Mushroom Studyblr

Starting a Studyblr page to hopefully motivate me through my Master's program. I am studying Fungal Ecology and love all things mushroom hopefully this will help with comprehension and motivation. 

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fungible should mean you can turn it into a mushroom

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Me getting actual data after a year of trial and error experiments. The somewhat purple tubes show that there is potential nitrogen fixation occurring. I know this isn't very aesthetic, but I am so proud that I am starting to see data after months of hard work.

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Me on a consistent posting schedule, no thank you. Grad school is rough, especially during the summer when at least most biology degrees are doing all their data collection at that time.

Now that is fall let us enjoy the sweaters and cozy blankets.

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Happy Pride month! Enjoy these pretty mushrooms I found and just a couple of reminders:

You are valid in however you want to identify, and if your labels change, don't feel ashamed feel proud that you have learned more about yourself.

Don't push people to come out; many people are still in a place that is unsafe for them to come out. Coming out is a personal choice, and you should not be bullied into it.

Police do not belong at Pride, and people should not be gatekeeping who get to go to Pride because everyone is welcome.

Tip your drag queens. This is one of the busiest times for drag queens, and if you can afford it, tip and tip what you can.

Be kind to yourself and to others, but this throughout the whole year!

[argaricusacademic]

Happy Saturday, I hope everyone is able to enjoy the weekend however you want to enjoy it!

I wanted to make a little post on how I organize my master's project as a stem grad student on the website notion. Notion allows me to keep everything in one place that I can access anywhere with internet access. It allows me to link to other pages within my notion account, add tags to my literature to make finding information on different topics easier to find, as well as easier to sort through my lab book to see what I was doing on other days and the most important things that I did that day.

A year into my master's degree, I am learning how important it is to document everything! Because you never know what you will need when you are writing your thesis until you start to write the damn thing.

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This is your reminder to stay hydrated, take your medication/vitamins, and explore the world around you.

In the second picture, you can see an ectomycorrhiza on larch tree roots, this specific fungal species that form this ectomycorrhizal relationship is called the swamp bolete!

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I recently watched Everything Everywhere All At Once, which is now my favorite movie, it was heartbreaking, felt slightly targeted watching it, it made me laugh, and it made me thoroughly disgusted at some parts. The main premise without any spoilers is that there are many multiverses, and you can verse jump to these alternate universes and gain memories, skills, and emotions from this alternate version of yourself. So in art therapy, I was given a prompt if I could verse jump to three different universes where would I jump and what skills/knowledge would I get from them?

The first image is a catwalk, me as a model gaining skill and knowledge of confidence and dedication to the craft. The second is me living off the grid accessing knowledge of my foraging skills and my ability to live off the land. And finally, the third image is me being a med student studying for whatever med students study for so I can be able to assess my own health and others and also gain that ability to grind that so many med students seem to be capable of.

P.S. Don't roast me on my watercolor skills I have only just started.

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I struggle with depression, anxiety, and narcolepsy, and am finally on a good medication regime and I am doing well. Medication helps me get control of my life and emotions, enough to be able to actively work on bettering my mental health. The greatest aspect that affects my mental well-being is holding myself up to unreasonable toxic productivity-themed standards. Which lead to me having a bad semester. I put too much on my plate and I overworked myself. If I didn't stick to what I deemed the perfect schedule I would get mad at myself, trying to punish myself and then work harder the next day to make up for what I wasn't able to accomplish the previous day.

I want this semester to be better, but I already feel like I have put too much on my plate. This post isn't very inspirational, or uplifting but neither is life all the time after all this is my blog but I hope if you have gotten this far, know that you aren't alone and that it is okay to be not okay.

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Today was a productive suck, with no energy, no motivation, no drive to get anything even closely related to my master's done today. Instead, I focused on trying not to let the day be a total waste, I was able to prep some letter designs for my pen pals, worked on some projects outside school, and a lot of stardew valley. Some days are just a write-off, and you have to be okay with that because you can't always be 100% all the time. Even if you think you gave yourself enough breaks, some days your brain will refuse to cooperate.

