Science Girl Joins Steemit

Hello steemit! I’m happy to be one of the first members of this innovative project! You can call me Elemenya. I’m in my late twenties and I come from a small island in the Mediterranean sea. During the day, I work as an assistant manager at a retail store. During the evening, I study my true passion: chemistry, physics, and math. This is the story of a restless girl who loves knowledge and freedom.             

Where It All Started

I was born in a small town by the sea. My parents are artists and sell their crafts for a living. I was the first out of their four children. For the first few of years of my life I had all the attention a kid can dream of. I was hyperactive, cried a lot, then talked a lot, asked a lot of questions, and rarely slept, much to the dismay of my poor mother! When my siblings were born and I lost that previously undivided attention, I reacted by withdrawing to myself and becoming quiet, introverted and observant, as well as very independent.

I had a happy childhood in a loving family, but by the time I was a teenager I felt a growing restlessness and a desire to know more of what could be outside my little bubble. I liked to read about foreign cultures and people who think and act differently. I would copy maps of the world atlas into transparent sheets and color them, and tune my radio into nearby countries’ stations. I wanted to see the world.

Coming from a family that couldn’t financially support my plan, I had to come up with a smart way to travel without taking a conventional money-spending route. I used my first summer job’s salary to buy a satellite dish, and taught myself foreign languages by religiously watching foreign channels and copying words on a notebook. This achievement won me a scholarship for a college course that involved spending time in three different countries!

When I left home for the first time, I experienced a feeling of freedom that I had never felt before! I instantly felt more relaxed; I opened up and became more sociable and expressive. I lived with, made friends with, and dated people of different ethnic backgrounds and religious beliefs. I saw different perspectives. I saw the world.

My Work

When the course finished, I came back home and began working as a waitress in several establishments. I never stayed for long as working conditions were terrible! After a few tries I landed a part-time job as a sales rep at the local store of a popular global brand. I was soon offered a full-time contract and within a year I got promoted to the position of visual merchandizer. The team and I were on fire! We successfully turned the store into the company’s most profitable in Europe and won several competitions, prizes and awards. Within one more year I climbed up to the position of assistant store manager and got transferred into the capital city together with my boss, to manage a store in urgent need of improvement. We have now been working there for the past six months and as a reflection of our hard work the numbers have already begun shooting up! I put a lot of effort in my work and I truly enjoy taking initiatives and see how they reflect on the results.

Getting Personal

During my first few months back home and while I was still a waitress, I fell in love with a shy bartender. A few months after we began dating he invited me to move in with him in a house he shared with his brothers and friends. He was an easy-going and laid-back person; we never argued. My housemates were fun and there was always some barbeque or gathering going on. I was having a great time! This one was actually my second long-term relationship; my first one had been with a fellow student abroad but I’d felt too young to settle down back then. This time however I was perfectly ready for the next step: get married and start a family. For a while there I seriously thought that was it!

It took me a while to realize that a laid-back boy is not a perfect match to a restless girl. The casual job and vacation-like fun was a temporary state for me, but a chosen lifestyle for him. After some time of indulging in a state of absolute relaxation, I began to crave intellectual stimulation. I spent my evenings reading books and watching documentaries while the rest of the crew was in the kitchen drinking and playing darts; I taught myself electron configurations while they watched football; I discussed astronomy online while they were out partying. I found myself drawn back to my old, introverted self. I had seen what the world looks like. Now I wanted to see how it works.

My True Passion

I got absorbed by science. I eventually decided that I would go back to school and study materials chemistry and engineering. Chemistry had always been my favorite subject at school, closely followed by physics. This is a field that combines both beautifully. At around the same time I discovered the concept of nuclear fusion. It is a new, promising, safe form of nuclear energy, and scientists are still in process of trying to make it work. I truly believe that achieving fusion would solve all the major energy problems of the planet! There would be enough power for everyone since there is abundance of raw materials. Wars would subside; the economy would flourish. One of the multiple challenges this project faces is the engineering of innovative, heat-and-radiation resistant and mechanically strong materials, which combine properties for achieving plasma control, energy extraction and its conversion to usable power. I would love to work for the field!

It was in an online debate on the nature of black holes that I met my now best friend and partner in crime, who offered me a Matrix-inspired choice of the red pill of critical thinking versus the blue pill of blissful ignorance. You can easily guess my choice: knowledge pulls me like gravity! Discussing important ideas with someone for the first time made me realize that my boyfriend and I had barely ever shared more than just physical attraction. We never actually talked about things that mattered; it wouldn’t work. I eventually broke up with him and moved out. Coincidentally, each one of my housemates experienced a life changing event shortly after, and they all moved out. It was time for a new chapter.

My best friend is the founder and administrator of the largest freethinking group in the country, and by joining I gained an immense amount of knowledge and critical analysis skills in a short amount of time, regarding world politics, economics, ideologies, as well as new technologies and new projects such as this one, right here. Another important issue I learned to recognize is that most of the time people blindly follow unnecessary rules and conventions without ever daring to think out of the box, in exchange for the illusion of a structured life and a meaningful existence.

Chasing My Dream

I come from a small homogeneous country where nearly everyone leads a traditional lifestyle and never really questions societal norms. People share a fixation on ethnic pride and religion and a common dream of growing up to get a government job, get married, have kids, go to church on Sundays and dine with the in-laws. Life is slow and relaxing, but intellectual curiosity is absent; social circles are large, but people are immune to new ideas. Small places tend to do that. With my endless curiosity and the new ideas I acquired, I no longer feel that this is the right place for me. To be honest, I never really felt it. I plan to transfer abroad, perhaps to a northern European country with a more work-oriented lifestyle and more opportunities to get into my chosen field.

For the past year and a half I have been teaching myself chemistry, physics and mathematics in order to cover the basic requirements for admission at a higher institution. I bought all the high school science textbooks and I have been completing science courses on Khan Academy and Coursera. With the help of Khan Academy I am now focusing on mathematics, just like I focused on learning foreign languages before travelling abroad. Math is the language of nature, and speaking it makes everything so much easier.

My younger sisters have begun to settle down, which makes my parents preoccupied with my own decision to refrain. They attribute it to immaturity and a fear of commitment. It’s just a realization, that there is more to life than what society requires us to do. There is life out of the box. I’m passionately curious, thirsty for knowledge, and appreciative of entropy. Deep down, I think they understand. I have never felt more fulfilled and I get genuinely excited with the things that I do. Hopefully my dreams will come true and I will contribute to a major technological breakthrough one day!

I’ll leave you with my favorite quote by T.S. Eliot:

"We shall not cease from exploration

and the end of all our exploring

will be to arrive where we started

and know the place for the first time."


EDIT: I decided to remove all my personal pictures when I found out that published content can no longer be edited or deleted after 24 hours. I didn't want to leave my personal information on the blockchain forever.