I'm Not Fergie

Name: Eileen Connon
Class Year: Class of 2019
Hometown: Bartlett, TN
Internship: Cape Parrot Project
Location: Hogsback, South Africa

As a brief interlude before my final post to sum up these past three months, I want to talk to you guys about field work. As you have probably surmised, I have been doing a lot of it this summer. We go out early in the mornings, and sometimes we're out late at night. In the middle, we're still working! It's definitely a lot and it can definitely be exhausting, but I absolutely love it.
I also want to talk to you about one of my favorite celebrities. This might not make sense right now, but I promise there's a point. I really, really, REALLY love Julianne Hough. I am a Dancing with the Stars FIEND and she's also now married to a hockey player who used to live across the street from me, so I follow her somewhat religiously on Instagram. She and Brooks are on their honeymoon in Kenya right now, and that brings me to my point- field work is sooo NOT glamorous! (G-L-A-M O-R O-U-S) When I see celebrities post pictures like this:

or like this:

on Instagram or Facebook, it makes me a little skeptical! That fashionable safari photoshoot is nothing like what it's actually like to work in Africa.

A) The animals are never that easy to find
B) You never stay that clean for that long
C) No sensible fieldworker is going to wear heeled boots

I know, I know- celebrity vacations aren't supposed to be realistic, and it's not like they're trying to convince you that they're doing research on that elephant in the distance, but come on. If you want to know what spending time in the wilds of Africa really looks like, here you go:

But as much as it's very un-glamorous, we still love it. Because it does sometimes look like this:

(still, who wears a white shirt in the bush???)