I finally did it!

Greetings! Welcome to the introductory post of my very first blog. Chances are you are here because you either know me or know of me. If you know me, I salute your morbid curiosity! If you've stumbled onto this blog, I hope you find some of my posts and experiences entertaining and interesting.

1.                  My involvement in and opinions on vertebrate palaeontology. I work full time at a small, NGO research facility as a collections manager and a field researcher, which means that on most of my work days I wear the administrative supervisor hat and work on everything but research and collections work.

2.                  Life as a grad student. I am a doctoral candidate studying evolutionary biology in Canada There is no way I can top any of the experiences featured in Ph.D. Comics (www.phdcomics.com), but late night data collecting sessions might inspire a post or two. My specific experiences and views as an XX scientist are likely to be the topic of a few (but hopefully not too many) posts, especially if issues surrounding gender in sciences appear in the news that excite me.

My focus is primarily on anatomy and vertebrate ichnology, with a focus on avian anatomy. This leads to topic #3, which is:

3.                  Birds. I’m a little cuckoo (oh yes, the pun is intended) for birds. Anyone I have ever gone on hiking with has faced my frustrating obsession. I’m that annoying twitchy person you saw about 100m behind the rest of the hiking group, with binoculars glued to my face and muttering curses to the ball of feathers and spite that refuses to stay still long enough for identification. Chances are we were mid-conversation when I disappeared into the bush, arms flailing and uttering scolding calls. I am fascinated with the evolutionary history of birds, bird ecology and social behavior, nest parasitism, anatomy, conservation, etc…

4.                  Some aspects of my personal life. There will never be gory details about my married life (although my husband and professional colleague will appear from time to time), familial disputes, or anything that will cause the reader to collapse on the molecular level into a shuddering sobbing mass, crying “TMI! TMI!” What you may hear about on very slow (or busy) weeks are musings on wine, gardening, cooking, cats, running, karate, interesting social interactions, and whatever else may fall under the category of “Miscellaneous”.

Enjoy!

SAS