My time during Quarantine

 

Pre-Covid

Almost 16 months in

 

 

Finally cut the rona mullet

 

Here comes a personal post. This one is for me. I really don't care if it comes off as gloating because this is my blog and I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who looks at it.

Covid became a serious inflection point in my life. I had ambitions and stuff going on but I was reluctant to set my sights higher and actually apply myself. In no other time in my life did I have a drive like I did when I saw this time as a time to improve.

 I started Covid learning that I had two job interviews that went sour. I didn't prepare for them at all and felt like I had squandered a serious opportunity. These weren't dream jobs but ones that would move me along my chosen career path. I stewed over this missed chance for a while... but the first lockdown came a knocking and I quickly saw this as a blessing. The jobs were diving jobs and with the pandemic I wouldn't have dove or really worked on more important endeavors anyways. Quarantine started to kick in and I saw myself falling into bad habits. Wake up, smoke, work, smoke, play video games, smoke, repeat. I was pretty depressed. I saw how this country let me down with so many peoples flagrant attitude toward the whole pandemic. I knew I needed serious change and by the end of this contagion I was going to be better.

I was consigned to an uncomfortable retail job that only got worse with the pandemic. Customers were rude, management was apathetic at best, and childish drama made working life a bit of a nightmare. I dreaded going into work. There quickly became a situation that only confirmed a long held belief I had. I'm keeping things vague but, in essence, I was given an opportunity to take 2 weeks off and use that time to find something better.

I was persistent and looked everywhere. I was about to do anything to get out of my current situation. Luckily I was given a wonderful opportunity with way better pay to work with an old friend of mine, Troy White, and I jumped on it. I was told I would be given 10-20 hours but was encouraged to work more. I did 40 almost every week because I had never been made such a living in my life. My work was good and I asked for constant feedback, asked questions I would normally be too timid to ask, and picked up new skills that helped me with the next huge stage in my life. I was quickly made a full time staff member (officially) and was promoted not long after. This was the first job that valued my skills, input, and work ethic and rewarded me for it. I really saw what working for a great boss looked like.

During this time I still remained loyal to my marine science passion projects. My paper was still in review and there simply wasn't anything I could do to expedite it on my front. I began researching for the sake of learning new things. I took an R coding class to attempt to build my computer skills. I asked mentors for reading material and came back with questions. I asked for more work. I filled up my time and to this day I pretty busy but I'm managing to keep it together. 

I finally saw a real chance. I came across a recent paper about artificial reefs. It was from Japan and the author had just finished his study there. I contacted the author of this paper who kindly answered my questions and then referred me to his advisor in Japan. After a bit of email tag and a couple contacted professors later, I was talking to Professor Reiji Masuda from Kyoto University. Reiji and I hit it off (at least I felt it on my end) and stayed in constant contact until I asked the question about graduate school. I had been contemplating graduate school for a while as I had learned how fulfilling it was to write my first paper. Reiji graciously invited me to join his lab in Maizuru, Japan.

By now I was star struck, giddy, and had this motivation I had not had for anything else in my life until this point. I didn't just want to get in... I NEEDED to get in. I made sure to keep in touch with Reiji and even put myself out there to other lab people. I asked for reading materials and learned of the awesome new technology surrounding environmental DNA and its possible applications. After a while graduate school applications started opening up. I was already well prepared but it was crunch time. I spent most of my free time and even put off sleeping some nights until I knew I could be confident in my application. January came around and just before finalizing my application I was given a task by my professor to help another student with the English in her paper. I made the time to review it and turn it around quickly, but thoroughly, reviewed. It was around this time I had also learned that my own paper had been published and I was finally being recognized for my hard work in marine science.

About a month later, and a few strong drinks to settle my nerves, I received the news. 

I... was... accepted!

I was going to be leaving California to live somewhere I had never been. I had done this before moving to Santa Cruz for my undergraduate degree but never really felt like I had left. This will be a total leap of faith but hey... what is life without some risk? 

I'm going to take what I learned in Covid and become the best damn researcher for myself. I going to research what interests me and it may not all be recognized in the way I want it... but I know I will enjoy it and my support network of friends, family, and mentors will too. If Covid has taught me anything is that you can take a shitty situation and flip it on itself. I can safely say I thrived during this time and will be heading off into the wild blue yonder come September. Thank you to everyone who supported me and here's a couple photos of the gross ass long hair I grew cause Great Clips or Super Cuts or whatever went out of business locally and I decided "ehh... fuckit" and let it go long. 

So anyways, cheers to the future and may it be as gracious to you as it has been for me. 

A year ago today I was at one of the lowest points in my life.... Quarantine

Now... Things couldn't be better.