Waiting impatiently

I've been pretty quite on blip recently. And the truth is I've been trying to figure my life out a bit. There are so many what ifs, and maybes, and possibilities that have been drifting around I'm hesitant to say what the near future will be. I can say a little about the not too distant future though and it is exciting news. Two major opportunities hover on the horizon that seem like major choices determining my life trajectory. Scary and exciting...

So I submitted a Fulbright proposal, a prestigious scholarship, to do a photojournalism book project looking at island ecology and evolution in New Zealand. I'm tentatively calling it "Natural & Unnatural Histories", as a way to explore the ecological relationship between native and invasive species, and our own relationship to such "rearrangements" of the natural world. A Fascinating topic in a place I hold a special place for in my heart. Why New Zealand you may ask? Because I was an exchange student there ten years ago and I loved it so much and have always wanted to return. Because, as an isolated island it is like a laboratory to study ecology and evolution. And finally because of the Center for Science Communication at the University of Otago to work with faculty and learn the tricks of making natural history documentary film. I also applied to their M.S. film program in the hopes that I could make Fulbright and a film degree converge. They accept 12 people each year and I have a skype interview Sunday. Knock on wood and fingers crossed! I've pulled so many strings and gotten letters from faculty in NZ and the US, from conservation NGO directors, and science writing editors. I've agonized over proposal writing and scrutinized photographs I'll be judged by. Fulbrights are competitive and the application process so lengthy it is hard not to get invested but I really did my homework and am feeling good about it. All I can do is wait and hope now...

The other big news is that I've been offered the opportunity to do my PhD at Washington State University in Vancouver. Not Vancouver BC, but WSU's campus in Vancouver Washington just across the Colombia River from Portland Oregon. My friend Jahi, a colleague working on his PhD at Michigan with me has become a new professor there. He is a bit of a brilliant academic superstar, and lo and behold is on the fast track to academic greatness. He got in touch with me to ask if I would like to collaborate with him on new research projects in agroecology, social justice, and urban agriculture. All topics I worked on as a graduate student in Michigan and still hold close to my heart. Though I still feel some trepidation about returning to academia for the science PhD route, Jahi is the new generation and encourages all my crazy "interdisciplinary" ideas. This means I would have the freedom to dabble in how agroecology, conservation, and social justice movements in the U.S and/or Latin America converge and even do so with the use of documentary film and visual media. So the chance to get a doctorate working with a great friend on things I love, getting funded to teach, and living in the beautiful Pacific Northwest is also a very appealing option.

Whatever happens it is all good news and exciting for me. In the meanwhile the waiting and what to do in the meantime is killing me. I've arranged teaching gigs in the spring with my beloved B-station up in Michigan, and (tentatively) with a field science institute in the Rockies for the summer. What to do over the winter though is another story. Blank slate, eyes wide open, and taking good ideas and suggestions.

Call me crazy but the short list so far includes; visiting friends in Europe, volunteering at my friend's farm in Thailand, embarking on a photojournalism project retracing Alfred Russel Wallace's scientific travels through the Malay Archipelago, apprenticing on a sailing sloop, intriguing India, long distance cycling trip, oh gosh it could go on and on. Help me out!