It is now the end of week 2 in my final semester of my masters. I *technically* have one and a half classes and my thesis. The half of a class is my seminar. I have to attend five lectures about sustainability and write a short one page essay on each one. Not a huge deal and this is my third time taking it (we have to take it three times). My actual class though is really fun. It is an Anthropology class on ecology, politics, and culture. We read papers and discuss them in class, and we have a big group project involving participant observations of people interacting with nature. It’s the perfect class to end on.
Then there is my thesis. I have everything I need to write it, I have been running the data for at least a month (and there is SO MUCH DATA!!!). My advisor would like me to defend at the end of October and I am a little overwhelmed by this. I know I can handle it, but this gives me a little less than two months to get my shit together and get some things written.
I also finished applying to two PhD programs for Spring 2022, one of which is at my current institution. It is with my ecology professor from last semester. She is really nice and very supportive. She also does the type of research I am interested in. She has invited me to sit in on her lab meetings this year and I have enthusiastically accepted the offer. I hope this means she would like to have me join.
Finally, probably the coolest thing about school this semester, are the residual cicadas we can hear screaming in the trees as we walk through campus. Every so often I stop and try and spot them, or I look at the empty shells they have left behind. I am quite enthralled. If there were anything to absolutely thrill an ecologist, cicadas would be it.
