If I had to introduce myself to primary-school-me, standing ready for the career photo wearing a tiny lab coat and with a beaker of brightly coloured liquid in my little hand, I would start by having a  freakout about the time travel (entirely appropriate, in my opinion). After getting the existential crisis out of the way though, it would be time for a little celebration. After all, contemporary-me is right here, at A-LIFE, as a scientist!

Six-year-old-me would be thrilled to see his older self here, working in the EVOGOLD project on novel methods of experimental evolution (would understand? No. Cool? Definitely.). Although my very shy younger self would’ve found this scary, being in a collaborative project like EVOGOLD and thus working together with fellow PhD-candidate Simone and PostDoc Jeroen has been an absolute delight. Exchanging knowledge and ideas with people who are working on the same topic is already great, but working together like this also helps with finding support and shared experiences. Not unimportant, considering that the journey of a PhD-candidate is never exclusively sunshine and rainbows (although I would consider mine like, 94% sunshine and rainbows so far (surely I’m not jinxing myself here?)). The most difficult part so far is that there is simply not enough time to do everything I want to do. In the past, I always felt I could do everything I planned to do if I put in the effort, but that fantasy has left me over the past 10 months. I’m sure that would be a bitter pill to swallow for young-me, since it was for older-me as well.

However, I still think little me in his lab coat and pretend-chemicals would be beyond excited to see what he’s become. I’m confident I will be beyond excited for what I will become as well.

If you want to share your behind the research story as well, we’ll be setting up a relay to allow more people in A-LIFE to talk about their work and life. The next volunteer is Jeske van Boxel, I’m looking forward to seeing her story!