My name is and Anna Voznyuk also pronounced as Anya Voznyuk depending on if you’re my friend or someone professional.

My dreams?

As of recently, a lot of them are unsettling. Worries mostly about pertaining my family out of the country and Ukraine. I’ve been having nightmares, uncomfortable memories, and flashes. But as for my life, I want to become a researcher and study molecular biology and cells and what people specifically ensure. But I will get there.

It’s funny because I have them very fresh in that wake up, but then over the day they kind of disappear. But let me think. I think there was one pertaining to the dam that was being broken. There was just recently a breakage in her son where the dam fell apart and caused flooding. I had worrisome thoughts about my family getting flooded and everything, but there are realistically, there are where you’re very up the river.

Some of our family members are currently fighting, are our friends. A lot of the areas where they’ve been are liberated. So they’re all right now, but they’re doing well. We support them financially very well. So though they’ll be okay, I’m sure, as long as the state continues to resist and the troops, the Russian troops won’t be able to find a new tactic to shoot more inland because they’re very underneath the Kiev.

I am working the labs research lab, and we’re studying gamma bacteria. And I’ve been doing a lot of experiments regarding hybridization reactions, gene fish and catfish. I’ve been trying to identify specific gamma bacteria using gene fish and doing overlap fluorescence using cartouche. And that’s been a bit of a struggle because the probe is not very specific and a lot of the fluorescence is indecipherable if it’s from other organisms, natural pigment or my probe not attaching properly.

But as of recently I was not able to contribute too much to the lab due to finals. But hopefully over the summer I’ll get to work on it.

I think the best part is when you have a goal and you’re kind of realizing it.

When something works and you find some data that’s never done before to guide you to some new discovery,

So it’s  cool to be part of something that’s going to become bigger.

I think from childhood, like I am, I really like science in elementary school and I really enjoyed it further on in to my high school career. However, it was not until like the middle of high school when I realized that I will be going to college. It’s because I didn’t really have high belief in myself, and I honestly was planning to continue a career in gymnastics.

And but after that started going down and my grades started going up, I realized, okay, maybe I should stick to academics and actually applied due to my urgency of my parents and yeah, my own realization that I will not be able to remain in the sport. And I do really like science. So. Yeah.

I was initially going to go to Stony Brook. It’s a very expensive place, but due to scholarships, I was able to kind of bring down the price really well. And I was already going there. I had had the place there. I paid my fees. But then the very last minute, I was taken off the waitlist and UC Santa Cruz and I knew the place because I’d been there before.

And I really loved environment. And my mom was like, Hey, the prices are the same. You don’t have it here. But because it’s less expensive than stony Brook, they’re about the same and you’re closer to home and you like the ocean and please the leaf. And I’m like, okay, I’ll change my plans and go back. Yeah.

I really enjoy it. I just whenever going down the boardwalk or the Westcliff drive, I just really like seeing people out there to enjoy their day, to see the ocean, to watch the surfers. And I really like to. Everyone is kind of see, I don’t want to see mining drone business because it’s not really like that. It’s more we are here together enjoying the moment.

So that’s what I do like about Santa Cruz. As of other stuff. I mean, I do wish that people could help the homeless more and find better solutions for them to get aid. It pains me a lot to see people on the streets and especially at night when I would walk in, I, I wish I could help them, but I don’t have the means to like if I’m, for example, eating something and I someone asked me for food, I will do that.

Everyone’s different, everyone’s unique. And that’s what I love about people. How wonderful they are.

I don’t think there was ever, like, a group that I could associate myself with and call them my people,

I guess my opinions don’t really match people’s necessarily.

I have different views and takes and don’t often agree and I feel suppressed because I’m not able to express them. And because of that, I fear the fear of expressing makes me want to avoid people in case I do something wrong and be labeled in a certain way. So I stick to myself in that sense. Another thing is I don’t really match a lot of the culture people do like I have.

I grew up speaking a different language. For example, Russian, Ukrainian, and I was mostly training in gymnastics and as a result, I’m behind on anime, I’m behind on the American culture. I don’t have a TV connected to cable like we didn’t never had that home. So all the shows, I don’t only am now recently watching them on Netflix being like, Oh, so that’s what they were saying.

It’s I don’t know, but everyone’s very lovely and nice most of the time. So what can we say? I do find recently is, is the science community where I do the research like the lab workouts, but we’re all adults, we all work and once in a while meet up for beer, which is awesome. Yeah.

Mm. I don’t trust you. Yeah. I mean, I would maybe could say off record, but not on camera.