Opportunity

I held off on moving into an apartment of my own for a long time. My reasoning was simple-- were I offered a field job, I'd have to break the lease of an apartment to accept a position, and breaking a lease is anything but easy. Or cheap.

Once I'd finally made the decision to stick around in My Home Town for another year, and had secured (more or less) a reliable source of income, I made the move. I like the apartment a lot, and I'd forgotten how much I like living on my own. Except I'm not great at feeding myself. I'd forgotten about that, too.

Anyway, not three days after I moved in, I was offered a job on a field crew. Ha! Figures, doesn't it?

I accepted the job right away, though. In fact, I'd say someone would have to be crazy- certifiably insane- to turn this one down. It's what I've been waiting for since last spring. If I held out on applying to any potential organizations, or turned down any offers in the past, or was wary about accepting work for one reason or another, it was all because this job was out there, and I hadn't gotten it yet. If I were an excitable person, I might very well wet myself over this one. It's really that incredible.

Luckily, I will a.) not have to break my lease, as the position is only for 5 weeks, and b.) have enough saved that I should be able to front the expenses of being gone for a month, even without substantial pay.

I will miss the boys a lot... five weeks may be nothing to me, but it's a lot in rat-time. I've found someone to watch them, and hopefully the time apart won't be too traumatic for them. Or me. Ultimately, though, I think just about any sacrifice on my end will be worth it. This fieldwork is going to be incredible, and I'm literally shocked that I was offered a position.

I know I haven't been updating with any regularity lately, but chances are I won't be able to update at all while in the field. So in a few weeks, you might not hear from me again until Christmastime. I'll be too busy doing awesome field research!

FMyLife

From my experience, one should always be most aware of impending bad news when things seem to be going smoothest. It's one of those laws of inaccurate perception-- Murphy's law, or the first corollary to Sod's law, or the unspeakable law (techincally, I think in this case it's a combination of the latter two).

See, I was doing just fine and dandy at work on the ranch, making enough money to support myself with just a tiny bit extra to sock away every month, enjoying my new horse-related hobbies, and having enough free time after work to pursue graduate adviser connections, trip planning, and literature review for fellowship applications and research proposals. And then, WHAM!, out of nowhere, "We're going to be making some changes around the barn, and we're going to need to let you go."

What?

Seriously?

Suddenly, inexplicably, my steady, dependable job on the ranch is gone, leaving me with just over four weeks to try and dig up a full-time employment opportunity elsewhere. Admittedly, this terrifies me, as I've been trying (without success) to get an ecology or environmental education-related field job since last November, and I know a couple other people who've been without work for nine months or more now, applying for tens of jobs a week in everything from stocking to retail to answering phones.

And, to add insult to injury, one of my friends at the barn overheard Debbie talking on the phone about me to Marlene, saying something along the lines of, "I don't understand why she just doesn't go to a local school, since it's obvious she's not good enough to get in anywhere else." This really shouldn't bother me much, and to be honest it's more irksome than anything, and I find myself laughing about it (albeit bitterly). It's just frustrating to realize how little the people around me understand about the difficulties of getting into graduate school, the time-intensive application process, and how "didn't get in" is far from synonymous with "can't. "

I was really upset yesterday when I got the news, and I'm still not very happy about it. But I'm trying to view this more as an opportunity to get away from narrow-minded individuals with more money than sense, as opposed to the loss of an entertaining, often fun job with the added benefit of working outside and with animals.

Still... what am I going to do now?

A Second Hit

Early in June I wrote about my indecision concerning a unique internship opportunity that had presented itself. The position sounded incredible, and involved tracking and handling some pretty cool wild predators. But it the end I couldn't justify the expense I would have incurred moving to the location and supporting myself, unpaid, for six months.

It's been nearly two months since then, and I've just now received another potential job opportunity. I had a phone interview this afternoon regarding a job for which I applied in mid-June. The position begins at the end of August and runs through the early summer next year. So far it seems as if the job has just about everything I need-- a lot of field experience, the possibility to learn some new field techniques, work with species that don't completely bore me, and money. Yes, the position is paid. Not a lot of money, but housing is provided, and between provided housing/utilities and a monthly stipend, I can make do.

I also made it a point during my interview to ask some additional, very-important-to-me-but-potentially-off-putting-to-the-interviewers questions concerning time off and pets in provided housing. First, I've made the decision that the single best way for me to get accepted to grad school next year is to really make sure I'm on potential advisers' radars. And the only single, surefire way to do so is to visit schools and meet professors in person. So sometime this fall I'm going to make a trip to visit as many schools on my list as I can possibly afford. The interviewers' response? We can probably work something out.

Good.

Now, for question number two: pets in provided housing. I always feel weird telling people I have pet rats. It creeps a lot of people out. Most people don't realize what fantastic pets they make, and a lot of people have squeamish, giant, slimy, sewer monster images pop into their heads when they hear the word 'rat.' But for me, the rats are almost a deal-breaker. They bring me a lot of happiness, and I would feel terrible having to re-home them at this point. For them and whoever ended up having to care for them. And me. I'd feel bad for me, too, because I really love the little guys. The interviewers' response? We'd have to check with the property owner, but they'd probably be okay.

Also good.

What about the housing itself? A rented house in a very, very, very small town. I'm talking small. As in, "smaller than Newcastle, WY" small. But chances are I'd have my own bedroom, so that's good, because, honestly, I really dislike sharing.