[argaricusacademic]

This blog was meant for documenting my progress through grad school and my love of mushrooms, which happily overlap since I am studying mushrooms for my masters.

I sit here typing at my 8:30 am statistic class on a Friday in the basement of the university (which isn't really a class room) with a winter weather warning in effect.

I am drinking my ice coffee and trying to remember all the things I am grateful for and I wanted to share one of the things I am most grateful for; my camera roll, specifically that it is full of beautiful pictures of mushrooms.

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It is so funny how productivity is viewed, in my mind, at least. Yesterday and today, I did a 3 Pomodoro's (2 hours work 1-hour break), and I felt accomplished at the end of the day had time to relax and do other things that I enjoy. But when I tell people what I did, I can frame it in two different ways in my mind.

way 1:

I did some marking, did a homework assignment, finished a lecture, and wrote notes for it.

or I could say it like this:

I marked 21 students' assignments (each being 12 questions to score). I finished 1 hour of a stats lecture and wrote notes (7xA5 sheets of paper). Finished a stats assignment worth 5% of my grade, sent out several emails, paid some bills, Filled out an intake form, Made a post.

Way 1 sounds like I didn't do anything, and I could have done so much more clearly I didn't use my time efficiently. Way 2 illustrates that the things I did were time-consuming activities that required a lot of effort. So why does my brain still weigh way one more valuable than way 2? I guess this is just another thing I need to work on.

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I learned that my literature review is due a lot sooner than I expected, I thought I had till the end of January, but no, it is due in a week. Juggling that with the start of classes (statistics, how to teach graduate-level courses), I am so excited to use my new mushroom notebooks for!! All of this, along with continuing my master's research and getting published by 2023. I am overwhelmed, to say the least.

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Back on that grind! I started my literature review today and procrastinated by posting and doing smaller but necessary to-dos.

I am working from my office at school, hoping to help enhance productivity. I heard that you need to separate your workspace from other spaces to distinguish between the different headspaces. Workspace is for work, rest space is for rest, and the two shouldn't cross over like working in your bed. Either you might fall asleep working or won't be able to sleep because you are conditioned to be working when you are in bed.

All in all, things are going well, and I am happy to be back even though I still feel like an imposter and I have no idea what is going on, stumbling my way through the unknown that is a master's degree.

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The holidays are supposed to be this happy time, but every year they never turn out that happy. The holidays for me are always very stressful, traveling especially in a panorama. being in my hometown, spending 24/7 with my parents is mentally and physically draining, to say the least so I am excited to get back into my routine and pick up where I left off in my masters.

I have a new system for bullet journalling. I plan on having a travelers notebook with different notebooks for different planning stages and then I will combine them all in an Instagram-worthy bullet journal spread so a year is all in one place rather than several small journals. I am excited to try the new system out.

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I was excited yesterday that the falling snow would stay on the ground. Sadly I was disappointed, but I fully utilized the time for a cozy end-of-year reflection with my new candle.

So many things have happened!

-Moved to Halifax

- Started by master's degree

-Visible improvements in my mental health

- One relationship ended, and a better one started

- Started so many new hobbies that I love

I am genuinely thankful for the year! Considering all the things that have happened, the good and the bad, I loved 2021, and I am excited to see what 2022 offers.

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Everyone knows just how hard grad school can be.

Today seemed to be a bad mental health day. No matter how long i sat at my computer I couldn't get any words out that made any coherent sense. So I finally caved and just decided to take some self-care and did some watercolor painting while watching Canada's drag race.

Remember to be kind to yourself and productivity isn't everything!

[argaricusacademic]

I am back, and with a vengeance! Grad school has been tough, and it has been harder than usual to fight my imposter syndrome and the engrained toxic productivity culture, but I am doing my best.

I have my candles lit, my fairy lights on, and a warm cup of tea to set up my weekly spread in my bullet journal and finally finish this lab report on the directed study project I did this term. I might post more about that project when it is actually finished. For now I am trying to be in the moment and enjoy everything life has to offer me