#ichneumonodea

My First “Rough Day” (Day 3)

Today has been interesting to say the least. I can’t say it’s been bad, because I’ve been surrounded by incredible, loving people all day, but I can say today was frustrating and tiring. 

I sent this first picture to my parents and roommates around 4 p.m. saying “neeeeeeeed coofffffffeeeeee,” which pretty accurately represents my day. 

I started the day by getting on the wrong metro and was consequently late to work. Luckily, upon showing up, I was able to get right to work. Dr. Gates and I reviewed my work from yesterday, and I tried to re-identify the specimen I had wrongly named. I was happy to find out that I only mis-identified two of the specimen! 

The first specimen I mis-identified - the vespoidea!! This little beauty gave me a lot of trouble. I did not look closely enough at the C and R veins in the forewing and consequently assumed that they were entirely fused - they were not. This led me to the original mis-identification of ichneumonoidea (along with it’s whispy features) and numerous other mistakes. Near the end of the day, after spending much time grueling over this specimen with the microscope, Dr. Gates encouraged me to calm down and appreciate the beauty that this little guy had to offer. He could tell I was getting frustrated and confused (I was) and offered this much needed advice. 

This chalcidoidea chalididae was not difficult to identify due to the characteristic hind legs.

Another breath-taking chalcidoidea - and this one’s got quite the booty (metasoma)

I initially wrongly identified this little dude as Vespoidea, but questioned myself in that identification. I retracted my steps, and decided this was an Ichneumonodea braconidae - and I was right!

This is a platygastroidea that also gave me trouble due to the darkness of the wings and the coloration of the mesosoma (first half of the wasp body). I originally wrongly identified the little dude as chrysidoidea, but was able to backtrack the mistake to the positioning of the prontonum and tegula

This cutie is an ichneumonoidea braconidae, which I identified on the first try!

Also Ichneumonoidea braconidae - no “horses head” in the venation of the forewing. 

This is another example of the beauty within the superfamily chalcidoidea

This is a platygastroidea, which I identified as first, but second guessed myself and wrongly decided it was a chrisidoidea. 

The final specimen of the day is a ceraphronoidea, who's head was apparently only hanging on by a thread. After this image was taken, the poor babe’s head fell right off. However, I was able to identify it correctly, first try, nonetheless!

Like I mentioned earlier, today was more frustrating for me than the last two days at work. 

However, sometimes work is hard and doesn’t go exactly the way we want it to. That’s life in a professional setting.  

I also got some news that I did not like at all today from a person that I do like very much. 

and that just goes to show that sometimes things don’t go the way you want or plan for them to, but we push through. We relentlessly seek the better parts of the days to come and cherish them even more. My work was frustrating, but because of my frustration, Dr. Gates and I were able to bond a little bit and discuss hiking trails in the DC area (up for suggestions!!). My fellow interns were able to make jokes at lunch to cheer me up. My roommates were kind enough to take me out on the town and enjoy a roof-top dinner with me. Even when life seems to suck, the little things start to mean even more. In case anyone else is having a dark day:

Gabriella, my roommate, “Don’t ever hate yourself for how much you love the people you care for. Wanting to love people is a good thing. And if they don’t reciprocate, that’s their own fault. They’re missing out.”

Miaja, also my roommate, “There’s no reason to be sad. You have so many things to be happy about.”

Kyle, dear friend, “There’s one thing I’d change. You said, ‘I’m great, but I’m not great enough,’ and that’s just not true.”