Grad school is lonely

My first grad school selfie, taken after spending 6 hours at the hippo exhibit for a research project.

Grad school is lonely. Yeah you meet a bunch of new people all doing similar things and you think you have this awesome community (which you do) but you’re all grad students with lives and jobs and homework and no one has time to hang out. You don’t have time to hang out. You can’t even make it to the once a year happy hour because it’s at an inconvenient time or place and it’s your only Saturday off.

I'm not gonna lie - the last two years brought some hard times. It wasn’t just having to turn down social events because all my time and money was going to class. I left my well-paying job (which allowed me to pay for grad school) because I couldn’t handle the stress. I was in a car accident that left me without a car. I had 0 dollars thanks to a lower stress but much lower paying job and didn’t work for the month I was in Africa. We got kicked out of our house because our landlady wasn’t paying her mortgage and the investment company that bought the house wanted to flip it. After weeks of searching and either finding crap options, too expensive options, or being turned down due to pets, we’re in a small but nice apartment and paying an extra couple hundred a month. I took on an extra class and had one month where I was technically taking 11 units. There were multiple months where I didn’t run even once (forget yoga).

And that was just in 2018.

Me most Friday and Saturday nights. Happy here because animals.

It’s like having a kid. Your whole life changes, but everyone else goes on without you. My relationship changed, I was back on a school schedule, I’m perpetually exhausted, barely see friends and had no impromptu get togethers, and my grad school friends were either just as busy and broke or both those things in addition to being actual parents (how did they manage that???). Hearing “I don’t know how you do it” for working and schooling full time didn’t help, because I didn’t know. The Boyfriend makes dinner and cleans up and I spend 22 minutes with him a day (the amount of time it takes to watch an episode of Parks and Rec while we ate dinner). I get jealous when he has a lazy weekend napping with the animals or going out with friends.

But it's all coming to an end. In a month from today I'll be in Ohio with my classmates, walking across the stage to get our diplomas. I'm looking forward to it, especially to getting my social life back, to being a more present girlfriend, and to focusing on wellness and mental health. But I also know that despite feeling lonely and stressed AF for 2.5 years I’ll miss it. I’ve loved every minute of learning and reading and talking with my cohort members about conservation. Even the long, boring, technical articles contributed to my understanding of what people around the world were doing. Not to mention, it led me to Africa, where I finally saw wild, healthy elephants. Lots of them. (I touched some. Seriously, I almost died of happiness.) I know that in January when the holidays are over and life returns to normal that I’ll feel this emptiness.

I have truly found my people.

In addition to planning a bunch of trips for next year, I have another new way I'll fill my time and hopefully continue learning about conservation: I just started a new job with The Nature Conservancy! I'm so proud and excited to have reached my goal of working in conservation before even graduating. I also hope that I can keep the connection to my cohort and surround myself with those who share a mission-driven purpose and believe in the importance of conservation. The biggest thing I learned has been that conservation isn't for the animals - it's for us. Our very survival depends on what we do in the next 10 years, and I'll be working hard to do my part.

Of Goats and Cheetahs

It’s weird to think that my favorite memory of my time at Cheetah Conservation Fund in Namibia is the model farm. It’s not like I’ve never been to a farm or that this farm was particularly spectacular. It was really just a big dirt pen, a couple of ranch hands, a dog, and a lot of goats and sheep. But it was a beautiful, clear day and we got to spend it outside, and who doesn’t love farm animals?

I love farm animals but they don't always love me.

Though it might seem odd that a cheetah conservation organization has a farm in the first place, the farm has an incredibly important function. Without a working farm, any recommendations made by CCF staff to Namibian farmers would not come from a place of experience (and would sound downright preachy) and would likely be ignored. How would you react if some foreigner came to your house and told you to change your way of life to protect a pest animal they seem to care too much about?

Fortunately, the CCF team, led by Dr. Laurie Marker, figured that wasn’t going to work. Their model farm is the solution, allowing the organization to show farmers that predator-friendly livestock management techniques work - a farmer that isn’t losing livestock is less likely to kill cheetahs either in retaliation or as a preventative measure.

These had very thick tails that provided extra fat reserves.

Farmers vs cheetahs
At CCF we learned that there’s often a lack of education among farmers regarding proper livestock management and cheetah behavior. This is especially important because 90% of Namibia’s cheetahs live on farmland (Marker, Mills, & MacDonald, 2003). Cheetahs also hunt during the day, so they’re more visible and blamed for livestock deaths more often. If a farmer is losing livestock to predators and all he sees are cheetahs, killing them seems the most obvious way to protect his flock and investment (Nattrass & Conradie, 2018).

With the model farm, CCF can physically show why that’s not a viable long-term solution. Further, they provide in-person farmer training and education on predator-friendly livestock management techniques and cheetah behavior. Cheetahs, it turns out, prefer to eat wild game than livestock (Boast et al., 2016). It’s more likely that livestock were killed by other predators, but farmers don’t see this because it happens at night when livestock are free to roam.

Part of farmer education: Who killed my goat? Fake dead goats demonstrate what predation by different species looks like.

