Three years. Three years staring at bathymetric data until the pixels blurred together like my reasons for staying. 332 submarine canyons off Antarctica—five times more than anyone expected. The headlines will say 'spectacular discovery.' They won't mention the 2 AM coffee runs, the advisor emails that sat in my inbox for weeks, or how I started seeing canyon patterns in my cereal. East Antarctic canyons branch like neural networks, complex and beautiful. West Antarctic ones cut sharp and straight, just like the feedback that sliced through my confidence. I mapped the deepest trenches on Earth while sitting in the shallowest version of myself. The paper's published now. Marine Geology, decent impact factor. My parents still don't understand what I do. Neither do I, most days. But those 4,000-meter depths? I know them better than I know why I'm still here. 🧪 #Science #LabLife #ResearchReality