"about me"

Talyssa is a PhD Candidate in Microbiology. She graduated with honors from XXXXXXXX and received her B.S. in Biology with a minor in Biochemistry in 2019 after which she matriculated directely into a PhD program at XXXXXXXXX. Her previous research experience includes work in plant-microbial symbioses and microbial communities associated with fermentation. Her current graduate work pertains to the composition of the lung microbiome in response to chronic exposure to environmental aerosols and subsequent host pulmonary inflammation. Talyssa has no idea what she's going to do after this. She has never taken a break from academia and is not actually sure what life looks like without some sort of school-like entity giving shape to her entire existence. She is currently trying to unlearn the consequences of viewing academic success as the only metric of self worth and productivity. She does not have a plan, but she dreams. She understands that there is more to learn about herself, but grapples with accepting that there's this giant feat she has to finish before finally moving on with her life.

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in general, the internet has always been a comfortable place and a place where i often choose to seek shelter, but it's a challenge to maintain this feeling without feeling burdened every so often. i sometimes want to give up, and leave it behind completely. i think a about how much "healthier" i might be without the internet-- without a chronic dependence on picking through its weeds to build this internal fantasy of a life i wish i had. but i also kind of think that's just something i tell myself out of pity. real gentle technology is something irreplacable... and without a means to scream into a virtual void, i think i'd feel more lost and unidentifiable.

but what is gentle internet? at the surface, i think it all looks about the same... static websites with the same blue embeds like this and little fragments of text that make you realize why the word "blurb" exists. I think the signature of the gentle internet is this feeling that you know it was made by a real person sitting on laptop in their bedroom and not a team of people with health insurance and 401ks. It feels like an accident in the highly polished, commercial world that the internet is now and in rebellion of the technological age we were fed, we can choose to relish these little pockets and be intimate in anonymity.
what is digital burnout? is it real? yeah for sure, because of the way consumerist platforms are structured... but imagine combatting digital burnout with more tech... little, careful, personalized technology that we tend to and nurture for ourselves