Predator-friendly livestock management techniques
So what does the CCF farm do differently? First, they bring their livestock in at night. Leaving goats and sheep out in the field overnight is an invitation to an easy meal for any predator on the property. Second, pregnant, sick, injured, and young livestock are left in the kraal (fenced area) during the day. Any member of the flock that can’t keep up is a prime target for a predator, so keeping them protected lets them live to see another day. Third, a rancher is with the flock during the day. Having a rancher physically present in the field reduces the number of livestock lost to predators (Nattrass & Conradie, 2018). Fourth, the flock is accompanied by a guard dog - usually an Anatolian shepherd that was raised with the flock. This big dog is a big deterrent for predators (I’ve heard that booming bark and it is to be feared), especially for smaller livestock like goats (van Eeden et al., 2017). 

A rancher, a dog, and a flock of sheep and goats out grazing on a Namibian farm.

But why would farmers want cheetahs on their properties anyway? It goes back to cheetahs having a preference for wild game. A healthy cheetah population means wild game numbers are kept in check, ensuring enough grazing for everyone. Overgrazing leads to a lack of food for both livestock and wild game: if there isn’t enough wild prey the predators may turn to livestock. Overgrazing also allows an aggressive thorny bush to take over - reducing the amount of usable space on the farm. Plus, many farmers are turning towards eco-tourism activities to make extra money, and wild cheetahs are a huge draw.

All of these activities directly increase the amount of money a farmer can make from his property, ensuring survival of cheetahs. If farmers aren’t killing cheetahs on their properties, cheetah populations can grow and the ecosystem can maintain its balance. A major theme of my time at CCF (succinctly stated by CCF Farms Manager Johan Britz) was “if it pays it stays” and that holds true for any animal on Namibian farmland.

Citations:

Boast, L., Houser, A., Horgan, J., Reeves, H., Phale, P., & Klein, R. (2016). Prey preferences of free-ranging cheetah on farmland: Scat analysis versus farmers’ perceptions. African Journal of Ecology, 54, 424-433.

Marker, L., Mills, M., & MacDonald, D. (2003). Factors influencing perceptions of conflict and tolerance toward cheetahs on Namibian farmlands. Conservation Biology, 17(5), 1,290-1,298.

Nattrass, N., & Conradie, B. (2018). Predators, livestock losses, and poison in the South African Karoo. Journal of Cleaner Production, 194, 777-785. 

van Eeden, L., Crowther, M., Dickman, C., Macdonald, D., Ripple, W., Ritchie, E., & Newsome, T. (2017). Managing conflict between large carnivores and livestock. Conservation Biology, 32(1), 26-34.

Bouncing Back

In December I quit my job without having anything else lined up. I intentionally wanted to take some time off because I was overly stressed out. My time off would be at least partially no work and no school, and possibly school with no work, which I was really excited about. However, the spring semester started January 29, and on February 1 I started a new job. So, back at it.

Why this job? In early January I found out I was accepted to an optional course that will take me to Namibia. The course spans summer and fall (7 credits, holy shit) and includes 10 days in the country working with conservationists on a particular issue in that region. For Namibia, that means cheetah conservation. But it's expensive. The course is over $3,000 not including airfare or extra expenses (souvenirs, extra travel days, extra snacks, etc.). Obviously I'll want to travel to other countries while in Africa so I'm looking at $5,000 bare minimum. For what I'm getting it's actually very affordable (7 credits, a flight to the other side of the world, unheard of educational opportunity, and a visit to a place I've been dreaming about for decades), it's just a lot all at once. I've been saving for this so I'm set, but definitely couldn't keep living on my savings for funzies.

This job also comes with the title I've been wanting: content and communications coordinator. Far more than SEO manager, this title is something the nonprofit organizations I'm interested in actually hire for, so having this on my resume is going to be really helpful. This role will give me much more relevant social media experiences and involves the kind of writing I'd like to be doing.

One of the most appealing things about this job is the flexibility. It's slightly less than full time, meaning if I need to not work a full 40 hours I don't have to (which will be a massive break from my previous full-time-plus job), and I'll be working from home a lot of the time, which gives me back that commute time. When I do need to meet in-person it's in a co-working space in my own area, so I can walk or ride my bike. Win win win.

That said, I'm also taking my two regular classes plus an independent study, totaling 6 credits this semester (the most I've ever taken at once was 5). Soooo I'm a little nervous that I've over extended myself.

Which brings me to the title of this post: bouncing back. It's kind of two-fold. I'm back to working and schooling, so I fully anticipate the same level of stress I quit my job to avoid. But it also means I very likely won't be doing much in the way of exercise. I didn't for several months in 2017 and it was brutal. I love running and miss it very much. The weight gain and general depressive state I'm in when not running suck, so running was one of my top priorities during my break (almost every day, even if it was only a mile). I also did a (very) little weight lifting with the free weights we have at home and loved the tone and strength my arms started to show. It's amazing how quickly my body bounces back after neglecting it for some time. I only had a month to really prioritize exercise and eating well and in that month lost some weight, fit better in my jeans, and felt good. Really good. Like I felt when I was running again after recovering from an ankle injury and surgery. I have a 5k next month, but by this time next year I'll be signed up for a bunch of races. It's encouraging that in only a month of running not even particularly far distances I'll feel great again, even after stopping for several months. Just need to remember that the yucky that I feel is temporary.

Edit: I ran that 5K faster than I've ever run anything! Finished under 25 minutes, which is a minute faster than I expected and two minutes faster than my goal. Felt really good to see that end time and be at the front-ish of the herd and to get the validation of the training paying off. Maybe a little extra good because it was raining, on a dirt and somewhat muddy trail, and I was wearing a tutu.