On survival
Well, I seem to have survived the crisis of identity that was graduating from college, moving across the country, and starting graduate school.
I'm having a lot of fun here, for the most part. I get to think a lot about frogs, evolutionary biology, the causes and consequences of sexual reproduction, and the factors that influence female mate choice and male competitive strategies. I think this is really fun. It's also really amazing that I can get paid to think about things. To learn stuff, to question what other people have learned, and to design ways to learn more stuff. That basic research is supported by our economy and our society is remarkable to me, and, however much I wish it was better funded, its simple existence is pretty incredible.
Grad school turns out to be a pretty stressful environment. There is an ever-expanding list of things to read and think about, and this semester I had the added stress of teaching for the first time. I'm striving to change the way I communicate to be most effective, and have achieved generally positive results, assuming my students' comments were honest (anonymous reviews will come out in a few weeks, and then I'll know).
I have never grown so fast or felt so far behind.
On Saturday, I'm driving back to Oklahoma. It feels weird. "Going home for Christmas" seems to have lost something. I have come to realize that "home" is a set of people that no longer occupy the same place in space and time. I wish I hadn't come to that conclusion, because now "home" is going to be a lot more difficult to put together.
I'm having a lot of fun here, for the most part. I get to think a lot about frogs, evolutionary biology, the causes and consequences of sexual reproduction, and the factors that influence female mate choice and male competitive strategies. I think this is really fun. It's also really amazing that I can get paid to think about things. To learn stuff, to question what other people have learned, and to design ways to learn more stuff. That basic research is supported by our economy and our society is remarkable to me, and, however much I wish it was better funded, its simple existence is pretty incredible.
Grad school turns out to be a pretty stressful environment. There is an ever-expanding list of things to read and think about, and this semester I had the added stress of teaching for the first time. I'm striving to change the way I communicate to be most effective, and have achieved generally positive results, assuming my students' comments were honest (anonymous reviews will come out in a few weeks, and then I'll know).
I have never grown so fast or felt so far behind.
On Saturday, I'm driving back to Oklahoma. It feels weird. "Going home for Christmas" seems to have lost something. I have come to realize that "home" is a set of people that no longer occupy the same place in space and time. I wish I hadn't come to that conclusion, because now "home" is going to be a lot more difficult to put together.
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