The negative aspects? Well, aside from the tiny community, it seems there might be a hunting-friendly culture firmly in place, and I vehemently despise hunting. I'd also be doing some live-trapping to put VHF radio telemetry collars on study animals, and I was asked during my interview if I'd be willing to kill an animal should something go awry during capture. The thought literally makes me sick at my stomach, but I suppose I wouldn't have any other choice, would I? That bothered me, as did several questions posed about my attitudes towards hunting and whether or not I enjoyed hunting myself.

I gave honest answers to all their questions, so I suppose my opinions on hunting, if anything, may make the hiring personnel look less favorably upon my candidacy. They also posed a couple strange, "What would you do if..." scenarios to which I was unsure how to respond. One example was on the order of, "What would you do if you were working with another technician without a supervisor present and you disagreed on whether or not to perform a certain task?"

Er..... Okay. Um....? Yeah, I see how that could happen, but really? How do I answer that? "I punch the other technician in the face and do whatever I want." Or, perhaps, "We do whatever I say we should because I clearly would have better sense." Or maybe there were looking for, "We yell and scream at each other until one of us is driven to tears, relents to what the other says we should do, and then hug it out later on."

?????

Anyway, it was an interesting interview, and not entirely what I was expecting. I'm feeling a little ambivalent about the whole thing, but I suppose I should feel reassured by the fact that it's paid work and I'll likely get to bring the rats along. My biggest concerns now are, aside from the hunting, whether I could really do such intense, tedious fieldwork for an entire year without going crazy at the lack of variety, and the fact that the position is in Northeastern State.

Northeastern State, by the way, happens to be very, very far from here. As in days and days-worth of driving far from here. As in very expensive plane ticket far from here. As in, leave from here and probably not come back until Christmas unless I'm really lucky at Thanksgiving, far from here.

It's a little strange, because had I been accepted to graduate school, I'd likely have been getting ready to move somewhere very far from here, and not for a year, but for five or more, with similar stipulations about returning to visit home. But somehow this feels different. Perhaps because I didn't choose the location, and it's not ideal.

Or maybe I've just become too comfortable with my current state of affairs-- my living situation, the familiarity of my hometown and all the amenities it provides, my job on the ranch, the proximity of family and certain friends, the enjoyment of my new-found equestrian hobbies. Maybe I've become content enough with the here and now to make the thought of moving somewhere very far from here, to a location, job, and impending year filled with uncertainties and insecurity, seem a daunting task.

Hey, though, who knows? I might not even be offered the position. Regardless, though, I think I may just need to start mentally preparing myself for a radical change.

The Unrelenting Quest

As you might have guessed, I decided not to take the unpaid internship I interviewed for a few weeks ago. After a lot of thought (although not nearly as much as I'd originally anticipated) it was clear that I just couldn't afford to be spending money instead of making it. An incredible experience? Probably. Worth the financial hardship? Unlikely. So for me, it's back to the job boards, to troll for just about anything that will a.) get me some good field experience, b.) increase my potential for graduate school, c.) pay money, and d.) hold my interest for more than three seconds. Or, you know, ideally, several months.

But it's getting harder. Now that we're well into summer in the northern hemisphere, most field projects are already underway, with field technicians having already been hired for the duration of studies. There are a few short-term projects (four to six weeks) looking for help, but for me, right now, it's not worth the effort moving somewhere to find myself jobless again in a month. Every week, one or two jobs looking to hire for the fall or winter pop up, but these are few and far between. I've gone from two or three job applications a day to, at most, one or two every week.

To be perfectly honest, apart from the fact that my current job has little to no relevance to my intended course of study (it'd be a bit of a stretch to link ranch labor to ecology), I'm happy where I'm at right now. I like working with the horses every day. I enjoy making little goals for myself, and seeing my riding and training abilities improve. I like playing, too-- taking Belle to barrel races and gymkhanas, or going out on day-long trail rides. It's not something I think I'd want to do forever (perhaps as a hobby, but not a job), but for right now, I'm not going to be fussed if I have to keep doing it for a while. 

Really the only thing that concerns me is the upcoming application season. Will potential graduate advisers frown on the dearth of fieldwork showing up on my CV over the past few months? Will a presentation at a national meeting and (hopefully) a publication in the works be enough to convince them that I'm serious about a PhD program, or do I really need another stint in the field to help secure the deal?

Sometimes, when I'm scrubbing the toilet in the barn or scraping horse poop off the floor, I think to myself, Gee... this is what my bachelor's degree is worth. But other times, going that bit farther into the realm of grad school seems like a monumental effort. Contact advisers, get good GRE scores, start making a name for yourself, apply to school, get rejected, ask questions, re-write application essays, present at a national meeting, try to get a publication, contact professors again, visit schools, apply again, and on, and on, and on.

I really do want to get my PhD. The sciences, and the types of projects I might work on for my dissertation, really excite me. I enjoy fieldwork, and I miss going to school. I want to work in conservation, and try to do what I can to help protect the few remaining vestiges of wilderness and wildlife the planet still has. But sometimes, thinking about applying to grad school again in the fall, and (assuming I'm accepted this time round) the five to seven years of hard work that will follow, really just makes me want to chuck the whole idea and go in for something simpler. Take out a loan, buy a little land, a horse, and a couple hundred goats, and start my own invasive weed removal business. Herd my goats out to other peoples' properties as an eco-friendly way to get rid of noxious and nonnative plant species. Maybe train and sell herding dogs as a sideline business. Simple, effective, profitable, and enjoyable, right?

