... Or at least a blue whale.
Day Five - Friday
Feeling of the day: Determined.
It was a pretty laid-back day. After the wild night of Manatee Mayhem, no one really wanted (or were able) to concentrate on lots of talks in the morning. So I went to a few, just the ones I thought I'd really get something out of, but spent a lot of the day sleeping and exploring downtown Tampa.
The reason the feeling of the day was determined was that I found myself with a really strong grasp on what I want my Masters to look like. And I think that while it's problematic to close yourself in too much, because then you lose out on opportunities, it's important to know your limits and what is going to make you happy. An opportunity is torture when you are miserable.
So I started working through a lot of that during the week, but today it was finalized in my mind.
I don't want to go to school in the United States. I don't like the way their graduate school system works, it's ridiculously expensive and quite frankly, I really prefer Canada as a country and as a people. I've been asked if that means I wouldn't consider going farther abroad for school, but I think I'd be okay in another British-style country. Which works out for me, because that's where a lot of blue whale research goes on (for example: Australia. Or the UK).
Another thing I determined is the type of "perscientist" I want to be. Yes, I just made up the word 'perscientist'. It is a combination of 'person' and 'scientist', because with some people, they way they are professionally is different than the way they are personally, and that just doesn't sit right with me. Unfortunately, I am trying to throw myself into an exceptionally competitive field. So when it comes to other people in the same state of affairs as myself, it's natural to want to don fangs and claws and beat them at everything.
And I have met them all here. The people who are amazingly supportive of my dreams and offer lots of advice and names and business cards. And the ones that give you the once over when you express similar goals to theirs. It's part of the game, but you have to figure out what kind of 'perscientist' you want to be, because it's not enough to just be nice to those farther down the line. The best way to know someone's character is how they treat their direct competition.
Another thing (sorry this post has no flow!) is that over this week I got a lot of advice. Which is great, but can seem overwhelming as you try to sift through it all. That's why it's important to have a really clear idea of what will make you the most happy. Because it's really easy to feel like you have to take everyone's advice, because they've been around the field longer and do probably know better. But they don't know you better. So while one person was telling me all about places to try and get research spots pertaining to killer whales, I smiled and nodded and wrote them down, but in the back of my mind I was thinking 'I don't want to invest too much time into looking into all this until I know that my blue whale research will fall through.' And if there's is the smallest chance that I can start fulfilling dreams, I am going to take them, even if it's a little bit more work.
So advice: know your limits, be nice to the competition (one day they won't be competition anymore), be nice to those struggling beneath you (you were once them) and don't feel like you need to take everyone's advice all the time, because they don't know you as well as you do.
Wow. A whole five days of blogging. How do people do this on a regular basis? I should be going back to my sporadic updates now that I am back home in Sarasota and that the internship is winding down.
But something for all you readers to look forward to... 27 days until I land in Puerto Rico, then 12 days later I start my next internship!
Speak Loud!
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