Hello, is it me you're looking for?
Probably not.
After achieving some good grades and becoming decidedly dis-enamored with corporate work, I decided to apply for international Masters scholarships and pursue an academic career. Being still primarily interested in the past (though not quite as antique as dinosaurs) I was lucky enough to get a scholarship to study Quaternary Science and Climate Dynamics (basically natural history of the past 2.5 million years) at Stockholm University, Sweden. To engage my interests in past environmental change, and a burgeoning interest in anthropology, my Master thesis investigated the relationships between climatic, environmental, and societal change in south western Greece.
More than a year on from that now, having studied and lived with people from across the world, and grown immensely through the process, I now find myself 'between job.' So, to anyone in the know, I am in the market for a PhD position.
Not having a project to work on at the moment is part of my reason to start this blog. It's been something I've thought about for a while. There's something noble, but also quite prosaic about expanding the audience of environmental change research, particularly in our current socio-political climate of disinformation.
So, what will this blog be? I have a quite loose view for it. Malleable I think is a good word. The post will focus generally on environmental change, this will encompass many different aspects, (palaeo)climate, ecology, anthropology, the diversity is almost endless. There'll also be more general posts about scientific research and it's social implications. Socio-political awareness is something that I didn't so much awaken to, as had shoved down my throat growing up in South Africa as a brown person.
So I hope you all enjoy what I have to say, even though I know some of you won't. If you do have something pertinent to lend to the discussion, or to correct something that I've written in error, of even if you have questions, please feel free to contact me.
Well, I don't really feel entirely comfortable talking/writing about myself. I can't help but think I sound a bit pompous and as if I'm blowing my own whistle (no pun intended). But it is a necessary evil, so here goes.
I'm Taariq Sheik, mid-20's, brown, bearded, and a bit (understatement) of a grump. I grew up in Chatsworth, a former Indian township, just outside Durban, Kwa-Zulu Natal on the east coast of South Africa. Leading on from an early childhood obsession with dinosaurs (that was most decided stifled at school), I decided to study geology at the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal. After finding that decidedly dreary and under the dominion of an old white South African regime, I took a series of courses that culminated in a Bachelor of Environmental Science.