Not a PhD, no grandiose visions of making a difference, of helping save the world, but some days it almost seems like it'd be worth the trade-off.

Take it or Leave it

This afternoon I finally had what I've been anticipating for the last couple months-- a job interview. The hiring official for a position I applied for in early May emailed me last week, asking if I was still interested in the job and when she could contact me.

I was initially very excited. I've never interviewed for a position without being offered a job, and I'm perfectly qualified for the work. In fact, I even have experience beyond what they were requesting. Not to mention the fact that the job sounded amazing-- a six-month internship in a gorgeous part of the country tracking bobcats and mountain lion. Most of the position will involved radio telemetry of collared animals, scat surveys, and small mammal surveys, but the organization traps bobcats July through February, and mountain lions June through October, which means that part of the internship would involve trap monitoring, and, if a capture occurred, assistance anesthetizing, processing, and collaring the cats, a rare experience for anyone, let alone someone my age.

I was also really intrigued by the organization's study questions, and the motivation behind their data collection. The broad ecological theories behind their research overlaps a great deal with my personal research interests, and I know that I'd easily be able to justify hours spent in rough field conditions doing repetitive surveys if I could remind myself of the greater purpose behind the study.

So that's all well and good. The problem? The housing provided by the organization is dormitory-style, which means 1.) a bedroom shared with one or two other individuals, and 2.) no pets allowed. I'm a strongly introverted person, and I play best with others when given a decent chunk of time every day to myself. I also tend to function better when I have something small and furry on which to devote my attention. If I were to think, I'm mean really think about the potential experience gained during this type of internship versus the cost of sharing housing and leaving my rats to someone else for half a year, I might just decide that it would be worth it. But that's not the only thing making me think twice.

The internship is unpaid.

That, more than anything else, makes me wary about the thought of accepting the position. Half a year spent with no discernible income. Six months without adding to my savings account. Six months, instead, withdrawing from it to meet basic expenses-- food, gas, health insurance. My intentions for my time spent between undergraduate and grad school were to get as much good field experience as possible while saving up as much money as possible for the future, not to have to spend what I've already saved. I initially thought I could bypass this issue by getting a part-time job in the evenings or on weekends. But I was informed during the interview that it would be nearly impossible to do so, due to the long and unpredictable hours of the internship.

Now I'm torn. The study seems worthwhile, the location phenomenal, the opportunity to track and capture wild felids, fantastically awesome. But is it worth half a year sharing housing, trusting my rats to someone else, and taking a decent chunk of money out of savings?

What would you do?

The Last Letter

Late at the end of last week, I received in the mail a thin business envelope sent from University of New England Place. Its contents were of no surprise to me. I was sent informal notification from the graduate admissions coordinator several days before. The letter was formal, polite, and almost consoling. Of the seven letters, in total, that I received, it was one of the nicest. And even though it began with the dreaded "We regret to inform you..." it didn't sting quite as much as the others. Even though the chance existed that I might squirm my way in somewhere, deep down, I've known now for a while that graduate school just isn't in my cards this year.

So... about those alternative plans.

You made alternative plans, didn't you? You didn't? Really? You don't have some sweet field job lined up somewhere? No research technician position in someone's lab? No paid, nine-month internship with a not-for-profit conservation organization? Really?

Hmm...

Well... what are you going to do now?

Exactly.

A few weeks ago I began toying with the idea of contacting every potential graduate adviser with whom I applied to work to inquire about my qualifications as a student and what I might be able to do to improve my application and/or credentials for next year. Although I applied to seven schools, I'd end up writing fifteen or so emails, as several of the departments had two or three professors with which I was interested in working. But I wasn't sure about this particular tactic. I plan on reapplying to many of the same labs next year. If my phrasing was just a little off, I could end up ruining my chances at admission next time round.

I ended up emailing one of my undergraduate advisers, Alan, at College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (hereafter referred to as CLAS) to ask his opinion. His response agreed with my initial reluctance-- don't email them. Many of them wouldn't mind, he said, but you don't want to annoy them or piss them off, especially if you're planning on applying to their labs again this fall. In exchange, however, Alan offered to meet with me and look over my personal statement, CV, transcripts, test scores, and other essays to see where I might have room for improvement.

I made my way to his office last week before I went to work, and we talked for about an hour and a half. He gave me some good advice for a list of things I could try to put myself just that little bit ahead of the pack for next year. So, since I won't be going to grad school this year, I've reformed my list of goals for the remainder of 2010:

