8 Random Facts

Ricardo from My Biotech Life tagged me with the "8 random facts about me" blog meme. OK, you asked for it...

Here are the rules:

• We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
• Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
• People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

1. When I was younger I wanted to be a medical doctor. A short stint as a phlebotomist in a hospital convinced me otherwise. Let's just say the glamorous portrayals of medicine in popular culture are somewhat exaggerated.
   
2. I've always had a penchant for unusual pets. I suppose the most unusual was my pet leech. Currently my companion animals are more conventional: a dog, Sarah, and a cat, Penelope.
3. I've held several of the "Worst Jobs in Science". Perhaps one of the worst was mosquito researcher. Does sticking your arm into a cage full of mosquitoes every day so that they can obtain a blood meal sound worth a 15k a year research assistant salary? On the plus side, I soon attained a remarkable lack of sensitivity to mosquito salival antigens.
   
4. I did my MS on pronghorn behavioral ecology. My project involved spending hours observing pronghorn through a spotting scope waiting for them to defecate so I could collect their scat for later chemical analysis. To this day, I get a Pavlovian response when I see ungulates defecate.
   
5. On the plus side, I did get to capture a several day old pronghorn fawn while ear-tagging. To hold this skinny bag of bones, gaze into its enormous doe-like eyes and feel (and hear!) its thumping heart against my chest is still one of the highlights of my life.
   
6. I've got a reading addiction; I'm a compulsive reader. Books, magazines, the backs of cereal boxes etc. I've actually been fired for reading on the job. Twice. Luckily I now work in a field that doesn't discourage reading on the job.
   
7. My favorite wildlife encounter occurred on a backpack trip in Yellowstone. My friend and I spotted a grizzly sow and three (!) cubs approximately 100 m away. My friend had to stop me from approaching closer, otherwise I probably would have met the same fate as Timothy Treadwell.
   
8. My favorite job was working as an Environmental Education Intern in Northern Minnesota. I taught XC skiing, snowshoeing, wilderness camping, and played "educational" games like tag and hide and go seek with grade school kids. If it wasn't for the $50 a week plus room and board, I might have made a career out of it.
   

I'm tagging some of my favorite blogs including, Sandwalk, Bioephemera, ERV, Interrogating Nature, Mixotrophy, Science, Politics & Religion, This Week In Evolution, and Twisted Bacteria.