My Feelings Are Valid

Yo.

Let's tangent for a bit shall we?

So, I'm a supervisor at Starbucks. I guess you don't know that yet eh? Last time I seriously blogged was 2016 / early 2017. In 2017 I was due to finish my 2-year Masters program in Toxicology. All I really needed was for a collaborator to run like one experiment for me to add like a second opinion that would further substantiate the point we were making. I honestly don't remember the details of that at this point. :P I had worked so hard on reading a million journal articles to write the introduction section for my thesis. Jeez. 

I burned all those papers.

 

Anyways, point being, that final experiment was being held up, soooooooo I had to extend my degree by another semester (In the end they never did that experiment and I basically didn't add anything more to the thesis. RIP). Problem being that I had only budgeted for the 2 years, not 2.5. :[ So, literally August is ending and September is days away and I have basically $0 in my bank account. I went downstairs and across the street with my laptop. I used the Starbucks' wifi from their patio and looked for some jobs I could apply for. I don't know what else I searched for, but I looked at McDonald's and Starbucks. I started messaging some of my previous bosses for references since McDonald's needed them. Starbucks did not need them in their application. So I submitted my resume and information. Figured I'd take a break and wait on references.

That afternoon I got a call: "Hey, I see that you live nearby and are willing to work early morning hours. Would you be willing to come in for an interview in a couple days?" 

I think it was only 10 days later I got the call back and was offered a job as a barista in one of the busiest stores in downtown Ottawa. I'm gonna skip ahead here, but for now just know I have had so many wonderful times at my first store. we got an amazing new boss a couple months after I was hired. The team was so good. I became a barista trainer. And not much more than a year as a barista, I promoted and became a supervisor at my store. I transferred to Niagara for summer 2019 and transferred back to Ottawa that September, but to a different store. 

My current store is a mall store and it is wild in its own ways. I love the opportunities I have to creatively problem solve, to work with an amazing team, and to something different everyday. The team I work with now has changed quite a bit over the last couple years. Can't believe it's been that long, honestly. Mostly things changed due to the pandemic. Our store closed. Student baristas left the city and have been doing online school. People moved. People got new jobs. Our store opened again. Almost every store in our district was permanently closed. A lot of people we transferred, took severance packages to pursue other options, or were laid off. It was a rough time for a lot of people. 

One week in late May or early June (I can't remember at this point) we were working at a different store (ours was still closed). Our coworkers who hadn't been working yet had to come back or be laid off. We were having a team meeting (fully masked and 2 meters apart) to give space for people to be real (and to get the new safety training). We were taking turns sharing and were trying to look at the bright side and be positive. One of my coworkers, who I really really respect broke that silence and expressed her anger. She was supposed to be in Montreal with her family (who had some respiratory conditions that made them potentially more susceptible to Covid) and boyfriend. (They actually got into the news for their themed dinners: globalnews.ca/news/6917202/finding-fun-coronavirus/). She was really upset and mad that she had to come back to work. And that's valid. At this point, looking back, things were so minor in general, but even then all of our worlds had been shaken and thrown off. It had been 2-3 months of isolation and separation. We had all made the most of it, but it was hard, and would get harder the longer it went on. A lot of sucky things have happened over the last two years. You can own that. I can own that. We don't have to pretend everything is fine. When she said it it started this kind of wave of tears. A number of other seriously terrible things got shared. If nothing else, over the last couple years I've always had my team there for me. They've been my closest friends most of the time.

One of my other coworkers I also seriously respect. They have taught me a lot of what it looks like to interact with and care for people who are very different from me. She identifies as bisexual and will frequently bring up various issues or topics that she feels needs to be addressed around her. She does drag and is fairly vocal about support for the LGBTQ+ community. There are so many people who come to our store that she has played a large part in connecting with and making our space friendly and inviting to them. I genuinely care for and love her as a friend and want what's best for her.

Lately there's been a lot of scheduling changes and things as we adapt to more or less business with more or less lockdown. Right now our store is open although it is within a closed mall. It's complex. The other day we had way too many people scheduled and I remarked that it honestly stresses me out more when I have 3 extra people, rather than when I have so much business that I need 3 more. I can push myself and do 3 people's worth of work for a time. I can't create work for people who are asking me for clarity on what position they should be working when all the positions are already filled. My coworker says something along the lines of "you've gotta stop complaining about having too many people. One of these days it's gonna be busier and you're gonna need them". To which I reply "yes, but my feelings are valid." :P She didn't really have a response. Of anyone in our store she should be one of the most strongly in agreement that no matter what you're feeling, it's valid.

