Mentally Stuffed, Physically starving

Recently I attended a conference in St. Paul. I know I’ve talked a lot about it, but it had a big impact on me!

I started my career as a naturalist by being dropped in the middle of the St. Paul/Minneapolis with a bag of fishing poles, a truck full of activity bins and a weekend of training. Luckily for me, I took to it like a fish in water (ha) and knew from my first successful activity that I was hooked for life.

Flash forward a several years and here I am. No longer in the front-lines but reaping the benefits of being an excellent naturalist.

I’ve been struggling with the transition from front-line naturalist to administrator. At first it was because the responsibilities were so foreign; now it’s because I’ve lost track of the naturalist in my role as an administrator.

Back to the conference: it was bursting with opportunities for me to reconnect with my inner naturalist- but more specifically to the naturalist administrator.  Higher education, training, workshops, networking... I took pages and pages of notes that week. Not just about the sessions I was sitting in, but about things I could do back at work.

Meals were rushed affairs of “What session did you attend? How was it? What did you learn? What are you going to next?” I think a few morsels hit my mouth.  I put meals at conferences and wedding receptions in the same category: tons of talking, not very much eating and I’m always hungry when I get home.

Regardless of hunger, I met new people and feel like I finally got my spark back. I’m seriously evaluating my next step in this field and I suspect it will mean I will finally be heading back to school.

After chatting with a local professor I realized afterwards that someday I want to be the person that people seek out as a resource. I want to be so good at what I do I’m recognized widely for my role in the naturalist field.

For now, I’ll try to be satisfied with filling up mentally at workshops and trainings and one day soon graduate school. I’ll try to remember to pack a snack.