I joined a gym and spend much of my time in the sauna and avoiding eye contact in all the freakin mirrors, am resiliently avoiding drama at all costs, have been watching my small biotech slowly collapse under the weight of it's dreams, reading Infinite Jest, and am taking a trip next month to Belize. Considering it's not an official summer like I am used to, it's shaping up to be pretty dang good.
But mirrors are your friends at the gym! Instead of avoiding eye contact, try winking. You might get beat up sometimes, but you will have good stories and your form will probably improve once you begin to instinctively watch how your muscles move. Sorry to hear about your company though. Side note: I know a guy who moved to Belize for work, but had to return home because he was swimming and a submarine surfaced underneath him and he broke both his legs. Now, I did not get this straight from him, but that is what is said to have happened by our mutual friends and I do know that he is no longer in Belize. I guess I'm saying, "if you go swimming in Belize, look out for submarines."
Ugh, the mirrors are a total love/hate curse. I love people watching to death and am usually very good at concealing my talents, but all the bros are just staring at their muscles (granted, working out is pretty vain and I'm going to do it to once there's something to look at) and it's almost unavoidable if you're not intently staring at yourself. The only muscles I want to flex in that regard are my "getting the fuck out of this situation" muscles. I've gotten quite good as the razor you walk on when you look "pick on"-able is either
1) you can be a punching bag to others and they know you can probably do nothing about it
2) you are not a threat in any way so therefore do not merit consideration I always steer things towards 2. Biotechs are notoriously short-lived. I'm actually surprised it's kept afloat this long. It's like watching a reverse phoenix. I am already terrified of the natural food chain of the ocean cause we're just soft pink snacks floating in the sea, so now throw Cold War technology in and I am absolutely not going in any water can't stand up in.
Is there no other gym you could go to? It sucks working out in a shitty gym. In a good gym, there will be people looking out for others who might have terrible form and picking on others will generally not be tolerated. Everyone has to start somewhere and looking at your body while lifting weights to get a better understanding of how things should move when exercises are done correctly is key to progress. As for the food chain thing . . . ha! Speak for yourself. We might all be red and shitty on the inside but I am coal and gold on the outside. Just remember that we as animals have very few natural predators because we are exceptionally fantastic at our ability to kill other things, though of course not with our bare hands. There are plenty of things for the predators of the oceans to eat and we are generally not among those things. But yes, there is little we can do singularly against the war machines our nations use to keep each other in check.
Oh no no no, it's all just awkward eye contact, I was just referring to being picked on in the past or any situation that could end up in physical conflict.
Oh I see. I misunderstood. I have to say though, I've seen a few fights between dudes that look like bruisers and dudes that look like they couldn't punch a punch card and small, wiry guys have tended to be scrappier than one might expect. Anyway, physical conflict is no good but even that seems to me to be more of a mental thing than anything else.
That's a bit concerning, Biotech is the industry I really want to get into after I graduate next year D: It's kind of nice once you're a regular at the gym and recognize other people and they recognize you. The whole "head nod" thing of familiarity. That's when you know you're in.Biotechs are notoriously short-lived. I'm actually surprised it's kept afloat this long. It's like watching a reverse phoenix.
It's a funny industry, there's a lot of things you can do, longevity and salary comes with higher education, but the more specialized you get, the smaller your choice of jobs/locations gets. I'm rocking a bachelor's in SF bay area, so there's plenty of options around and I'm not worried about employment, but I compete with people from ivy league backgrounds, so jobs in academic labs are harder to get, as they prefer to hire alumni. At this level though, experience is king, so make sure you're putting in hours at a lab if you aren't getting a master's or PhD. If you are, I'm probably preaching to the choir, but make sure whatever it is you are doing you really, really like doing it, cause you'll do it every day.
I'm coming at it from an interesting angle, since I'm a Chemical Engineering student and all my bio experience is from electives. I'm interested in process optimization and/or scale-up and/or really anything else I can get my hands on. Starting to inquire with various professors about working in their labs this upcoming year. As for experience, I already have completed 3 co-ops with 3 different companies. However, none of them have been in a Biotech field.
Yeah, totally different angle, I'm on the pure research end and it's sounds like you're more about engineering/systems management.