I AM A VISIONARY!!1!!!1!

Seriously: ‘Embrace the Chaos’ - did I know? Given all this craziness going around, I could literally – and with incredible ease – repurpose the title, and with ever-so-slight tweaks, even the content. But I’d hate to be repetitive with my titles, so let’s agree that the chaos-embracing thesis stays, I’ll just change the name of this blog post to something related to “being visionary”, cool?

Cool.

So, let’s do this again: when I felt my life could not possibly get any crazier… University COVID happened. I left Manchester at the eleventh hour on the literal last flight in March before borders closed. Upon arrival, I did my mandatory 14 on "house arrest" - a sentence that naturally got lengthened, because what else is there to do with everything in the world closed (<--- a hyperbole but at the same time, not really).

Now, this might absolutely shock you, but there is only so much excitement that can be juiced out of days that follow the "Study > Eat > Netflix > Sleep > Repeat" structure. Particularly for a person with the attention span of Dory from the Nemo movies. At a point, it was so bad I actually looked forward to my Materials classes (which, in engineering lingo, are commonly known as "agony"), because learning about crystallographic structures in various types of granite eventually became the most exciting part of some days.

But at one point, my ADD brain just couldn't hack it anymore. I was forced to do something cool again to stimulate my apatite for novelty (yes, I just used a geology-related pun). So instead of feeling sorry for myself and the utter lack of cool stuff to do, I simply started making cool stuff for myself. I turned from the metaphorical consumer of baked goods (who was actually dying from hunger due to the shortage of croissants and pastries around) to a baker.

First, I baked Helpedu, an EdTech “micro-tutoring” startup-ish platform to help younger pupils learn during the first wave. I, then, applied for and successfully got selected to espouse the role of a head pastry chef (‘the CEO for One Month’) at the Fortune 500 “bakery”, The Adecco Group, experiencing some C-level baking. I received my first Michelin star by getting featured amongst this year’s EURO’s 20UNDER20. And currently, I’ve still got two other projects in the oven: a brand of vegan, paleo, gluten-free snacks, plus a podcast series with another Czech Mancunian to help you, dear students, learn more about getting into and studying at a university abroad.

^This is how I’ve embraced the chaos whilst keeping it visionary and how I plan to do so moving forward.

But me listing out a bunch of stuff I did doesn’t really add much to your life in any way, does it? So let me be a bit preachy (not very Oliver-like, I know) and self-help-ish to share some “food for thought” I might have picked up. Maybe it might actually motivate you; maybe, the only thing it might do is help me reach my word limit – but hey, can’t fault me for trying:

• Stop complaining. We’re living in crazy times, that’s the reality. So every second spent wondering “what if this weren’t a thing” is a second wasted.

• As they say in my favorite, High School Musical: “We’re all in this together!”. So feeling sorry for yourself, because now you personally cannot do something, just doesn’t make sense – if you can’t do it, neither can anyone else. It’s not just you struggling.

• When you’ll be replaying your life story in retrospect “at the end”, would you like to see a chapter spanning several months about how you were locked at home and the best you managed to do was to binge-watch Netflix? If that’s cool with you, crack on, I guess. If not… then stop it.

• WASH YOUR HANDS AND WEAR A MASK, PLS. THX.

• …and listen to the podcast when it comes out!