Wow. I (with help from three excellent people, one of whom had a PhD and is pregnant!) started setting up my experiment for my research project today. I found myself quite nervous going into the day, but now that things are going, I am a little more relaxed. Now I find a new anxiety is settling onto my shoulders: will my project work out? Will I obtain usable data? I am actually a little relieved I am feeling this. The main reason that I am doing a research project is to determine if I enjoy doing research. So far I have been enjoying the various steps, even though it has been nerve-wracking and mind-stretching. Now that my experiment is actually getting started, it is comforting that I am concerned about the results. This anxiety tells me that maybe research might be something I can do more of, perhaps in a Masters program or a PhD down the road.
I am studying some interactions between an invasive plant (Lythrum salicaria or purple loosestrife) and the beetle that was imported to try to control it (Galerucella calmariensis or the purple loosestrife beetle). It is down and dirty field ecology research, but so far it has been fun…
I will write more about my work as it progresses.
Biology is really neat, by the way, and insects and other terrestrial arthropods are nifty.
Scott
