After spending six unexpected but relaxing months at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I was more than ready to get back to Seattle. Moving into a cute little house near Ravenna Park with some of my closest friends was something that I looked forward to all summer. Although I've loved being back in the bustling city of Seattle, this quarter presented many challenges. 

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About two weeks before moving back to Seattle, numerous wildfires broke out in my home state of Oregon. My family and I were constantly on-edge, worrying about having to evacuate my childhood home. Waking up every morning to horrible hazy air quality and red/orange, dark skies was terrifying. Eventually my family and I made the difficult decision to evacuate our home for a night as the fires drew closer. Never in my life have I ever thought about what I would grab if our house were to burn down, yet here we were packing up photo albums and passports. Luckily, our house was spared from destruction, and we were able to return home the next day. Nevertheless, experiencing crazy wildfires in the midst of a pandemic was like living in a bad dream. 

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I eventually traveled up to Seattle and was soon immersed in online courses. After being online for spring quarter, I thought that I'd gotten used to it, but I was wrong. My courses were so hard, and it seemed as if professors gave WAY more work than they'd normally give during in-person instruction. I soon found that I was not doing well in my courses. My first round of midterms did not go as well as I wanted, and I began to panic. I spent hours talking to professors, attending office hours, and doing practice problems. Physics in particular was very challenging. I just could not seem to grasp the concepts to perform well enough on exams. I was frustrated with myself and did not know what I was doing wrong. 

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By the time finals week rolled around, it felt like I was studying nonstop. I was fatigued, exhausted, and burnt out from online coursework. My life seemed so monotonous, just getting up and going on my computer for 8+ hours a day with the occasional trip to campus or work. My MICROM 402 lab course had a three-part final exam the week before finals. On that Monday, we had the skills test where we had to gram stain bacteria from a broth culture and identify the organism's morphology under a microscope. Gram staining was something that we'd done almost every day throughout the quarter, so I wasn't worried at all for this exam. I ended up failing the skills test. I spent 3+ hours doing ten gram stains and looking at a microscope until my eyes went buggy, and I still could not find a clear image. I was defeated, tired, and nauseous from looking through two little eyepieces for so long. I left the class almost in tears, and as I walked on the overpass to get to the Burke, I remember letting my failure consume me. I started doubting my abilities, asking myself how I could be a microbiology major if I couldn't even do that simple task. After a long walk home, I came to the realization that my failure did not define me. I couldn't I let that one slip up override the joy and excitement I'd felt by attending my favorite class of the quarter. 

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After studying for what felt like an eternity, I finished finals and was on my way home for the holidays. When final grades came out, I cried tears of joy as I realized that I'd done way better in all of my courses than I thought I would (even Physics and MICROM 402!). If this quarter taught me anything, it is that I am capable of so much more than I think I am. There's no doubt in my mind that I will fail again in the future, but I now know how to bounce back from that failure. While I'm grateful to have an amazing support network of friends and family who keep me sane during the pandemic with Sunday long runs or weekly FaceTime seshes, I still year to be back on campus. As Winter quarter gets started, I'm weary of online courses and feeling so burnt out from all of this. I know many of my friends feel the same way, and we all really hope that we can be back on campus soon!