Clinging onto a wooden fence post, I watched as my brothers reached their fingers out to the anthill, too scared to rile up the army of fire ants that awaited them. I would scale this fence each day, walking foot by foot on the narrow top, arms stuck out to the side. It was rotten, old wood, more than ready to be redone. It was a lingering reminder of the field that it encompassed, an old horse pasture that had long since been abandoned. In the years since, it had become a treasure trove of overgrown grasses and crawling insects, where me and my brothers would search for sunbathing snakes and cool plants and whatever else we could get our hands on. It was my spot, my space in nature, a world that appeared so big to my small body. This pasture provided so many of my foundational memories of nature, at my first home, when I was less than 6 years old. I ran barefoot through tall grass at sunset, got my toes bit up by ants, and persisted despite it. It was where I first listened to the sound of mourning doves singing in the morning, where I first picked up a wolf spider in my own two hands, and where I first learned to watch my step for snakes. Each memory was early, exploratory, with no one spark yet, but it pushed me in the direction of the outdoors, and built a love for the world around me. This love persisted throughout my life, and I found that I could never let go of the outdoors. Much of my childhood was spent begging my much less nature-inclined parents to take me through trails and parks, before I finally became old enough to head out on my own. I always loved discovering brand new spaces, long-forgotten trails that saw little use, or unmarked carve outs of forests behind neighborhoods and apartments. It felt like something special, in the same way that the pasture felt like my own spot, as though I was stepping into a place only I knew about. This exploration not only informed my love and passion for local wildlife and ecosystems, but it fueled curiosity. I began to ask questions about everything around me, push to learn more and more, and as a generation of kids with iPads and computers, I would scour wikipedia to discover as much as I could about parks, preserves, and different species of fauna and flora. My relationship with the planet informed my educational decisions beyond just my choice of study, with a major in Wildlife Ecology and Conservation, beyond my goals to become an agricultural ecologist. This relationship is what grounded me here, in my home state, in the same city I grew up in. I could have traveled across the country to one of many other wildlife programs, and lived in an entirely new ecosystem, but I did not. Despite the risk of staying in Florida as a transgender student, I stayed. I stayed because this ecosystem is what I fell in love with, right here at home, in abandoned cattle fields and forgotten trails. I loved the wildlife here, I loved the plants here, I loved the inner workings of every habitat and ecosystem that I could explore. I knew that whatever it is I studied, it had to be here, in this state, with incredible biodiversity and with a space I felt grounded within. PS. My preferred name is Oliver, I am unable to change it on the BOLD platform!