Dear Marine Wildlife Enthusiasts,

2018 has been a truly exciting exciting year! Marine-wildlife.org is shortly celebrating its first anniversary and it makes me proud to see how well people have responded to it. Getting yourself out there, your research, your passion, always is a bit scary. But actually, spreading the word about something I deal with almost 24/7 has been absolutely rewarding. This little project has helped me to take a different perspective on my research and has supported my growth as a researcher and scientist in many ways. I’m looking back on a year full of ups and downs. Victories, uncertainties and moments when I thought: Rien ne va plus! All the emotions scientists from a broad range of disciplines are familiar with. What helped me most was the support of my inner circle. My supervisors, my fellow PhD colleagues and even my family back home.

I also didn’t lose focus because I got myself more into martial arts training which acts as a form of meditation. Sparring and thinking about your research? Pow, you got punched in the face! Most PhD researchers are overthinkers and doing another activity that requires utmost focus is a good way to channel this habit that often causes more harm than good. I’m extremely proud to once more moving out of my comfort zone by flying to Okinawa to practice with mostly black belts the art of Karate-Do. Getting a PhD is much like getting your first Dan: You don’t know whether you have what it takes, if you have the stamina, the strength, the talent, the heart…and many people think you’re at the very end of your journey where in fact it’s just about to start. You’ve just proven you’re able to apply the basics. May this be showing ‘Kime’ (the oomph and snap in your techniques) or how to conduct scientific interviews and making sense of what you got out of them. At this stage I cannot tell which one is harder. The only thing that’s for sure is that you need passion to make it till the end (or the ‘beginning). I’m lucky to have excellent mentors in both of my journeys and I know without them there’s no way I could do it. They tell me about improvements but also about the things that still need work.

And that’s how the cookie crumbles!

I’m also over the moon to see the success of marine-wildlife.org on social media! Over 3.500 marine wildlife enthusistas on Instagram are now part of the pod! That’s absolutely fin-tastic! Thank you for your support and stay tuned for more exciting stuff in 2019!

Happy Holidays!

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