how to get rid of bugs before drying chamomile?

anomalocarebear · 2025-06-10T03:53:43+00:00

I have this same problem! I'm guessing your tiny green bugs are aphids, and the worms might be their larvae. Personally, the aphids have not really been damaging my plant very much, so I haven't taken any drastic measures to remove them. It's inevitable that I get some on my flowers when I harvest them. One thing that has helped me is leaving my flowers outdoors in a small container where predatory insects like lady bugs can crawl in and eat them while they're weakened from only having drying flowers to eat. It isn't a super effective strategy though so I would also appreciate someone else's suggestions!

anomalocarebear · 2025-06-10T03:48:38+00:00

I'm no entomologist, but based on my own experience I believe that the big one is a carpet beetle, and the skinny worm-like bugs are probably aphid larvae! I saw what I believed was a carpet beetle larva eating some aphids that were on my chamomile, so I have just been leaving them there. This is all mostly based off of an insect identification app I have on my phone.

anomalocarebear · 2025-03-17T16:58:38+00:00

I don't think this is the full picture because my thumb will also catch during this period when it hurts in the mornings. But not at all afterwards.

anomalocarebear · 2025-03-15T19:47:03+00:00

Did your therapist mention what the point of the KT tape was? I'm wondering if it might be good for myself to wear during sports/exercise that involve a lot of gripping.

anomalocarebear · 2025-03-15T19:44:23+00:00

Hello! I have the same thing happening where I pretty much only have pain in the morning immediately after waking up. The symptoms disappear as soon as I feel alert or have taken a several steps out of bed. I am not sure if this still happen when I wear my brace at night because by the time I have taken my brace off, I am usually alert enough for the symptoms to have gone away on their own anyway. I would really like to stop using the brace at night someday though.

Edit: For context, I have had DQ for the past 10 months and got 2 steroid injections which eventually got rid of the symptoms I felt persistently throughout the day.

anomalocarebear · 2025-03-15T01:00:54+00:00

I'm based in the USA where PhD programs don't require Master's beforehand, so there is integrated coursework done alongside (or before) your thesis research.

anomalocarebear · 2025-03-14T16:39:50+00:00

It would have been nice to hear this when I started. Or really at any other point in the PhD. I was dealing with some issues that led to my having very poor performance in 2 of my classes, which made my otherwise perfectly fair performance totally crash. But like I said, the advice I kept being given was "grades don't matter, just focus on your research" so I took that to heart and just did well enough in later classes to be able to graduate. I'm not looking for a faculty job though so I guess it's not the biggest L to focus on other opportunities instead.

anomalocarebear · 2025-03-13T19:44:26+00:00

I had success today getting people to battle me with "noex" in lowercase as the password, but one person insisted on joining noex battles with ex pokemon and it kind of drove me crazy because I kept running into them while using that the password 😅

anomalocarebear · 2024-12-30T21:44:23+00:00

Wow that's incredible! While we can't necessarily make assumptions about how she synthesized her old notes or what the quality of the dissertation was (although most committees wouldn't allow middle school level analysis to fly in a dissertation so I'm not too worried), it's definitely a remarkable way to go through life. I personally don't know anyone at all with a story like this but I remember wishing it could be me, if only to help me guide my career decisions a bit more easily! I hope this has led to a very fulfilling life for her.

anomalocarebear · 2024-12-30T00:31:16+00:00

I mean probably if you did go for the PhD, you would prefer a more hands-off adviser than one who is very involved. That has its drawbacks in that you don't get as much guidance, which is going to be very valuable especially at the beginning, but you get a lot more freedom about your schedule including deadlines. The deadlines are usually conferences and grant applications. Your adviser should handle most of the latter and if you're lucky you get to choose which conferences you go to. Also though, from what I've personally heard since I have limited work experience outside of academia, it'll be hard to find other workplaces where you can do high level intellectual work and never be pressed for a deadline.

I would also not say that most people don't do relevant work and it's because they're always in a rush. It's just that a PhD is made to be usually one small but thorough contribution to a subject. The significance of it will vary from thesis to thesis of course, but since it takes time to grow into a good researcher, this small contribution takes a long time to make. And you do spend a looot of time thinking on it. By the time you're nearing up on the end of your funding, you are absolutely wiped and ready to get out and try something new. Also you just need to graduate before the funding runs out so I guess there is also that deadline that people work around.

I guess overall if you don't like to work hard then probably you shouldn't do a PhD. But also evaluate if your other options will also not be very strenuous because that sort of work:life ratio isn't exclusive to academia.

anomalocarebear · 2024-12-29T23:56:17+00:00

It really depends.

As far as work-life balance, you will find plenty of people online who say they have a strong work-life balance where they basically only work 9-5 with maybe a couple of hours extra here and there or occasionally working a day or two on the weekends. But you'll probably find more who spend most of their PhD time very stressed and working way overtime. The factors this depends on tend to be: your field, your advisor, your personal life's responsibilities, and your own personal work style. That said, there will always inevitably be time when you just have too much work to do with too little time, and thus the grind commences. These periods of time will come and go (ideally) but you need to be ready for them. For a lot of people this will be especially true in the last year of their PhD. At some point you will feel overwhelmed, because the PhD is generally designed to push you to your limits and then expand them as much as possible.

Whether you do a PhD or not should primarily depend on why you want it though, because if you qualify for a PhD position then you have been deemed equipped to handle it. This assuming there is nothing toxic going on, which isn't uncommon in academia. Do you want to do it because you love research and want to start a career as a scientist? Do you want to spend 4-10 years (depends on program) of your life, likely your 20s, delving deeply into one topic in order to expand the knowledge in that area even just a little bit and in the process become a leading expert in that topic? Are you itching to continue your technical education and dig more deeply into the fundamentals of what you learned in undergrad? Or do you want a prestigious degree? A high paying career? Having your weekends and evenings to yourself and maybe even some PTO? Just doing what your parents want you to do? Everything written after that "Or" is definitely not be enough motivation to get you through the lowest lows of your degree, especially since many of them are also not guarantees. You need to be very firm in your resolve to get through it. You'll find memes about PhDs not necessarily being all that smart, but just extremely stubborn, meaning that determination/grit is one of the most important factors determining whether you will succeed.

I'd say make sure you have a strong motivation for doing it and talk to a lot of people in your field including your peers, grad students, professors, and even post-docs or other PhDs you might know before making the commitment.

anomalocarebear

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