Can't have a cake and eat it too

Tumblr looks different now, but I'm still the same. Still working in academia, doing phytoplankton stuff, but not in Japan. I move back to the UK in December 2021 after getting offered a postdoc in Liverpool. Hopefully in January, I'll start my permanent job at the National Oceanography Centre - as a marine biogeochemical model developer. Funny how 11 years ago, I had my first interview to be an Oceanography student. Now I'm going to work there. Time flies..

Life in Japan was quite miserable. I cheated on my (now ex) boyfriend with a colleague. It was a short affair too, but he ended our relationship. I tried making new friends, but I feel sort of worthless that girls in Japan are all very skinny and very prim and proper. I stopped eating breakfast, which spiralled into not eating anything. I ran 5k every evening, and swam 3k 3x a week. I have never felt this pretty before, but everyone said I looked like a holocaust survivor. I still love my job, but I hated everyone (apart from my boss) there. So I need a way out, and I ended up applying for a postdoc with this famous professor, and thanks to divine intervention I got the post. My mother said I am allowed to move back to the UK if I got to normal BMI, so I tried. I even got myself a psychiatrist and a cocktail of mind altering drugs. I just cant stand being surrounded by skinny Japanese girl, so I tried my best. Eventually, I got back to normal bmi after 5 months, and I also got my (ex) boyfriend back, but not for long.

The first year in Liverpool was fun, I get to do 3D and very complex model with many state variables, and different nutrients and plankton component. People were impressed with what I have done, until I joined a cruise from the Falkland Islands back to Southampton in February 2022. It was a 6 week cruise. My (then) boyfriend wasnt keen on me joining the cruise but I enjoyed it a lot. I love the routine, and seeing different plankton swimming about, talking to different scientists, and do yoga almost every day. I have never felt like a scientist before. Almost every day I strive to do my best.

However, after the cruise, I feel like something snapped, and I cannot do science anymore. I feel like it's hard to go back to the normal routine of looking at model output and wondering what might be going on in 2100, under RCP8.5 scenario. My brain fried so hard I think I failed every task. My boss even snapped at me for not being able to ask the 'big picture question'. Perhaps I'm a bad scientist from the beginning and its just somehow lots of people have been carrying me around. I feel like everything is blank and bleak. Maybe I should quit science?

I started getting my 'consciousness' back a few months ago, and only started to grasp what is happening after repeatedly being told off by my boss (what a man with infinite patience). I am starting to grasp what I can do and slowly crawling back into the depths of hell. However, since I know my boss is not keen on me as a postdoc, I decided that I have to leave. So I apply for a different job, a permanent one, and a job where I, hopefully, does not need to ask big picture question. I like getting stuck in and do the coding, and plot my results so I can brainstorm with others to see what is wrong with plankton? Why are things happening like this? I suppose I will never be at my boss' calibre.

Now everyday feels like I'm just trying to survive. I'm starting to hate going to the office and make small talk. I used to enjoy swimming, now it feels like a chore. Eating or cooking isn't enjoyable anymore. Cakes taste stale. I am living on microwaved rice and instant noodles. I dont want to be too skinny again, because I have never swam this fast. The pills that kept me sane dont seem to do their job anymore. All I want is just lay in bed and not doing anything, and cry.

It has been 3 years since I reblogged/ reposted something here. I think that was the first year of my PhD.

Well, things have changed. I am no longer a sad hopeless romantic, I am in a 4.5 years relationship with an Essex boy. I no longer live in glorious Britain, I moved to the volcanic land of Japan. I eventually finished my PhD in December 2019, got offered a postdoc in early September 2019 as a phytoplankton modeller in Japan. I suppose, things will get better eventually; but this whole long distance relationship thing isn’t as easy as I thought, but so far, I can manage alright.

Since undergrad, I have been living in a shared house, but now I’ve upgraded myself to a one bedroom apartment; it feels very weird not having other people around in the kitchen, and also having the whole fridge to yourself. Having to buy my own furniture; and assemble them myself, is another thing I learnt to do the hard way.

Living in Japan is also quite challenging as I am not yet fluent in Japanese, plus admin is crazy here; both for day-to-day life and work. I went to the US for the first time ever. I had an alright time there, I had fun; met my undergrad friend, my old boss, and lots of new friends, but food in the US is just not as good as the UK; mostly greasy, huge portion, and overpriced. Though probably because I was staying in San Diego.

I was supposed to visit my other boss in Germany in late March, to learn the nitty gritty bits of this model framework, but because of this whole covid-19 thing, the head of the department told us to cancel any business trip we have. So my boss, with regret, cancelled our most important trip. But I miraculously worked out how to run/generate the models myself. Another silver lining is that I get to make some new friends too, which is great. The sad part is we didn’t even get to hangout much.

I think I have been blessed with all the good fortune in the world. I hope you guys are too!