In the moment, I was kinda joking. Like yes, I need to enjoy the quieter times while we still have them. But at the same time my feelings are valid.

And that sentence makes so little sense to me. 

I don't understand feelings. There are so few feelings that I fully comprehend and can explain. I spent so much time in my life trying to feel things I didn't. I tried to hide things I did feel. I wanted my feelings not to exist. I wanted to be normal and fit in with what is the average experience. I tuned out my emotions and now when I need to really think through how I feel and what I need it's so hard.

My feelings are valid and my struggle to understand them and the time it will take to unpack and give space to better understand them is ok.

Today I'm feeling tired. I'm paying rent in two places and am pretty tight on free cash. Not like in 2017, but I'm picking up extra shifts. I'm at the end of my ropes emotionally as I sort out what needs to end. And I'm pushing myself physically to accomplish what I need to to give me space to refocus and restart. At the same time, I just had a chat on the phone with a friend I haven't had the chance to talk to in a bit and we're both in similarly tired and empty places. Talking about those things drains me too.

I'm tired. 

That's valid.

I'll get more time and space to think and feel soon. It's ok.

Ttyl.

D.Fa

P.S. Thanks for being here. :P 

Masters Students

Yo.

So, I'm a Masters student. That means my job is research. Last semester I was a Masters student, but I didn't really do any research... > . >  In September October I met up with my two supervisors and discussed the project (which is an extension of my 4908 undergrad research project) and we laid out what the goals for this year were and what I should do last semester: do a literature review of pretty much everything related to it; make some more DNA; and make some new DNA based on the literature research which would be better than the old DNA. In brief, I use DNA with attached fluorescent molecules to detect E coli toxins for food safety purposes. More sensitivity. Stronger contrast in fluorescence with / without toxin. More functionality in complex media (not just clean water). Those are some of my goals.

But I didn't do any research last semester. I had been keeping fairly distant from my supervisors so they wouldn't really find out. My plan was to do most of the work over the exam break once all my classes had finished. In December I had to talk to one so I could get my Health Canada security clearance. So he found out that I hadn't done anything yet and said he'd thus have to watch me like a hawk to make sure I was making progress. > . < But now that he had found out, the due date was gone, so I took the break off and didn't do anything... haha.

Yesterday I had a meeting with my supervisors to go over what has been done last semester.

So you can imagine how I felt when they set the date. "Oh my. I need to do as much work as I possibly can in the next week!!!!!" So I set out to be a productive employee. 9-5 everyday. So I read like 30 journal articles and started writing up a report. It's definitely not done yet, but I managed to get most of 10 pages ready. I also sorted out Microsoft Word and Mendeley and it's pretty sweet, keeping track of my references like a pro. haha I wrote up my report to look like a journal article too, so that was fun. haha

There were a number of questions that were asked of me to research in the literature. My supervisor started by asking "so about the fluorophores?" and I was like thinking 'nooooooo. that's the one question I'm fairly sketchy at having answered.' So I redirected to the document from last semester to answer the questions in order. hehe. Because I DEFINITELY answered the first question! =O So I shared what I had found. The first part, same as they expected. The second part, a bit of a joke. We laugh at 'peptide aptamers' here. If you are a peptide aptamer or work on them, I don't mean to offend. I apologize. The third part, this was the key. It was stuff that I had found that neither my supervisors NOR the other papers I had read had found! =D Amazing! I also found a couple new patents, which circumvent some of the stuff we would have had to do otherwise, so that's cool too. They were impressed. Yesssssss. My two weeks of literature research paid off. *sigh of relief*. The second question, as expected, plus no need now with those new patents / papers. Third question, as expected. Fourth question, a somewhat sketchy 4-page-long table... haha. But it seems like I did well. So I need to clean it up and do a little bit more research, but it was good. I survived, and I think I understand a lot more now. haha

I had been feeling pretty guilty about not really having done much work last semester, but my supervisors acknowledged that part of being a Masters student is class and I did do class last semester. I took 3 classes, and after 1 more presentation this semester I will be done all assigned school work, and that'll be great. And then I can do research all the time. My supervisors joked about some Roman slave thing and that there was hope for freedom even for Masters students. I can't really explain, but it was funny. haha I also asked and apparently I can take vacations, which mean I can go on a mission trip this summer! =D Tell you more about that later.

This semester should be good. TAing is good. This afternoon's section may be tough though. I've got the very last group and all the V-Z last names are in it. Many ethnically Chinese or Vietnamese people. Most of the group. So it might be tough. We'll see.

Ttyl.

D.Fa