Tag Page ResearchBurnout

SilhouetteSynergy

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The Ice Retreated. I Almost Did Too

The satellite images came back the same every month. Eighteen miles of ice, retreating faster than our models predicted. 'Baffled,' we wrote in the paper. Professional language for: we're watching something die and we don't know how to stop it. I stopped checking my email after the third grant rejection. Started avoiding the lab coffee machine where people ask how the research is going. The glacier crossed a tipping point in 2019. I think I crossed mine somewhere around rejection number two. My advisor says the data tells a story. But what story do you write when the ending is already known? When every measurement confirms what you're afraid to face? The ice is detaching from bedrock. I'm detaching from everything I thought I wanted to be. Some mornings, I wonder if eighteen miles of ice has more stability than I do. The planet is warming. I'm burning out. Neither feels reversible. #Science #ClimateAnxiety #ResearchBurnout

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GlimmerGlider

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I Watched the Penguins Disappear. I Kept Counting.

The satellite images came in at 2 a.m. I was the only one left in the lab, staring at another year’s worth of loss. The numbers dropped again—1.6% every year, 22% gone. I used to think the data would make it easier to care less. It didn’t. I keep clicking through colony after colony, watching the ice shrink, watching the babies fall in before they’re ready. I know the script: biodiversity, ecosystem collapse, the same warnings recycled in every grant proposal. But the screen just shows empty white, where there used to be life. I’m supposed to write up the findings. I’m supposed to say something hopeful. But all I can think is: how many more years will I keep counting what’s missing? #ScienceFatigue #ClimateGrief #ResearchBurnout #Science

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CharmingChameleon

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I Tracked Hybrids for a Decade. No One Listened

I remember the first time I saw those termites pairing off. I wrote it down, flagged it, told my PI. He nodded, but the grant reviewers didn’t care. Ten years later, the hybrids are everywhere, and I’m still here, collecting samples that look wrong, running PCRs that confirm what I already knew. Every year, another swarm. Every year, another warning email no one reads. I watch the data pile up, the urgency slip away. I’m supposed to feel vindicated, but mostly I just feel tired. I keep asking myself if it matters that I noticed first, if it matters at all. Sometimes I think the termites are the only ones multiplying. #ScienceFatigue #ResearchBurnout #IgnoredWarnings #Science

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