Most important lesson I learned in the past year is, don’t let anyone turn you cruel.
No matter how badly you wanna give the world a taste of its own bitter medicine.
It’s never worth losing yourself over.
Also being a scientist pretty much gives you a free pass to be as eccentric as you want like you’ll be at a conference and it’s like “is that guy wearing socks and sandals and plaid pants???” “Ya but he was on the team that discovered gravitational waves let him be”
I once saw a highly-respected mineralogist take a slice of watermelon, put it between the two halves of a bagel, and eat it like a sandwich.