Fall break. Finally.

Does grad school always feel like drowning?

What I can’t get over is that I used to wake up at 5:45am everyday to take an extra class in high school, learn a million different things in a million different classes, then go to sports practice, and THEN go home and do homework and now I feel as though there is a constant stream of endless shit that needs to be done from my like… two classes? And I’m also a zombie if I don’t get my eight hours of sleep, a run, and just the right amount of caffeine. Requesting a consultation with high school me to inquire how the actual frank I did all of that.

Anywho, if you haven’t guessed, I am DROWNING. On the bright side, I have a committee full of extraordinary ecologists, hands on my data set, and only a few weeks until a month “off”! (Winter break will be spent pouring over papers and writing my research proposal, but at least no class or TAing.)

Enjoy this short clip of an amoeba I tracked down under a microscope for my students to see. This is a single-celled organism in the Kingdom Protista.

The photo below is of diatoms, which are basically algae living with glass houses. They are found everywhere; freshwater, saltwater, soil, on my arm in tattoo form.

Fall Break has helped me come back to myself through the fog of stress and self-doubt. It was spent surrounded by Florida family, wildlife, and sunshine. I wish I felt ready to come back instead of daydreaming about running away to the Everglades, but here we go!