

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Oh.  Hi there.  It’s us, Meridith and Rachel (this is actually Rachel).  If you follow us on Tumblr, you know we didn’t drop off the face of the Earth.  Life on Earth just got hectic for a moment, and we took an unplanned break from blogging.  When we posted our first long form blog on May 6th, 2014, we had grand schemes of always having a backlog of posts for just these sorts of crazy life situations.  For a good little bit there, we were posting once a week, then that dropped back to bi-weekly.  Even with the slow down, only four of our 17 months of existence have passed without a post.  Not too horrible, really.  The problem actually was that almost all of those four months were contiguous.  But, we’re back!  We are recommitted!  We are hoping to get back to weekly posting, but you can look forward to at least bi-weekly posting for the foreseeable future.

Alright.  We were gone, and now we are back.  But what were we actually up to during this period of radio silence?  I’m so very glad you asked.

STS Blog Update: Shiny and New!

Most obviously, but also most recently, we have been working on transitioning Sweet Tea, Science from a Blogspot to a WordPress format.  Check out this slick new format.  So fancy!  We are also a dotcom now, which is exciting.  We decided to make the switch for a few different reasons.  First, fresh new starts can be motivating.  Like getting a brand new lab notebook or a never-been-touched whit
eboard, sometimes new things just make you want to get to work.  That’s the hope, anyhow.  Also, nearly all the other science blogs we follow are WordPress blogs, and we felt like we might be missing out on a layer of interaction that the platform allows, such as being able to like and comment while providing a direct link back to our own blog.  Last, Meridith suggested it, and I tend to defer to her in all things technological.  So, here we are.    

Continue reading “Life Update: Where the heck have we been?” →