Every day, I stood in front of my kids teaching them about the world and to get out in it, to follow their dreams, anything was possible. After a while, I realized I was not completely doing the same myself. I still wanted to work in Antarctica. I had to make a change. For a year, I started planning, saving up, and finally told my students I was going to take my own leap into the unknown. I did not exactly have my next job lined up when I put in my notice to the school that I would be leaving after this year. Excited was not how I felt. I was petrified. But I knew I would always be able to find a job somewhere as a female science teacher.
The job I did get was an expedition guide on the Antarctic Peninsula. So, a decade later, I went back to the ice! This time, I ran citizen science projects and worked as the first aid responder. I also acquired some more skills over the years and worked as an EMT, and wilderness medicine instructor. It really gave me a lot of satisfaction to teach people from all over the world without needing to give them a test at the end. Just memories to last a lifetime. Or at least the hope that the smell of the penguin guano would not last forever! They can be very stinky creatures, you should know…
Life will throw you curveballs all the time. I was used to them in my personal world, but never had I experienced the global world throwing a kink in the works like it did with COVID. No one was ready for this. I lost all my jobs very quickly. So, I applied for different ones. I was pretty used to getting rejection letters for jobs; it is better to get them than to let yourself be the one who limits you. But luckily for me, not all of them were rejection letters!