• Reapply for the NSF GRFP in the fall. I already planned on doing this. 
• Spend another season in the field. This is very important, and something I've obviously been trying to set up for myself. It seems the job market has steadily become worse since I graduated last year. I try to apply for at least one job every day, but this can be tough. I can't apply for just any field job... my qualifications and research interests have to match the position. And if the job doesn't involved intense fieldwork, data collection and analysis, and at least a technique or two to which I haven't yet been exposed, it's probably not going to get me any closer to a spot at a competitive school. These difficulties are compounded by the fact that I need something longer-term, and something that's paid. Six months, at the very least, and preferably twelve.
• Reorganize my personal statement to emphasize my thesis research upfront. In other words, abandon chronology in my personal statement, to highlight my experience with and commitment to a long-term research project of my own design, executed to completion. If a graduate school is going to be investing tens of thousands of dollars in my education over a period of five to seven years, they want to know that I'm going to be able to stick with a research project. If I decide, one or two years in, that I don't like fieldwork or the tedium of collecting/analyzing/reporting data and quit school, they'll have lost a sizable investment.
• Present the findings of my thesis research at a national conference or meeting. I have presented my research before. Both were oral presentations, one given at CLAS and the other at an undergraduate research conference held in California last year. Neither of these, however, compares to a presentation at a national conference, with a mix of hundreds of students, working professionals, and professors all in one place... potential graduate advisers included. If I want to get myself noticed by someone, either on paper or in person, this is a good place to start. I am currently working on making this happen (more to follow in a later post).
• Publish the results of my senior thesis. This is arguably the most important thing I'll do this year to try and help myself stand out from other applicants. Publications are valuable currency in the academic world. Applying to school with a proven publication record, especially as the primary author in a reputable journal, shows potential advisers that, not only can I do field research, I can analyze and compile data, write it up in a precise format, and have my research reviewed and accepted by working scientists. If I've done it before, what's going to stop me from doing it again... and again, and again and again... in grad school? This is something I've been working towards since my thesis research began. I wrote my senior thesis in a format that would lend itself to reorganization for submission as a paper to a scholarly journal. I made my initial revisions last year before graduation, and my secondary revisions this past November. I've been waiting on the co-author of the paper (my thesis adviser, Walt) to make his own revisions so we can get the damn thing submitted... finally. I've been waiting for months. Come on, Walt! Let's get going! If we're held up by the review process, there's no chance of something being in press by the time the next application season rolls around.

So there you have it. Doesn't sound too complicated, right? Just do a bit of reorganization, find a good, long-term, paying field job, present at a national conference, and get a publication. Piece of cake, right?

If only it were that easy... At least I have something to work toward now, though.

It was admittedly a little strange (not to mention disheartening) this week to think that I graduated a year ago and, apart from a little additional field experience, haven't really gained anything since then. I'm no farther along now than I was last year at this time. In fact, last year I was even doing a little better than I am now... I had some money from graduation socked away to help cover application fees, and I had my stint with the BLM lined up. Right now, I have no foreseeable fieldwork for the summer. Hopefully that will change... soon.

Spring Cleaning

With the weather marginally improving over the last few weeks (I say marginally because the wind has been ridiculous, and its supposed to snow later on this week) we've been taking advantage of the warm afternoon sun to do a little horse-washing at the ranch. After an entire winter spent rolling around in the dirt, mud, and snow, crushing debris into their long coats, they've all finally started to shed out... and they're filthy underneath all that hair.

Take one horse, add warm water and shampoo, soak, lather, rinse. Repeat. Sixteen times. Yes, each one of the sixteen horses and ponies on the ranch needs a bath, so we've been steadily working our way through the lot of them, dirtiest to least dirty, performance horses to ponies.

The shampoo we have reads, "For use on carpets, upholstery, industrial fabrics, and livestock."

Yeah. I thought it was a little weird, too.

Things haven't improved a great deal with the tutoring/barn work balance, but I have been able to ride almost every day, which has been good. Trina has her finals at the end of next week, which means the next two weeks will be tutoring-heavy for me, but afterward I should be spending the majority of my time with the horses.

As for finding a field job for the summer, things aren't looking great. I've received quite a few "We regret" style emails, including one today for a really neat job for which I was well-qualified and thought I had a really good shot at.

And today I received official notification from U of Northern State that I was not selected as a candidate for admission. :( That leaves one school... U of New England Place, which I emailed again this afternoon to see if I can get a straight(er) answer than, "We'll look into and get back to you" (i.e. "We'll delete your email and never respond to your inquiry.")

Hey, good things! Over here! Please feel free to start happening at any time. I'd really appreciate it. Thanks.

Life, as it is

April 15th has come and gone. I have yet to hear back from University of New England Place or University of Northern State, despite having sent emails to the respective admissions coordinators inquiring about the status of my application. I am still in purgatory.

But I've more or less come to terms now with the idea that I won't be attending graduate school this fall. In the ultimate scheme of things, this isn't as much of A Huge Setback as I'd like to think, and I understand that. In a way, I feel better now, knowing I've been rejected everywhere, than I did throughout February and March, unable to take any specific direction or make any concrete plans with so many unknowns to factor in to decisions.

Still, I don't relish the thought of the next 12 months, of another summer spent trying to make solid contacts with potential advisers, of another autumn spent filling out application form after application form, of another winter fretting over whether or not I'll be accepted somewhere. And I'm certainly not looking forward to that infamous and nearly impossible task: Finding a Good, Career-Relevant Job.

I loathe job-hunting. It's time-consuming. It's tedious. It's disheartening. For every 10 applications I fill out, I might, just maybe, if I'm very lucky, hear back about one. And no, I don't mean "get an interview for one," just hear back about one, usually, "we regret to inform you that..."

"We regret to inform you..." has been the headliner in a lot of my emails lately. I'd really love to read "We're pleased to inform you..." or even, "Congratulations!"

Most of my job-hunting has centered around government factions, including the USFS, the USGS, and the USFWS. When state-government jobs pop up, I'll occasionally apply for one. I have no qualms about independent agencies, and I'd be more than happy to work for a non-profit or one of the big conservation organizations.

Most of the ecology-related jobs out there, however, are temporary, seasonal positions, summer fieldwork meant to occupy an undergraduate's time between semesters. There don't seem to be a lot of positions suited for a graduated-last-year-and-didn't-get-into-grad-school-and-desperately-need-work-to-beef-my-credentials-for-next-year's-application-season-and-wanting-a-good-field-job-that-will-carry-me-through-the-year-but-not-looking-for-anything-long-term candidate. Which is, in part, where all the federal positions come in, because many of them are listed as "term positions not to exceed 13 months."

