It's been two months since I defended my PhD and I have temporarily escaped to a place where people don't ask where you're doing your postdoc: Alaska. With the hope of clearing our minds and catching some fish, another recent graduate and I headed up north. If you love the outdoors, there's just no better place than here.

So far, the trip is not pushing the reset button for my stresses in the way I thought it would, but perhaps that was too much to expect. I still wake up with mini-panics about this past year and the one to come. All neuroses aside, it has been an amazing journey and I'm feeding upon the wonders of nature everywhere we go. I've experienced a few salient moments of clarity too.

One day, I awoke stressed about the hiking boots I had left on a river bank and cursed my forgetfulness. Then, as I was kayaking in Tutka Bay near Homer, I watched a humpback whale leap from the brine in a full breach. It was an astounding sight and I was instantly healed from that little stress attack about some dumb pair of boots. I laughed as I realized that one can always buy new boots, but experiences like that are priceless. Hopefully I can re-enter my career remembering not to sweat about the small stuff, as there's big stuff like whales that deserve far more attention.