Fire: Part 2
"She is here to inhale pain
And exhale fire"
- "She is Not" by Sarah Harvey
The sun beat down on my shoulders as I just stood there in the sand and let the waves break over my legs. I was salty and sandy up to my knees. Over to my left, a man and his dog were fishing from a semi-submerged rocky knoll. To my right, the sandstone surge channels were covered in giant volcano barnacles. I had always heard that volcano barnacles covered the low intertidal, but I had never been at this particular spot when the tide was low enough to see them. About 20 feet away, I could spot another grad student's experiment bolted to the rock on the jetty.
If you had asked me what I felt in that moment, I would have said "content." There's just something about physical exertion, beautiful ocean views, and being surrounded by biodiversity that makes me feel like my life makes sense.
Grad school is hard, but you know that already. I've seen projects get derailed by everything from difficult relationships and subjective opinions to weather, timing, and random chance. But recently I've learned it's not so much about how much I'm working; it's about how I'm working. I have to make sure I'm working on the right thing.
And it seems to be working. (See what I did there?) This week marked a leap forward in my thesis-writing saga. I finally finished the review article that serves as the introduction to my thesis, so now I can submit it for publication. In case you're wondering, it ended up with 254 citations; in other words, I cited 254 other published articles in my review. I read probably twice that. I was actually pretty proud of myself for topping 250 citations, because another review article that I had been using as a model had only 178. Of course I made the mistake of saying this to my advisor, who promptly pulled out a review article by one of his former graduate students. "Just to keep you humble," he said - it had 1,080 citations. Well.
I've very excited to submit my article, mostly because I want to know what other scientists think about it. Not in a "Tell me how great I am" type of way, but in a "Let's really talk about this and generate some new ideas" type of way. I took a unique perspective, applying theories developed in the terrestrial environment to marine habitats, so my paper will ideally be a platform for discussion.
I stayed on the beach as long as I could, but the sun threatened to burn my shoulders. I air-dried my feet, bid farewell to the barnacles, and headed up the sandstone slope. My inner fire was actually pretty calm today, content to know I've made a bit of progress. Content to know my paper is ready for submission. Content to breathe the salty sea air because soon, I will exhale fire.
And exhale fire"
- "She is Not" by Sarah Harvey
The sun beat down on my shoulders as I just stood there in the sand and let the waves break over my legs. I was salty and sandy up to my knees. Over to my left, a man and his dog were fishing from a semi-submerged rocky knoll. To my right, the sandstone surge channels were covered in giant volcano barnacles. I had always heard that volcano barnacles covered the low intertidal, but I had never been at this particular spot when the tide was low enough to see them. About 20 feet away, I could spot another grad student's experiment bolted to the rock on the jetty.
If you had asked me what I felt in that moment, I would have said "content." There's just something about physical exertion, beautiful ocean views, and being surrounded by biodiversity that makes me feel like my life makes sense.
Grad school is hard, but you know that already. I've seen projects get derailed by everything from difficult relationships and subjective opinions to weather, timing, and random chance. But recently I've learned it's not so much about how much I'm working; it's about how I'm working. I have to make sure I'm working on the right thing.
And it seems to be working. (See what I did there?) This week marked a leap forward in my thesis-writing saga. I finally finished the review article that serves as the introduction to my thesis, so now I can submit it for publication. In case you're wondering, it ended up with 254 citations; in other words, I cited 254 other published articles in my review. I read probably twice that. I was actually pretty proud of myself for topping 250 citations, because another review article that I had been using as a model had only 178. Of course I made the mistake of saying this to my advisor, who promptly pulled out a review article by one of his former graduate students. "Just to keep you humble," he said - it had 1,080 citations. Well.
I've very excited to submit my article, mostly because I want to know what other scientists think about it. Not in a "Tell me how great I am" type of way, but in a "Let's really talk about this and generate some new ideas" type of way. I took a unique perspective, applying theories developed in the terrestrial environment to marine habitats, so my paper will ideally be a platform for discussion.
I stayed on the beach as long as I could, but the sun threatened to burn my shoulders. I air-dried my feet, bid farewell to the barnacles, and headed up the sandstone slope. My inner fire was actually pretty calm today, content to know I've made a bit of progress. Content to know my paper is ready for submission. Content to breathe the salty sea air because soon, I will exhale fire.
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