Perfect!

Now if I could only get one....

For the first time in my life, I don't really have anything to look forward to. I'm not excited for the summer, because I don't have a job or interesting fieldwork lined up. I'm not excited for autumn, because I probably won't be going back to school, which means I'll be working. I don't have any exciting trips planned or projects to work on or exciting new opportunities looming on the horizon. I feel a little stuck. And though I'll probably look back on this time in my life and recall this uncertainty and unhappiness only vaguely, right now August of 2011 seems very far away.

So my goal lately has been this: Accept life as it is, and try to enjoy the good parts about it, whenever you can. Part of this involves learning to live more in the present instead of constantly thinking about the future. I've always had a tendency to look as far ahead as possible, to plan out bits and pieces of my coming life, even if they're months or even years away. I'm trying to see this as an opportunity to focus more on the day-to-day aspects of my life, and to keep my aspirations for the future intact while letting my plans go.

A few weeks ago this song popped up on my Pandora station. It's called, "Life is a Song," by Patrick Park. I'd never heard it before, but it really stuck with me, so I downloaded it from iTunes and burned it on a mix CD that I've been playing in my car. It's become the soundtrack to this period of my life, and I've been trying to really listen to it, particularly the last stanza,

"And we build our house of cards/
And then we wait for it to fall/
And always forget how strange it is/
Just to be alive at all."

You can listen to the entire song, if you want:

A few days ago, I was browsing through various graduate-school related blogs, and chanced across a post written by gigirose about non-attachment, or the idea that higher states of consciousness can only be achieved when we're unconcerned about what something looks like or how it's supposed to go. As part of this post she included the following video, a short animation developed from the recordings of British philosopher Alan Watts. I watched the video and it struck something in me. I've watched it several times since then, and I think you should watch it, too. It very simply expresses a common principle of modern society, and suggests an alternative way to view our lives that I'm going to try, in the coming weeks, to emulate.

The Not-So-Great Week

Entitlement can be a dangerous belief. Even when used casually, as in "I believe I deserve this," it can lend false hope to an otherwise unrealistic situation. Such is the story of my life for the past couple weeks.

I've been reluctant to post this week because, although I've had concrete information to share for the first time in over a month, none of it is positive. I wasn't awarded an NSF GRF. And I received two more rejections: UC Somewhere Else and Yet Another UC both rejected my application, and on the same day. So now I'm 0 for 5 for graduate school, and I have no funding to convince cash-strapped schools I'm worth taking in.

I've well aware of the fact that I might not get accepted to graduate school this year. But somewhere, deep down, is that little part of me I can never seem to kill. It's the part that says, "Don't worry. You can't possibly be rejected everywhere. Something will come through. You're being overly-worrisome. There's no way you'll have to spend another year working. There's no way you'll have to re-apply in the fall."

Shut up, hope. You're not making this any easier.

There is only one school remaining to which I applied that hasn't yet informed me of an admissions decision: U of New England Place. Tuesday morning, after having been notified that I didn't receive an NSF award, I emailed the graduate admissions coordinator at UoNEP to inquire about the status of my application. She responded that she'd contacted the PI I'd applied to work with and the admissions coordinator in the ecology department and was waiting to hear back from both. She apologized for the delay in response, and assured me she'd try and "have the decision expedited."

At this point, I'd be extremely reticent about accepting an offer from UoNEP. I haven't had contact with the PI... he seems to be either ridiculously slow or completely uninterested in responding to emails, which makes me think that he might not be the best type of adviser to have. Certainly not the type of adviser I feel I need: supportive, encouraging, responsive, enthusiastic, and always willing to help.

That leaves, I suppose, one other chance for me to go to graduate school in the fall. A new professor at, lets call it U of Northern State, has received funding for two graduate students to do Interesting Work with (borrowing the title from Karina) Critters on conservation-related Questions. The work falls mostly within the realm of my experience and overlaps with many of my research interests and goals. Although there is inherent risk involved, I think it could be fun to work with a new professor, and it might provide the opportunity for more guidance and one-on-one contact than in well-established, populated labs.

I sent the requested information in to to this new professor a couple weeks ago, and I'm hoping I'll hear back from her soon. She might be looking for prospective students with more research experience than I have, and she did state that she'd prefer someone that had worked with Critters or Things Like Critters before, which I haven't. But I'm sure I could do this type of research, and I hope that came across in my cover letter. I'm also hoping that enough prospective students have already accepted positions at other schools to make the competition for the two spots in her lab a little less fierce.

-------------------------

I tried to keep my chin up this week... I really did. Bad news followed by bad news followed by slightly worse news wasn't quite enough to really set me off. But on top of it all, I've been having some serious problems at work. See, Debbie has developed this idea that, since she's paying me to tutor Trina, I should help her with all her homework. And by "help," she actually means, "do most of it for her."

That's right... background research, making flash cards, project ideas, model construction, diagram labeling, speech-writing, essay construction-- you name it. She expects me to get on the internet and find all the information Trina will need for a project, then spoon-feed it to her, or even better, just show her what she needs to write or construct. And when I protest, and try to reason with Debbie, explaining that Trina isn't learning anything this way (except that it's easier to pay someone to do something for you than to do it yourself), she insists that "Trina can't do it alone," or "she just doesn't have time to do it," and what results is me spending hours doing Trina's homework while she tries to hide the fact that she's sending text messages to her friends and complains about school.

