A Rough Week...

Well... It's been sort of a rough week or two for me. There has been a lot of stressful debate about whether my co-worker and I would still have jobs following the end of this month. We finally got the news that we would be employed through the end of the summer. Hooray! Then, I found out that there had been a scheduling mishap and I no longer had a place to live at the end of the month. Boo! That mess has been cleaned up as of this morning and I will luckily get to stay right where I am at least for a few months.

I also found out a few days ago that I had been placed on the wait list for masters program admission at Yale. I've been struggling to come to terms with this as it is neither entirely good or bad. Of course it would have been much preferable to be accepted outright. I could therefore be starting to make solid plans and have something to look forward to starting at the end of 2009. Instead, I have more waiting to do with no guaruntee of how things will turn out. However, I recognize that it is much preferable to being flat rejected. Being put on the wait list means that I am indeed good enough to study at Yale, and would likely have been accepted if less people had applied. I wonder if the recession had anything to do with having a greater number of applicants than usual... Yale FES reported that this is only the third time in their history that they have had to create a wait list and therefore are unable to give statistics of how likely it is to still be admitted. I am still waiting to hear from University of Maryland.

This whole situation has left me reflecting upon how I can strive to be a better applicant for next year, should I have to reapply. If I don't get into either school, I hope to apply to Maryland as a non-program student and take at least Intro to Stats and perhaps Spanish in order to dive back into the university world and augment my resume. I have been wracking my brains to think of ways to get more applied science experience under my belt as well but am admittedly coming up short. My job in the education department is great, and I appreciate that they have extended my time here so that I can do my part to keep the office running through these hard economic times. Education is a crucial component of conservation. However, it is not exactly the type of experience that helps to prepare one for a biology masters program. I applied for a salamander field tech position with JSevin, one of my herpetological heroes here in DC, but it seems that they may not have a budget for new people as was originally thought. I am still waiting to hear back about the possibilities of a part time position. The good news is that since I am still installed here at the CRC, I am in a prime position to continue volunteering for science opportunities. Last fall I spent several days with the ecology interns but I cannot seem to find room in my schedule to donate an entire weekday with them each week anymore. I plan to contact the endocrine department and perhaps some of the keepers about the possibility of volunteering some time in the lab or as a keeper aide. The overall issue is that I need to keep my schedule flexible and I have to avoid burning myself out as I am apt to do. Keeping myself busier is a generally good way of keeping myself mentally and physically healthy though as I tend to really slide when I lose my forward momentum.

In general right now I am just terribly frustrated that I am not doing more to save the world, as it were. Everyday, people are making environmentally irresponsible decisions which push our planet closer to the breaking point. Climate is changing, forests are disappearing, our oceans are being depleted and most everyone seems to be going through life without much more than a nagging thought of this in the back of their mind. Sometimes I think that my brain is going to implode from the weight of all these worries. I wish that people, and I myself included, would spend more time thinking about their daily decisions and ask themselves, "What affect will my actions have?" I for one, am striving to be more environ-"mental" That is, being more mindful of how my actions are affecting my environment. In the meantime though, I am still left with a general feeling of helpless impotence when it comes to solving the problems of the world. This article beings up an interesting point though that really hard problems (especially in science) generally leave everyone feeling stupid, and that the proper response it to continue muddling through as best one can.

Here's to muddling....