Welcome To My Work Journal

My immediate thought:

also also, the same company helped birth four red wolves, so it’s like you gotta remember:

Money makes the conservation world go round.

it sucks but a lot of times there has to be some feeding into rich ppls desires in order to get the funding needed for certain conservation endeavors.

to be completely honest with you, this is something i struggle with a lot too - so you are super super not alone in feeling this way. it's something that i hear from a lot of my friends/colleagues as well. imposter syndrome is real, and unfortunately feeling like you're not smart enough to even have imposter syndrome is also part of imposter syndrome. so. hell on earth etc etc.

but in terms of actual advice, i think some things that help me (a guy who is motivated equally by spite and love) are:

1) remembering that academia is a garbage institution with a horrible history and ridiculous standards. you don't owe academia shit. you may have to play their game for a while, depending on what you want to do, but just remember that academia, as an institution, is built upon, and continues to perpetuate, a legacy of misogyny, racism, colonialism/imperialism, classism, queerphobia, ableism, and capitalism, among other nasty shit. the standards imposed by academia are in no way an objective measure of anyone's intelligence (which, in and of itself, is also not a measure of anyone's worth, but thats a rant for another time). so like: fuck em!! you don't owe them shit!! if you want to learn, you deserve to learn. you deserve the space you take up in academia. you have as much of a right to be there as anyone else, and if you wanna be there, you can and should be there

ok. spite-motivation out of the way. onto love.

2) if you can, try to think about what you love about biology. what interests you? what drew you to biology in the first place? what types of questions do you have about the world around you? what makes you feel awe and wonder? (and keep in mind that this can change, you're not locked into anything. academic careers and core focuses are a lot more flexible than people think)

for me, once i discovered seaweeds, i knew that i wanted to learn as much about them as possible. i love them. and i was lucky enough to find a lab where i get to study seaweed! but the thing is, sometimes i forget how much i love seaweed. sometimes i hate seaweeds and i feel like im an idiot who knows absolutely nothing about them. and i find that when that happens, taking some time to like... reconnect? with what i care about really helps. so for me, that's often a beach trip, or sometimes watching a documentary or reading a field guide, or making art. basically just taking the pressure off and just... exploring again

I also think it's really, really, helpful, at least for me, to have a field of interest that is sort of outside the main scope of your work to have as a sort of "hobby" interest. for me this is terrestrial botany. my work has nothing to do with plants, but i love them! i love to learn about them, i love to see them, i love to grow them. in my time off ill sometimes just find and read scientific papers about specific questions I have about plants. it's fun because it doesn't matter if I really understand, it's not relevant to my work, there's no pressure, just Fun Fact Time. i also like seeking out other sources of information about plants that doesn't necessarily fall within the Academic Sphere, like books, movies, art, gardening resources, cultural uses of plants, that kind of thing. basically just building up a fun little fount of knowledge thats not necessarily for anything other than fun - no one's ever gonna quiz you on it, it's just a little treat just for you

and finally, 3) something that really, really helps me is that I love love LOVE teaching. and nothing ignites my passion for science or builds my confidence in myself more than teaching things to other people. at the moment, i get to work as a TA which is super rewarding, but there are other avenues to teach as well! talking to friends and family, working or volunteering as a tutor, volunteering with outreach programs, or even just writing a post about something that you think is cool and you care about! basically just finding ways to share knowledge is something that i personally find really effective for combatting feelings of inadequacy - because hey, i taught someone else something, so i can't be that incompetent!

i realize this is getting uhhh very long and rambly, but uhh i hope at least some of that makes sense and is helpful to you!

but yeah, tl;dr: fuck the system, don't hitch your self worth to your academic success, and find something you love and tell everyone about it

Also a field of interest outside of my field of study is linguistics, and I found this to be helpful too actually! Nothing to do with wildlife biology but it’s incredibly interesting and something I’ve delved into greatly in my free time.

My roommates and I even have a “nerd board” where we get a “nerd point” whenever one of us interjects with information about a topic and/or goes on a ramble about our field of study/interests. This kinda fits into the “teaching” part; it feels good to be able to explain something to someone that they might not have known prior!

anyway here's your whale nipples, via Sarano, F., Sarano, V., Tonietto, M. L., Yernaux, A., Jung, J. L., Arribart, M., ... & Adam, O. (2023). Nursing behavior in sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus). Animal Behavior and Cognition, 10(2), 105-131..

It has two photos, one of them showing a hint of male whale nipples!

We called a worker from a wildlife office down south to let her know, and when she got there she called us to let us know it had died just 5 minutes before she got there! Crazy timing.