But hey-- I'll probably get straight-A's in all her classes.

It's not enough that the situation frustrates me to no end, but to add insult to injury, the more time I spend doing Trina's homework, the less time I get to spend working in the barn. It was particularly tough this week, as the weather here was gorgeous and sunny, and I wanted nothing more than to be out running barrels in the arena or long-trotting on the trail.

I'd hoped that the weekend would brighten my spirits, but so far it's only served to remind me that jobs are at a premium right now, and I'm going to have to do a lot of applying to have any hope of scoring a field job for the summer.

I feel the need to apologize to all my readers now, because I know it can't be much more fun for you to read about all this doom and gloom than it is for me to write it. I really do wish I had better things to say, that I had exciting opportunities awaiting me, or that I'd received good news or a promising lead. But right now I haven't, so all that's left is the plain truth--the actual state of things-- and it's just not all that great right now.

And to top off a week of unfortunate events, yesterday my little curly-tailed rat, Rizado, started showing signs of a serious respiratory infection, complete with a lot of wheezing and very labored breathing. I'm going to do my very best to get him to a vet early tomorrow morning for antibiotics, but in the interim, it's hard to watch him breathing so hard, and in such obvious discomfort. It's a shame that vet offices aren't open on weekends, and that very few vets understand how to properly treat small animals like rats. Respiratory infections can become very bad very quickly in rats. I just hope that tomorrow will be soon enough to get him seen and started with an effective treatment.

Another Week, Another Move

Nearly another week has passed since my return home, and my time in Wyoming seems very far away. Every once in a while I'll see some sagebrush, or hear the far-off echo of a distant train, but otherwise little reminds me of my former life. I have occasionally thought of Capone, and of the dogs at the Weston County Humane Society. Otherwise, the entire experience seems to be quickly fading.

I miss living alone.

Last year, my senior year of college, my best friend and I rented an apartment a few blocks east of campus. It was an old, run-down place with plenty of cracks and creaks and came complete with a treacherous staircase. It had its charms, though, and we both liked living there. I certainly didn't mind living with my best friend, either. There were times I greatly enjoyed the company. Especially when she made cookies.

But there's something about living on my own, alone, that I really appreciate. It's a type of independence and solitude that's hard to otherwise gain. Hiking by oneself is extremely short-term, camping by oneself is somewhat dangerous. But an apartment with a good deadbolt in a decent part of town is worth its weight in gold. Feeling sociable? Invite someone over, meet a friend for lunch or a movie, visit the parents, hit the town. Want to stay in for the night? No problem. Just lock the door, pull the shades, and the world is yours and yours alone.

I wish I could do that now.

Just a week after my return home, I moved a second, albeit less complete, time. After transporting the great majority of my belongings to and then from Newcastle, I packed up my bedroom furniture and my more often-used clothes and transported them all to Nearby Town, a small town on the fringes of My Home Town (MHT). I was offered a "deal" of sorts by a friend of a friend. A woman looking to move to several hours away needed a house sitter to watch her horses, dogs, and cats while she stayed up north in a search for an appropriate place to live.

Initially, this sounded like a good idea to me. I've been house sitting since I was 11, and I thought that having my furniture along seemed like a bonus. The original plan was this: I would live in the house for a month while the woman stayed up north, possibly returning to Nearby Town one day a week. Good deal, right? A whole month of house sitting, with only a few awkward days co-inhabiting with someone I don't know.

And what ended up happening? Well, the woman left on Monday, and came back yesterday. With all her stuff. To stay. Here.

What?

After only three days she'd placed an offer on a house, and returned to Nearby Town. She told me all about the place, showed me pictures and then proceeded to tell me the two possible outcomes: One, her offer is accepted and she is allowed to move in December 1st, leaving about three weeks of awkwardly uncomfortable co-living time (I would continue to house sit until her house in Nearby Town is sold, to keep it in "show order"), or two, she is outbid (by one of the two other offers on the place) and will then wait until the spring to look again for another home to buy up north.

Meaning....? If the offer isn't accepted, where does that leave me? There is absolutely no reason for me to stick around here if she's planning on calling off the search until spring. When I agreed to all this, I thought that I'd be here by myself the great majority of the time, with her only stopping by occasionally.

I am so sick of moving I could vomit. I find it hard to believe that she wont get outbid on the house up north, and I'm certainly not planning on staying here if she's going to be around.

Things are no better on the job-front. Every single one of the 18 biology-related jobs for which I've applied have turned up negative. I don't even know where to go from here.

I miss being in school, where crap like this never happened. It's why I'm trying so hard to make my graduate school applications shine. I'm feeling a great deal of pressure to make them as appealing as possible. They're all more or less due on December 1st, and I can't imagine how badly it would suck if I didn't get in. It's hard enough to have to wait until March to find out, one way or the other. I'm already tired of not being in school, and I really don't want to have to face another year of stuff like this.

Eight Days from Home

Eight days. Eight short days separate this moment in time from my departure from Newcastle. Leaving this place is something for which I've been waiting the last five months. To say that I'm excited to be returning to home would be an understatement. And yet, despite my anticipation to finally be going back, I can't shake this uneasy feeling of uncertainty, insecurity.

I would love nothing more than to say that as soon as my things and I are back at home that I'll be set and secure to spend the next nine months comfortably enjoying my time, waiting to enter grad school. But the truth is, my immediate future is anything but certain. Some problems do seem to be slowly working themselves out- I think I've found a place to stay, for instance- but there remains a chance that the next nine months could be much the same as the last five.

