You knew that I adored ya',
but you left me in Georgia.- MIKA, Toy Boy
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In the early morning, my alarm begins to blare with 80's music until I slam my palm on the snooze button, temporarily silencing The Bangles until I force myself out of bed at 6:30 in the morning. I sleepily open the blinds, hoping to bring in light, but the gloom and darkness outside lends little to help my sleepy daze, to assuage my tumultuous battle with wakefulness. I groan with irritation, my eyelids heavy and my body limp.
I am not a morning person, and my body constantly reminds me of this with constant cravings for naps and caffeine. I haven't dealt with this sort of sleep schedule since high school, but even then I currently wonder how I ever managed to stay up until the small hours of the night, just to consistently awaken by the early morning in time to do my hair before getting breakfast with my then-boyfriend. Surely, Past Christa was either incredibly full of energy or immensely masochistic, because these days, I am thoroughly exhausted by the end of my workday (but then again, Past Christa did also get ulcers in her senior year of college). When early evening hits, the prospect of sleep becomes angelic, and I lose motivation to achieve much else besides submitting to the sweet temptations of bedtime. (In fact, this blog post alone is taking several days to write, simply because I fall asleep before I can finish it in one sitting!)
These days, I could only hope to want for so little. I would be thankful if an early start to my day was my only complaint.
I feel that at the core of my petty hardships, it's my own heart that's the problem. As written by Mary Schmich, though I first heard it in "Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)" by Baz Luhrmann - Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. When I first heard that track, I was still growing up in San Jose, and my older sister and I would listen to it together. I would follow along with the words, with that line always inspiring my curiosity. Throughout my life, I've resided throughout Northern California -- San Jose, Sacramento, Merced -- never quite understanding what that line meant, never really getting it, even finding it humorous and silly, despite myself being quite the gentle creature. ("I'm a delicate flower," I would always playfully insist.)
Now, I live in San Diego. However, the strange universe of Southern California (despite admittedly feeling very different than my life above the 37th latitude) never got under my skin during my two internships at Scripps; I was always holding the mindset of a visitor, of a tourist, a nomad. I was constantly moving between apartments and houses, and my groups of friends and co-workers were persistently shifting, as I never really had a place in San Diego to call "home." Although I was effectively living in Southern California, it never quite felt like it. While I have been working at UCSD for only two weeks, by the end of October I will have been here for five continuous months -- including last summer, nearly eight months of my recent life have been spent in Southern California. Yet, it was only until now, when I am finally motivated to accept my new identity as a San Diego resident, because I'm living in a house with my own room and my own furniture (although I'm still not quite ready to call it "home"), and I have a desk at work that I can decorate with whatever I want because that'll be "My Desk" until God-knows-when, that Southern California is finally getting under my skin. And I am finally realizing what everyone meant when they call Northern Californians -- or at least, people like me, "soft."
I am a doe-eyed fledgling that only really knows to be hardworking and to smile a lot. Overall, my values are linear. Learn to love, and try to be kind. Replace ignorance with lessons, and keep them to heart. Laugh nervously at awkward situations (in fact, I laugh nervously about most things, if not everything), and try to overcome the bad habit of taking harsh criticism personally. Though I very well could never be described as "spunky," these qualities still got me far in Merced -- I shone in my experience at the Manilay Lab. Even though I was teased often in the Baldwin Lab, it was enough that I had a great rapport with my mentoring graduate student. Maybe it's specific to my life in my new lab at UCSD, but these days, people feel rougher around the edges. In only two short weeks, I've experienced extraordinary waves of tough love and impatience. It becomes a safe bet to gamble that everyone is being sarcastic about everything. Just smile and nod, Christa. Try not to laugh too nervously.
As my boss yells at me to yell that I need to yell at the people I supervise, I can't help but wonder if in the long run, will living in San Diego begin harden Soft Northern Californian Me? In the first two weeks of my job, it has already proven necessary to toughen up in order to withstand my demanding new boss on top of my own personal challenges. To undertake the triple task of lab manager, and lab technician to two labs.
I wonder how, in these next few months -- years -- my edges will begin to roughen.
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When getting trained in retro-orbital bleeding of mice:
-- "Ahh, sorry! I'll get it soon with some more practice."
"Sink or swim, Christa."
Then my eyes open wide, with an expression that I'm sure is exclaiming, Jesus Christ!