As I see it now, there are two likely possibilities for me. One, that I return home for a brief period of respite, only to have to move again within the next month or two for work, or two, that I stay at home but end up having to take a low-paying job that I hate just to get by. There is the third possibility, of course, that I'll find a great job doing something wildlife/environment-related at home, but I feel my odds for such fortune are slim at best.

I suppose the best I can do for now is focus on the near-term future. Namely, my sights will be set on March, when I'll hear if I've been accepted to, and subsequently make visits to, grad schools, and August, when I'll (hopefully) be making a more permanent move elsewhere to begin my graduate studies.

In the interim, I've been finishing up things at work, wrapping up loose ends in the field and trying to fill long stretches of time in the always-boring office. This week I had two days of work on a 300 acre parcel of BLM land along the Wyoming/South Dakota state line, known as "Mallo" for its proximity to a summer camp of the same name. Mallo is considered one of the nicest pieces of land managed by our field office, and with good reason. The area sports a 2.5-mile hiking trail, a meadow, extensive aspen groves, tracts of white spruce along a narrow drainage, and one of the last remaining stands of old-growth ponderosa pine in the Black Hills.

Despite only having two days of work at Mallo, I had to bide my time to get there. The cold, wintry weather from last week persisted through the weekend, with additional snow falling heavily west of Newcastle. Tuesday's forecast looked more promising, but Tuesday morning dawned grey and cold with freezing rain and high winds. Finally, on Wednesday I decided to take my chances. I am, after all, running out of time.

No freezing rain on Wednesday... or at least, no "freezing." Though the temperature hovered near the mid-forties, it poured down rain all morning, and between the rain and the six inches of snow on the ground, it made for a day that was cold enough. Especially because the Gore-Tex on my hiking boots just isn't up to scratch. Despite the slightly uncomfortable weather, I enjoyed my time on Wednesday, and enjoyed today even more, when the weather cleared and the sun shone for the first time in days.

You might be tempted to think that the forest is relatively empty. A few birds here and there, perhaps, but not much else around. After all, take a hike around an area of forest and you're not likely to see much. Birds, the occasional squirrel, maybe some deer droppings... Nothing to suggest that there's a lot of activity. But walk that same tract of forest after a good snow, and your opinions might change.

A fresh coat of deep, white snow betrays even the most inconspicuous forest occupants. Deer trails and turkey highways, rife across hilltops, bypassed here and there by the tracks of lone elk. Small, clawed fox prints run along the meadow's edge, near the tracks of a rabbit. Around the bases of trees, the characteristic rodent stride, red squirrel, chipmunk, and the prints of mice, so close together they resemble tiny, crisscrossing train tracks. Near one tree, the larger prints of a porcupine. Along the trail in one spot, the dinosaur-like marks of a ruffed grouse. Then, perhaps most impressive of all, the tracks of the Black Hill's last remaining apex predator. The mountain lion.

The pug marks of the cat- a large one, probably male- are spread across a hilltop, wavering, circling, stopping briefly to spray his strong scent on a tree, then returning downhill to the cover of spruce in the low-lying drainage to the south. Later, more tracks, along the old logging road, along the trail, near the fence line, his path marked intermittently by spore, an obvious sign of a newcomer staking his territory.

Had I the time, and perhaps a friend with me, I would very much have like to follow his trail down into the drainage. The tracks on the hilltop were fresh, only an hour or two old. The chance to see an elusive animal is hard to resist, and the odds were good that he'd taken refuge in a tree not far downhill. Despite my longing to glimpse such a prince, my common sense is strong enough to win over temptation, and I reluctantly moved on.

Now I have only two days of fieldwork remaining before my internship ends, both to be spent tracking the sage-grouse. Leaving the sage-grouse behind will likely be the hardest part, perhaps the only hard part, about leaving Newcastle. I'm happy to have two tracking days left, to get a last chance to see where the grouse are spending their time, and if they're starting to move towards a winter range. The best part about my last two tracking days? Pronghorn and deer season both ended today, which means I and the other denizens of the prairie will be, for the first time in weeks, safe.

Will Work for Money

Over the course of a single week, things have changed. The weather went from sunny and low nineties to snow in just a few days. No gradual transition into wintry weather here... after a couple brief weeks of pleasantly mild days, we've dropped into the twenties and thirties, and have had light snow every evening for a week. But of course, there's always work.

With my vegetation surveys finished, I determined that, aside from weekly grousing, I only have two days of fieldwork remaining. (These days will have to wait until next week, when the snow is supposed to let up.) After tallying all the overtime hours I've worked and haven't yet used as flex time, I figured that I could stand to take five days off. What better way to take that time off then to use all five days consecutively at the end of my internship? After talking it over with Dwayne, he conceded that I could finish a week early. So my last full day in Newcastle is, officially, two weeks from tomorrow, on October 23rd!

I have plans to move back to home on October 24th.

The end is in sight, and my freedom from this town is almost tangible. Just two weeks, and I leave the armpit of Wyoming far behind. I'm anxious to leave, glad to be headed back to someplace with people my own age, mountains, non-oil-refinery-tainted air, food, and a house that isn't a half block from a train crossing. Yet my departure from Newcastle signifies something undesirable, too: unemployment.

Living at home is better than living in Newcastle. Having a job is better than not having a job. Is having a job in Newcastle better than not having a job at home? A tough question. Right now, my answer would obviously be that the latter is much preferable to the former. But what happens if I end up living at my mom's for two months and can't find someplace to work? Then a job in Newcastle might not look quite as bad. Or maybe it will... I don't know. I really don't like Newcastle.

I've spent the past few weeks scouring the internet for job openings, and applying for everything from a interpretation position at a national park in Florida to a naturalist internship at a science school in Colorado. So far I haven't heard anything, but I keep hoping that one afternoon after work I'll check my email to find that someone has contacted me about setting up an interview. I've become accustomed over the past 4-odd years to not living with my mom, and to be perfectly honest, I never planned on living there again. Job = money = rent. No job = no money = no rent. Pretty simple.

Monday is Columbus Day, and since I work in a federal office, I get the day off. Apart from the continuous job search, I'll be starting my graduate school applications. I have no idea how to even begin writing a personal statement, but I shouldn't have too much trouble filling in the basics. Right now I have five schools on my list: UC Somewhere, UC Somewhere Else, U Big City, Yet Another UC, and Ivy League School. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that I'll hear from two or three more professors before the application deadline on December 1st. Not aiming high or anything....

In a convoluted way, I'm starting to link the outcomes of my job search and graduate school. I feel as if finding a job is imperative for a successful application. Not that I can't get in somewhere without working for the next nine months, but rather, I'm worrying that if I can't even get something as simple as a job, then how am I going to convince an admissions committee that I'm good enough for a competitive PhD program?

Another Week, Another Post

Surprisingly (or perhaps not), I feel I have very little to say this week. The last seven days have passed without incident, droning ever onwards as any other mundane set of circumstances. I map routes, I call landowners, I drive places, I collect data, I drive back, I come home, I check my email (to find that no professors- prospective grad advisers and former college professors alike- have yet replied), I read, I go to bed. All the while I feel a little lost here, as if somehow I'm stuck in a different plane, marooned in a strange little town amidst an endless sea of prairie while the rest of the world keeps pace with itself.

When I write these entries I often wonder if I'm not just talking to myself. I know that a few other people do read this, but "this" has largely become a strongly one-sided conversation, and I wish, sometimes, that there were more of an exchange, a give and take of sorts. A little existential tonight, I suppose, but it's how I'm feeling.

I find myself contemplating if the rest of my life will be like this- me off in some distant, remote place, far removed from the lives of family and friends, writing about my "adventures" and wishing, instead, for instant messaging, or Skype, or a satellite phone call, in lieu of an endless tirade written about, and largely to, myself. It will be the price I'll have to pay, I suppose, to do what I love. I wonder how often field biologists deal with this particular brand of loneliness... Or perhaps I should call it "alone-ness," as that's more of what it truly is.

This week I started vegetation surveys, which have been both much better and just as bad as I expected them to be. The good? This week they've mostly been in places with which I'm familiar, making navigation less challenging and saving time driving. Additionally, we're far enough past the growing season here that it's nearly impossible to key many of the grasses out to species, which means I've been able to group various species into broad categories- another huge time saver. The bad? Even with broad classifications, vegetation surveys are extremely tedious (not to mention boring, at least to me), and the sites are all still two hours or so from the office.

Still, things have been progressing more quickly than I initially imagined, and, barring car trouble, inclement weather, or "Do-It-Now" assignments from Dwayne, I should be able to have the veg surveys finished by October 1st. This will require two marathon work days on the Montana/Wyoming border, split by a night camping... Not something to which I'm looking forward, but I'm desperately trying to think of a way to bribe Ayme into coming along to make it less painful. Ayme, if you happen to be reading this, please come along to make it less painful. I'd appreciate it. Thanks.

I have 31 work-days left in my internship. Six weeks and one day. Maybe less, if I finish my work and finally get the chance to take all the time I've accrued from working long days, off.

Then comes the real trouble, however: What am I going to do then? It's a terrible time to have graduated, to be out of school. The economy is crap, hundreds of thousands of people are out of work, and nearly all of them are clambering for jobs, making it hard for a recent graduate to find anything. I'm simply out-competed, instantaneously, by people with more experience. Not to mention the fact that I'm looking for employment during an odd time-slot, from November to August, since (if everything goes according to plan) I'll be heading to graduate school. Who needs someone to work from November to August? No one.

I'm looking mostly for internships, temporary jobs geared towards the young and inexperienced, those who will work for lower wages and no insurance and have to consent to being pushed around a lot because they're young and inexperienced. But internships geared towards someone with my particular skill set are hard to come by in winter months, since fieldwork largely ceases between late September and mid-October in the northern hemisphere. Internships in related fields (naturalism, environmental education, wildlife rehabilitation, etc.) tend to be unpaid, last only three or four months months, or have two sections, one in spring running from January to July or August, and one in fall from August or September to December. It puts me in an odd spot, done with my current internship too late to work the fall sessions but far too early for the spring. What would I do with myself for two months without a job?

So most evenings I come home, walk Capone, and instantly afterwards hit the internet, scouring websites and search engines and forums and Listservs tyring to find something, anything in which I might be interested, for which I might be qualified, that will carry me through the winter months... at the very least until April, when fieldwork generally starts up again.

Then, of course, I have to hope that I actually will get into graduate school somewhere, so I don't have to worry about finding yet another job at the end of next summer.

Like I said, a bit existential tonight, and scattered, too, now that I read back over this, but it's really all I've got. Perhaps if I can think of something cheerier, or more interesting, I'll post it this weekend...